CHAPTER 32
LONDON
OCTOBER 1940
The Luftwaffe finally arrived on the seventh of September. Like a child who’d placed a winding top on the floor and was surprised to see it spin, Precious looked up at the blackened sky with incredulity. Eva found it odd that the very thing they’d been preparing for and expecting could still come as a shock. With courage found at the bottom of a bottle, she listened to the sirens before she and Precious calmly donned their WVS uniforms, collected their gas masks, and left the flat, just as they’d done hundreds of times before in drills.
Precious headed to the tube station shelter canteen to serve tea to evacuees. Always tea. The British government had sought to buy up the world’s supply of tea at the beginning of the war, knowing it would be detrimental to the morale of its citizens should Britain run out in its time of need.
Eva had chosen instead to man a canteen for the fire brigades, who would be working throughout the night and into the morning. It was much more dangerous work than being inside a shelter. That was why she’d chosen it. She found a certain satisfaction in the violence in the air, in the ground echoing with the staccato beat of the bombs hitting in steady succession. The wail of the sirens and the percussion of the antiaircraft fire ripping through the night seemed to feed her, to fill the empty spaces inside of her. She was doing something to help with the war effort. Something that almost made up for the nights spent pretending to be merry. To be doing things for Alex she could no longer consider meaningless or innocent. She was a bird in a cage, unable to escape from the prison of her own making. Her days had fallen into a mindless routine from which she could see no alternative, and for which the endless supply of Alex’s whisky barely smothered her conscience.
During the day, she went to her job at Lushtak’s, showing frocks and gowns to a dwindling clientele, smiling and pretending everything was normal. Once a week, she’d leave work and visit the London Library to check out a misshelved book. As instructed, she’d tear out the title page and decode the hidden message written with lemon juice, using a lit match, and then burn the page after committing the information to memory. She’d fallen into the habit of reading each book she retrieved from the library, to expand her mind, as Mr. Danek encouraged her to do, although now, without Graham, it seemed pointless.
Later, after night fell and the enforced blackout enshrouded the city, she’d drop an empty envelope into the mail slot of the white-stoned terrace house in Chester Terrace before rushing home to change for an evening out with Alex. If she was scheduled for a shift with the fire brigade, she wouldn’t drink at all. But for an evening with Alex, she would drink until she was satisfyingly numb.
She felt again the gambler in her blood, the stakes life or death. And as the nights of whisky and ceaseless bombings continued, she no longer flinched at the crying of an approaching incendiary or a nearby explosion. She would survive, or she would not. She couldn’t find it in herself to care either way.
On a night in late October, Precious sat on the edge of Eva’s bed as Eva prepared for another evening out with Alex. Precious entertained her with stories of the people from the air raid shelter, as well as the gossip she’d heard from the other models about the dwindling number of clients at Madame Lushtak’s. Precious speculated on what would eventually happen to all of the employees at Lushtak’s should they run out of customers.
Eva was hardly listening, her thoughts occupied with Alex, with his untenable hold on her. Her desperation to escape. As she applied bright red lipstick to her mouth, she caught sight in the mirror of the diamond bracelet on her wrist. She usually didn’t wear it, but tonight she’d thrown it on, tired of seeing it on her dressing table. The large stones glinted like eyes, capturing her attention. She’d scraped one of the diamonds across the corner of the mirror to see if it would cut glass. The line could still be seen in the corner. She sat, staring back at the glittering stones. They would be worth a lot of money.
She lifted her eyes, aware that Precious had stopped talking. “I’m sorry—what?”
“I asked if you were happy. You were just smiling to yourself.”
“Was I?” Eva put the lipstick on the dressing table, not yet ready to admit even to herself what she’d been thinking.
“So, are you? Happy, that is.”
Eva met Precious’s gaze in the mirror. “No, I’m not.”
“Is it because of Graham?”
Eva nodded, not dropping her eyes.
“You haven’t seen him at all, then, since he’s been back?”
“No.”
Precious was thoughtful, biting her nail, even though both Eva and Mr. Danek had tried to break her of the habit. “I’m sorry. I really am. I just wish . . .”
Her voice broke and Eva turned in her chair to look at her.
“You just wish what?”
Precious blinked hard. “That you’d been the one to go to him. I wish it had been you.”
“Why?”
“Because you were the one he wanted.”
The buzzer rang, and Precious slowly rose to her feet. “It’s Paul. He’s on leave for a few days, and he promised to take me out tonight.” She hesitated, as if she wanted to say something more. “Maybe we’ll have cocoa later and talk like we used to—if the bombs stay away. I’ve missed that.”
“Me, too,” Eva said, meaning it, wondering how such a short time could seem to stretch across years, leaving just as many scars.
The sign in the Savoy’s lobby reminded all visitors that the blackout would begin at precisely five thirty. It was far later now, but Eva imagined the well-dressed guests passing the sign wouldn’t have paid it much attention. They seemed the sort to allow others to take care of things like closing blinds and pulling shades.
