An hour later, Charles and I made our way to the restaurant in the West End that he had booked for dinner. We had been here together before and were fond of it, as it was slightly off the beaten track and at this time of the evening, quiet and low-key. Later, of course, it would jazz up, with the post-midnight crowd queuing to get in for a very late supper and some music and cabaret on the tiny space they used as a dance floor. Now, though, as it was unfashionably early, it would be far easier to talk and we wouldn’t have to shout over any sort of a din.
As it was in the basement, the restaurant was always dark, lit only by small art deco lamps sitting on the white cloth–covered tables. Tonight the waiter showed us to one of the nicest tables, in the corner, not far from where the band would squash themselves in later. Although the smart set had probably not even begun to think about going out or were having pre-theatre drinks somewhere more chic, many of the tables were already taken. Almost all the men were in uniform, and many of the women too. A party of good-natured Canadians were telling the waiter they were lining their stomachs for the evening, which he took very well, continuing to go through the menu even though the boys didn’t seem to mind what they ate. A very good-looking Polish officer was having an intense conversation with an equally beautiful Englishwoman, while two young members of the Women’s Royal Naval Service were being wined and dined by a pair of very cheery naval officers. I almost wished I had worn my National Fire Service uniform, but it was nice to put on a dress and go out with Charles as if things were normal, even if normal meant him in a uniform, of course. In the months since we had met, I had almost never seen him in civvies.
“You’ve worked out everyone’s story, haven’t you?” Charles said as we sat down. He was used to me watching people as a matter of course. “I saw you as we came in.” He smiled. “Some people walk through a room expecting everyone to turn round to see who they are. You walk through a room and don’t expect anyone to look at you, but you always notice everyone else.”
“I sound like a secret agent,” I said in a stage whisper, feeling rather pleased. “How exciting.”
Charles laughed. “You’re too honest,” he said. “You’d last about two minutes under interrogation. Of course you’d be brave to the point of madness, and before they realised, you’d be asking questions and getting them to talk about themselves. Actually, I retract my comment. You’d be a top-drawer secret agent.”
“Thank you,” I said modestly. “We should be careful, or the other diners will think you’re here to recruit me. I should imagine this is how it’s done. You know, asking one out to dinner and then saying, ‘You’d be a top-drawer secret agent,’ quite loudly in public.”
We both laughed. I liked talking nonsense like this with him.
“But I think you’re hiding your own interrogational light under a bushel,” I continued. “As soon as I met you, I didn’t stop talking. It’s a wonder you wanted to see me again. Anyway, I’m always lying. I don’t say that with any pride,” I added as the waiter appeared with a wine menu that defied any suggestion there was a war on. “Goodness,” I said when he had gone, “I hope the food menu is as good. I shall have fourteen eggs and a very large steak. They don’t appear to have cut back one bit.”
“What do you mean, you’re always lying?” asked Charles. “Don’t tell me you’re about to reveal you’re a twice-married divorcée with a terrible dependency on gin?”
He said it lightly, but I could see he was puzzled. It had been an odd thing for me to say.
“Oh, nothing like that,” I said. “At least not the gin.” I tried not to sound too serious. “It’s just having to say the right thing at work when you don’t always agree with it. A letter where a reader is fed up to the back teeth and wishes the war would just end, and you entirely agree with her but have to reply, ‘We understand, but we must all keep going.’ That sort of thing. And now writing articles but leaving out anything contentious. Especially with you know who.”
Charles understood I meant the Ministry. “I thought it was going well on that front?”
“It is,” I said. “Very.”
I quietly began to tell him what had happened with Mr. Terry. “And I feel as if whatever I do, I will let somebody down,” I finished, glad that the wine had now come and I could take a large sip. I didn’t want to burden Charles with my worries, but it felt better that he knew.
“Have you spoken to Guy?” he asked.
“He knows how I feel. Everyone is very happy with what we’re doing, and I don’t want to make waves. And after those women at the Ministry were so rude about everything, it makes for a sweet revenge. I don’t want to mess anything up, but I wish we could help Anne’s friend. If my meeting is anything to go by, they’re unlikely to get any help from the Factory Director, that’s for sure. Let’s not talk about it.” I smiled at Charles. “I don’t want to spoil our evening. I can’t believe you nearly walked in on seeing the dress. Hideously poor wedding form.”
“Wasn’t it? You know I wouldn’t care if you turned up in Churchill’s old siren suit, but it will be lovely to see you dressed up to the nines. I hope this will be all right,” he said, looking down at his uniform. “I’m told it’s really quite IN.”
“I was thinking of that just now,” I said. “Can you believe that after the war we’ll just be a normal married couple? I won’t have to make clothes out of parachutes, and you can spend your life in a pullover if you want. None of it will matter. Restaurants won’t be full of uniforms and we won’t be feeling awful about eating food that really should be on the ration.”
