LOOKING FOR LESLIE HOWARD

Seeing him sitting at that awkward corner table made me jump a bit. I normally didn’t put customers there unless we were really full. He must have sat himself down when I had my back turned, even though there were lots of empty tables much more convenient. His head was turned away from me, so I couldn’t see his face, but his hair was very dark and thick. He still had his overcoat on, and his trilby was placed neatly on the empty chair beside him. He was reading, and the little table lamp threw a small circle of light onto his hands as he held the book.

And that’s when I saw his skin. I always notice people’s skin. In fact, it’s the first thing I notice. His was a lovely golden colour. And I knew it would be soft, too – meltingly soft – just like the kid gloves rich women wear. And his nails were neat and pink as he turned a page with his finger and thumb: a quick, neat movement that made me shiver.

I left off cutting up the Victoria sponge, and squeezed my way through the empty tables until I was standing in front of him – or as far in front of him as I could manage in that corner – with my pad and pencil at the ready, white cuffs well pulled down, collar well pulled up. He didn’t move, as if he had no idea anybody was there. I waited, wondering what kind of book he was reading. It looked like a library book, with a dark red cover and very small print. I couldn’t read the title. After a few moments standing there like an idiot, I coughed and jiggled the empty chair a bit. And then he looked up. Brown eyes, of course, to go with the golden skin. Soft eyes too, fine and bright, with thick, dark lashes that made his eyes look made-up, as if he had drawn a black line all round them, like a film star. He was so good-looking I could hardly take my eyes off him. But I managed to look nonchalant: ‘Can I take your order, sir?’

He stared for a moment as though he didn’t understand the words, and I thought perhaps he was a foreigner. But when he spoke, it was in perfect English. ‘I beg your pardon – miles away. Just tea, please.’

‘Nothing to eat?’

He seemed surprised, and then, ‘Why not?’ His eyes flicked to the teatime menu in its little silver stand. ‘Why don’t I have some … hot buttered toast?’ It was the first item on the list. And the cheapest.

‘Certainly, sir. Strawberry or raspberry?’

He looked perplexed.

‘Jam’s included,’ I said.

‘Is it? Then I’ll have strawberry.’ He smiled. He had a beautiful smile – pleasant, interested, but not too familiar. A gentleman’s smile, in fact. You could tell he was a gentleman, even though there was this mysterious, foreign look to him. When I came back with the tea and toast, he was deep in the book again. Hardly lifted his eyes when I put down the tray and took off the heavy teapot and hot water jug – just murmured a little sound that might have been ‘thank you’ when I put the plate of toast in front of him. I slid the milk jug next to the teapot and placed the cup and saucer to the right of the toast, turning the cup the right way up, and moving the menu stand to a position near the wall. I placed the jam next to the milk, moved everything round again. I made as much noise as I decently could, hoping he’d look up. All the time I couldn’t take my eyes off the beauty of his skin, his narrow face with its long, nice-shaped nose, and his eyelids drawn down slantingly over his eyes. ‘Is that all right, sir? Anything else?’

He looked up, surprised. As if he’d never seen me before, let alone given me an order; as if I might have been a Martian come to stand in front of him. Then he looked down at the table as if the tea and toast had come from another planet as well; as if he hadn’t heard me clash about for five minutes right under his nose. ‘Yes. Thank you,’ he said, smiling up at me. ‘Everything looks very nice.’ And he opened his napkin, laid it carefully across his lap and stretched out his beautiful brown hand for the teapot. His skin looked so much like velvet. I couldn’t help staring, wishing my own was half as lovely. I wanted to stroke it. And, yes, kiss it, too. Let my lips feel the soft smoothness, let the feel of it go straight to my brain.

I was completely daft about nice-looking men. But it was all in my head, all romance and daydreams; I wasn’t a good-time girl who’d flirt with anybody. The man had to be dead right – well-dressed, and well-mannered – or he meant nothing to me. I was always looking out for the perfect gentleman. A man like Leslie Howard, in fact. Leslie was my ideal. I loved all his films. I’d go to the Odeon on my afternoon off and sit through the programme two or three times, until the anthem came up and the lights came on, and I’d walk out in a kind of dream. I kept wishing the men I met in my life were more like Leslie. Most of our customers were genteel, of course, and I’d married myself off to doctors and solicitors on no end of occasions since I’d started work at the hotel. But behind the scenes, there wasn’t much choice. I’d given up on the porter’s boy by the end of the first week. He liked to tell stupid jokes, and whistled loudly if your petticoat was showing even a little bit. And Mr Reeves and Mr Mullan were far too old for me. I’d once had a fancy for Keith Beddoes, the delivery boy from Smollett’s, who winked at me with his arms around a cardboard box full of veg and asked, ‘Anything doing, kiddo?’ But in the end, I gave him the cold shoulder. He was good-looking, but a bit full of himself, and I could tell he was just waiting for a chance to pinch my bottom or put his hand up my skirt. I couldn’t bear the thought of that. One day, I knew, I was bound to find a man like Leslie. He’d come to the restaurant and our eyes would meet.

Miss Jennings always laughed at my ideas. ‘These people – they’re ships that pass in the night,’ she’d say, as she collected up all the forgotten scarves and umbrellas left behind in the cloakroom. ‘Don’t you get any romantic ideas, Elsie, or you’re bound to be disappointed.’ And although I loved the idea of two great lit-up liners passing each other, bright white against midnight blue, with me leaping across the gap into the arms of a handsome stranger, I realized that she was right. Most of my customers behaved as if I didn’t exist. They came in a rush, taking off coats and gloves, and talked amongst themselves without so much as a glance at me. Just one or two were chatty and used to tell me what they got up to when they weren’t tucking into cream teas or crêpes suzette. Mr Reynolds, for example. He came nearly every lunchtime and had a lamb chop or a piece of steak, always with season’s vegetables and rice pudding afterwards. He was quite old, with mottled skin like a toad, but always had some story to tell me and didn’t seem to notice my neck and hands. ‘You always brighten my day, Elsie,’ he used to say with a wink. ‘You’re a lovely girl.’

Did he really think I was lovely? Sometimes I’d try to get a glimpse of my reflection in the floor-length mirror in the lobby and persuade myself I looked normal enough in my tailored black dress and white starched pinny.

