It was barely a ten-minute motorcycle ride from the Patriotic Building to Queenstown Road, but the bulky materials strapped to Jack’s back slowed him down and made steering awkward. There had been hopes for a warmer spring, but despite an excess of sunshine, the roadside trees were still host to only small buds, and the birds that usually sang the evening song were sheltering from the rain. The roads were already congested with late afternoon traffic, and as Jack weaved through slow-moving cars, racing the dark clouds that chaperoned him home, his thoughts kept circling back to Miss Roy.
By the time he reached Battersea it had started to thunder, and he pushed his Triumph motorcycle through the gate and up the brick driveway just as the rain began to fall.
The narrow Victorian terrace was at the Battersea Park end of the road and was no different from millions of others in the capital; except it was his family home and the only one Jack had had for close to thirty years. Most of the houses in the street appeared empty, windows shattered and roofs reduced to skeletons, newly created amphitheatres of war. Battersea was on the ‘pointy end of it’, he’d explained to visitors from out of town, and he wasn’t exaggerating: their part of London had been especially badly hit during the Blitz, and even now the water service was irregular and the electricity came and went as it pleased. He had tried to persuade his mother to move on many occasions, but she refused; he had come to understand that the noise of the trains, a nuisance to anyone else, gave her a reassuring connection to the outside world. She measured her days by the time the trains rumbled in and out of Waterloo Station, and she didn’t need to use the brass carriage clock that sat on the mantelpiece.
He propped the Triumph on its stand, took off his helmet and goggles, and let himself in. He smelt cooking as soon as he opened the door, then something else—camphor—and found his sister in the kitchen, stooped over the stove.
‘Thank you for dropping by,’ she said pointedly. Her dark hair, usually smooth and neatly pinned, was frizzy around her face, her olive complexion moistened with steam from the pot she was stirring.
‘I’m sorry, Beth. I got held up—’
‘Really, where was it this time? The Rose & Crown or the Star & Garter?’
‘It was a rare finch, if you must know. Spotted him in the trees just off the common.’ Jack pulled a small sketchbook out of his top pocket and flipped open the page at a pen-and-ink sketch of the small bird, with detailed markings on its breast and wings. ‘Thought they had all left—pretty little thing, he was. Not shy at all.’
‘Yes, he is pretty,’ Beth remarked, forgetting she was cross with him. ‘Definitely male then?’
‘Of course,’ Jack replied with a smile.
He was relieved that he’d been able to get away as soon as he had; he had only been working with the Special Operations Executive since February but the demands on his time had already increased so much that he was having to make more and more excuses to his family for his long absences.
‘It is only the animal kingdom, you know, so there’s no need to despair,’ Beth said.
Jack looked quizzical.
‘We’ll find a mate for you yet,’ she added.
‘It’s okay, Beth. One wedding in the family is enough for now, thanks,’ he said and meant it. He appreciated her efforts to fix him up, but he knew he had no time for relationships, especially since he’d be heading overseas at some point soon.
‘You don’t know until you try it,’ she said.
‘So, what did you manage to get hold of?’ he asked, looking at the lumpy brown mass inside the pot and trying to change the subject.
‘It’s scrag end, if you must know—and I had to queue for half an hour, so mind your cheek. Anyway, go and see Mum. She’s not good today.’
He made his way noiselessly down the dark hallway and into the living room, where Anne Valante sat in an upholstered armchair, her head tipped back, mouth slightly agape. Her breathing was shallow and he thought she must be dozing; he moved the wheelchair aside so that he could sit on the stool next to her.
The room was modestly furnished with a long-neglected piano against one wall, a sofa and two armchairs around a coffee table in front of the fire, and a side table where the wireless took centre stage. The floral curtains had faded but the pale cream walls lent the room a real warmth, as well as a neutral backdrop for the many pictures that his mother proudly displayed: Jack’s framed book covers, individual lithographs and nature illustrations. On the mantelpiece, beside the carriage clock, stood a number of framed photographs of Jack in black tie at formal events alongside others of Beth’s wedding and the children’s christenings.
A copy of the Daily Mail lay open in his mother’s lap, and a thick film had formed on the cup of tea that had grown cold on the table beside her. It touched Jack that despite being housebound, she insisted on getting dressed every day. She looked quite demure in a maroon cardigan and grey dress, with lambskin slippers on her feet, although one had fallen off. She could almost be a duchess taking tea—or, at least, his mother when she’d still been mobile.
