The town had been hit, but not badly. Just a scratch here and there. A cluster of small fires in the south docks caused by incendiary bombs, but no real damage. And, mercifully, no lives lost.
Rosie was in her office, juggling the accounts and working out how much of Polly and Tommy’s wedding could be put through the books. She thought a good portion could be palmed off on the Gentlemen’s Club.
It was still early, but she was shattered. She felt well and truly wrung out, having hardly slept after her chat with Charlotte. Then all day at work she’d had to stop herself from having a go at Dorothy and Angie about letting their mouths run off with them. She’d said nothing, though. The cat was out of the bag and there was no shoving it back in.
‘Bonsoir, ma chère!’ Lily came bustling into the room, full of energy. ‘Oh, mon Dieu!’
She stopped dramatically in her tracks and stared at Rosie.
‘For heaven’s sake, don’t stand up, my dear, otherwise your face will trip you up. What’s the matter?’
‘I’ve got a problem,’ Rosie said.
‘Let me guess …’ Lily started walking over to Rosie’s desk.
Knowing what she was about to do, Rosie opened the top drawer, took out a packet of Gauloises and handed it to her.
‘Merci, ma chère. You know me too well.’ Taking the proffered packet, Lily pulled out a cigarette and lit it. ‘I would wager a bet that your problem is something beginning with C. A capital C.’ Lily blew out a plume of smoke.
Rosie sat back in her chair.
‘This is not a joke or some game, Lily.’
‘But I’m right, aren’t I?’ Lily took another deep drag. ‘Your problem is Charlotte. Now that you’ve got over the problems with that awful fascist school in Harrogate and Charlotte is happily ensconced at the High School, you’re back to your original concern – or should I say obsession – about this place.’ Lily gestured dramatically around the room. ‘About her finding out what happens within its four walls.’
Just then the door opened.
‘George, mon amour, entrez! Entrez!’
‘Are you two sure you want company? I’m not disturbing anything, am I?’ George looked at Rosie for confirmation.
‘No, George. Come in and sit down. I might get some sense out of you. I can see Lily is in one of her – how should I put it – happy moods.’
George grimaced. ‘I would agree with you there, my dear.’
‘Honestly.’ Lily scowled at George and then at Rosie. ‘You two can be such stick-in-the-muds.’ She waltzed over to the fireplace and tapped her cigarette ash into the fire.
‘Aren’t you hot, mon cher?’ Lily fanned herself and moved away from the fire. ‘Rosie was about to tell me about a little problem she has. And I guessed correctly that her problem was Charlotte and that now she’s settled here – where she should have been all along – Rosie’s back to square one with her anxiety over Charlotte finding out about this place.’
She sat down next to George on the chaise longue.
‘Well,’ Lily sighed theatrically, ‘I’m not going to waste my breath telling you what I think – as you know it already.’
‘I think George and I know perfectly well that you consider Charlie old enough to know the truth,’ Rosie said wearily. ‘That she’s not as naïve as I think she is, et cetera, et cetera … But that’s not my immediate problem.’
Lily raised her eyebrows.
‘The problem I have,’ Rosie continued, ‘is her safety. This has been ongoing, to be honest, but it came to a head last night … When I left here to check Charlie was all right, I literally bumped into her as she rounded the corner into West Lawn.’
Lily looked at George.
Both were surprised.
‘But I thought she was meant to go to the Jenkins’ Anderson shelter whenever there was a raid,’ George said, getting up and pouring himself a brandy from the decanter on Rosie’s desk. ‘Regardless of whether or not you were at home.’
‘That’s exactly what I had drummed into her to do,’ Rosie said. ‘Only Charlie got it into her head that she had to see Lily’s – has had it firmly stuck in her head since New Year’s Eve, when she overheard Dorothy and Angie chatting about how absolutely wonderful this place is.’
‘Oh dear,’ George said. ‘Did she overhear anything else they might have been chatting about?’
‘Like the fact Peter’s friend thought Dorothy was one of my girls?’ Lily chuckled. She stopped when she saw Rosie’s face. ‘Ma chère, it was funny – even you have to admit it.’
‘No, thank goodness, Lily, she didn’t overhear anything else. Which is about the only good thing I can take from all of this.’
Lily patted George on the knee and pushed herself up from the chaise longue. Walking over to the mantelpiece, she warmed her hands in front of the open fire.
‘I thought you were hot?’ Rosie looked at Lily.
‘Hot one minute, cold the next.’
Lily turned her back to the fire.
‘Right, this is what I think,’ she declared.
Rosie looked at Lily.
Any port in a storm.
‘Go on.’
‘I think you should give Charlotte what she wants, but …’ Lily paused to stress her point ‘ … in such a way that you get what you want.’
