‘I know a little place not far from your friend’s flat,’ Fred said when she telephoned him at the number on his letter. ‘We can meet there. It’s a tiny restaurant but it does a very good dinner.’
He had been elated when she rang. The woman who answered had asked her name and then said, ‘Oh! Tommy. The wonderful Tommy. Delighted to make your acquaintance, even if only by telephone. I’m Octavia Burton Brown, Fred’s sister. And he’s quite your biggest fan.’
‘Is he?’ Tommy said, blushing, even over the telephone. ‘How . . . nice!’
Fred had been excited to hear from her and even more so when he heard she was in London. ‘Can I see you tonight, darling?’ he asked. ‘Can you get away?’
‘Of course. Celia is dining out. I was staying in with a tray on my knees and a book anyway.’
‘We can do better than that. Here, have you got a pen?’
Fred was right, it wasn’t more than ten minutes away from the flat; a short walk to Curzon Street and then a sharp turn down an alley to an area that might as well have been miles from the smart building that Celia lived in. Lights glowed red in upstairs rooms and women in shabby overcoats and scuffed shoes smoked in small groups on the corners of the twisting streets. Several pubs were open, their clientele spreading out into the street despite the cold and the banks of snow against the walls. From inside the pubs came a fug of smoke and sweat and hot breath and laughter and chatter.
Can this be right? It’s very insalubrious.
Nevertheless, she pressed on and found a restaurant set on the corner of a small street across the road from a pub. Its corner frontage shone brightly against the darkness and it seemed that plenty of people were making the most of the hours of electricity as it was quite full. She opened the door and went in. The customers were a mixed bag but she stood out with her smart suit and the fox fur over one shoulder, and she glanced nervously about looking for Fred. He spotted her at once, and stood up to wave her over to his table.
‘Hello, Tommy!’ He kissed her on the cheek, his eyes glowing with happiness to see her. He pulled a chair out for her so that she could sit down.
‘Hello, Fred.’ She was suddenly shy, despite having been desperate all afternoon for this moment to arrive. ‘This seems an interesting place.’
He laughed. ‘I like to think of it as a well-kept secret. I don’t know how the chef does it, but he conjures magic out of very scrawny ingredients. He’s French of course. Now – here’s the menu. It’s even barer than usual but everything will be good.’
‘It looks lovely,’ she said politely, though she didn’t much care about the food. ‘How are you, Fred?’
‘I’m much better. The dressings are off completely now and I’m almost good as new.’ He smiled at her, his face illuminated by the evident pleasure he felt in seeing her again. ‘You look beautiful. Are you well?’
‘Yes, quite well.’ She told him some of her recent doings, and then recounted what Gerry had said in her letter. ‘Roger isn’t at all happy, according to Gerry. In fact, he’s horribly miserable.’
‘I should think it’s only just dawning on him what it will mean to marry Barbara. There’ll be no going back.’
Tommy looked at the table. ‘I know better than most how awful a mistake like that can be. I want to help him if I can.’
‘He has to make his own choices, Tommy, you know that. He’s not compelled into marriage, the way you were. He can’t blame anyone else for this mess. And he still has time to get out of it.’
‘Gerry said Barbara has them all under her thumb. I can’t imagine Roger standing up to her.’
Fred put his hand on hers across the table. ‘If he wants us, we’ll help him. Until he asks, there’s nothing we can do.’
They ordered their food and talked of anything but what was happening at home. Fred told her about his sister’s life and her friends and the large house they had bought in Spitalfields which would be a community for women who wanted to live independently but with like-minded friends. He made it sound cheerful and free and new.
‘I’d like to meet her,’ Tommy said. ‘She sounds very interesting.’
‘She’s dying to meet you. I had to hold her back from coming here tonight, she’s so curious. And she told me how I could make moulds for my little circus figures – remember how I was trying to work it all out? She has some sort of rubber substance that I can set around my carvings. Then, when it comes off, I have a very flexible mould for the plaster. When I come back to Kings Harcourt, I’ll finish the mouldings.’
Tommy was suddenly melancholy. ‘Do you think you’ll come back?’
‘I’m sure I will. And so will you. If you don’t want to live in London, take a house in the village. Don’t let Barbara push you out if you want to stay there. And if Gerry is right, your mother may well have a change of heart about dear Barbara.’
‘Yes.’ She felt more cheerful. ‘You’re right. I’ll find a way to stay close by. Then I can be there when they need me.’
The evening was over too soon. At eleven o’clock the last dishes were cleared away and the lights turned off. Over the road, the raucous fun in the pub was reaching its peak. The bell for last orders rang as they went past.
They strolled up Curzon Street and then up to South Audley Street, where Fred took her in his arms by some railings and kissed her deeply. ‘Tommy,’ he said quietly. ‘I want to be with you all the time. We must live together.’
‘I want that too. But you’re homeless and so am I. I have two children to raise . . .’
‘I’ll raise them with you. I think your children are marvellous and I’d do my best to be a father to them.’
‘I believe you – but it’s such a lot to ask when you have no job, no home . . .’
