May 1932, Davenport House, London
He would hate it – he’d positively rage about it. In the first place, he wouldn’t allow it.
Jean was wearing Bart’s shirt.
They were in the garden reading on a strawberry-red picnic blanket. A large swatch of the grass was covered in bluebells, which, according to Megan, would only stay out for a month, and then, further into spring, disappear for another ten months. ‘Fleeting little pretties,’ she called them. Jean was reading something by Gertude Stein, her brow furrowed as if she was displeased. The shirt was baggy on her, the top two buttons undone. Bettina had a letter from Bart, received this morning. He was moaning about the special diet he was on, but added, ‘Perhaps it’s a saving grace that I must limit my food so, because American cuisine is horrible.’ Étienne was fattening himself up on hamburgers, which, contrary to their name, were not ham, but a thick slab of greasy, gristly beef, packed between two buns. ‘There is no polite way to eat one of these monstrosities, as Étienne has proved to me.’
Bettina shifted around on the blanket. It was almost impossible to get comfortable in any position with her stomach so big. ‘He says that Roger is a fine human being,’ she said to Jean.
‘He is,’ said Jean, not taking her eyes from her book.
‘What are you reading?’
Jean tore her eyes away from the page. She held up the book: Three Lives.
‘Yes, I know what you’re reading. I have eyes. I mean, tell me about what you’re reading.’
‘If you want to know about it, you can read it after me.’
‘I don’t want to read it.’ Nobody wanted to read Gertrude Stein.
‘So why ask?’ Jean raised her eyebrows and smiled. ‘You want my attention?’ Bart often smiled at her in the same way when he thought she was being childish, but whereas his smile was made up perhaps of twenty per cent cruelty and eighty per cent playfulness, Jean’s cruelty was closer to sixty per cent. Maybe even seventy.
‘You have this idea in your head of what lovers do,’ continued Jean. ‘A lovely romantic picnic, you thought. And we’d sit side by side, reading together and sharing our insights and all our clever witticisms and maybe sneaking a kiss using the book as a shield.’
Jean picked her book up again and shifted onto her other side, her back to Bettina. ‘If I’m reading, it means I don’t want to talk.’
Bettina stared at Jean’s back. The sun broke through the clouds again and the shirt became dazzlingly bright.
Megan held Tabby’s hand and carried, with her spare hand, a wicker basket full of wild garlic and wildflowers. Megan was continuously picking wild garlic and bringing it to Doris to put in with the roast vegetables, claiming that wild garlic was full of goodness and not as inclined to pong the breath as regular garlic. The wildflowers, mostly consisting of bluebells, foxgloves and red campion, were put into vases around the house and freshened daily, and some of them – the real ‘dazzlers’ – were pressed into a heavy volume of Shakespeare’s complete plays.
Flowers and laughter and the lemony musk of wild garlic – this was what Megan brought to the house. Earth and beauty. And what, exactly, did Jean bring?
‘Hello,’ said Megan, releasing Tabby, who ran up, pointed to her mother’s stomach and said, ‘Mummy, why is there a baby inside you?’
‘Because I ate one for breakfast,’ said Bettina, grabbing the child into a hug.
‘Mind she doesn’t hurt your stomach,’ said Jean.
‘She won’t!’
‘Shall I take her back to the house?’ said Megan. She waggled her basket. ‘We were going to make a start on ruining Twelfth Night.’
‘Oh, goody. I absolutely loathe Twelfth Night. I might come and help actually.’
‘Should I come too?’ said Jean.
‘No,’ said Bettina. ‘You wanted to read your book in peace, didn’t you?’
She took Tabby’s hand and started for the house, looking back just once to find Jean doing a slow clap – bravo. The clouds were beginning to thicken and grey. Good. Rain on the bitch.
Bettina heard the shouting from two rooms away – she was in the study writing a reply to Bart, a frozen ham bone wedged between her lower back and the chair to ease nerve pain. The temperature had dipped in the afternoon and it was chill now – she’d started a fire in the hearth and it was a strange conflict, the cold ham bone against her back and the skin-tightening heat at her front.
She rushed to the kitchen.
‘You have no right!’ Doris was saying, her face a hot, clammy pink. ‘No right at all!’