I looked around pensively. I hoped I sounded optimistic rather than maudlin, and I didn’t feel entirely bad about looking at a menu with more food than I had seen in the last month.
“It’s going to be idyllic,” I said.
Charles smiled, his eyes as wistful as I felt. “Won’t it?” he said. “The thought does keep one going. Although I’m an army man and all that, so you may have to put up with me in uniform for a while after we’ve won. I’ll probably still be in for a few more years, if they want me and I’m still in one piece.”
He was so matter of fact about it, but “if I’m still in one piece” was a horrible thing to hear.
“Darling, please don’t put it like that,” I said. “Of course you’ll be in one piece.” I paused as something frightening occurred to me. “You are happy being back in England, aren’t you?”
“Oh yes!” he said too quickly.
I looked him directly in the eye.
Charles held my gaze. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said gently. “Not if you don’t want me to. I haven’t applied or volunteered for anything.”
He didn’t say yet, but I waited. Ever since he had been back from overseas, I’d known I had him on borrowed time.
“There are always ‘opportunities,’ as they put it, but you know, someone has to do the desk job.”
I could tell he was trying, but even the way he said desk job showed how little he cared for it.
If he wanted to go off to fight again, it had to be his decision, not mine. I would happily have chained Charles to the table to stop him going into danger, but it was not up to me and it should not be my responsibility either.
“It’s not about what I want you to do,” I said softly. “Charles… darling, I’m not the sort of woman who tries to make her husband do what she wants, and you aren’t the sort of man who exists only to make his wife happy. I wouldn’t love you if you were.”
I leant across the table and took his hand. “I don’t want you to go away. I don’t want you to fight. I want you to have a nice safe job here where I can talk to you on the phone, and when you get twelve hours’ leave, you can rush into town and we can go to nice places like this and pretend nothing awful is happening. I want you to stay with me and live forever and do crosswords when you’re ninety. Or thirty, or whenever you like. But I also want you to be happy. I want you to look back on this stupid horrible war and know you did what you were best at, and not regret anything.”
Charles began to interrupt, but I stopped him. “Please let me say this, and then I promise I’ll shut up and listen to you—properly.” I took a breath and tried to find the right words. “Your brother once said to me, ‘Find out what you’re good at and then get better at it,’ and I agree, but I also think, if you’re really, really lucky, you get to find out what you love to do. And then you should cherish every moment you get to do it.” I paused before saying what I had dreaded to say. “Is being at a desk what you love to do?”
Charles was silent, but his expression gave him away. It was one of enormous sadness. “I love you,” he said. “More than anything. Anything. But no, I don’t love my job. I don’t even like it. I’m not doing what I’m best at. I hate the fact that my friends are halfway across the world having a stiff time, while I’ve been picked out to stay here. I’m not saying that the chaps in the safe jobs aren’t doing important work and doing their bit. It’s just it’s not what I ever wanted to do. There’s been talk batted around of a promotion, and I can’t tell you how bad that makes me feel.”
“Charles, you work all the hours God sends,” I said, forgetting I had said I would shut up. “You’ve hardly had more than an evening off for the last month—in fact, since you came back. And they wouldn’t have asked you if they didn’t think you would do a good job.”
“Ach,” he said, refusing the compliment. “I’m good on details, that’s all. My lot like that sort of thing. Damn it, Em, this evening was supposed to be a treat. We should be talking about the wedding.” He lifted my hand and kissed it. “I’m sorry, darling, I don’t mean to spoil it.”
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “The wedding is out of our hands. Bunty and Thelma and my mother are desperate to organise it.”
It raised a smile from us both, as the waiter had arrived with the soufflés.
“Where on earth did they get the eggs?” I asked when the waiter had gone away.
“It’s probably just one each, very fluffed up,” said Charles, looking at the concoction. “Even so.”
“Under the counter,” we whispered at the same time, and then really did laugh. It wasn’t very funny, but we were both desperate not to be sad.
“Bloody war,” I said, enjoying the chance to swear.
“Bloody war,” said Charles.
He looked around. The table with the Canadians was having the gayest of times, and one of the men had let out a hearty guffaw.
“I just feel I could be of more use,” said Charles. “Leaving you would be unbearable. I can’t even think of it. But yes. If I answer honestly, and I very much want to do that, then yes, my darling Em, I do think I should go.”
We had ordered a meal that was supposed to be eaten within seconds of arriving. Neither of us had so much as poked a fork into the probably illegal fluffy eggs.
Instead, we ignored them completely and held hands over the table, both of us glassy-eyed.
