The best fires, Ronnie had learned, were not necessarily the biggest. The one he’d enjoyed most had been a small but smoky affair in the attic room of a spindly tenement at the far end of Dockside Road. Mercifully there had been no loss of life unless you counted the two budgerigars who’d died of fright when Clary Knotts, brandishing an axe, had snatched up their cage and carried it down one of the ladders that were supposed to be off-limits to auxiliary firemen.
Ronnie had been first into the building. He’d charged up four flights of stairs and, following procedure to the letter, had got down on his belly and opened the garret door an inch or two in case the draught created a searing blast of heat.
At this point in the proceedings an old lady, clad only in a big pair of floral bloomers and obviously deficient in any knowledge of the chemistry of combustion, had yanked open the door and, using Ron’s head as a stepping stone, had gone leaping down the stairs, wailing like a banshee.
Somewhat dazed, Ron had groped his way into the acrid smoke that the old lady’s husband had managed to generate using nothing but a frying pan, a blanket and a bolster. First he’d dived for the stove and switched off the gas, then, aware that saving life was his priority, he’d smacked the frying pan from the old boy’s grasp and, grabbing the smouldering blanket, had smothered the burning fat with it.
Unfortunately, this action had released another cloud of thick smoke that had poured through the half-open window and prompted Mr Reilly, the Station Officer, to order the building cleared; an order that, unfortunately, came too late for Clary Knotts, who had already hooked his ladder to the window ledge and clambered into the garret to rescue the hysterical budgerigars.
It had all been a huge joke to the rank and file, not so funny for the Station Officer who’d been on the carpet before the Divisional Commander and had, in turn, read the riot act to the ill-disciplined Oxmoor Road auxiliaries and put Ron and Clary on extra duties as a punishment for insubordination.
At first telling Breda thought the story hilarious. When Ron repeated the tale she found it less amusing and by the third or fourth recounting saw nothing in it to laugh about, for it had finally dawned on her that Ron’s job was dangerous.
She was beginning to realise that there was more to this war than evacuations and rationing, gas masks, identity cards and stupid laws that could see an innocent woman imprisoned. Therefore, she wasn’t entirely surprised when Steve Millar, minus motorcar, appeared at the school gate one morning in early July dressed in a pair of old grey flannels and an open-neck shirt.
‘Spare me a minute, Breda?’ he said.
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘What’s up now?’
He put an arm about her, a big, muscular arm and, while the other wives watched askance, gave her a cuddle.
‘It’s your old man,’ he said. ‘They grabbed your old man.’
Breda’s mouth went dry. ‘Where?’
‘Brighton.’
‘What was he doin’ in Brighton?’
‘Hidin’ out while he waited for papers.’
‘Oh!’ Breda said. ‘Is he in jail?’
Steve still had an arm about her and, slipping it to her waist, steered her away from the nosey women to a quiet corner by an ARP hut. He stopped by a pile of spilled sandbags that no one had seen fit to remove and gave her a cigarette. Breda shakily guided the ciggie to her mouth and let Steve light it.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘nobody knows where Leo is. All we can say for sure is the coppers scooped him up in Brighton along with a gang of fakers. They nailed Harry King too, nailed him good an’ proper.’
‘In Brighton?’
‘No, in London,’ Steve informed her. ‘Best guess is your old man handed the coppers Harry on a plate. They’ll have Harry up on criminal charges, which means a jury trial with sworn witnesses, including me an’ Vince. The boys in blue don’t want no fuss right now so they’ve given me an’ Vince a choice: enlist or be arrested. They reckon Vince an’ me will look more convincing front of a jury if we’re in uniform. Better a soldier than a convict, right?’
‘What about my daddy? Where’s he?’
‘Chances are they’ve interned him or maybe deported him to somewhere like Quebec.’
‘At least he’ll be safe till the war’s over.’
‘Wouldn’t be too sure of that, love,’ Steve said.
He pulled a rolled-up copy of the Daily Express from his waistband, unfurled it and gave it to Breda to read the banner headline: Germans Torpedo Germans.
‘My dad ain’t German,’ Breda said.
‘It wasn’t just POWs went down with the ship,’ Steve said. ‘It was mostly Italian internees. Hundreds of them.’
Breda tried to make sense of the text but her eyes had gone funny. She lifted the paper closer to her nose and peered at the photograph below the headline.
‘Says here, they’re safe in a Scottish port.’
‘A few,’ Steve told her, ‘not many.’
‘What’s the boat called?’
‘The Arandora Star. Used to be a liner before the war but there wouldn’t be much luxury for anyone on this trip.’ Breda continued to stare blankly at the newspaper. Steve went on, ‘She got plugged off the Irish coast by a U-boat, Monday, an’ most of the Italians were drowned.’
‘We don’t know my daddy was on board, do we?’
‘Nope, an’ it might be months until we find out one way or the other. The government will have to publish a list, I suppose,’ Steve said, ‘eventually.’
‘What am I gonna tell Ma?’
‘You don’t have to tell her anything.’
‘If he is dead then she’s legally a widow.’
‘There won’t be no money, Breda.’
‘Money? Wha’cha mean – money?’
‘From the government: compensation.’
‘I wasn’t thinkin’ of money,’ Breda said. ‘I was thinkin’ if Leo’s dead Ma could get married again.’
‘That’s none of my business,’ Steve said. ‘I just thought I should be the one to bring you the bad news.’
‘Yeah. Yeah, thanks,’ Breda said. ‘Now the coppers ’ave Harry King under lock an’ key, ’ow long before they fetch ’im up for trial?’