After checking her mink coat, Alex led her to the American Bar. Its bar of chrome and rounded edges always made Eva feel as if she were on an ocean liner. The effect had probably been intentional, but she’d always thought it in bad taste to mix alcohol with the potential reminder of seasickness.
It was reported that Winston Churchill had his own private entrance here, as well as a private bottle of coveted whisky held behind the bar. Piano music could barely be heard beneath the din of so many voices, an array of foreign languages that Eva had become adept at not only recognizing but mimicking. Alex called it her special talent. She could now understand and speak French, thanks to her lessons with Odette, and had become familiar enough with Czech and Dutch that she could understand most words in conversations she overheard. She didn’t understand why Alex was so interested in the banal chatter of drunkards, their talk of people she didn’t know and places she’d never been. Yet Alex wanted to hear every word repeated and would jot it all down in a small notebook he kept in his jacket pocket.
As Alex escorted her to a table in a corner, strategically placed so he could see who entered and who left—and with whom—Eva mentally slid on her mask, a mask that was becoming more familiar to her than her own face, and gave a dazzling smile to everyone Alex introduced. She smiled, she nodded, and she made small talk. She allowed men to stand too close and look down her dress. She didn’t mind anymore. She was playing a part, and it had nothing to do with who she really was.
Across the bar, she thought she spotted Georgina, Alex’s childhood friend. They had met only once, and Eva was drunk enough that she wanted to demand to know what she’d been judged for and if she’d come up short.
She began to stand, but Alex put a strong hand on her shoulder. “Don’t,” he said under his breath, a wide smile on his face, as if he’d just uttered an endearment. And when Eva turned back to where she thought she’d seen Georgina, the woman was gone.
A white-coated bartender approached. Alex never drank, though he always ordered a Scotch, neat. But in this bar, famous for its invention of the cocktail, he felt the need to order something from its famed cocktail menu. “French Seventy-five?” he asked Eva.
She shrugged, then pulled out a cigarette. “Sure. If they still have champagne. If not, I’ll take whatever they’ve got with a kick.”
Throughout the evening, they were joined at their table by Alex’s friends and acquaintances, many of whom Eva recognized, though she couldn’t remember their names. She forgot them on purpose, to aggravate Alex when he asked.
A young French couple sat with them for a time, complaining about de Gaulle’s inability to admit the French defeat, instead wasting his time rallying support for the Resistance. They spoke with disdain of the leader of the Free French, as if they themselves hadn’t fled to live in exile. As if they were merely waiting for the Germans to leave of their own accord so they could go home.
Eva paused with her glass halfway to her mouth, feeling a pinprick of awareness on the back of her neck, a heatwave of sensation that made her turn. Look up. Graham’s green eyes didn’t register surprise, as if he’d been expecting to see her. Or had been watching her for a while. Her breath stopped. Colors and movement stilled around her, and it was only the two of them in the crowded bar. Her chest hurt, the heat spreading to her limbs as if he’d touched her. She smiled and began to stand just as Alex slipped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him, pressing his lips against the bare skin on her neck.
She quickly pulled away, but when she turned back to Graham, he was gone. With both hands bracing her on the table, she pushed herself up, feeling the gazes of the French couple on her, seeing the interest in the eyes of the passersby. Alex pulled on her wrist, making her sit again. When she saw the Frenchwoman staring at her with pity, she looked away, feeling ashamed.
“Where are you going, my dear?”
“Don’t . . . ,” she pleaded, just as the air raid sirens began their nocturnal wail. The French couple stood immediately and began to follow the line of people heading out of the bar toward the posh basement shelter, carefully holding their drinks so as not to waste a single sip. As if that might be the biggest concern when German planes were dropping bombs overhead.
Alex remained seated, holding Eva’s wrist tightly. He pressed his mouth against her ear. “Perfect timing. While everyone’s distracted, I need you to go into the coat check and search the pockets of a dark blue man’s overcoat—it’s the third from the front. Bring me anything you find. If you’re caught, say you’ve lost your favorite lipstick, and you think it might be in the pocket of your mink.”
“You do it,” she hissed, trying to extricate her wrist so she could go find Graham. He was here. All she needed was to see him again, to tell him that she loved him. That every word she’d written in her letters was true.
He tightened his grip. “I know you don’t mean that. Remember Lord Merton. That’s what happens when one is no longer useful to those who employ them.”
He let go of her wrist. She stood still, watching as the last of the occupants left the room, laughing and talking, sipping their cocktails as if it were all a game. As if the finger of fate weren’t at that very moment haphazardly circling, deciding which building would fall tonight, which lives had run out of luck. Her gaze followed the stragglers as she looked for a shining head of sandy-colored hair, the tall, lean form of a man who carried her heart with him whether he cared or not.
“All right,” she said, calculating.