“We’re very lucky we’ve been able to discuss it,” I said, which took about as much strength as I could manage. “Most women’s chaps just get sent. I didn’t think I could get much prouder of you, Captain Mayhew, but tonight I just have. I am utterly behind you, whatever you decide you should do. Then when we’ve won this awful thing, you and I will wear pullovers which I will knit while you are away, so they will be dreadful, but you will have to say that you love them. And I’ll keep things going here and do my bit at the magazine and the station, and I’ll write so many letters to you, you won’t be able to keep up and will have to ask me to stop. And everything will be absolutely fine.”
Even though I had never felt surer of anything in my life or prouder that I was marrying this man, I wasn’t sure I could keep my voice steady for much longer.
“Should we order more wine?” I managed to squeak out. We had hardly touched the first bottle, but now I picked up my glass and took a very large gulp.
Charles still held my hand. We didn’t break eye contact, but he nodded and reached for his glass.
We didn’t order another bottle. Neither of us were what you could call heavy drinkers, and after two glasses I felt heady enough. We ate little, which was a waste of the menu, and instead talked, not about Charles going back overseas, but about getting married and what life was going to be like when we were together, after the war.
The peculiar thing was that the evening was lovely, which one probably wouldn’t have put money on considering the gravity of the conversation we had just had, but that was how it turned out. I was pleased Charles had been honest and told me how he felt about things. He hadn’t sloped off to volunteer for something or pretended he’d been cornered by someone important and had no choice but to go, and that was something to put on a list of things to be cheerful about. It wasn’t a long list, but it was something.
I took several deep breaths and Charles ordered a large whisky, and then we talked about where we might like to live and how it should probably be near London, as by then, Charles said, I would be a very established journalist and he, I said, would be in enormous demand for some sort of high-ranking job with the War Office. We wondered whether Guildford would be too expensive or perhaps somewhere near Reading instead, and then I wanted to know if Charles might be keen on getting a dog, which he was but then we worried that if we were both working it might be sad being alone all day, so we might have to get another one as well.
Then one of us mentioned children and we both said two would be lovely, or more if it happened and I would absolutely still work, probably writing articles in the study at home. I was very much looking forward to that, and it also meant we realised we were going to need rather a large house, what with the children and the dogs and the garden and the study, and also a garage, as Charles wanted to keep his motorbike somewhere. Then we laughed and I said at this rate we’d be unrecognisably dull and doing everything purely to keep up with the Joneses.
“From the sound of it, we’ll be the Joneses,” said Charles. “I can’t see us as that. Come on, let’s go for a walk and come up with a more bohemian plan.”
We had gone out for dinner early as Charles had to get the train back to his billet for something operational and important at seven the next morning, Sunday or not. Neither of us, though, was in any mood for the evening to end. After we left the restaurant, we walked to Waterloo through the blackout, our arms around each other, purposely extending the journey by not hailing cabs and by passing each bus stop without either of us suggesting we stop.
London was busy now, a typical Saturday night, or at least the typical it had become. Groups of people, lovers or friends, all hurrying along trying not to bang into someone in the dark, determined to enjoy themselves however they could. We were just another couple in the middle of the hubbub, but later I would think of how that night I felt as if I had more in common with everyone else than ever before. We were all in the same boat, and we just had to do whatever it took to make sure it didn’t go down.
As Charles and I walked across Hungerford Bridge, the wind whipped up from the river, making the night air bitter.
“Do you know,” said Charles, “when all this is over, one of the first things I want to do is to walk across this bridge with you when all the lights are back on.”
“That’s a lovely idea,” I said. “We could go to one of those restaurants on a boat—the ones that have lanterns hung up everywhere. And I want to go back to Piccadilly just to look at the advertisements lit up again.”
“And in our enormous nouveau riche house we shall keep the lights on for a week,” said Charles. “With no blackout, and all the curtains open.”
“Damn the expense,” I cried. “We’ll never switch them off!”
Charles hugged me tighter. “Isn’t it mad that leaving curtains open has become a great ambition?”
I sighed. “I shall make soufflés as if they are going out of fashion. Omelettes for breakfast and enough bacon to feed an army.”
“You know, Em,” said Charles, “it is going to be all right. The army, that is. I’ll come back and we’ll do all these things, and thousands more. Everything you’ve ever thought of even for a moment, we’ll do it.” He stopped walking, and as we stood together in the dark, he wrapped his arms around me. “My darling Em, I promise you with every fibre of my body, I will come back. Never forget that. Nothing will stop me being with you.”
“I know,” I said as I buried my head into his coat and held on to him as tightly as I could. “I know.”
I believed him. The whole world was full of people killing each other and destroying everything they had loved, but I believed him.
Because when it came to it, what else was I to do?