He’d bent down to fit the slipper back on when he realised that she was looking down at him. ‘You would make a good spy, creeping up on people like that,’ she murmured.
‘I thought you were asleep,’ he replied, the irony of her words not lost on him—if only his mother knew.
‘I wish I could sleep, I really do.’
‘Not a good night?’
She shook her head.
‘Is it the pain, Ma?’
She nodded, lips pressed together as if she was bracing herself. ‘It keeps me awake at night and then the drugs do during the day.’
His mother had been diagnosed with a degenerative disease when he was still at art school, her movements growing more and more restricted until she finally became wheelchair-bound. For a while the doctors had seemingly given up on finding out what was wrong or any remedy, but they were eventually able to give her disease a name: multiple sclerosis. But it seemed to Jack that medicine had not caught up with the number of people suffering from it, because his mother was told that her only treatment option was the introduction of drugs to dilate her blood vessels, and the love and care of her family.
‘Is there anything I can get you?’ he asked, fighting the urge to take her hand and pull her out of the chair, ready for the afternoon walk they always used to take.
She shook her head.
‘Do you want me to massage the camphor into your legs?’
‘No, pet. You can show me what you did today…’ The tiredness had taken its toll and she looked pale against the cheerful floral fabric of the sofa; even her usually blue eyes were a dull grey.
He wasn’t sure if he should show her the pictures of the orphans when she already seemed so low, so he came to stand beside her and pulled out the quick sketches he had done of the Patriotic Building. He had yet to shade the towers with the yellow wash of Yorkstone and paint the roof a wintry grey, but he had captured the building’s grandeur.
‘Do you remember,’ he said, ‘you used to take us there for picnics?’
‘So we did. You’ve got a good memory,’ she said, hands barely gripping the book. ‘Just as well, I suppose…’
‘I remember how everyone said it was haunted, and Beth didn’t believe it and went inside anyway.’
‘And got lost,’ his mother said, smiling.
‘We always used to take extra bread to feed the ducks.’
‘Wouldn’t be able to do that now.’ She tried to summon another smile.
He thought of how full of life she had been; how he would do anything to see her like that again. ‘Maybe I’ll borrow a car and take you there at the weekend. What do you think, Ma?’ He put the pad away and stifled a yawn.
‘I think you’re both working too hard. I’ve told Elizabeth that she mustn’t come every night, but she won’t listen to me. Will you have a word with her?’
‘I’ve tried but you’re right, she won’t listen. Anyway, it’s my fault—if I could be here more often, she wouldn’t have to come.’
‘You do more than enough,’ his mother said, taking his hand. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’
‘It would help if I was a better cook, at least,’ he said, bending to kiss her forehead.
Beth looked after their mother as best she could, but she had her own family to look after too and her job. Jack worried that it was all too much for her, and it still wasn’t enough care for their mother.
The hands on the brass carriage clock slipped over to the six, and it began to chime.
‘I can drive you to dinner, madam,’ Jack said, setting up the wheelchair and pulling the footholds round so that he could help her into it.
‘Would you mind if I ate in here tonight, luv? You two can sit together.’
‘Really? We could come in here…’
‘No need—Gracie Fields is on soon and I want to listen. Do you mind?’
‘Of course not, Ma. Whatever you want. Gracie is probably much better company than us, anyway,’ he said, forcing a smile.
He knew not to insist: some days she needed to be on her own so she didn’t have to mask the pain. He just wished there was something more he could do to help.
Dining with his sister turned out to be a good idea, as they were able to catch up on family news. The scrag end tasted surprisingly better than it looked, and the dimly lit kitchen, which he usually found so dreary at night, seemed brighter. Beth was so animated when she talked about her husband, Henry, and her children, that for some reason Jack couldn’t even explain to himself, he found himself telling her about Miss Roy. He related the whole encounter: their conversation and how the attractive young woman had wanted him to sign a contract for his lithographs—and how she had lingered so long watching him work.
‘That’s marvellous, Jack,’ Beth said, scraping the leftovers out of the pot and onto her plate. ‘So how much does the Ministry pay?’
Jack glanced away.
‘What? What is it?’
‘I didn’t sign it, Beth. I couldn’t,’ he said, looking back at her. ‘I’m away too much…’
The Special Operations Executive had first approached him in January when he had been working at the Chatham docks on a commission for the Admiralty. The angular lines of the ships and cranes had given him his first clue to the artist’s potential for recording details that might count for so much more.
He wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone about his work for the SOE, or about the upcoming training—the two agents had been quite adamant. All Jack knew was that he had passed the first phase of training, an induction into armed and unarmed combat skills, and that he would now attend a course in security and tradecraft before his final specialist training—if he made it through. It was a process that had required him to summon all his inner and physical strength, mastering new skills and techniques. He’d also had to develop the wherewithal to lie, or stretch the truth, to explain his frequent absences. And now he would need an explanation for his longer absence the following week too.
‘What do you mean you couldn’t sign it?’ Beth asked, sounding exasperated. ‘Have you thought about what we’re going to do?’
‘What we’re going to about what? Ma?’
Beth narrowed her eyes. ‘Yes, about Ma.’
‘There are some really good facilities out of London,’ he said. ‘She would be safer…’ He thought about the rural house in Buckinghamshire that he had attended for SOE training, and how it wasn’t so different from the special-care facility he’d visited for his mother.
‘They cost money,’ Beth said. Now she sounded cross. ‘Money we don’t have, especially if you keep turning down work.’ New lines appeared on her young face as she scowled at him.
‘I know, Beth…I just couldn’t do it.’ He knew she would understand that no monetary value could be put on what he was doing—if he could only tell her the truth.
She threw up her hands. ‘Anyway, I’m not going to put Ma into care. We’ve talked about this before. You’ve heard about these places…how they treat them.’
‘That’s why we start looking now; find a good one…’
‘I’m not going to do it, Jack,’ she said, eyes full of tears. ‘That’s final.’
He reached across the table and covered her hand with his. ‘It’s okay, Beth. We’ll find a way, I promise.’
She used her other hand to wipe the tears away, just like one of his nephews might do. They were silent for a while, Gracie Fields’ muted voice drifting through from the radio in the front room.
‘It’s not just Ma.’ Beth sniffed. ‘You can’t let this stop you, Jack. Pretty soon you’ll have no choice. You can’t keep turning things down.’
‘It’s okay. I know what I’m doing.’
‘Do you?’ She sighed, reaching in her pocket for a handkerchief and blowing her nose. ‘You know you’ll get called up eventually.’
‘Exactly,’ he replied. ‘Isn’t that why it’s better to get Ma settled somewhere now where she can be looked after properly?’
‘We can manage—we have up until now,’ Beth said. ‘Anyway, where do you think we’re going to get that sort of money? I thought you said that no one is buying art.’
‘That’s true. I’ve had a few commissions, but there’s not much money in it. Not after all the medicine and specialists…’
She was right: they didn’t yet have enough for full-time care, and he didn’t have the heart to tell her that he had only sold four paintings in the past year. But there would be a regular income soon from the SOE and he was on the verge of telling her so.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘that’s all the more reason you should take an artist contract if you are offered one—you’ll be on a salary.’
‘It wasn’t the WAAC, it was some other scheme I hadn’t heard of.’
‘Does it matter who it is, as long as you’re earning money? Isn’t it better that you work as an artist rather than get called up as a soldier? How long do you think it will be now?’
He couldn’t tell her that the SOE was training him to run reconnaissance in the field. Journalists and photographers weren’t always accurate, and Jack could offer another means of surveillance—one that would provide a much more detailed account of foreign territory and the enemy. He had the ability to record the status of a campaign, and produce thumbnail sketches bearing cryptic notes that offered vital clues once they had been couriered back home and deciphered by the SOE.
‘I will go, Beth,’ he said, knowing that the moment he might have told her had passed. ‘And I will get the money we need. We just need to get Ma used to the idea of moving first.’ Jack glanced at the open door through to the hallway. Grace Fields was still singing, and he hoped that their mother hadn’t overheard their conversation. He rose and softly closed the door.
‘You know if there was any way I could have her at my house, I would,’ Beth said, sniffing again, ‘but not with Henry’s mum and the kids…’
‘It’s okay. I know there’s no room. It’s impossible, and you do enough, Beth, you really do. No one could ask for more.’ Jack stroked her hand.
She looked up at him, her tear-streaked face making her seem childlike. ‘I know you think you should be here to help, Jack, but you’ve got a life as well and a responsibility to all of us…and your country, not just to Ma.’
He knew this all too well, but he couldn’t tell her why.