Читать книгу Goodbye Mickey Mouse - Len Deighton - Страница 14

Victoria was private secretary to a newspaper owner. The newspaper was a local one, appeared only once a week and, since newsprint was scarce and rationed, consisted of only eight pages, but she enjoyed this job that gave her access to the teleprinter news and the excitement of meeting men who’d come from far-distant battlefronts. She was updating the wall map when Vera came in. ‘American forces, supported by Australian warships, have secured a firm beachhead on the south coast of New Britain.’ She found an appropriate stretch of Pacific coastline and inserted a pin.

‘I’ve brought your tea, Miss Cooper.’

‘That’s kind of you, Vera.’ Her visitor was a small vivacious woman with short curly hair dyed blonde. She was no longer a girl and yet her freckles and snub nose gave her a youthful tom-boy look that appealed to men, if the reaction of the office staff was anything to judge by.

‘I had to come upstairs anyway.’ Vera brandished a handful of press photos before dropping them into the tray on the desk, rearranging some papers there to make a reason for delay. ‘A friend of mine has been lent a wonderful flat for Christmas. It’s in Jesus Lane. You should see it—central heating, carpets, and little table lights everywhere. It’s the sort of place you see in films…romantic, you know.’

‘Lucky you, Vera.’

‘He’s an American, a captain. Drink your tea, Miss Cooper. Captain Vincent Madigan, Vince I call him. He’s tall and strong and very handsome. He looks like Pat O’Brien, the film star…and talks like him too.’

‘It sounds as if you’re smitten.’

‘Nothing like that,’ said Vera hastily. ‘Just friends. I feel sorry for those American boys, so far away from their homes and families.’ She picked up some photos and pretended to look at them. ‘I said I’d take a few friends along to their party at Christmas. You told me your parents will be away, so I wondered…’

‘I don’t think so, Vera.’ She’d been introduced to the American friend once, picking Vera up at the office, and wondered whether Vera had forgotten that or if she just enjoyed describing him again.

‘It’s Christmas, Miss Cooper,’ Vera coaxed. ‘I’m calling in to see them on my way home. Since it’s only round the corner I thought you might come with me—I’d rather not go on my own. They have wonderful coffee, and gorgeous chocolate—candy, they call it.’

‘Yes, so I’ve heard,’ said Victoria. It was a patronizing remark and Vera recognized it for what it was. Hurriedly, she gathered up some pay slips she was delivering to the cashier and turned to go. And since Victoria didn’t want to be rude to this genial woman, who would think it was because of her accent, or because she hadn’t been to college, she said, ‘I’ll go with you, Vera—I’d enjoy a break. But I mustn’t be too late home, I have to wash my hair.’

Vera gave a little shriek of delight, a sound borrowed no doubt from some Hollywood starlet. ‘Oh, I’m so pleased, Miss Cooper. It will be nice—he’ll have a friend with him…to help with the decorations and that,’ she added too quickly.

‘Am I what they call a “blind date”, Vera?’

Vera smiled guiltily but didn’t admit as much. ‘They’re ever so nice…real gentlemen, Miss Cooper.’

‘I hope you won’t go on calling me Miss Cooper all evening.’

‘See you at six o’clock, Victoria.’

Victoria could see why Vera was so impressed with the flat the Americans were using. It was both elegant and comfortable, furnished with good, but neglected, antique furniture, well-worn Persian carpets, and some nineteenth-century Dutch water-colours. The bookcases were empty except for the odd piece of porcelain. She guessed the place belonged to some tutor or fellow of the university, now gone off to war. The current tenancy of the Americans was unmistakable, however. There were pieces of sports equipment—golf clubs, tennis rackets, even a baseball glove—in various corners of the room and brightly coloured boxes of groceries, tinned food and cartons of cigarettes on the hall table.

She had arrived at Jesus Lane with some misgivings, half expecting to meet the predatory primitives her mother believed most American servicemen to be. She wouldn’t have been greatly surprised to find half a dozen hairy-chested men sitting round a card table in their underwear, smoking cheap cigars and playing poker for money. The reality couldn’t have been more different.

Captain Madigan and his younger friend were wearing their well-cut uniforms, sitting in the drawing room listening to Mozart. Both men were sprawled in the relaxed way only Americans seemed to adopt—legs stretched straight in front of them and heads sunk so low in the cushions that they had difficulty getting to their feet to greet their visitors.

Vincent Madigan acknowledged that they’d met before, remembering the time and place with such ease that she had little doubt that the invitation had originated with him. ‘I’m glad you dropped by,’ said Madigan, keeping to the pretence that Victoria was there only by chance. He stopped the music. ‘Let me introduce Captain James Farebrother.’ They nodded to each other. Madigan said, ‘Let me fix you ladies a drink. Martini, Vera? What about you, Miss Cooper?’ He leaned over to read the bottle labels. ‘Scotch, gin, port, something called oloroso—looks like, it’s been around some time—or a martini with Vera?’ His voice was unexpectedly low, contrived almost, and his accent strong enough for her to have some difficulty understanding him.

‘A martini. Thank you.’

James Farebrother offered them cigarettes and then asked permission to smoke. It was all so formal that Victoria almost started giggling. She caught Farebrother’s eye and made it an opportunity to smile. He grinned back.

Farebrother was a little taller than his friend but not so broad. His hair was cut very short in a style she’d seen only in Hollywood films. She guessed him to be about her own age—twenty-five. Both men were muscular and athletic, but Madigan’s strength was that of the boxing ring or football field, while Farebrother had the springy grace of a runner.

‘You must be the Mozart lover?’ she said.