Now I hovered over the handsome young man, loath to leave him. It was nice, just to be so close to him, to be breathing the same air. ‘Let me know if you want anything else, sir. I’ll be just here.’ I indicated the sideboard where the silver cutlery lay in baskets, where the clean napkins were folded and stacked, where rows of cruets waited to be filled, and where Winnie sat at the cash register totting up the lunchtime takings. It was three o’clock; a quiet time. Lunch had finished and tea had not yet begun. In half an hour Mavis would come on duty, the rush would start and I’d be up to my eyes in orders for Welsh rarebit and ‘a choice of pastries if you don’t mind, Miss’. But in the meantime I could get away with standing at the counter and feasting my eyes on the young man’s beauty as he sat there in his heavy coat, idly stirring his tea, his hot buttered toast left untouched in front of him as he devoured the contents of his book instead. I pretended to give an extra shine to the knives and forks as I watched him from the corner of my eye. He went on reading for ages, drinking his tea absent-mindedly, so in the end I went across to him, squeezing again through the empty tables and chairs, my tray like a shield in front of me.

‘Finished, sir?’

‘By all means.’ He pushed his teacup away, still reading.

‘You haven’t touched your toast,’ I said, as I removed his plate.

He looked up. Then looked at the toast. Again, that look of surprise, as if he hardly recognized it. ‘Oh dear. I’m afraid I forgot.’

‘Well, it’s gone cold now.’

‘Yes, indeed.’ He looked at it unhappily; almost guiltily. I felt slightly guilty too, as it had been me that had pushed him into having the toast, and now he had wasted his money. I didn’t know if this mattered to him. I couldn’t tell if he was well-off or not. His coat looked as if it had been expensive once, and his hat had a nice curl to the brim and, all in all, he had a well-kept kind of look. But I had an idea that money didn’t come easily to him, and that he spent it carefully.

‘You were too busy reading,’ I said, adding boldly, ‘It must be a good book.’

‘Very good. Food for the mind. I’ll have to make do with that.’ He smiled again and my heart fluttered again. But if I’d hoped he would share the contents with me I was disappointed. He closed the book and slid it into his pocket. ‘How much do I owe you?’

‘Two and threepence,’ I said, tearing his order off my pad. ‘Pay at the desk, sir,’ I added as he started to rummage for change in his trousers.

‘Of course. But I was looking for …’ He put a shilling on the tablecloth.

‘Oh, that’s too much!’ I cried.

He looked even more surprised than he’d done before. Nobody turns down a tip, especially a generous one.

‘I mean, it was my fault you had the toast,’ I added lamely.

‘Not at all. And it certainly wasn’t your fault that I didn’t eat it. I’m always letting food go cold. My mother despairs of me.’ He was getting up, picking up his trilby, trying to slide his chair back and getting stuck in that awkward corner, chair and table legs tangling in their usual stupid way.

‘Here, let me move it.’ I reached to pull the table out and as I did so, my sleeves slid up my arms an inch or two. I saw his glance fall on the backs of my hands, my wrists, and I hastily pulled my cuffs back down. ‘Sorry,’ I said, feeling the blood pulse in my neck and cheeks.

‘Nothing to apologize for,’ he said, and I didn’t know whether he meant he had seen or not seen. Or whether he had seen and forgotten it, as a gentleman should. Then he said, ‘Good afternoon,’ made his way to Winnie’s desk and paid quickly before walking out into the lobby. He checked his watch before putting on his hat, descending the hotel steps and turning right. Another ship passed by, I thought.

But after supper, when I was lying on my bed, still in uniform, trying to ignore the sound of Winnie’s wireless from next door, I thought about him again. I reckoned he must be five or six years older than me – around twenty or twenty-one. It was difficult to judge his age as he was quite boyish-looking, but when he spoke, it was in a grown-up way that was completely different from Keith and the other lads. He was clearly very clever, because no one read a book – especially such a dull-looking book – in that concentrated kind of way unless they were. And he lived with his mother. I imagined she’d be dark-haired and dark-eyed like him – a foreigner perhaps, come to England for the love of an Englishman but left a widow with an only child and a small private income. I decided his mother would have just enough money to stop her son from having to work, but not enough to allow them to live in style. Their clothes would be good quality but not new, and she would, I thought, do her own cooking, while the young man would sit at the table in their artistic dining room with his nose in a book, letting the food go cold while he read about – what? Not romance, I felt sure. Not Mary Webb, Ethel M. Dell, or American detective stories. Something serious and quiet. Philosophy, perhaps. That was the most serious thing I could think of, although I had no idea what it really was. However, I imagined the young man taking me back to his house in the leafy suburbs and introducing me to a dark-eyed lady with black hair plaited over the top of her head and coloured shawls over her shoulders, and who would keep a gramophone continually on the wind with gypsy music while she presented dish after dish of exotic fare. Hungarian goulash, possibly, like we had in the restaurant sometimes. ‘My son is very absent-minded,’ she would say. ‘I despair of him. He needs a good woman to look after him. Someone just like you, Elsie.’

‘Elsie, can you do me a favour?’ It was Miss Jennings, rattling my doorknob. She was always bothering me about something or other at bedtime. I got off the bed and opened the door. She had on her satin dressing gown, as usual, and her hair was wound in pin curls and covered with a heavy-duty net. Her skin was shiny with cold cream and gave off a smell I always thought was too sweet – almost sickly, in fact. ‘Oh, Elsie,’ she said, taking my hand in her clammy one. ‘I’ve just put my hair in curls and now I need something from the late chemist. Can you be a love and go for me?’

‘It’s quarter to ten,’ I said grumpily, not wanting to get my swollen feet back into my shoes.

‘I know, dear, but it’s, you know’ – she lowered her voice – ‘time of the month. Come on, Elsie, I’ll do the same for you. Hurry up, or they’ll be shut.’

So I put on my hat and coat and shoved my feet into shoes that seemed to have shrunk two sizes since I took them off, took the slightly greasy two shilling piece, and scuttled down the back stairs with a bad grace. I liked the chance to be friendly with Miss Jennings, to have cocoa with her and chat about how she did her nails, but sometimes I felt she seemed to be taking advantage of the fact that I was the youngest girl on the staff – and although she always promised she’d make things up to me, somehow she never really did.