She walked briskly across the deserted hotel lobby to the small coat check. The manager stood with his back to her, issuing last-minute directives to employees and guests alike. Eva entered the small room, the sound of the sirens muffled by all the cashmere and fur. She found the coat immediately and with practiced fingers began searching through the silk-lined pockets.
The ghost of a scent wafted up from the soft cashmere, a familiar smell that made her heart ache. She leaned back, studying the coat, wanting it to be his, daring to hope. Pressing her face against the sleeve, she closed her eyes and breathed deeply of sandalwood and soap and the scent of Graham’s skin.
“I believe that’s mine.”
She dropped her hands but didn’t turn, wondering if it had been her imagination. But she’d seen him before in the bar. Slowly, she turned around, unable to keep her face from giving away her feelings. It was something Alex had told her she needed to stop, but she couldn’t. “You came back,” she whispered, afraid if she were too loud he’d vanish.
He stepped forward into the small room, and she saw his cane for the first time, the ivory handle and the silver tip. “Yes. It would appear that I have.” Half of his mouth lifted in a crooked smile, reminding her of the afternoon they’d spent on the boating lake. He looked behind her, to where the dark blue coat hung. “If you’re looking for the dolphin, I’m afraid I’ve lost it.”
She stared at him, unsure. “But I’ve . . .” She was about to say that she had the dolphin on her dressing table. That he had returned it to her.
“The coat,” he said. “Was there something you were looking for?” He was staring at her oddly, and for a moment she had the mad thought that he’d forgotten who she was.
She reached for him, placed her arms around his neck, searching his eyes for recognition. A small scar cut through one eyebrow, adding character to his face. His eyes were wary, as if he’d already seen too much. “Graham, it’s me. It’s Eva.”
He didn’t touch her, but his lips parted. A breath escaped between them, a word that couldn’t form but might have been her name. He didn’t step back. She pressed herself closer to him, and placed her lips against his jaw. “I love you. It’s only ever been you.” She closed her eyes, breathing him in, wanting to melt into him. “You promised me, remember?”
“That I would always love you.” His shoulders softened as the tension in him eased beneath her fingers. Something fell behind her—his cane, she thought—and his arms wrapped around her. His lips found her hair, then her temple. “I didn’t forget,” he said against her lips as he kissed her.
The sirens and the rest of the world faded away as she kissed him back, showing him how much she loved him, how much they’d been made for each other. Reminding them both that he’d come back to her. When they finally pulled apart, she rested her head against his chest, feeling the reassuring beat of his heart beneath her ear. She felt the wasted time of their separation as a solid wall between them, incomprehensible, but real as his heartbeat.
“Why didn’t you write back to me?”
He stiffened, pulled away. She wondered if it had been a reaction to her question, but then he took her arm and touched the diamond bracelet. “Where did this come from?”
She opened her mouth to tell him the truth, because she was tired of the lies and all the pretending. She wanted to take his hand and lead him away, to escape to a seaside somewhere. To a house on a cliff.
Alex’s voice interrupted her before she could utter the first word. “It was a gift. From me. It looks rather lovely on her, don’t you agree? But then again, she looks lovely wearing nothing at all.”
He’d come into the room behind them and leaned casually against the doorframe, his eyes hooded and appearing bored. But Eva knew those eyes missed nothing.
Graham didn’t drop his arms or take his eyes off her. “Is this true, Eva?”
She met his gaze, wanting him to see the real truth there. The truth that she loved him and was faithful to him and that nothing else mattered as long as they loved each other.
She heard Alex move behind her and then the sound of a hanger being slid over a metal rod. “Come, Eva. The all clear’s sounded. Let me take you home.” She felt the mink coat settling on her shoulders.
Graham still hadn’t moved, was still holding her gaze. “Is it true, Eva? Did he buy you these things? And you accepted them?”
She thought of the ivory dolphin that she’d cherished above all other gifts because it had been given out of love, and how Graham had returned it to her. “Yes,” she whispered as Alex kissed her neck. As if he owned her, which, she supposed, he did. “I didn’t have a choice. . . .”
Graham stepped back, picked up his cane, took his coat. “Well, then, I bid you both good night.” Without meeting her eyes, he executed a quick mocking bow and left, his limp almost undetectable but for the tapping of his cane.
She moved to run after him, but Alex held on to her arm. “Please, Graham. Please! Let me explain!” But her words fell only on air, her protests as empty as her promises.
Later, when Eva returned to her flat, she grabbed a bottle of whisky, not bothering with a glass, and headed down the long hallway to her bedroom. She heard Precious retching into the basin in the water closet as she passed. She didn’t stop. She’d had enough pain for one night.
She stepped out of her dress and kicked off her shoes, leaving them in a puddle on the floor. And when she finally felt numb enough, she laid her head on her pillow and closed her eyes. The image of Graham’s face when she’d asked him why he hadn’t written her back floated behind her eyelids, chasing her into oblivion.