‘No. Vince is the opera buff. I just beat time.’

His uniform was obviously made to order and she noticed that, unlike Vince Madigan’s, his tie was silk. Was it a gift from girlfriend or Mother, or a revelation of some secret vanity?

‘We’ll eat at a little Italian spot down the street,’ Madigan announced as he served the drinks. ‘They do a great veal scaloppine…as good as any I’ve had back home in Minneapolis.’

It was a bizarre recommendation and the temptation to laugh was almost uncontrollable. Madigan mistook Victoria’s amusement for indignation. Self-consciously he ran a hand over his bony skull to arrange his hair and backed away, almost spilling his drink as he blundered into the sofa. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Okay. I know what you British think about Mussolini and all that, and you’re right, Victoria.’

‘It’s not that,’ said Victoria. She glanced at Vera who was rummaging through the sports equipment. It was all right for her, she had short curly hair that always looked well but Victoria was appalled at the thought of going to a smart restaurant wearing the dowdy twin set she often wore at the office, and with her hair in a tangle.

‘Look at all this equipment,’ said Vera, waving a baseball-gloved hand. ‘Have you boys come over to fight a war, or just for the summer Olympics?’

‘We’ll go to the Blue Boar,’ said Madigan. ‘That would be much better.’

‘No…please,’ said Victoria. ‘Keep to your original plan, I’m sure it will be wonderful, but I really do have to get home.’

‘Please don’t go, Victoria,’ said Farebrother. ‘There’s plenty of food right here in the apartment. Why don’t we all just have some ham and eggs?’ His accent was softer and less pronounced than Madigan’s.

‘Oh, Victoria!’ said Vera. ‘You don’t really hate Italians, do you?’

‘Of course not,’ said Victoria. She watched her friend silently acting out tennis strokes with one of the new rackets she’d taken out of its cover. There was no mistaking the disappointment in her eyes—Vera loved restaurants; she’d often said so. ‘You and Vince go—don’t let me spoil your evening.’

‘We won’t be long,’ Vera promised softly. She became a different person in the company of men, not just in that way all women do, but animated and amusing. Victoria looked at her with new interest. She was older than Victoria, thirty or more, but there was no denying that she was the more attractive to most men. Her critics at the office, and there was no shortage of them, said Vera fed the egos of men, that she was doting and complaint, but Victoria knew that this wasn’t so; Vera was challenging and contentious, ready to mock the priorities and values of a masculine world. And certainly the war provided her with ample opportunities to do so.

Now she looked in a mirror to pat her curly yellow hair and pout long enough to apply lipstick. ‘We won’t be long,’ she repeated, still looking in the mirror. It was an appeal as much as a declaration—she wanted Vince Madigan all to herself across that restaurant table. She turned to exchange glances with Victoria and saw that the idea of an hour with James Farebrother was not unattractive to her; the alternative was going home to her parents’ chilly mansion in Royston Road.

‘I’ll cook something here,’ said Victoria. The promise was to Vera as well as to James Farebrother.

‘That’s great,’ he said. ‘Let me freshen that drink and I’ll show you the kitchen.’

The other two left with almost unseemly haste, and Victoria began to unpack the groceries the officers had bought from the commissary. It was a breathtaking sight for anyone who had spent four long years in wartime Britain. There were tins of ham and butter, tins of fruit and juice, biscuits, cigarettes and cream. There was even a dozen fresh eggs that Madigan had obtained from Hobday’s Farm near the airfield. ‘I’ve never seen so much wonderful food,’ said Victoria.

‘You sound like my sister opening her presents on Christmas morning,’ said Farebrother. He started the music again but lowered the volume.

‘The ration is down to one egg a week. And that tin of butter would be about four months’ ration.’ He smiled at her and she said, ‘I’m afraid we’ve all become obsessed with food. When the war’s over, perhaps we’ll regain a sense of proportion.’

‘But meanwhile we’ll feast on…’ He picked up some tins. ‘Ham and eggs and sweet corn and spaghetti in Bolognese sauce. Unless, of course, your embargo on things Italian is all-embracing, in which case we’ll ceremonially break Captain Madigan’s Rigoletto recordings.’

‘I don’t hate Italians…’

He put his hand on her arm and said, ‘Strictly between you and me, Victoria, the Italian cuisine in Minneapolis is terrible.’

She smiled. ‘I really don’t have any…’

‘I know. You simply don’t have a thing to wear and you think your hair is a mess.’

She put up a hand to her hair.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I was kidding, your hair looks great.’

‘How did you guess why I didn’t want to go?’

‘Vicky, I’ve heard every possible excuse for being stood up.’

‘I find that difficult to believe.’ No one had ever called her Vicky before, but coming from this handsome American it sounded right. ‘Can you find a tin opener and cut up some ham?’

While she warmed the frying pan and sliced the bread, she watched him opening tins. He hurt his finger; clumsiness was a surprising shortcoming in such a man. ‘You’re a flyer?’

‘P-51s, Mustang fighter planes.’ He reached across her to get a knife from the drawer, and when his hand touched her bare arm, she shivered.

‘Escorting the bombers?’

‘You seem well informed.’ He used the knife to loosen the ham from the tin.

‘I work in a newspaper office.’

‘I didn’t know the British newspapers ever mentioned the American air forces.’ He looked up. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to sound that way.’

‘Our papers do give most attention to the RAF—it’s only natural when so many readers have relatives who…’ She stopped.

‘Sure,’ he said. He shook the tin of ham violently until the meat slid out onto the plate.

‘How many raids have you been on?’

