23

‘So. Julia,’ said Basil, chinagraph tucked behind one ear. ‘In or out?’

It was late afternoon in the cutting room, and they were working on the Hess footage. Julia had been in the original pre-Queen audience, and here she was on the Moviola, sitting between two female ARP wardens.

Basil said, ‘I say in. She looks like she really hears the music – understandable since she chose it. Have you noticed? True music lovers sit perfectly still. They don’t put on a special music-appreciation face, or nod or tap in time to the beat, which is worse.’

Dougie shrugged. ‘Whatever you like.’

‘A pity to leave her on the cutting-room floor when she’s contributed so much to the piece.’

‘It’s a film, not a bloody thank-you letter.’

Tony, sitting at the splicer, raised his head. They had been tetchy all day, which was hardly surprising, since they’d spent the night working. When he arrived that morning there had been a sea of footage on the floor, three feet deep in places. It was the third week in February and the Ministry was expecting a finished film in a fortnight. Fat chance of that, when the pair of them had spent the morning arguing over a single frame in the Blackpool ballroom sequence, which was to say over one twenty-fourth of a second.

‘How is Julia these days?’ said Basil.

‘Fine,’ said Dougie. ‘Why do you ask?’

Julia was not fine. Since Christmas, she had been cold-shouldering him. Then there was her son, who had run away again, this time fetching up at her father’s. There was to be a reunion of sorts this evening – or a tribunal – and he dreaded the way she would be afterwards, not that he planned to be around to see it. No wonder sleeping with her had become such a washout.

A distant boom.

‘What was that?’ said Dougie.

Basil took the chinagraph from behind his ear and marked a trim. ‘They’re blowing up a bomber in Sound Stage 2.’ He shot Dougie a quick look. ‘Travis is back.’

This was code. Deciphering it, Dougie understood that Ann Wightman was back. He got up and put on his coat.

‘How was Norfolk?’ Dougie said. They were walking away from the canteen towards the lake. Snow flurried around them, settled on the concrete paths, dissolving only where their feet trod. Under the flat grey light, the low buildings of the studio complex were as bleak and utilitarian as hangars or barracks.

‘Even colder than here,’ said Ann Wightman.

People in RAF uniforms headed in the opposite direction to the way they had come, seeking cups of tea. Whether these were actors playing the parts of service personnel, or service personnel playing themselves, was not clear. Not one of them, male or female, went past without holding her in their gaze for a fraction longer than was polite. And today she was dressed ordinarily enough. No Russian shapka, for instance, just a woollen scarf wrapped high under her chin, snow stars in her hair. Impossible to play the Face Game with this one; she had too many faces and could change them whenever she pleased.

‘You left your knickers at the flat,’ he said. ‘Julia found them.’

‘Whoops,’ said Ann Wightman. ‘Did that give you un mauvais quart d’heure?’

‘It put a slight damper on the festivities, put it like that. Are you free later?’

‘No.’ She laughed at his evident disappointment.

‘I’ve missed you.’

She lit a cigarette. ‘It’s always got to be a grand passion for your generation, hasn’t it?’

His generation. He winced. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Passion, romance, love.’ Each word was drawled out. ‘Isn’t that how you justify your adulteries, your bits on the side? For me, for people my age, sex is nothing. One might as well be brushing one’s teeth.’

‘You fucked Travis.’

‘Of course I did. I told you, it was cold in Norfolk.’

He felt a strong urge to hit her. This was oddly arousing. It was as if she were leading him, shackled, into a broader sphere of violence, into the heart of the war itself.

‘You’re quite the little alleycat, aren’t you?’

‘Oh,’ she said, in a mocking echo of what he had once told her, ‘it’s just that I wouldn’t want you to labour under any misapprehension.’