Jean aimed a long finger at the older woman’s bosom. ‘I do, though. Pack your things and go.’
‘Ladies,’ said Bettina, quietly.
They both looked at her.
‘She’s trying to fire me!’ said Doris.
Jean looked like someone caught torturing a small creature – a rat, perhaps – but quickly became defiant. It was a rat, after all.
‘I can see that.’
‘She hasn’t got the power to do such a thing,’ said Doris. ‘She’s just a guest.’
‘She was rude to me,’ said Jean. She turned back to Doris. ‘You don’t get to be rude to a guest without repercussions.’
‘She wanted me to change the dinner plans! Like the master of the house! Well, I told her unequivocally that it was not in her power to do so, Mrs Dawes.’
Bettina nodded. ‘Miss Freeman, please come with me.’
Jean stormed out of the kitchen. She was wearing Bart’s slippers.
‘I’ll see you in the study,’ she said, and Jean wrinkled her lip in response, scraping roughly past her swollen belly.
Doris was looking at her with huge eyes, her hands planted on the butcher’s block. ‘Am I really fired?’
‘Of course not. Continue with the dinner plans previously stipulated. With one place fewer.’
‘She’s never liked me. From day one.’ Jean was pacing in front of the fire, smoking her cigarette in vicious bursts and tapping her ash onto the rug. ‘The way she’s always looked at me. And calling me “master of the house” like that. A jab. A dirty jab.’ She stopped pacing and lifted a hand, palm out. ‘I know I took liberties. But honest to God, Betts, if you don’t get rid of that harpy, I’ll …’ She shook her head. ‘If we get rid of her, I can get someone else in, someone better. I know one guy, a sissy, he’d cook up a storm here and we wouldn’t need to sneak around the place.’
Bettina felt cold. Her whole heart felt cold. She was bored – so profoundly bored of all this, of her. But – and she must admit this to herself, she really must – she was also fearful. Not of what Jean might do, but of what she might say. ‘What else do you want to replace?’ she said. ‘Or who else?’ She aimed a loaded look at Bart’s shirt.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I want you to leave,’ said Bettina.
‘Don’t be foolish, Betty. You’re making a fool of yourself.’
‘No. You’re making a fool of me. How dare you? Firing my staff? How the hell dare you?’
‘This is hormonal bullshit. This is bullshit.’
‘I want you to take off my husband’s slippers and shirt and leave.’
‘You’re serious,’ said Jean.
Bettina’s hands were trembling. ‘Deadly serious.’
‘There’s no coming back from this,’ said Jean.
‘I know.’
‘What about Tabby?’
‘What about her?’
‘You can’t bring me into your family and then yank me away. I can think of nothing more callous.’
‘Oh, please,’ said Bettina. ‘You barely talk to her. Don’t pretend you have these great feelings for my child. Don’t you dare pretend that.’
‘How could you say that?’
‘How? Easily. With my mouth. I make words come out of my mouth following a series of signals sent from my brain. It’s really rather easy.’
‘Now you’re just being—’
‘It’s so easy, in fact, that I’ll show you again – look.’ Bettina pointed at her mouth. ‘The only time you speak to my daughter is when you are offering corrections and criticisms and actually, you act at all times like she is a mildly unpleasant smell you must tolerate, and actually, the main reason I don’t invite you to stay over more often has nothing to do with Bart, it’s because you are a cold fish with my daughter, so I repeat, using my mouth again, like so’ – she jabbed a finger at her mouth once more – ‘take my husband’s slippers and shirt off. And just go!’
Jean started unbuttoning the shirt, her hands shaking violently. Oh, she was angry. But then, she was always angry, with her snip-snapping eggshell moods and explosive indignation, then her subsequent apologies and excuses: oh, what an abused child she’d been, her brothers were such brutes and she was so terrified of rejection, of abandonment – the implication here being that Bettina would have to be a truly cruel bitch to abandon her, and the consequences might be tragic. Well, so be it.
Jean grew impatient and tore the shirt open, buttons pinging across the room. She stood, buzzing, in her vest and – well, would you look at that: the vest was Bart’s too! She kicked the slippers off, bundled up the shirt and tossed it in the fire. Black flowers bloomed on the white shirt and silvery trails of smoke rose up like treble clefs.