‘None,’ he said. ‘I just arrived. I guess I was a little premature in feeling neglected.’

‘The weather’s been bad. How many eggs may I use?’

‘Vince gets them by the truckload. Use them all if you like.’

‘Two each then.’ She cracked the eggs into the hot fat.

‘We need clear skies for daylight bombing. The RAF have magic gadgets that help them to see in the dark, but we only fly by day.’ He arranged the sliced ham on the plates.

‘But in daylight, with clear skies…doesn’t it make it easy for the Germans to shoot you down?’ She pretended to be fully involved in spooning fat over the frying eggs, but she knew he was looking at her.

‘That’s why they have us fighters.’

‘What about the anti-aircraft guns?’

‘I guess they’re still working on that problem,’ he said, and grinned. Abruptly the music from the next room came to an end. He reached out to her. ‘Victoria, you’re the only…’ He gently took her shoulders to embrace her. She gave him a quick kiss on the nose and ducked away.

‘I’ll turn Mozart over,’ she said. ‘You bring the plates to the table.’

They sat in the cramped kitchen to eat their meal. He poured two glasses of cold American beer and was amused to encourage Victoria to spread butter thickly on her crackers. He hardly touched his food. Victoria told him about her job and about her silver-tongued cousin who had recently become personal assistant to a Member of Parliament. He told her about his wonderful sister who was married to an alcoholic bar owner. She told him about the caraway-seed cakes with which her mother won annual prizes at the Women’s Institute competition. He told her about Amelia Earhart arriving at the Oakland airport in January 1935, solo from Honolulu, and how it made him determined to fly. At the age of fourteen he’d been permitted to take over the control wheel of a huge Ford tri-motor, owned in part by a close friend of his father.

There’s so much to say when you’re falling in love, and so much to listen to. They wanted to tell each other everything they had ever said, thought, or done. Their words were in collision. Victoria was overwhelmed by the magic of a bewildering people who dressed their humblest officers like generals, ate corn while leaving eggs and ham untouched, invented nylon stockings, and allowed their children to fly airliners.

‘Vince says every one of us has two faces; he keeps trying to prove that everything Mozart wrote is based on that idea.’

What had he been about to say, she wondered. Victoria, you are the only one for me. Victoria, you are the only girl I could ever marry. Victoria, you are the only girl in England who can’t fry four fresh eggs without breaking the yolks of two of them. She coveted the ones abandoned on his plate and wished she’d kept the unbroken ones for herself.

‘Not just the dressing-up they do in the operas, but the music that comments on each character.’

‘Are you both opera fans?’

‘If anyone could turn me off, it would be Vince.’

She smiled. ‘He’s intense, Vera told me that. Does everyone in Minneapolis have that sort of accent? At times it’s hard for me to understand just what he’s saying.’

‘Vince has moved around—New York, Memphis, New Orleans. He says that women like men with low, slow-speaking voices.’

She looked at the clock. Time had passed so quickly. ‘I must go. My parents are away and there’s so much I have to do before Christmas.’

‘Vince and Vera will have gone dancing.’

She stood up; she knew she had to leave before…and suppose Vera came back and found her here.

‘Don’t go, please,’ he said.

‘Yes, or it will spoil.’

‘What will spoil?’

‘This. Us.’

In the hallway she resisted his embrace until he pointed to the huge bunch of mistletoe tied to the overhead light. Then she kissed him and hung on as if he was the only life belt in a stormy sea. She was desperate that he wouldn’t ask when he might see her again, but just as she was on the point of humiliating herself with that question, he said, ‘I’ve got to see you again, Vicky. Soon.’

‘At the party.’

‘It’s not soon enough, but I guess it’ll have to do!’

Such mad infatuations don’t last for ever. The greater the madness, the shorter its duration—or so she told herself the following morning. Was she already a little more level-headed, and was this a measure of the limited enchantment of the handsome young American man who had come into her life?

‘It’s all right for you,’ said Vera trenchantly when Victoria made a harmless joke about the lateness of her return. ‘You’re young.’ She smoothed her dress over hips that a stodgy wartime diet had already made heavy. ‘I’m twenty-nine.’

Victoria said nothing. Vera pouted and said, ‘Thirty-two, if I’m to be perfectly honest with you.’ She fingered the gold chain she always wore round her neck and twisted it onto her finger. ‘My hubby is much older than me.’ She always referred to her absent husband as her ‘hubby’. It was as if she found the word ‘husband’ too formal and too binding. ‘Who knows when I’ll see him again, Victoria.’ She ignored the possibility that her husband might be killed. ‘It will be ages before they’re back from Burma. Do you know where Burma is, Victoria? It’s on the other side of the world. I looked it up on a map. What am I supposed to do? I might be forty by the time Reg gets back. I’ll be too old to have any fun.’

Victoria wondered how long she’d keep pretending that Vince Madigan was no more than a good friend. She sympathized. How could she tell poor wretched Vera to cloister herself for a husband who might never return? Yet she could never encourage her to betray him either. ‘I can’t advise you, Vera,’ she said.

‘It’s unbearable being on my own all the time,’ Vera said, almost apologetically. ‘That’s why I married my Reg in the first place—I was lonely.’ She gave a croaky little laugh. ‘That’s a good one, isn’t it?’ She twisted the gold chain until it was biting into her throat. ‘Little did I know I was going to be left all on my own within two years of getting hitched. I was in service when I was fifteen. With the Countess of Inversnade. I started as a kitchen help and ended as a ladies’ maid. You should have seen the shoes she had, Victoria. Dozens of pairs…and handbags from Paris. I was happy there.’