Rosie looked at Lily and then at George, who looked equally perplexed.
‘Explain, darling,’ George said.
‘Well, Charlotte’s obviously determined to find out more about this place.’ She waved her jewelled hand around. ‘Is intrigued by my good self and all those who live here. Is desperate to see where her big sister goes on an evening while she’s stuck at home doing a mound of boring homework.’
Rosie held back from telling her that Charlotte actually enjoyed doing homework.
‘For years, the poor girl’s been cooped up in that odious school, picked on and bullied relentlessly by the offspring of those who would gladly have that mad-brained, moustached German dwarf run our country.’ Lily drew in breath. ‘She’s been stuck in the middle of nowhere, with no excitement.’
Lily moved away from the fire.
‘You know what they say, variety is the spice of life and all that … Well, your little sister has been eating bread and butter for too long. Now she’s back in the real world, the girl’s like a child let loose in a sweet shop.’
George took a sip of his brandy. Lily might enjoy playing the role of a rather frivolous and flamboyant madam, but when necessary she could be remarkably astute, and surprisingly sensible.
‘She’s meeting all these different characters,’ Lily continued. ‘Women who wear overalls and weld and do men’s work. Women who look like Maisie or sound like Vivian. She wants to know everything about this new world she’s suddenly been allowed to inhabit. Everything about those around her. And because she’s got something between her two ears, she’s curious.’
Rosie thought about the time in the Maison Nouvelle when Charlie had been asking about what business Lily was in – and then they’d bumped into Maisie and Vivian going into town and she’d started to ask about what they did for a living.
Lily struck a match dramatically against the mantelpiece and lit another cigarette to punctuate her point.
‘So, let’s show her.’
She blew out a billow of smoke.
Rosie and George were quiet.
‘I suggest we shut up shop for the day. Possibly the Saturday after next. Give us time to tell all of our clients. The girls will be glad of it. They could all do with a day off. To say business has been booming is an understatement. That’s something we have to thank the war for, if nothing else.’
She took a long drag on her cigarette, thinking the whole scenario through.
‘We close for the day. And George and I invite you and Charlotte over for tea. Then Charlotte can have a good old nose around. Cure that curiosity of hers, and at the same time stop you worrying about her finding out that you work in a bordello.’
And that you didn’t always just do the bookkeeping, Lily thought but didn’t say.
‘It will be a chance for us to chat about everything she’s been champing at the bit to find out. I’ll make her feel she can ask me any question she wants, without cottoning on that it has all been carefully orchestrated to satiate that inquisitive mind of hers.’
Rosie raised her eyebrows and again glanced over to George, who mirrored her look.
‘That all sounds good so far,’ Rosie said, trying to hide her surprise that Lily, of all people, might have found the solution to a problem that was becoming more pressing by the day.
‘But what are you going to tell her?’ George said, reading Rosie’s thoughts and wondering the same himself.
‘Well, for starters I’ll tell her that I own properties here and in London, which isn’t exactly a lie. I own La Lumière Bleue in Soho, and George, you own your flat in Foyle Street … And I can tell her all about playing the stock market—’
‘But you don’t play the stock market,’ Rosie butted in. ‘That was something that came into my head when she was quizzing me about what “business” you are in.’
‘Ma chérie, just because I don’t gamble my own hard-earned cash doesn’t mean I don’t know a thing or two about what’s going on in the financial world.’ Lily looked at George.
‘I keep my ear to the ground,’ George confessed. ‘I was actually going to chat to you about investing some of your money as soon as the tide of war starts to turn in our favour.’
Rosie noted that George never wavered in his belief that they would win the war, no matter how dire the news.
‘See?’ Lily said. ‘Charlotte’s head will be so positively buzzing with thoughts of property ownership and playing the market that the last thing she’ll be thinking is that this lovely abode is anything other than a home owned by a rich and financially savvy couple. And it’ll also quell a very natural need to know where it is her sister goes off to on an evening. She can see it all with her own eyes.’
Rosie sat back in her chair.
‘That actually sounds like it might be a good idea,’ she conceded.
‘Yes, a bloody good idea,’ George agreed.
‘Mon Dieu, don’t sound so surprised!’ Lily gasped. ‘I have my moments, n’est-ce pas?’
She winked at George.
‘We can even tell her about the Gentlemen’s Club next door,’ Rosie mused, ‘and that Maisie and Vivian work there. It will explain their eccentricities.’
‘Good idea,’ Lily said. ‘Keep to the truth as much as possible – but without giving the game away.’
Lily let out a hoot of laughter.
‘Give the game away?’
Rosie raised her eyebrows at George.
They both suppressed a smile.