The late chemist was on a corner down a side street, three blocks from the hotel, just where Stephenson Street ended. I’d never been inside. It had two big glass flasks of coloured water in the window, blue and red, lit up from inside and casting queer stripes of colour everywhere. The rest of the shop was dark. I was afraid it was shut, but the door opened when I pushed it, the bell jangling loudly. A man in a white coat stood silently behind the long counter, as if he had been there for ever, waiting for me to arrive. His freckled skin seemed to glow in an eerie manner in the red and blue light. His spectacles were the magnifying kind, and made his eyes look three times as big as normal. I stopped for a moment, not sure what to say. I never liked asking men for sanitary stuff, and would usually wait ages to get a lady assistant – but there was no one else in the shop so I rushed the name out as quickly as I could. ‘A box of Dr White’s, please.’

He sighed, casting a glance up at the clock. ‘You leave things until the last minute, don’t you, young lady? I close at ten. You’ve only just caught me. What would you have done if I’d been closed, eh? Eh?’ He put his white speckled face close to mine, then drew back and gave a kind of laugh that wasn’t really a laugh at all.

I said it wasn’t for me, but for ‘somebody at the hotel’. I tried to imply that it was a guest, somebody important – and it seemed to work, because he stopped laughing and produced a box from under the counter. ‘One and three.’

‘Can you wrap it, please?’ I wasn’t going all the way back advertising Dr White’s, even in the dark.

The chemist slowly pulled out a brown paper bag, slipped the box inside it in rather a pointed way and slid it across the counter. I put the two shillings down and he took it, opened the till and, after a few minutes chinking about in the coin box, came up with the change, which he put on the counter with a smack. I stretched to pick it up, not thinking about my skin because the shop was so dark and the man so old – but the next minute he was gripping my wrist. His hand felt horrible and sweaty. My mother had always warned me to be careful of men like this, and there had been one or two at the hotel who had tried to grab me from behind. But now I was on my own in a dark and deserted shop. I couldn’t help thinking about the crazy scientist I’d read about in Her Present Danger who kidnapped young girls so they could extract the essence of their youth. This man was a chemist; he might know how to do it. ‘Let me go!’ I cried, my voice not bold at all, but high and wobbly.

‘Don’t be such a silly little blighter! I’m not going to hurt you. I just wanted to take a look at your skin.’ He pushed up my cuff and ran his thumb roughly across the raised ridges of my arm, sending white scaly flakes drifting onto the counter.

‘Please,’ I said, trying desperately to slip my wrist out of his grasp. But he ignored me, pulled my arm closer, and looked at it over the top of his glasses.

‘You’ve been scratching, haven’t you, naughty girl? I can see – scratch, scratch, scratch.’ He looked at me crossly. ‘Don’t you ever put anything on it?’

‘Nothing’s any good.’ I said, more sure of myself now – after all, I’d spent years putting calamine on it, getting myself stiff and powdery to no avail. ‘Ma says it’s incurable.’

‘I know that,’ he said tetchily. ‘I’m a medical man, for heaven’s sake. But there are treatments that can tone it down a bit. You’re a young girl; you don’t want to have to hide away under layers of clothes for the rest of your life. Let me have a proper look. Take your coat off.’

I knew there was nothing that would persuade me to take off as much as a hair-ribbon in front of him, but he still had hold of my wrist. ‘No, thank you,’ I said, making another attempt at sounding self-possessed. ‘I’m in a hurry. People are waiting for me at the hotel.’

‘Oh, hoity-toity! Well, it’s not my funeral,’ he said, suddenly losing interest. ‘Here you are, silly child. If you want to suffer, suffer.’ And he released my wrist with a flick of annoyance, as if my scaly arm was something useless he was throwing to the dogs.

I pulled down my cuff, grabbed the Dr White’s and the change, and turned tail, almost throwing myself at the shop door. The doorbell jangled madly as I wrenched the handle up and down in a panic, all sorts of wild imaginings surging through my brain. I nearly fainted as I heard the chemist come up behind me. I thought he was about to drug me with chloroform and make me a prisoner in his cellar and no one would ever know. But the door suddenly opened, smooth as silk, and I fell out into the street.

I began to run. I could see some people coming out of a building up ahead. Men and women laughing and talking, but not like people when they come out of a pub. Excited, I thought, but more serious. There was quite a group of them and they spilled over the pavement and into the road. In my panic I headed straight through the middle of them. Someone jostled my arm and the box slipped out of its paper bag onto the pavement. A man bent to pick it up. ‘Sorry about that! We’re a fearful lot when we get excited. Here you are.’ The speaker rose and looked at me. It was the young man with the lovely skin. His face was even handsomer in the lamplight, his eyes even blacker around the rims. ‘Why,’ he said, with a look of such pleasure that my heart battered against my ribs. ‘It’s my little waitress! My little waitress who thought a shilling was too much for a tip.’ I didn’t know what to say as he stood there smiling with the box in his hands. He must have seen what it was, although he gave no sign. I was tremendously excited to see him, of course, and felt relieved to be in the middle of a group of normal people after my fright with the chemist, but I was embarrassed about him standing there with that box on display.

‘I’ve just been running an errand for a friend,’ I explained. ‘Well, not really a friend – someone from the hotel.’

‘Well, don’t let us keep you. It must be urgent. You’re quite out of breath.’ He handed back the box. I realized I was panting hard with fright, and that my hands were shaking so much I couldn’t put it back into its bag. The cheap brown paper began to tear as I tried to shove it in.

‘Let me do it.’ Another pair of hands came forward. A woman’s. Work-worn and sensible, with a silvery wedding ring. A kind face, pale dried skin, as if she had powdered with talc. ‘Jack told us about you, you know. We thought you were rather marvellous, refusing a tip. Jack always overdoes the compensation.’

I was astonished that the young man had discussed such a thing with his friends, and with this woman who I thought for a moment might be his wife, but who looked too old. ‘Oh, it just didn’t seem fair,’ I replied. ‘I thought maybe he needed it more than me.’

There was a burst of very hearty laughter from the small group around us. I felt very silly and very young. ‘I have to go now,’ I said hastily. ‘Miss Jennings is relying on me.’

Jack smiled. ‘Off you go, then,’ he said. ‘Sweet dreams,’ he added, raising his hat.