‘Then why did you leave?’

‘The government said domestics had to be in war jobs. Not that I know what I’m doing to win the war here, helping the cashier with the wages and getting tea for all those lazy reporters.’

‘Don’t be sad,’ Victoria said. ‘It’s Christmas Eve.’

Vera nodded and smiled, but didn’t look any happier. ‘You’re coming with me tonight, aren’t you?’

‘I have to go home to change first.’ She tried to keep her voice level—she didn’t want to reveal how eager she was to see Jamie again—but Vera’s shrewd eyes saw through her.

‘What are you wearing?’ Vera asked briskly. ‘A long dress?’

‘My mother’s yellow silk, I had it altered. The sister of that girl in the personnel office did it. She shortened it, made big floppy sleeves from what she’d taken off the bottom, and put a tie-belt on it.’

‘Vince must be sick of seeing me in that green dress,’ Vera said. ‘But I’ve got nothing else. He’s offered to buy me something, but I’ve got no ration coupons.’

‘You look wonderful in the green dress, Vera.’ It was true, she did.

‘Vince is trying to wangle me a parachute. A whole parachute! Vince says they’re pure silk, but even if they’re nylon it would be something!’ She picked up the outgoing mail from the tray as if suddenly remembering her work. ‘Victoria,’ she asked in a low voice as if the answer was really important to her. ‘Do you hate parties?’

‘I’m sure it will be lovely, Vera,’ she answered evasively, for the truth of it was that she did hate parties.

‘They’ll all be strangers. Vince has invited lots of men from the base and they’ll have girls with them. There’s no telling who might see me there…and start tongues wagging.’

‘Cross that bridge when you come to it,’ Victoria advised. So Vera didn’t realize that her extramarital associations were already a subject for endless discussion in the typing pool downstairs. Vera wears the new Utility knickers, Victoria had overheard a girl say; one Yank and they’re off. The others had laughed.

Vera stood in the doorway looking at her friend quizzically. ‘You never cry, do you? I can’t imagine you crying.’

‘I’m not the crying type,’ Victoria said. ‘I swear instead.’

Vera nodded. ‘All you girls who’ve been to university swear,’ she said, and smiled. ‘I won’t wait for you tonight, I’ll go on ahead. I know what Vince is like. If I’m not there and he sees some other girl he fancies, he’ll grab her.’

Victoria could think of no reassuring answer.

The noise could be heard from as far away as the river. There were taxis outside the door as well as an RAF officer holding a fur coat and handbag for some absent girl.

Victoria didn’t have to knock at the door. She’d raised her hand to the brass knocker when the caretaker swung the door open, spilling some of his whisky as he swept back the curtain. ‘Quickly, miss, careful of the blackout.’ He said it carefully, but his smile and unfocused eyes betrayed his drunkenness.

The house was packed with people. Some of the table lights had been broken, others shielded with coloured paper, but there was enough light to see that the drawing room had become a dance floor. Couples were crowded together too tightly to do anything but hug rhythmically in the semi-darkness.

Among the American uniforms she could see a few RAF officers and some Polish pilots. Men without girls were seated on the stairs, drinking from bottles and arguing about the coming invasion and what was happening ‘back home’. There were low wolf whistles and appreciative growls as Victoria climbed the stairs, picking her way between the men. More than one fondled her legs under the pretence of steadying her.

She found Jamie and Vince Madigan on the landing, trying to revive a female guest who’d lost consciousness after drinking too much of a mixture that had cherries and dried mint floating in it. Described as fruit punch, it smelled like medicinal alcohol sweetened with honey. Victoria decided not to drink any of it.

‘She needs air,’ Vera said, appearing from another room. ‘Take her downstairs and out into the street.’ Vera seemed to be in command. Although she was always saying how she hated crowds and parties she thrived on them.

‘She’s Boogie’s girlfriend,’ explained Jamie. ‘He’s a pilot…the one playing the piano downstairs.’ Victoria took his arm, but he seemed too busy to notice. Vera smiled to indicate how much she liked Victoria’s very pale yellow dress, and both women watched dispassionately as two officers in brown leather flying jackets carried the limp girl downstairs with more enthusiasm than tenderness. The men on the stairs hummed the Funeral March as the unfortunate casualty was bundled away.

‘Did you invite all these people?’ Victoria asked.

Jamie shook his head. ‘They’re mostly friends of Vince, as well as a few who wandered in off the street. What are you drinking?’

‘Not the fruit punch.’ Was it too much to expect that he would notice her hair, swept back into a chignon, and the high-neckline dress with its standing collar and the tiny black bow?

‘Whisky, okay?’ He was pouring it before she could answer, and then he stuck the bottle back into the side pocket of his uniform jacket. His eyes were bright and restless as he kept looking round to see who else was there. He wasn’t drunk, but she guessed he’d started drinking early that day. ‘How’s that?’ He held up the half-filled glass of whisky.

Victoria had never drunk undiluted whisky before, but she didn’t want to give him any reason for leaving her. Even while they stood there, she was continually being patted and stroked by men who passed, looking for food or drink or the bathroom. ‘It’s lovely,’ she said, and brought the whisky to her lips without drinking any. It had a curious smell.

He noticed her sniffing at it. ‘Bourbon,’ he explained. ‘It’s made from corn.’

He was watching her; she tasted her drink and thought it smelled remarkably like damp cardboard. ‘Delicious,’ she said.

‘I can see that you go for it,’ Jamie mocked.