Bettina lay on the sofa on her side, a cushion supporting her stomach and a half-empty bottle of claret on a small table at arm’s length.
Bart would love this. Oh, he would absolutely delight in this – a victory jig, behind closed doors. He loathed Jean and hadn’t tried very hard to conceal the fact. Bettina had hated him for hating her. Won’t even give her a chance, she’d thought. She’d been warm and open with Étienne. Welcomed him into her home and heart. And yes, Étienne was a lot nicer than Jean. But for all Bart knew, Jean might be a sweetheart underneath it all. There were lots of people who were stinkers on the outside but darlings on the inside – they were often the best people.
Jean was not one of them.
Bart had been right.
Oh, he was going to bloody love this.
She finished her wine and poured another.
A knock at the door.
‘Come in.’
It was Doris. She held her apron crumpled up in her hands. ‘Sorry to interrupt you, Mrs Dawes. Just wanted to check if it’s to be the lamb cutlets tomorrow.’
‘Yes. Sorry, I should have come and told you.’
She flapped a hand. ‘Och, no. You’ve had all that unpleasantness today, you’re right to rest up.’ She bunched up her apron with both hands as if moulding a snowball. ‘I do hope I didn’t make things worse earlier.’
‘Of course not, Doris. I’m only sorry you were put in that position.’
‘Did you see what she was wearing, too?’
‘I did.’
Doris shook her head gravely. ‘Shocking level of disrespect, if you don’t mind me saying. I never knew what you saw in her, to be quite honest. I know she was helping you with your book, her being a literary sort, but you’ve other friends just as qualified to help, ones who wouldn’t strut about the place wearing your husband’s clothes while he’s away earning the family crust.’ Another grim head-shake. ‘I know it’s none of my business, Mrs Dawes, who you keep company with. But if you’ll permit me to say – an unmarried woman her age, wearing man’s clothes … there’s something not quite right there.’
Bettina stared at her. ‘You’re right,’ she wanted to say. ‘It’s none of your business.’ Such a strange feeling – for one’s contempt of a person to suddenly turn to a wish to defend them, or their nature, at the least. Of course Doris felt no kindness for the inverts of the world – why would she? Only a fool would expect anything else. Yet to be reminded of this was like a slap; no, not quite so bad as a slap – it was like a glass of water in the face. This was what came from living in a bubble, from surrounding yourself with like-minded people. It became easy to forget that the rest of the world was in sharp disagreement. Was, in fact, disgusted.
Hypocrites, tiny-minded hypocrites.
She was going to bloody well say it, actually.
‘You’re right – it isn’t any of your business.’ Head tilted just so. ‘Make sure there’s mint sauce to go with the lamb tomorrow. Thank you.’
‘I’ve just got her off to sleep,’ said Megan, standing in the same spot Doris had filled an hour previously. ‘She made me read her storybook three times.’
‘Thank you,’ said Bettina, still lying on the sofa. ‘Why don’t you come and have a glass of wine with me?’
Megan looked at the bottle with a panicked show of politeness. ‘I don’t drink, sorry. Alcohol and my family don’t mix well.’
‘Oh, right. Of course. Well, why don’t you come and talk to me then?’ Bettina pulled herself to a sitting position, wincing as a bolt of sciatic pain went up her thigh, and patted the cushion next to her. ‘We so seldom get a chance to talk properly. It’s all been nappies and first steps.’
‘Very well,’ said Megan, taking a seat.
‘Chocolate truffle?’ Bettina offered, holding out a box.
‘Now that’s more like it!’ Megan plucked one out.
‘So what do you like to do?’ said Bettina. ‘When you’re not engaged with work, I mean.’
Megan hurriedly chewed her chocolate, dipping her head, and swallowed. Bettina watched her throat bulge. ‘I go to the Regal a lot. I stop in the market first and buy sugared almonds and a Chelsea bun and I sneak them in. Last Sunday I saw Mata Hari, Garbo’s my absolute favourite. No. No – I lie. Harlow. She’s got such a vivacious personality. You know, I once tried to pluck my eyebrows like hers and I ended up with barely a hair left. Oh, what did I look like?’