Plevna Avenue had not survived the previous year unscathed. Julia did not know why she should be surprised to come round the corner and find the corner gone, in its place lumpy ground silently accepting a covering of snow. The Huttons had lived in the corner house when she was a child. Mrs Hutton, who was middle-aged and childless, took her once to Buszards Tea Rooms in Oxford Street – she could not have been more than nine or ten – and she had never forgotten the tiered white wedding cakes in the window or the solid old-fashioned feel of the place with its dark bentwood chairs and potted palms. Buszards had been bombed the previous April, another chunk of her childhood gone. What would anchor memory now?

It was not the last shock of the evening, or by any means the worst.

Her father had said little on the telephone. Unlike the last occasion, she had not even been aware that Peter had gone missing until he had turned up in London. When she rang the doorbell, she wondered whether Richard had been similarly summoned.

Richard had not. Peter was in the kitchen, said her father, leading her into the sitting room, his distant disapproval tempered by what she could only describe to herself as a spring in his step.

The house was not as unkempt as she might have expected, despite the departure of Bridie and the subsequent pounding of the Blitz, although there were certain smells she could not place and which did not belong there. The sitting room was a miracle of preservation, given the window was boarded up.

They sat.

‘Second time he’s done this, I gather,’ said her father.

That was her first inkling of what was to come.

Then he began to talk, fixing his eyes on a patch of carpet about a yard in front of his shoes. And as he talked, she found herself fixing her eyes on that same patch herself, until its worn, dulled reds and blues took on something of a hypnotic quality.

Here at last were answers. Here were facts, divulged to the one person Peter was apparently prepared to trust them with.

Afterwards, she would struggle to remember her father’s exact words or the order in which they came out. At the time she experienced each successive revelation like the jack-knifing collision of carriages in a train derailment. Double blows: every one she received herself she received a second time on Peter’s behalf.

‘Of course, his understanding of divorce is rather limited. Not to mention his understanding of the rest of it. I had to read between the lines, as it were.’

Her father stopped speaking. She heard the tick of the clock measure the silence. Her mind was not silent. Instead, it was filled with clanging, jangling sounds, as if someone were smashing their elbows down on piano keys or sirens were blaring.

‘Does he know who I’m with?’ she said, when she trusted her voice.

‘He knows you’re with someone who isn’t his father. Isn’t that enough?’

She swallowed. ‘What was he doing in Whitmarket?’

‘Hiding, until hunger got the better of him. We must be thankful he was caught when he was. I hate to think . . .’ Her father broke off, rubbed hands callused from gardening along his trousers. They made a rasping sound. ‘At least the experience taught him to be prepared. This time he cashed in the postal order I sent him for Christmas and took the train.’ For the first time that evening he looked at her directly. ‘Did you know Richard was carrying on with Mrs Spencer?’

She shook her head. What had she expected? That he should wait around while she held him in reserve? But Fiona – that pierced her.

‘I gather Peter was worried you were dying. He thought that was what the pair of you were concealing from him.’

It was at this point that she began to cry.

‘Children always know what the weather is,’ her father said. ‘Even if they don’t know the cause of it.’

She struggled to control herself. ‘My solicitor advised me not to visit him. Richard advised himself otherwise.’

‘And who advised you to tell me nothing at all?’

‘You did,’ she said, ‘when you washed your hands of it.’ Yet in all fairness, she thought, it was the first rebuke he had permitted himself.

He sniffed. ‘You had better hear the rest from him.’

This time, when Peter came through from the kitchen, wiping cocoa from his mouth with the back of his hand, she did not see the future young man but the present confused and angry child. From the doorway, he issued statements into the room.

He was not going back to school. If she made him, he would run away again. He didn’t want to be at Crossfields any more.

‘Peter,’ Julia said, aching to take him into her arms, ‘I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do.’

‘Granddad said I could stay here.’

‘Did he.’

‘He can finish the year at Hurst,’ her father said. ‘There and back by Tube, tea on the table when he comes home in the evening.’