Victoria smiled. He still hadn’t kissed her, but at least there was no sign of any other girl with him. He pulled her closer to make way for an American naval officer who was elbowing his way to the bathroom. Finding it locked, he hammered on the door and yelled, ‘Hurry up in there! This is an emergency!’ Someone laughed, and a man sitting on the next staircase said, ‘He’s got a girl in there with him. I’d try the one upstairs if you’re in a hurry, Mac.’ The sailor cursed and hurried upstairs past him.

Victoria looked at Jamie, trying to enjoy the party. ‘Are most of them from your squadron?’

‘That’s Colonel Dan over there. He’s the Group Commander, the big cheese himself.’

Victoria looked round to see a short cheerful man with a large nose and messy fair hair talking earnestly to a tall dark girl with a floral-patterned turban hat and a black velvet cocktail dress.

‘Is that his wife?’

‘She’s one of the chorus from the Windmill Theatre. They gave a show on base last month—before I got here.’

‘Was it an American general who said war is hell?’

‘And that’s Major Tucker.’ The Major was standing near the stairs drinking from his own silver hip flask and scowling disapproval. Victoria felt a common bond with him but did not say so.

Jamie tightened his hold on her shoulder, but only in order to pull her aside to make way for a middle-aged sergeant who was carrying a crate of gin upstairs and into a room that was being converted into a bar. ‘Thanks for the invite, Captain,’ said the sergeant, out of breath.

‘Good to see you here, Sergeant Boyer,’ said Jamie.

Harry Boyer’s arrival with the gin was greeted by loud cheers. Downstairs, Boogie and the musicians he’d collected for the night began to play ‘Bless ’Em All’, to which the dancers jumped up and down in unison.

‘You hate it, Vicky. I can tell by your face.’

‘No,’ she yelled, ‘it’s really fun.’ By now the whole house was shaking with the vibration of the dancers downstairs. ‘But is there anywhere to sit down?’ Her yellow shoes had never been particularly comfortable, and she’d slipped them from her heels for a moment.

‘Let’s try upstairs,’ Jamie said, and plunged into the crowd. She tried to follow, but with drink in one hand and shoes loosened she couldn’t keep up with him. One shoe came off and only with some difficulty could she get everyone to stand back far enough for her to find it again. When she did, there was the black mark of a boot across the yellow silk, and one strap torn loose. They were the last pair of pre-war shoes in her wardrobe. She told herself to laugh, or at least keep her sense of proportion, but she wanted to scream.

‘If you hate it, say so,’ said Jamie sharply as she reached him at the bottom of the stairs.

She wondered what would happen if she did tell him how unhappy she was, and decided not the take the chance. ‘Why don’t we dance?’ she said. At least she’d feel his arms around her.

If she was trying to find the limit to James Farebrother’s skills and talents, inviting him to dance provided it. Even in that crush, with the tireless Boogie playing his own dreamy version of ‘Moonlight Becomes You’, Jamie trod on her toes—especially painful as she’d decided to dance in stockinged feet rather than risk the final destruction of her shoes.

‘I’m no great shakes at dancing,’ he said finally. ‘Maybe we should call it quits.’

He found a place on the sofa, but they’d only been sitting there a few minutes when a lieutenant arrived with a message asking Jamie to go upstairs to help Vince. Jamie offered her his apologies, but she feared he was secretly pleased to get away from her. She regretted her flash of bad temper, but she’d so wanted the evening to be perfect.

‘Promise you won’t move?’ Jamie squeezed her arm. She nodded and he planted a kiss on her forehead as though she were a docile infant.

The newly arrived lieutenant dropped heavily into the place Jamie had vacated beside her. ‘Known Jamie long?’

She looked at him. He was a handsome boy trying to grow a moustache. He had a suntanned sort of complexion, with jet-black wavy hair and long sideburns that completed the Latin effect for which he obviously strove. ‘Yes, I’ve known Jamie a long time,’ she said.

He smiled to reveal flashing white teeth. His battered cap was still on his head, but he pushed it well back as if to see her better. He was chewing gum and smoking at the same time. He took the cigarette from his mouth and flicked it towards the fireplace without bothering to look where it went. ‘Jamie only just arrived in Europe,’ he said. ‘My name’s Morse, people call me Mickey Mouse.’

Victoria smiled and said nothing.

‘So you’re a liar. Slow dissolve.’

‘And you’re no gentleman.’

He slapped his thigh and laughed. ‘Are you ever right, lady.’

They were crushed tight together, and although she tried to make more room between them, it wasn’t possible.

‘Gum?’

‘No, thanks.’

‘Where did Jamie meet a classy broad like you?’ he asked. ‘You’re not the kind of lady who hangs around the Red Cross Club on Trumpington Street.’

‘Really?’

‘Rilly! Yes, rilly.’

‘I’m surprised you’ve never noticed me there,’ said Victoria.

MM grinned and tore the corner from a packet of Camels before offering them to her. She never smoked, but on impulse took one. He lit it for her. ‘You Jamie’s girl?’

‘Yes.’ It seemed the simplest way of avoiding further advances. ‘What’s happened to Captain Madigan?’

‘Nothing’s happened to Captain Madigan, lady, and nothing is going to happen to him. Vince is smart—he’s a paddlefoot. He stays on the ground and waltzes the ladies. We’re the dummies who get our tails shot off.’

‘I mean what’s happened now?’ said Victoria. ‘What does he want Jamie for?’ She inhaled on the cigarette and it made her cough.

‘Madigan needs close escort,’ said MM vaguely.

Victoria got to her feet and looked for the door.

‘Lights! Action! Camera!’ said MM, holding thumbs and forefingers as if to frame a camera shot. ‘Where are you going, lady?’