I couldn’t think of anything else that night – and for every night afterwards – except for the mysterious Jack raising his hat and smiling at me. Each teatime I waited for the sight of him, hoping to see his narrow head bent over that old red book. On my first afternoon off, I even gave up the chance to see Leslie in It’s Love I’m After so I could walk to the building where I’d seen him. There was a brass plate on the door. It said ‘The Carlton Rooms and Exhibition Hall’. The door was shut and there was no way of telling what went on inside. Mr Reynolds, when I asked him later, said all sorts of things happened there. People hired out rooms, he said. He had himself been to a meeting of the Antiquarian Society there only last week. ‘What’s your interest, Elsie?’ he said. ‘You should be going out dancing or to the flicks, not bothering about a musty old place like that.’ I said I had run into someone I knew there, but didn’t know where that person lived to look him up. ‘Ah,’ said Mr Reynolds. ‘He’ll be doing the looking up himself, if he’s got any sense.’

But I knew Jack was never going to look me up. He didn’t know who I was, and even if he remembered me kindly, it was simply as a ‘little waitress’. I was too young and too common to interest him in any other way. And of course there was my skin. It was flaring up badly then, spots creeping up my neck and behind my ears. But all the same, on my next day off I was back at the Carlton Rooms, like a moth to a candle. This time the door was open and there was an elderly gent on duty in the lobby. ‘What can I do for you, young lady?’ he said in a friendly sort of way when he saw me hovering around. Then he made a lot of fuss getting out a big ledger from behind the desk, and after much turning of pages, checking and re-checking of dates and tracing about with his finger, he finally came to it: ‘Wednesday 19th – Photography Club in the Charles Ramsden Room, Peace Pledge Union in the Main Hall, and Philosophy Society in the library.’ I was delighted with myself. Jack was a philosopher just like I’d imagined. I thought that if I waited outside the hall when the Philosophy Club ended the next Wednesday I was sure to see Jack coming out. I worked out a number of excuses as to why I should be there at that particular time, and what I would say to Jack when he saw me; and I imagined how he would offer me his arm and take me back to the hotel and raise his hat and ask when he might see me again. But even though I waited for several Wednesdays, watching all the different people coming out and drifting down the street in twos and threes, Jack never appeared.

I realized that I’d been kidding myself, anyway. No real gentleman who came and ate in the hotel was going to fall in love with a mere waitress. I told myself that I needed to give up my stupid imaginings and concentrate on bettering myself. That’s what my mother had hoped for when she sent me off with my cardboard suitcase and one change of clothes to ‘learn how to lay a table and talk ladylike’. She thought I might even get to be a housekeeper at a big house if I was lucky and took my chance when it came. Every letter she wrote ended with the hope that I would ‘get on’, and every time I went home for a weekend she’d make sure I hadn’t forgotten. ‘Don’t be like me, Elsie,’ she’d say, rolling out soggy pastry on the kitchen table, all the kids running round, and my sister Peggy trying to keep them in order. ‘Make something of yourself. Don’t let a husband and kids drag you down.’

By then I was pretty good at silver service, and I started to learn all the French words on the menu and say them in the proper way. As well as that, I used to hang around in the kitchen in the mornings while Mr Mullan prepared the food. Then, when the customers asked about Hollandaise sauce or Cutlets Reform, I was able to explain what they were straight away. Mr Reeves the manager said I was the best trainee he had come across, and after Mrs Walsh left to look after her sick auntie in Teignmouth, he made me head waitress, even though I was two years younger than Mavis. ‘It’s not years that count,’ he said. ‘It’s what you’ve got up here.’ And he put his finger to his forehead and tapped it knowingly.

Then, six months later, when Winnie left to marry the encyclopedia salesman who’d always come in for a grilled plaice on Fridays, I was put in charge of the cash desk – ‘A position of great trust’, said Mr Reeves as he counted out the float in front of me that first day.

Lots of things started to change, then. Of course I’d seen the newsreels with Hitler spouting off in front of all those thousands of Nazis, but I’d always thought he was somebody comical, with his silly moustache and staring eyes. Keith Beddoes used to mimic him in the store-room with a finger under his nose and his arm stuck up in the air as he marched about: Sieg Heil! He made Mavis and me laugh. But now people were talking about things getting serious, and other countries getting invaded. Sometimes we had guests with foreign accents in the hotel. ‘Refugees,’ explained Mr Reynolds. ‘People who can see the writing on the wall.’ And then all of a sudden, with just a week’s notice, Miss Jennings left to join the Wrens with her very best friend Miss Carter. ‘War is on the cards, Elsie,’ she said, as she gave me a big, and rather sticky, kiss of farewell. ‘Look after yourself, my love, and don’t get taken advantage of.’ Six months later, Mr Chamberlain was on the radio telling us the terrible news.

Well, half the men at the hotel joined up straight away, and we were so short-staffed that Mr Reeves had to do a lot more work than he was used to. He was always rushing about looking exasperated and never wanted to be asked anything at all, even if you needed something important like keys to the pantry or the linen cupboard. At the same time, everybody in the world seemed to want to come to the hotel for afternoon tea, so we started doing tea dances twice a week in the ballroom – which was a lot of extra work for me and Mavis. All the enlisted men came in to show off their new uniforms, and parents and sweethearts came to say farewell over iced buns and petits fours. Mavis and I would do a bit of a foxtrot with the trays as we swirled in and out. Life was so hectic that I only had time to get up, do my work, and go to bed. I had no time for dreams. Even about Jack.

In fact, the only spare time I had in those days was between breakfast and lunch, when Mrs Willacott was doing the morning coffees. If the weather was fine, I’d go up with Mavis to the little bit of flat roof over the ballroom and sunbathe behind the wall. No one could see us, and I used to take down my thick stockings and let my skin feel the sun. Mavis would look at my scabs with pity as she stretched out her white legs next to my mottled ones.

‘Do they hurt?’ she said once, eyeing the shiny red patches on my knees that looked like continents rising from the sea, with a whole lot of separate islands dotted about up and down from my ankles to the top of my legs.

‘Flaming agony,’ I said, although this was a lie. It was just that the scabs itched a lot and sometimes I couldn’t help scratching. Then the blood would seep through my stockings, even though I wore two thick pairs. I always had to be on the lookout for the stains.

‘You’re lucky they’re not on your face,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Although I’d be a blinking sight luckier if I didn’t have them at all.’ Then she asked me if I thought it would make any difference to my getting married, and I could see her thinking of my poor husband and the shock he would have on our wedding night. ‘I don’t think I’ll get married,’ I said.

‘Don’t you want kids? I want to have three kids,’ she said, as if that were the only point in getting married.

‘Maybe you won’t stop at three. Maybe you’ll have seven. One every eighteen months like my ma,’ I said callously. ‘I’d rather keep out of all that. Anyway, I want to get on in life.’