Hurst, a day school, was her brother’s old prep. It was in Harrow, and Harrow was a neutral zone, designated neither to receive evacuees nor send them elsewhere.

‘Is that what you want?’ said Julia.

‘Yes,’ said Peter. ‘And I don’t want to go to St Aubyn’s afterwards.’

‘We’ll discuss that in due course,’ said her father.

Crossfields, St Aubyn’s. Richard’s schools, Richard’s choices. Julia was under no illusion that her son’s rejection of his parents stopped there. Something that Dougie had said came back to her then, something she should have paid more attention to. ‘Do you mind if I ask you a question?’

Peter shrugged.

‘Which film did they show at school before you ran away the first time?’

Her father seemed puzzled.

Peter wasn’t puzzled. A hard, knowing glint appeared in his eye. ‘The one you were in.’

Her heart turned over with a sickening lurch. A lie could be a truth unspoken, and between the two lay shame. She had protected him from nothing. Now, his memories of childhood would always be clouded by what she had done to him; she could think of no worse betrayal.

‘May I come to see you once in a while?’ Her voice was a whisper.

The silence that followed was the bitterest blow.

‘Hop along to bed now,’ said her father.

When he had gone upstairs, her father said, ‘He’ll need time.’

She nodded.

‘Let me deal with Richard,’ said her father. ‘He knows the boy’s safe. The school will have told him.’

‘Thank you.’

‘He is my grandson.’ He got up to poke the fire. ‘Did you notice his teeth?’

‘No.’

‘I shall have to take him to the dentist. They’ve been giving them scouring powder to brush with.’ Very carefully, he balanced two coals on the little glowing heap with the tongs.

She left the house soon after and made her way to the Underground, her shaded torch glancing off plump outlines of snow, the external world having altered as much during the past hour as her internal one. The illuminating whiteness she felt rather than saw. What it showed her was herself, displayed on the screen at the Ciné Club, flagrant on the brink of what had seemed so inevitable then.

A fortnight later the film was finished and had acquired a title: Song of Britain. There was to be a private screening at Soho Square before its general release.

‘I’m not sure if I’ll come along tonight.’ Julia sat on the edge of the bed, dully brushing her hair. Lately she had lost her appetite for seeing films in which she had played any kind of part. ‘Would you mind?’

‘Suit yourself.’

On their way to breakfast, the children pelted down the corridor outside the annexe. ‘I hate you!’ Louie was saying. ‘You rotten beast!’

Dougie held one tie up to the mirror, then another. The grey? he thought. Or the red with the stripes? Or was that a little regimental?

‘It’s Bea’s leaving do.’

He turned away from the mirror. ‘I said, suit yourself.’

Julia left for work, the children went to school and Netta was out in the garden staking what the March winds had blown down. In the hall, Dougie dialled the exchange.

‘Marylebone 357,’ said Ann Wightman, when the call was put through.

‘It’s me. Julia’s not coming tonight. She’s busy.’

‘So I’m allowed to show my face now, am I?’ There were scuffling noises in the background. ‘How very kind of you, seeing as I worked on the bloody thing.’

‘You know what the difficulty is.’

‘Of course. It’s called hypocrisy.’

He chose to ignore this. Netta came back into the house, and he lowered his voice. ‘Will I see you later? Do you want to meet first and have a drink?’

‘No,’ said Ann Wightman. ‘I’m afraid I’ve made other plans.’

Bea’s leaving party was a small gathering on the fifth floor of the Institute. Nothing to drink or eat but warm wishes all round.

Bea said, ‘I can’t believe I’m bidding adieu to all this.’ Pinned to her blouse was a paper medal Mr Slater had made her, which read ‘Distinguished Service Order. For Valour in The Stacks.’ At intervals he brought some of their colleagues over to admire its penmanship and wit.

‘Yes, how could you possibly tear yourself away,’ said Julia.

‘Think of me on Monday when I’m swabbing decks.’ Bea had joined the Wrens.