‘I’m going,’ said Victoria, ‘to what you Americans so delicately call the powder room.’

‘I’ll save the place here for you.’

‘Please don’t bother,’ said Victoria. MM chuckled.

She made her way past the musicians and started up the stairs. A lot of drinking had taken place since the last time she’d struggled up through the people sitting on the staircase. They were mostly couples now, locked in tight embraces and oblivious to her pushing past them.

On the upper landing there were two officers sprawled full-length and snoring loudly. A girl was going through the pockets of one of them. She straightened up when she saw Victoria. ‘I’m just trying to find enough for my taxi fare home, honey,’ she announced in the broad accent of south London.

Victoria stepped past without replying. The middle-aged man whom Jamie had called Sergeant Boyer was leaning against the wall inside the first room. He was in his shirt sleeves and wore no tie. He was watching Colonel Dan about to throw a pair of dice against the wall. There was a huge pile of pound notes on the floor and as her eyes became accustomed to the gloom Victoria could see that there were other men there too, all holding wads of money.

‘Come on, baby,’ Colonel Dan yelled into the confines of his clenched fist before throwing the dice. ‘Snake eyes!’ he screamed as they came to rest. There was pandemonium all around, and Victoria was almost knocked off her feet as the Colonel stooped to pick up the dice and lost his balance to fall against her. ‘Oops, sorry, Ma’am.’

She found Jamie on the next floor. He was holding tightly to the bare upper arms of a brassy-looking girl in a shiny grey dress that was cut too low in the front and too tight across the bottom. ‘You’ve got to be sensible,’ Jamie was telling her. ‘There’s no sense in making a scene. These things happen, it’s the war.’

The girl’s eye make-up had smudged with her tears and there were streaks of black down her cheeks. ‘For Christ’s sake, spare me that,’ she said bitterly. ‘You bloody Yanks don’t have to tell me about the war. We were bombed out of my mum’s house years before Pearl bloody Harbor.’

She noticed Vince Madigan was wearing a short Ike jacket complete with a row of medals and silver wings. He too was trying to reason with the tearful girl. ‘Let me walk you to Market Hill…we’ll find a cab and get you home.’

The girl ignored him. To Jamie she said, ‘You think I’m drunk, don’t you?’

From downstairs there came some spirited rebel yells, and the piano struck up the resounding chords of ‘Dixie’. Suddenly Jamie noticed Victoria watching them. ‘Oh, Victoria!’ he said.

‘Oh, Victoria,’ parroted the girl. ‘Whatever have you done with poor Prince Albert?’ She gave a short bitter laugh.

Jamie let go of the girl and turned to Victoria, smiling as if in apology. ‘It’s one of Vince’s friends,’ he explained quietly. ‘She’s threatening to tear Vera to pieces.’ From downstairs came a chorus of joyful voices: ‘In Dixie land, I’ll take my stand, to live and dieeee in Dixie…’

Vince Madigan moved closer to the girl in the grey dress and began talking to her softly, in the manner prescribed for an excited horse. Now that the light was on her she looked no more than eighteen, younger perhaps. The desperate stare had gone now; she was just a sad child. She raised a large red hand to stifle a belch.

‘Or was it you who invited one girl too many?’ said Victoria coldly.

‘She’s not my type,’ said Jamie amiably.

Over Jamie’s shoulder Victoria saw Madigan take the girl in a tight embrace and caress her hungrily. Victoria turned to avoid Jamie’s kiss. ‘Not now,’ she said, ‘not here.’

‘I think I need a drink,’ Jamie said, standing back from her. ‘I’ve had about as much as I can take for one day.’

‘You have!’ said Victoria angrily.

‘I didn’t mean enough of you.’

‘Would you take me home?’

‘Wait just a few minutes more,’ said Jamie. ‘My buddy Charlie Stigg still might get here. I told you I’d invited him.’

‘Then I’ll go home alone,’ she said. Jamie took her arm. ‘You’d better help Captain Madigan,’ she said, pulling herself free. ‘I think his lady friend is about to vomit.’

The girl was holding on to the balustrade and bending forward to retch at the stair carpet.

Victoria pushed her way downstairs and found her coat where it had fallen to the floor under a mountain of khaki overcoats. She glimpsed Vera standing with MM to watch the men who had climbed on top of the piano. One of them, Earl Koenige, was waving the Confederate flag. ‘Look awaay, look awaay, look awaay, Dixie laand!’

She tried to catch Vera’s eye to tell her she was leaving, but Vera had eyes for no one but her newfound lieutenant. She was cuddling him tightly. That was the trouble with Vera; for her, men were just men, interchangeable commodities like silk stockings, pet canaries, or books from a library. Any man who would give her a good time was Mr Right for Vera. She wasn’t looking for a husband, she had one already.

Victoria had no trouble finding a taxi—they were arriving at the house in Jesus Lane every few minutes, bringing more and more people to the party.

She got back home just as the rain began. It was an old Victorian mansion, elaborate with neo-Gothic towers and stained-glass windows. Its dark shape behind the wind-tossed trees did little to raise her spirits as she hurried down the gravel path in the quickening rain. The house was cold and empty, but she closed the carved oak door behind her with a thankful sigh. Sometimes she almost envied Vera those histrionic sobs, lace handkerchief delicately applied to her face without smudging her make-up. Vera always seemed so completely revived afterwards—a release which tonight Victoria needed as never before. But still she didn’t cry.