* * *

And get on I did, although I never forgot Jack. He kept himself in some hidden part of me even when I thought I’d grown out of my romantic stage. I still went to the flicks, of course, and I still held a candle for Leslie Howard, but I knew a bit more about the way of the world. I almost blushed thinking how I must have appeared to Jack that day – a flat-chested kid with bad skin and cow’s eyes, holding a box of sanitary towels. My only comfort was that Jack wouldn’t have remembered me at all; and that we were never going to meet again.

So it was a shock to me when I saw him a few years later. It was about the middle of the war and I was dead tired with all the endless work and making do – not to mention the sleepless nights in the cellars because of the bombing. It was Mr Reeves’ half-day off (he had a lot of half-days then), and I was on my way to the kitchens to check the rations with Mr Mullan. As I passed the dining room I glanced in casually to check on the new girl, not expecting anything out of the ordinary. But there he was, silhouetted against the window, handsome as ever. I caught my breath, thinking I must be imagining things. Maybe it was just someone else who looked like him; someone else slim and dark. Then he glanced towards the door where I was standing, and I was in no doubt.

Just like the first time, the dining room was pretty empty. The tea dance was in full swing in the ballroom and the sound of a saxophone was echoing down the hall. I could see the new waitress sauntering towards Jack’s table in a half-soaked sort of way, and I headed her off quickly. ‘I’ll see to this gentleman, Jean,’ I said, pulling down my cuffs and pulling up my collar.

He wasn’t reading this time; he was alert, on edge, eyes flicking from window to door. I knew the signs, of course: he was waiting for someone. It was bound to be a woman. Why wouldn’t it be – he was young and handsome, and if I’d fallen for him on sight, surely some other woman would have? I wanted him to myself, though, to talk about tea and jam and hot buttered toast. I didn’t know if I could bear to see another woman sitting across from him, taking his lovely soft hands into hers.

‘May I take your order, sir?’ I smiled, hoping he’d recognize me. But he gave no sign. His face, as he turned to look at me, was thinner and paler than I remembered and the dark lashes around his eyes looked even more intense.

‘Not yet, thank you. I’m waiting for someone.’ He added, ‘My mother and sisters. They’re always late. Ah, here they –’

He rose with a smile, colour coming to his cheeks, and I turned and saw in the doorway a plump, middle-aged woman in a mushroom-coloured two-piece, followed by two very smartly dressed young ladies. They all rushed forward and clung to him, laughing and crying at the same time. Jack had trouble keeping upright underneath their assault, and it struck me again that he seemed rather frailer than before. I knew what all the excitement meant, of course: Jack was off to battle, and his family had come to say goodbye. We’d had plenty of scenes like this in the last two or three years. The only thing that was strange was that he wasn’t in uniform – just a plain dark suit which didn’t fit him very well. He still looked lovely, though, and I wanted to eat him with my eyes.

I was a bit disappointed that his mother had no exotic scarves and no plaits of foreign-looking hair. In fact, she looked just like any of the women who regularly came to lunch at the hotel – little hat with a feather perched on her head, a fox fur around her shoulders. Only the colour of her skin marked her out. It had that old rose colour and velvety texture that I so admired in Jack, and she had the same striking eyelashes. The sisters were equally dark, with lots of black curls. Their velvet tams, worn on one side, were especially fashionable. All three took a long time to get seated, deciding who should sit next to Jack and who should sit opposite. ‘Oh, Jack!’ they kept saying, jumping up and down, and kissing him over and over, and, ‘Oh, Jack,’ again when they finished. And even when they were seated, it seemed the mother could not take her eyes off her son. She patted his hand and even leant across the table and stroked his head. He didn’t seem at all embarrassed and looked at them all and gave a smile which was much wider than I’d seen from him before. He seemed full of love for them, and not at all absent-minded.

‘Would you care to look at the menu?’ I asked, once they were slightly more settled. ‘We have a selection of cakes and pastries as well as muffins and hot buttered toast.’ I handed the menu to Jack. ‘Jam’s included, needless to say.’ I wanted to see if he’d remembered. He looked up at me for a moment, as if an old memory was stirring but he couldn’t quite place what it was. But seconds later his sisters had distracted him, saying, my goodness, didn’t they know there was a war on down here in Devon and gosh, he must have a custard slice, or was he hungry and did he want sardines on toast or an omelette? ‘Oh, Jack,’ they kept saying. ‘We can’t believe you’re back with us.’ They touched him again and again as if to make sure he wasn’t a ghost. And he laughed and raised his hand to pat the younger sister affectionately on the back.

And that’s when I saw his fingers. The skin was black and blistered and scarred right up to the knuckles, and his nails were uneven and torn. I wanted to cry out with shock. It was like a pain going through me to see his lovely hands in such a state and I couldn’t imagine what had happened to them. But I kept my pencil steady and wrote down the entire order, crossing it out as they changed their minds and changed them back again. ‘Oh, we’re so sorry, Miss,’ said the older sister. ‘Please excuse us. We’re just so excited.’

When I came back with the tray, they were all so wrapped up in each other that they didn’t notice how I was trembling, how I nearly spilled the tea and the hot water, how I seemed to get egg custard on the fruit cake and trailed a line of sardine scales along the milk jug, how the spoon fell out of the strawberry jam, and the tongs over-balanced from the sugar basin. ‘How lovely,’ murmured the mother, as she surveyed it all, tea and children. ‘How long has it been since we all ate a meal together?’

‘Now, Mother! Don’t be morbid,’ the younger and livelier of the sisters piped up. ‘The worst is over. We have to think of the future, now.’

How could the worst be over? And as for the future – was I about to lose Jack as soon as Fate had brought him back to me? I watched them from the till as they talked and laughed. It was such a different Jack, so lively and happy. I wanted to be part of his family, to be able to touch him and joke with him as they did in their easy way.

When I was clearing the dishes, the mother opened her handbag and discreetly passed a five pound note across to him, but he shook his head and wouldn’t take it. ‘You have to have some money, Jack. However you feel about it, you can’t live on air,’ she said. I couldn’t help wondering what had happened to the private income and why his mother was giving him money like he was a child. She then tried a pound, and finally a ten shilling note, which he took as if he really didn’t want to and only because his sister pushed it into his pocket, saying, ‘Even a saint like you needs to eat and drink.’ It struck me as a funny thing to say about your brother. None of my brothers were anything like saints, especially Douglas, who was always in some sort of trouble, pinching things and being places he shouldn’t be. Dad had had to take the strap to him more than once. I was surprised, though, when they all got up and said goodbye in quite a happy way. Much too happy, I thought, considering that next week he could be sunk in a convoy or shot down from a burning plane.