‘I shall.’

Bea checked her watch. ‘Come on, you should go to the screening.’

‘No, it will have started by now. Besides, I’m not dressed for it.’

Bea said, ‘You look fine. Look, go quickly, before Miss Plume makes a speech. Otherwise you’ll be here all night.’

Julia embraced her. ‘Please look after yourself.’

‘That’s not my objective any more,’ said Bea. ‘It’s winning this damn war. I owe it to Giles.’

Julia walked across Soho Square, debating with every step whether she should turn back or go on. Since Peter’s disclosure, the very fabric of the building seemed tainted.

Nevertheless, she found herself going through the door. Inside was a crush of people, far more than last time. It was not surprising. Dougie was much better known now.

‘So clever the way he’s shown us to ourselves, don’t you think?’ said someone.

‘I do agree, he’s a genius. A true original. People will be watching this in years to come.’

She said, ‘Excuse me’ and ‘I beg your pardon,’ but everywhere were elbows and hands holding glasses and loud voices tuned to their own broadcasts. She had only progressed a short distance into the hall when someone trod on her foot and spilled their drink over her.

‘Oh, I am most frightfully sorry,’ said the man. (They were all chiefly men: that hadn’t changed.) He produced a large, laundered handkerchief and began to mop her skirt, gazing up at her all the while in a roguish fashion. ‘I know there’s a war on, but this is really quite dreadful booze; otherwise, I would have drunk it and not tipped it all over the front of you.’ The handkerchief was blotted pink. ‘I think they must have brewed it up in one of the labs at Denham.’

Julia laughed. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘You look familiar. Perhaps we’ve met before.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Julian Embry,’ said the man, who had a varnish of money and tailoring.

‘Julia Sinclair.’

‘Julia and Julian, how droll,’ he said.

‘I assume the screening’s over.’

‘You haven’t missed anything.’

‘You didn’t like it.’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I thought there was something almost symphonic about the structure, which was interesting, all things considered.’ Damning with faint praise.

‘Oh yes?’

‘No doubt that was Meers’s doing. I don’t think Birdsall is at all musical. Meers, the editor, do you know him?’

‘I’ve heard of him,’ she said, keeping her cards close to her chest.

‘But frankly the rest of it was Birdsall playing with himself as usual. I can’t see this going down well in Cleethorpes.’ Embry explained that he was a producer at Gaumont. Features. ‘I don’t know why I come to these things. You know what the documentary boys call us? Lice. Not very nice, is it?’

‘No.’

He broke off. ‘Ann, darling! I thought he’d banned you from coming.’

Julia turned, and her blood ran cold.

Her.

‘Yes, well, he unbanned me this morning. His other woman couldn’t make it.’ Ann Wightman’s eyes rested on Julia for a fraction of a moment, then flicked away. ‘Have you seen him?’

‘He’s through there somewhere. Being fawned over, I expect.’

Ann Wightman went off, the crowd that wouldn’t shift for Julia parting before her like the Red Sea.

Embry said to Julia, ‘Ann was continuity on this. And a bedfellow of Birdsall’s in Rotherham, I gather. Awfully squalid.’

A shriek in her ears. ‘Excuse me,’ said Julia. ‘I need some air.’

She fled from the hall and stood outside shaking and gasping for breath, her entire body a silent scream. In the square, bare branches she could not see creaked in the wind. You could expect something – even know something – and still have the legs kicked out from under you when it happened. Why was that? Was it because expecting the worst was like taking out an insurance policy that deep down you didn’t think you needed? If so, she hadn’t read the fine print.

What should she do now? Go back in and confront him? Slink away?

At that moment, Embry came through the door with a third option. ‘Oh, there you are. I’ve got a car round the corner. Fancy a proper drink? It’s the least I can do after drenching you.’