She walked through the hall and up the grandiose staircase. She would go to the place where she always had to be when unhappy, her sanctum at the very top of the house. She passed the door of her parents’ bedroom and the storeroom that had once been her nursery. On the next floor, she passed the maid’s room, empty now that they no longer had living-in servants. She passed the locked door of her brother’s room and the doors of the toy cupboard, their pasted-on flower pictures now faded and falling.

From the top corridor window she looked down at the dark garden and the tennis court, covered for winter. She couldn’t get used to the emptiness of the house and found herself listening for her mother’s voice or her father’s clumsy cello playing.

Thankfully she went into her bedroom and closed the door behind her. Here at least she could be herself. A pretty row of dolls eyed her from the chest of drawers where they sat among her hairbrushes, but the balding teddy bear had fallen, and was sprawled, limbs asunder, on the floor. She picked him up before running a bath and undressing with the same studied care she gave to everything. She put her dress on its hanger and fitted trees in the battered yellow shoes before placing them in the rack.

‘A museum’ her mother called it derisively, but Victoria refused to let any of it go. She would keep it all—the butterfly collection in its frame on the wall, the doll’s house and her box of seabirds’ eggs. She ran her finger along the children’s books. Enid Blyton to Richmal Crompton, as well as her huge scrapbooks. She was determined to keep it all for ever, no matter how they teased her.

She switched on the electric fire, took off the rest of her clothes, and wiped off her make-up before getting into the hot bath. Sitting in the warm, scented water, the taste of bourbon on her tongue and too much cold cream on her face, she tried to remember everything he’d said to her, searching for implications of love or rejection. The wireless was playing sweet music, but suddenly it ended and the unmistakably accented voice of the American Forces Network announcer wished all listeners a happy Christmas and victorious New Year. ‘Go to hell,’ Victoria told him, and he played more Duke Ellington.

She was drying herself when the doorbell rang. Carol singers? Party-goers looking for another address? It rang again. She put on a dressing gown and ran downstairs. Immediately she noticed the envelope that had been pushed into the letter box. Caught by its corner, the envelope was addressed to a military box number and had been opened and emptied. She turned it over and found scribbled on the back, ‘I’m sorry, darling. Jamie.’

She pulled the robe round her shoulders and opened the door. It was dark in the garden and raining heavily—the trees were loud with the sound. ‘Jamie?’ She thought she saw a man sheltering under the holly trees. ‘Is it you, Jamie?’

‘It all went wrong tonight, darling. My fault.’

‘You’d better come inside.’

‘I couldn’t get a cab. I was going to borrow MM’s motorcycle, but he went off somewhere with Vera.’

‘You’re soaking wet. Hurry, the blackout.’

‘I always forget about the blackout,’ he said. The water was running off the leather visor of his cap and down his face. She could feel the rain from his coat dripping onto her bare feet. ‘I waited in Market Hill, but once the rain started everyone wanted cabs.’

‘You walked? You fool!’ She laughed with joy and embraced him, cold and wet as he was.

‘I think I love you, Vicky.’

‘A note of doubt?’ she teased. ‘Have you learned nothing from Vince?’

He laughed. ‘I love you.’

‘I love you, Jamie. Let’s never quarrel again.’

‘Not ever. I promise.’

They were childish promises, but only childlike pledges are proper to the simple truth of love. She loved him with a desperation she’d never known before, but she took him to her bed for the same prosaic reason that has motivated so many other women—she could not bear to dispel the image of herself in love.

Afterwards he said nothing for what seemed an age. She knew he was staring at the ceiling, his body so still that she could hear his heartbeats. ‘Are you awake?’ she said.

He stretched out his arm to hold her closer. ‘Yes, I’m awake.’

‘It’s Christmas Day.’

He leaned over and greeted her with a gentle but perfunctory kiss.

‘Are you married?’ she asked, making it as casual as possible.

He laughed. ‘Lousy timing, Victoria,’ he said. Then, aware of her anxiety, he held up hands bare except for a class ring. ‘Not married, nor engaged, not even dating regularly.’

‘You’re making fun of me.’

‘Of course I am.’

‘That girl…’

‘She was very sick. It was the fruit punch, it put a lot of people out of action. Vince threw everything he could find into it.’

‘Who was she?’

‘Vince met her last week. She works in the laundry. He made me promise not to tell you she was there, he knew you’d feel bound to tell Vera.’ He turned over to look into her eyes. ‘You must guess what Vince is like by now. He’s everything a girl’s mother warns her about.’

‘He’s not a flyer, is he?’

‘No. He’s the PRO, the Public Relations Officer. He buys drinks for reporters and takes them round the base and sends them press handouts.’

‘He told Vera he’d flown twenty missions over Germany.’

‘He keeps that blouse with the wings and stuff in his suitcase. He tells his girls they have to be nice to him, he might never come back from the next one.’ He laughed.

Victoria laughed too, but it was unconvincing laughter. She held Jamie very tight and wondered what it would be like enduring the strain of knowing that Jamie might not come back. Why wasn’t Jamie a PRO, or someone else who didn’t have to risk his life?

‘Did you see Earl Koenige?’ asked Jamie. ‘Straw-haired kid with a you-all accent and big incredulous eyes?’

‘The one you’re going to be flying with? He looks no more than sixteen.’

‘He can handle his ship pretty well,’ said Jamie. It was not the sort of compliment he gave freely. ‘But he fell off the piano just after you left. He was trying to tap-dance and wave the Stars and Bars at the same time.’

‘Did he hurt himself? He looked drunk.’

‘I don’t think Earl’s ever tasted whisky before. His folks are teetotal, church-going farmers. No, he bounced up okay and said he hoped he hadn’t hurt the piano.’