‘We can start again together. We can make a life.’ Fred held her tight and then said, ‘I can see the lights of the Dorchester over there. Shall we see if the bar is still open?’
At the entrance to the bar, a waiter tried to turn them away, saying that only residents could now buy a drink there, but then someone squealed Tommy’s name and they saw Celia sitting there with a friend.
‘Very well, if you’re with Lady Celia,’ the waiter said, letting them pass.
‘They always let me in,’ Celia said when Tommy and Fred had joined her. ‘I’m here so often I’m practically a resident. I used to come to their shelter in the raids during the war. My dear, the best people were taking cover here! It was quite a party when we weren’t shaking with fear. This is Amanda Lillington. We escaped from Jonty’s party and came here to blot out the memory. Amanda, this is Tommy Eliott, and . . . ?’ Celia raised her eyebrows.
‘Fred Burton Brown,’ Tommy said.
‘How do you do,’ Fred said politely. ‘I’ll go and find the waiter, he seems to have disappeared.’
Celia wanted all the gossip about their night. ‘You were in Shepherd’s Market? How brave! It’s rather colourful, by all accounts. But you were always plucky, Tommy, I’ll give you that. Oh!’ Celia put her hand on her friend’s arm. ‘But Amanda, you know Barbara Hastings, don’t you? You were the one who told me you knew her – that’s right, it’s coming back to me.’
‘Yes, I know Barbara Hastings. Not well, but I certainly know her.’ Amanda took a sip from her cocktail. ‘I was out in India for a while, that’s how our paths crossed.’
‘Tommy knows her too,’ Celia said confidentially. ‘Very well, as it happens.’
‘Not that well. We were at school together.’
Amanda laughed. ‘I bet you have some stories then, if she was anything like that at school!’
‘What do you mean?’ Tommy asked, wondering where Fred had got to. She tried to spot him through the gloom.
‘In India, she was quite the most scandalous Englishwoman there. She had several affairs but the most brazen was with an officer in the army. A major-general. It was talked about everywhere. She seemed to take great pleasure in humiliating the man’s poor wife, and her own husband. She didn’t make any effort to hide what was going on. If anything, she flaunted it. I think she thought something would come of it – but of course it didn’t. And then the war came. She might be unknown here, but those of us who saw her in action know better. She’s an adventuress, always on the prowl for rich men to buy her luxuries. We all felt sorry for her poor husband. I don’t know how he tolerated it.’
‘Oh dear,’ Tommy said, feeling depressed though not surprised. ‘That is a shame because she’s marrying my brother.’ Fred appeared and said, ‘The waiter’s bringing a jug of Singapore Sling. I thought that sounded all right.’ He sat down at the table.
Amanda didn’t appear to hear him. ‘Marrying your brother?’ she said to Tommy, disbelievingly. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Yes, she is. They got engaged last week. I should think it will be in The Times before too long.’
‘No, she can’t be,’ Amanda said decisively. ‘Because I saw Duncan Hastings just the day before yesterday lunching in Glover’s in Piccadilly. I’m sure it was him. So unless they’re divorced, how can his wife be engaged to marry someone else?’
‘We have to tell Roger at once!’ Tommy said urgently, as she and Fred stood on the doorstep of Celia’s flat. Celia had tactfully withdrawn inside to leave them alone to say their goodbyes. ‘I’ll ring home tomorrow and explain that Barbara is a fraud!’
‘Wait,’ Fred said, ‘we don’t know for sure that Celia’s friend really did see Duncan Hastings. She might have been mistaken.’
‘But she knew him in India!’
‘Yes, but why would Barbara allow Roger to propose to her if she has a husband living? She’s not stupid enough to think she wouldn’t be found out at some point. She must already be divorced.’
Tommy frowned. ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right. But why pretend to be widowed? Why say her husband was dead, if he might turn up at any moment?’
‘Perhaps she thinks it sounds more respectable. But it’s a rum case. I think we need to do some investigating. Leave it with me and I’ll see what I can find out from my army friends. I’m sure someone will have heard of Duncan Hastings and be able to help me track him down. Meanwhile, don’t alert Barbara to this. If she’s guilty, it’ll give her more time to cover her tracks. And if she’s innocent and we accuse her unjustly, it will make us look much worse than she does.’
‘Yes, I see all that. I just want to save Roger any more pain.’
‘I know. A day or two more won’t make any difference.’ He kissed her tenderly and she hugged him tightly. ‘I’ll telephone you as soon as I have some news. Sleep tight, my darling.’
‘Goodnight, Fred. Sweet dreams.’
In the morning, Celia said, ‘What a turn-up, Amanda knowing your friend! She sounds quite a piece of work.’
‘Yes. She is,’ Tommy said. ‘The worst thing is that I thought I was helping her by taking her in, and she had no compunction about turning me out of my own home.’
‘She’s a cuckoo in the nest, chucking out anything that might threaten her security,’ Celia remarked. ‘I know the type. The war seemed to bring out the best in some of us, and the worst in others. Most I know found their best selves. But I saw some shoddy behaviour and I’m sure you did too.’
Tommy nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘Well, good luck, darling. I hope you get rid of the viper in the bosom.’