Jack’s mother paid the bill and said they had to hurry or they would miss the train to London. Jack ushered them out, and I followed, loitering in the doorway, thinking he might ask for his hat and coat and I could help him on with them, feeling the soft cashmere or the silk lining as I made my own private farewell. It was only when his mother kissed him again and said, ‘Goodbye, darling. And don’t forget to write!’ that I realized they were going without him. And then, when he’d waved them off, he turned back and went past me up the stairs. I could hardly believe it. I slipped behind the counter and checked in the visitors’ book. There on the bottom line, Jack Thompson, Cavendish Square, London, in dark, neat handwriting. Such an English name. And such a posh-sounding address. And how posh all of them had been, his mother and sisters. I must have seemed really stupid to refuse his shilling three years before.

I wanted to make amends for my stupidity, by serving Jack the very best cuts of meat and one of the secret desserts Mr Mullan kept in the cold larder for favoured customers. I’d show Jack how sophisticated I’d got and perhaps, this time, he would tell me something about his real self. From seven o’clock on I had my eyes trained on the dining room entrance, and nearly ran into Mavis three times. ‘What’s the matter, Elsie?’ she said. ‘You’re a real clodhopper tonight!’ But nine o’clock came, the dining room emptied, and Jack hadn’t come.

‘How long is Mr Thompson staying?’ I asked Mr Reeves casually when we were laying up for the next day’s breakfast. Mr Reeves said only the one night, booked from London by telephone he believed, and could I be a dear and take some cocoa up to twenty-one as Mavis was washing up and the new girl had gone home with a sick headache. ‘I wouldn’t normally ask you to do room service, but I know I can rely on you when the chips are down.’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Anything to help the war effort, Mr Reeves.’

In fact, I made two cups of cocoa and after taking the first to twenty-one, I knocked on the adjoining door. Jack opened it. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, his arms all golden and smooth. He must have been reading again, as his book was open on the bed. I could see the dent on the coverlet where he’d been lying. ‘Your cocoa, Mr Thompson,’ I said.

He frowned. ‘You’ve made a mistake, I think,’ he said.

‘No, it’s for you. I made it specially. Only you mustn’t let it go cold like you usually do.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

I felt embarrassed now. He clearly didn’t remember and I was near to making a fool of myself. But it was worth one more go.

‘We’ve met before. Three years ago. You gave me a shilling tip and I didn’t want to take it.’

He laughed. ‘Good lord! When I came down for that PPU meeting! I’m so sorry – I didn’t recognize you. You were a lot younger, I think. Well, obviously you were, but I mean – not so elegant and grown-up.’ I blushed, glad I had put my hair up before dinner and dabbed on a little lipstick. He surveyed me as I stood in the doorway, cup in hand, and I wondered whether he was considering if I was now more worthy of his notice. But he only said, ‘I’m afraid I can’t give you any kind of tip this time. I’ve only got a ten shilling note.’

‘Take it anyway,’ I said, holding out the cocoa. ‘Or I’ll have to pour it down the sink, and that would be a waste of rations.’

‘Well, we can’t have that.’ He took the cup, then paused. ‘Are you allowed to come in while I drink it? I could do with some company. Or is that against the rules?’

My heart thudded in my chest. ‘I’m off duty now,’ I lied. ‘So I can do as I please.’

‘Will you come in then?’

And so I found myself stepping into Jack’s bedroom with Jack there in his shirt sleeves and his book on the bed, and the bedside lamp glowing just as dimly as the one on the corner table three years before. I didn’t care if Mr Reeves saw me. I didn’t care if I got the sack. I was alone with Jack. It was like the night before battle when men and women do all kinds of foolish things.

‘Do sit down.’ He removed his jacket from the back of the rickety bedroom chair, moved his book onto the chest of drawers and sat on the edge of the bed. He lifted the cup to his lips. I didn’t look at his fingers, just concentrated on the burnished shine of his forearms in the lamplight. I could feel myself trembling. I had no idea what was going to happen.

We sat in silence for a bit while he drank. He didn’t seem to mind the silence but I felt so wound up that I had to speak. ‘What is it you’re reading?’ I said, nodding at the book. I almost bit back the words as I said them, because I hated it when people said the same thing to me. Mr Reeves and Mavis were always asking me that question, though they had no interest whatsoever in the answer.

He hesitated, and I could see he didn’t want to seem too highbrow. But he just said, ‘Bertrand Russell.’

I’d heard the name, but I’d never seen his books in the lending library. ‘What sort of thing does he write?’

‘Philosophy, mainly.’

‘Really?’ I couldn’t help grinning. I really had been right in that old guess of mine.

‘And mathematics too. But I don’t understand a lot of that.’ He smiled, and I knew he was trying to make me feel better about being uneducated. That was the sort of gentleman he was.

But I put him right. ‘Oh, I’m pretty good at figures. I’m responsible for the till and have to do the balance at the end of the day. Mr Reeves hates it if we’re a farthing out – not that we are usually, but Mavis forgets things sometimes.’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Arithmetic. Rather you than me. I could never do all those calculations – you know, the ones involving thirty pounds of bananas at fivepence halfpenny a pound.’ He laughed.

‘That would be: five thirties are one hundred and fifty, plus thirty halfpennies is fifteen pence, equals a hundred and sixty-five pence, which is – divided by twelve –’ I paused ‘– thirteen shillings and ninepence.’

He stared at me. ‘Good Lord!’

‘It’s not difficult,’ I said, blushing a bit. ‘I mean, I have to do it every day, so it’s second nature.’ Then I felt foolish. What was I doing showing off like a child in front of the teacher, when I wanted to impress him with my grown-up charm?

‘Well,’ he said. ‘I’m impressed. Not that we have any bananas to count, these days. My mother says she hasn’t seen one in I don’t know how long.’

‘We got hold of a few last year. Mr Mullan put them in a trifle to make them go further.’

‘Trifle, eh? You do well for yourselves down here, don’t you? Eggs, cream, butter, cakes. My sisters were envious. They can’t get much of that in London …’

‘Well, we’ve got our own chickens out the back. And Mr Mullan deals direct with a couple of farmers for the butter and so on.’