‘And did your friend Charlie arrive?’

‘He sent a message. His navigator had to stay on base, so the whole crew stayed with him. Say, do you have an aspirin?’

‘On the table under the light.’

He tore open the packet and swallowed two tablets without water. ‘I thought he’d cracked his skull at first, but Earl’s always falling off his bicycle or spilling hot coffee down himself. He writes to his folks every day and I guess without his accidents he’d have nothing to tell them.’

‘Well, he should have no lack of material for his next letter,’ said Victoria. ‘Was that really your Commanding Officer! He was playing dice with a sergeant, and calling him Harry, and passing a bottle of whisky back and forth. There were wads of five-pound notes changing hands on one roll of the dice.’

Jamie frowned. ‘The Colonel’s not an easy man to understand,’ he said. ‘Vince nearly ran afoul of him tonight.’

‘Vince?’

‘He was wearing that damned jacket when Colonel Dan got there. I thought we were heading for a real showdown. “What uniform are you wearing, Captain Madigan?” the old man said. Vince saluted smartly and said, “The one with the Christmas decorations, sir.” The Colonel smiled and took the drink Vince offered him. “If the provost marshal comes in here tonight, Madigan,” said Colonel Dan, “they’ll throw us both in the cooler.” Vince grinned and said, “That’s just the way I figured it, Colonel…” That Vince can talk his way out of anything. He told me he ran off with some married woman when he was still a kid in high school.’

‘Poor Vera.’

‘Poor Vera nothing! She was sitting on the stairs petting with MM after Vince took off.’

‘Is it the war that’s made us like this?’

‘Don’t be so female,’ said Jamie. ‘People grab a little happiness while there’s a chance. All I’m saying is, don’t let’s worry about Vera or Vince. Let them work out their own lives. Who knows when MM will buy the farm, who knows when I will.’

‘Buy the farm?’

‘Collect our government insurance.’

‘Don’t say things like that, I can’t bear the thought of anything happening to you!’ She buried her head under the bedclothes.

‘Come out of there, you crazy girl.’ He pulled the blanket down and admired her bare body. ‘Are you sure your parents won’t come back?’

Her head was under the pillow; she grunted a negative.

‘How can you be so sure?’

She threw off the pillow and turned over to laugh at his nervousness. ‘Because they’re with my grandparents in Scotland. They phoned this morning. You can relax.’

‘You didn’t want to go?’

‘We were working. My father said I shouldn’t ask for extra time off—the war comes first.’

‘Your father’s right,’ he said, caressing her. ‘Fathers are always right.’ She watched him. He hadn’t looked so tanned before, but now, compared with her own skin and the white sheets, he seemed like a bronze statue.

‘Was your father always right too?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know anything about my father,’ he replied.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘He’s not dead. My parents were divorced when I was only a kid. I stayed with my mother, and she got married again to a man named Farebrother. I guess a bridegroom gets a little tired of checking into a hotel and explaining why his kid has a different name.’

‘What’s your father’s name?’

‘Bohnen. Alexander Bohnen. His family came from Norway originally. They were boat-builders.’

‘Was your father one too?’

‘Not enough money in that, I guess.’ He was still staring at the ceiling. ‘Give me a cigarette, will you, sweetheart?’

‘You sound like Vince when you say “sweetheart”.’ She gave him the packet of cigarettes he’d put on the bedside table and the gold lighter that was balanced on top.

‘My father is an investment consultant in Washington DC. Or rather was. Now he’s become a full colonel—a chicken colonel they call them—in the Army Air Force. He went from civilian to colonel over night, and naturally he’s a staff officer, the difference between a staff officer and an investment consultant being largely sartorial.’

‘Naturally? I don’t know what an investment consultant does.’

‘I don’t either,’ Jamie admitted. ‘But I guess he tells people who need a million dollars where to get them cheaply.’

Victoria laughed. It was just another glimpse of this crazy American world. ‘He sounds like a man who works miracles.’

‘You took those words right out of my father’s mouth.’

‘You don’t like him?’

‘He’s tough and practical and successful. My father works twenty-four hours a day, drinking with the right people and dining with the right people. My mother had to play hostess in a town where entertaining is a highly competitive sport, and my father’s a harsh critic. He never married again—he didn’t need a wife, he needed a professional housekeeper.’

‘And your mother’s happy?’

‘She’s always been quiet and easygoing. My stepfather isn’t a genius, but he makes enough dough for them to sit in the sun a lot and take it easy. Santa Barbara is a great place for taking it easy.’ Jamie lit a cigarette. ‘My father should have been a politician. He’s a Mr Fixit. I guess he figured Uncle Sam would lose the war unless he got into uniform and told the Army what to do.’

‘Don’t you ever write to him?’

‘I get a monthly bulletin—mimeographed, but with my name inserted in his own handwriting—the same chatty little newsletter that he sends to all his important business contacts. That’s how I know he’s with the Air Force here in England.’

‘You never write back?’

He drew at his cigarette. ‘No, I never write back. You’re not going to start chewing me out already, are you?’

‘It is Christmas, Jamie. He’s your father, you could phone him.’

‘My father will not have noticed it’s Christmas.’ He’d only taken a couple of puffs at the cigarette, but he decided he didn’t want it any more and stubbed it out on the back of Victoria’s powder compact, tossing the stub into a flower vase. Victoria was appalled but decided not to ‘chew him out’. Instead, she leaned across and switched the light off again. When she’d snuggled down into the bedclothes he put his arm around her. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll phone him in the morning.’

She cuddled closer to him and pretended to be asleep.