‘Bart has told me some eye-opening things about Garbo. She goes with women, you know. Bart knows someone who knows someone and – you get the picture.’
This was the first time Bettina had ever broached the subject of lesbianism with Megan. They did discuss things of a personal nature, sometimes – it wasn’t all just nappies and first steps – but never that. It was a truly huge elephant, and the room was getting smaller.
Megan’s eyes were wide. ‘Really?’
‘Supposedly.’
‘That is news indeed, Mrs Dawes.’
‘Please, call me Bettina.’
Megan nodded unsurely. ‘Could I have another chocolate? I rarely treat myself to sweets. Can’t be trusted with them.’
‘Have as many as you like.’ Bettina sipped her wine, trying to look at Megan without appearing as if she were looking. Her skin was tanned a honey-brown – nothing like the candlestick pallor of Jean’s skin. Megan, of course, was outdoors often with Tabby. Her forearms were the darkest part of her. How would they look laid next to her stomach? Honey and milk. Next to her breasts? Better not to think about the breasts. Her eyes, though – the gold flecks scattering out from the pupil like filings around a magnet, the iris a timid green.
But why shouldn’t she think about the breasts?
She glanced over at Megan, who was choosing her next chocolate, a finger hovering over them hesitantly, even though they were all the same kind. She felt predatory, like a man, and it was strange when coupled with what she could see of herself – the pregnant belly straining at the dress, her dainty hairless feet propped up on the footstool. She imagined ripping Megan’s blouse away and grabbing those breasts. Spinning her around and penetrating her from behind, as Jean had done to her. What would it feel like? To be the man?
‘I gave Jean the boot earlier,’ she said, closely checking Megan’s expression.
Megan did a doubletake. ‘You didn’t. Why?’
‘You ask me why? You know Jean and you ask me why?’
‘Well, I know she can be a bit full of herself. But she seemed so very fond of you.’
‘The feeling unfortunately was not mutual.’
Megan did a low chuckle. ‘That’s going to sting. She’s never been chucked before – she’s always been the one to chuck.’
Bettina got up off the sofa and retrieved another bottle of wine from the cabinet. When she sat back down, she made sure her thigh was touching Megan’s. ‘How old were you when you knew you were different?’ she asked.
‘Oh, very young,’ said Megan. ‘I was tight with a girl at the orphanage and we used to share a bed. Nothing untoward happened, but I used to hold her at night and dream about one day marrying her. I remember understanding that this wasn’t normal, and for some reason I didn’t care a fig. I liked what I liked, sod what everyone else thought.’
‘How very novel. I wish I’d been so accepting of myself,’ said Bettina. ‘Things might have gone easier for me.’
‘If you’ll pardon me for saying, Mrs – Bettina. If you’ll pardon me for saying, it seems to me that things have gone easy for you. You’re wealthy and beautiful with an angel for a daughter, and you and your husband have quite the sweet deal going on.’
Bettina stared at her. All she’d heard was ‘beautiful’. ‘But there’s something I’m missing,’ she said in a quiet voice.
‘Your own private island?’
Bettina gave her a look – it was a deliberate look, a loaded gun of a look, and certainly not something she could take back. ‘Something like that,’ she said, reaching out to touch Megan’s face, her fingertips tracing a gentle line down her cheekbone. Then she leaned over and quickly kissed her lips, which of course tasted like chocolate.
Megan leapt out of her seat. ‘Don’t do – oh my – what are you doing, Mrs Dawes?’
Bettina pressed a hand over her eyes. Jesus Christ.
‘And you being pregnant and – and … there are professional boundaries, Mrs Dawes. Dear Lord. Why does this always happen to me? You’d think I’d be safe working for a woman!’
‘I’m so sorry.’ Bettina couldn’t look at her. What a fool she was. The great predatory seductress! The dirty dog. She was no dog – she was a bitch, a silly bitch.
‘Not as sorry as I am,’ said Megan, making her way to the door.
Bettina’s dream turned to black liquid behind her eyes. Her mouth was full of foul flavours and her brain felt like an old sea-sponge left to dry out on the rocks.
There was an envelope pushed under her bedroom door. She got up and read it: a letter of resignation. Signed Miss Megan Elizabeth Smart.
She threw herself back onto the bed and groaned into the pillow.