He raised his eyes. ‘Ah. Black market, you mean.’

‘Well, not really. We all have to do what we can, don’t we?’

He smiled. ‘All of us have to. In our different ways.’ And I felt suddenly tawdry, and I knew Jack would never buy anything on the black market, and would always be straight as a die.

There was another silence. Again, Jack seemed not to mind, but I felt awkward. ‘Where are you off to?’ I asked, hoping he’d say he was stationed in the local barracks – somewhere I could meet him when he had leave, where we could go to the pictures together and then have tea in a café and be waited on by somebody else.

‘Oh, somewhere in the country,’ he said, vaguely. ‘I’m afraid I’ve forgotten the name.’

Obviously, he couldn’t really have forgotten the name if he was having to get there, so I realized he must be doing something so secret he couldn’t even tell me. Careless words cost lives, after all. Perhaps there was a country house somewhere out on Dartmoor where he’d be taught wireless codes and then dropped behind enemy lines. He was so cool and nonchalant, I imagined he would make a good spy, risking his life like Leslie in Pimpernel Smith. ‘I suppose it’s a bit nerve-racking,’ I said. ‘Not knowing what’s going to happen to you from now on. Where you’ll be sent, I mean.’

‘Oh, I know what’s going to happen.’ He said it with a kind of sureness, as if he knew what he was in for. ‘It’s pretty run of the mill stuff, after all.’

‘I think you’re awfully brave.’ (They said that on the films: Awf’ly brave.)

He frowned. ‘Do you? People don’t normally say that.’ He looked down at his mangled fingers. ‘Still, it’ll be good to get active again. I feel as though my body’s atrophied these last eighteen months.’

Atrophied. I loved the long word, and the fact that he didn’t mind using it with me, although I could only guess what it meant. ‘Which Service are you in?’ I asked. ‘Or can’t you say?’

He stopped, and gave me a long look over the rim of the cup. Then he set it down. Paused. Gave me a rueful smile. ‘I’m afraid, young lady, that you may be under a misapprehension.’

Another complicated word. ‘What do you mean?’ I said. ‘What misapprehension?’

He paused again, but for such a long time that I thought he wasn’t going to answer. Then he said, ‘I’m not in the forces, I’m afraid: quite the opposite.’

‘And what would the opposite be?’ I asked, jokingly. ‘Something terribly secret?’

He looked me full in the face. ‘Not secret at all. Open for all to see and despise. I thought you must have guessed – my lack of uniform, I mean. I’m a Conscientious Objector.’

The horrible words seemed to float in the air between us. I thought for a moment that he was joking, but one look at his face told me he wasn’t. I felt almost sick. A Conshie, a coward, the lowest of the low. Even my useless dad had tried to join up, although his chest was too bad and they’d sent him to an aeroplane factory in Bristol instead.

‘There,’ he said, lightly. ‘I’ve disappointed you. You thought I was one of Our Brave Boys. Now you think I’m a coward and will want your cocoa back.’

‘No,’ I said quickly, embarrassed at the way he’d guessed my thoughts – except for the bit about the cocoa, which I wouldn’t have begrudged anyone. ‘I expect you have your reasons.’ Although I couldn’t imagine what they could be. I didn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want to fight. I’d wanted to fight myself when I heard Mr Churchill’s speech, saying we would never surrender.

‘Well, I do have my reasons, of course,’ he said. ‘Although not everyone appreciates them. Not even my mother, sometimes. In fact my mother and my sisters don’t share my embarrassing principles at all.’

‘So why are you a Conshie – entious objector?’ I asked, thinking as I said the words that it was not my place to question him, a guest at the hotel. Mr Reeves would have sacked me on the spot. ‘If you don’t mind my asking,’ I added, quickly.

He sighed, as if tired of explaining it. ‘I happen to believe that war is fundamentally wrong,’ he said. ‘That we human beings can settle our differences another way. Haven’t we learnt from our mistakes? Take the War to End All Wars? Well, it didn’t, did it? We have to forge a different understanding if we are to survive; if we are to change the way we live. I won’t have other people’s blood on my hands.’

‘But don’t you love your country?’ I asked. I’d imagined myself making a last stand on the promenade, alongside Mr Reeves and Mavis, kitchen knife in hand.

‘My country?’ he said. ‘Well, I’m not sure about that. I mean, I love the individuals in it and I’m not scared of dying for them – at least not more than any other man. But I would never say “My country right or wrong.” Because my country is often wrong. Most ordinary people on both sides don’t want war and we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be bullied into it.’ He spoke quickly, quietly, seemed so sure of himself that I could tell he’d said the words before, probably many times. ‘Look,’ he said, as if passing on a really important thing, ‘the fact that a bomb might one day kill my sister in London – and God knows I’d be half-crazy if it did – it doesn’t justify me flying off and bombing someone else’s grandmother in Berlin. And it’s equally wrong that the person whose grandmother was killed should come and bomb, say, your uncle in Taunton. Don’t you see how cruel and illogical it is?’

What he said made sense in a sort of way, but I couldn’t see Hitler taking any notice of the logic. I was surprised that Jack even thought he might. I didn’t know what to say, so I stayed quiet. He was quiet too. He probably thought I was too stupid to understand. ‘So what are you doing down here, if you’re not joining up?’ I asked at last. ‘I mean, you live in London, don’t you? It said Cavendish Square in the book.’

‘What?’ That old absent-minded look. ‘Oh, yes, I do have a flat there. Or, at least, I did. My mother has it now and I just perch there from time to time. I didn’t have much use for it before the war with all the travelling I did.’

‘Travelling?’ I thought of my midnight ships and tropical islands, and thought of Jack in a white suit, leaning over the rail. ‘Abroad?’ I said.

He laughed. ‘Good Lord, no. Just lots of train journeys to obscure places. Lots of strong tea and stale buns. And lots of high-minded talk. We thought we’d get our way, in those days. I had a very successful Peace Pledge meeting here in this town – that’s why I was here, you know, that day I gave you the shilling. I didn’t think I’d be coming back as a prisoner eighteen months later.’

He said the word ‘prisoner’ lightly but I still got a shock. ‘You were in prison?’ I said. It made sense suddenly – the skin and the nails, and the way his clothes didn’t fit. But it didn’t seem the right sort of place for him.