A car meant petrol, and petrol meant the black market. She thought of the lift the soldiers had given her son, the jerry cans in the back, the firebomb into which he had climbed, trusting.

‘Why not?’ she said.

As they drove away from Soho Square, he slapped the steering wheel. ‘Of course, it was you in the audience, wasn’t it? During the Mozart bit. Birdsall never can resist pointing his camera at a pretty face.’

Later she would wonder what fate had crossed her path with Embry’s. It wasn’t fate, however, that led her to accept the offer of a drink and where that drink eventually led, which was bed. It was the vicious impulse to cause as much hurt as she had been dealt. Afterwards she realized she’d chosen the perfect weapon for that.

‘I gather you went to the screening after all,’ said Dougie, taking off his jacket. It was the following evening, they were alone in the annexe and he had arrived home too late for supper, as usual.

‘Yes. Sadly, I missed the film,’ said Julia. She was hungover, and sore.

‘Where did you go afterwards?’

‘I could ask you the same.’

Before he could say anything, she hit him. ‘Ann Wightman!’ She hit him again, hit him until her fists hurt. ‘How could you? How could you do this to me? I’ve sacrificed my son for you!’

He held her off. ‘What are you doing? Stop it. You’re being hysterical.’

‘How long have you been sleeping with her? How long?’

He sighed. ‘We’ve been through this before. I haven’t been sleeping with her, as you put it. She works at the Unit.’

She was panting. This had not been the plan. All day the possession of proof had given her an eerie sort of calmness. Many speeches had been rehearsed. His replies – contrite, ashamed, begging forgiveness – she had also scripted. Not this incoherent fury that was coming out of her mouth or the lies coming out of his. ‘Funny you didn’t tell me.’

‘Is it any wonder when this is the way you react?’

‘There’s no point denying anything. I heard all about Rotherham.’

‘Then you’ve heard wrong. These suspicions of yours are getting very wearing.’

She had seen him lose control many times. All their rows had been shouting, screaming, arm-waving slanging matches. She had never seen him this contained. It seemed to her that his insistence on denying the truth, in swearing black was white, was infinitely crueller than his infidelity. Well, she could be cruel too.

‘If you must know where I was last night, I went out with Embry. And slept with him. There. You don’t like it, do you, when the boot’s on the other foot! Now you know how I feel!’

Disgust played on his face, a muscle tightening the corner of his mouth. ‘Embry, eh?’ he said. ‘Good choice, Sinclair. He’s got plenty of money. A wife, too, but I wouldn’t let that worry you. Tell me, who else in the film business have you had? Frank? Basil? Or are you only interested in directors?’

This injustice broke her, finally. She sank down on the bed and began to sob. ‘I wouldn’t have slept with him if you hadn’t betrayed me.’

‘Really,’ he said. ‘I’m supposed to believe that, am I?’

The row had nowhere to go. That did not stop it from carrying on. On and on it went into the night. Rotherham. Shell-pink satin camiknickers. Shirts done up wrong. Phones ringing at eleven o’clock. Caro, the woman at the bottle party, the glutton for punishment.

At one point, he had escaped to the barn and she had run after him, shrieking and stumbling and crying. Hours later, they were still there.

‘I don’t understand. How can you care so much about telling the truth in your work and be such a liar?’ she said towards dawn. At this stage in the proceedings, it was almost a philosophical question. ‘Why can’t you admit what you’ve done?’

‘You’re insane,’ he said, his head in his hands. ‘I can’t stand any more of this. It’s over, Julia. Just pack your bags and go.’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know and I don’t care. Give Embry a ring, I should. You always wanted to go back to London. Well, now, here’s your chance.’

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she said. ‘Besides, you can’t throw me out of someone else’s house. No more than I can. As much as I want to.’

He couldn’t. She couldn’t. But Netta could. In the morning she asked the pair of them to leave. They were upsetting the children. She felt sorry for Julia, she really did, but there were limits, and she had reached hers.