He nodded. ‘Well, you know what they do to us Conshies. We mustn’t contaminate the general population. But why they sent me here of all places I don’t know. It was difficult for Mother and the girls to visit. Another subtle punishment, I suppose.’

‘Was it very bad?’ I’d heard the Conshies were half-starved. Mrs Willacott’s nephew worked in the prison kitchens and said they were poor little specimens who didn’t eat meat and were probably too weedy to fight even if they wanted to. I hadn’t taken much notice at the time; I’d thought Conshies deserved all they got.

Jack gave a funny kind of smile. ‘I wouldn’t exactly recommend prison life. I had nothing to read for six months. I think that was the worst thing of all; I think that might have broken my spirit if anything would. And then of course I got to know the size and shape of mailbags more intimately than I cared for. That black waxed thread was the very devil.’ Jack turned his hand, showed me his stained and mangled fingers. I cast down my eyes, unable to look. ‘But it gives you time to think, to see if you can stand up for what you believe, in practice.’

‘But you’re out for good, now?’ I said. ‘They’ve let you out?’

‘Yes, they let me out. The Government and I have come to an understanding. I shall be working on the land. After all, I have no conscientious objection to people being fed.’

I couldn’t help being relieved. I didn’t care if Jack had funny ideas. He wouldn’t be going to the Far East or Africa. He wouldn’t be manning a convoy in the North Atlantic or battling in the skies above our heads. He would be safe on a farm. Even if I never saw him again, I’d know he was alive.

He drained his cup. ‘That was very welcome. Even if I got it on false pretences.’

I shrugged. ‘I thought you might need it. You didn’t come down for dinner.’

‘Oh.’ That old absent-minded look again. ‘I forgot, I’m afraid.’

‘Weren’t you hungry?’ I was famished if I missed a meal, but there was always something to pick at in the kitchen as long as Mr Mullan didn’t see.

‘I’m used to being hungry. You’re hungry all the time in prison. And anyway, I had a good tea. An extremely good tea, as it happens.’

‘And you were reading, too.’ I nodded towards the book.

‘Yes, Bertrand Russell kept me busy. You should try him some time.’

I wasn’t sure I could read hard books like that but I said I might try. He held out the finished cup and I stretched out my hand to take it. As I did so, my cuff slid back and a flaky red patch of skin slipped into view. He frowned. ‘Oh dear, have you scalded yourself?’ He put down the cup, and bent forward, taking my hand in his, examining my wrist in a probing way, like a doctor.

I felt myself go scarlet. All evening I’d kept imagining how it would feel if he touched me, but not in this pitying way because of my wretched scabs. ‘No, it’s a skin disease,’ I said quickly, pushing down my sleeve and pulling my hand away from his. ‘Don’t worry, it’s not catching.’

‘I’m not worried. And don’t be ashamed. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.’ His voice was very gentle.

‘But it’s ugly, horrible. People don’t want to see it. It makes them sick.’ I couldn’t let myself speak any more, I was so afraid I would cry.

‘People are fools. I don’t mind looking at it.’ He delicately lifted the edge of my cuff. ‘May I?’

‘But it’s really awful,’ I said. ‘And it’s all over me. Except my face. I don’t get it on my face.’

I was gabbling with nerves, but he seemed not to notice as he edged my sleeve further up my arm, revealing the horrible red mess around my elbow, all the shiny scales and flakes fluttering onto his trousers. ‘People pay too much attention to the surface of things,’ he said, letting his fingers caress my skin in a dreamlike way. ‘It’s what’s inside that counts.’

‘Yes.’ I closed my eyes. His fingers were calloused, but they felt like gossamer to me, just as I had always imagined. I couldn’t stop trembling. I wanted him to slide his hand further and further, right up to my armpit. I wanted him to unbutton my blouse and touch my breasts. I wanted him to touch me all over, even where my skin was at its worst. He was very close, now, his face near mine, his hair brushing my cheek. I could hear his breathing; I was sure he could hear mine. I closed my eyes, ready for him to ravish me.

But instead I felt him pull my sleeve back down, and I slowly opened my eyes. He was watching me, a strange look on his face. Then he patted my hand. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said gently. ‘I shouldn’t have done that. I’ve overstepped the mark.’

‘I don’t mind,’ I said. ‘It felt nice. You’ve got nice hands.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Hardly. But it’s getting late. I don’t want to get you into trouble.’ And he got up and handed me the empty cup. And I got up and took it. And he opened the door. And we both said goodnight in a fumbled sort of way. And I went downstairs with my heart pounding and the stupid cup in my hand.

He didn’t come down to breakfast so I asked Mr Reeves if I should take a tray up. He said there would be no need for that as Mr Thompson had already gone on the early train to Taunton. I nearly dropped the coffee jug, and had to put it down quickly. ‘Gone?’

‘Yes, gone, Elsie. People come and go, you know. In a hotel.’

‘Didn’t he leave a message?’

‘Message? Why should he leave a message?’ he said sharply.

I thought quickly. ‘I mean, Mr Thompson owed for a cup of cocoa. Last night.’

‘Well, that’s gone west then,’ he said crossly. ‘There was nothing on the spike.’

‘Sorry, Mr Reeves,’ I said. ‘I must have forgot.’

‘We can’t afford “forgetting” – now there’s a war on. I’m surprised at you, Elsie.’

‘It won’t happen again, Mr Reeves.’ I was so heart-stricken, I thought I might break down and cry in front of him, but I managed to turn away and take a big breath. Miss Jennings was right. I could never mean anything to a man like Jack. He’d been kind, but nothing had happened between us in spite of the low light and the soft, inviting bed. He’d drunk his cocoa and answered my questions and showed a kind interest in my skin condition. That’s how he’d been brought up. But he’d probably forgotten me the minute he went back to his book, as soon as the taste of cocoa had faded from his tongue.

Then as I turned to go past the till, I saw something propped up there. It was a small parcel, wrapped in yesterday’s newspaper. Written on the front was ‘For the Waitress with the Cocoa’. I couldn’t think who else it could be from, but I hardly dared to hope. I unwrapped it carefully. It was a man’s spotted scarf. Fine silk, the sort Miss Jennings used to say could be pulled through a wedding ring. There was something else, too – a note on a piece of hotel paper. Neat, dark writing: I owe you for a charming evening and I always like to pay my debts. This scarf is a bit grand for life down on the farm. Have it please, with my regards, Jack Thompson. P.S. I’m sorry, but I don’t know your name.