Steven shrugged. ‘Three months, maybe four. They’ll need time to build a watertight case against him.’
‘Will they ’ave enough evidence to hang ’im?’
‘They might,’ Steve said. ‘He’s been up to some big money deals tradin’ arms to foreign governments, so I’ve heard. Now we’re at war an’ they’ve rewritten the rule book they might nail him for treason unless he gives them some real big fish in exchange for his neck. They already pulled in most of the small fry, here an’ in Brighton.’
‘But not you, Stevie?’
‘Nope, not me,’ Steve said; he paused. ‘An’ not Vince neither. We’re just a couple of ordinary Tommies, far as the army’s concerned.’ He paused again. ‘Funny thing is nobody seems to know what ’appened to the loot.’
‘The loot?’
‘The dough your old man stole.’
‘You mean the three grand?’ Breda said.
She saw him smile, or, rather, almost smile, for the little dimple at the corner of his mouth was anything but endearing. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘The three grand.’
‘Maybe the cops got it,’ Breda said.
‘Then again maybe they didn’t.’
Breda drew in a stiff little breath. ‘Hey, don’t look at me, chum. Think I’d be standin’ ’ere chattin’ with you I had three grand stowed away?’
‘You might,’ Steve said, ‘if you was keepin’ it safe for Leo.’
‘Fat lotta good it’ll do ’im if he’s dead.’
‘That’s what we reckoned, me an’ Vince.’
‘Well, if you do find it,’ Breda said, making light, ‘don’t forget to share it with Leo’s nearest an’ dearest.’
An’ who might that be?’
‘Me, of course,’ said Breda.
‘Yeah, that’s what we figured too.’
Breda wasn’t sure if she was being threatened but it gave her the shivers just to think what a beast like Vince might do to her to lay his hands on three thousand quid. She kept her voice as even as possible and casually changed the subject. ‘When do you leave for your training camp?’
‘This afternoon.’
‘What about Rita an’ your kid?’
‘Goin’ off to stay with her folks in Croydon.’
‘Is it safe in Croydon?’
‘Safe as anywhere,’ Steve said. ‘It’s not likely I’ll hear anything about Leo, not in an army camp. But if I do, I’ll certainly tip you the wink. The paper, keep it if you like.’
‘You do think he’s dead, Stevie, don’cha?’
‘I think he might be, love. I really think he might be,’ Steve said and, for old times’ sakes, gave her another cuddle which, oddly, made her shiver too.
Whatever patriotic urge had moved Vivian to volunteer for fire watch duties had died long ago. She regretted her impetuosity all the more now that Basil had taken to spending the night in her house in Salt Street.
Crawling into bed beside him at four o’clock in the morning, she was not entirely consoled by a drowsy kiss and a mumbled, ‘Goodnight, Chucks,’ before he rolled over and went back to sleep.
‘I do wish you’d stop calling me Chucks,’ she said.
‘My mother used to call me Chucks whenever I’d been a good, brave boy,’ Basil explained.
‘Well, I’m not your good brave anything,’ Vivian said. ‘God knows, fire watching was bad enough in winter but these summer nights are worse. The sheer boredom of standing on a rooftop and scanning a clear sky for hours on end could drive a person cuckoo.’
‘More coffee – Chucks?’
She opened her mouth to chide him again but he looked so impish in pyjamas, dressing gown and slippers that she hadn’t the heart to pursue an argument over something as trivial as an endearment.
She watched him pour coffee from the Georgian pot he’d unearthed from the back of a cupboard, had rinsed and polished and brought into service at the breakfast table. He had also cleaned her house from top to bottom and seemed as much at ease with a carpet sweeper in his hand as a stopwatch or a rehearsal script. Vivian’s only constraint on his fastidiousness was to warn him, on pain of death, not to lay a finger on her desk in the office, a stricture that Basil wisely took to heart.
As a reward for his consideration she stopped leaving cigarette butts burning on the edge of the dining table, wet towels strewn on the bathroom floor and her corset draped on a chair in the living room.
She also purchased a new silk dressing gown, new nightdresses and even some lingerie suited to the fuller figure and had been gratified when Basil, modest as he was, had remarked upon it by wiggling his eyebrows and whistling softly through his teeth. As a lover Basil was no better than he should be but as a house guest he was absolutely perfect and, in her mellower moments, Vivian wondered how she’d ever managed without him.
‘Toast?’
‘Thank you.’
‘Now, eat your boiled egg like a good girl.’
A girl she was not, and never would be again. Love had come late, but, she told herself, better late than never. Obediently, she topped her egg while Basil gazed adoringly over the rim of his coffee cup.
‘I see,’ he said at length, ‘that the US Senate has accused the Allied Purchasing Committee of haggling over prices for warships.’
‘Really?’ Vivian said, through a mouthful of toast. ‘Is there anything you can do with that for the programme?’
‘I doubt it,’ Basil said. ‘Too political. There are probably faults on both sides. I’ll pursue the piece on Woolton’s latest round of restrictions on the serving of food in posh restaurants. That’ll be popular with folks in the Midwest. We’ll bring in someone from the ministry on the pretext of explaining the thing and ambush him with an ordinary housewife struggling to make ends meet.’
‘I thought Bob Gaines was doing a report on the “Ready for Anything” speech in the House. He was down there for it, wasn’t he?’
‘Indeed, he was,’ Basil said.
Vivian dabbed her lips politely with a napkin before she put a shot across her lover’s bows. ‘Have you heard anything from the Home Office in respect of my request for access to an internment camp?’
‘On that score the Home Secretary is intractable.’
‘Adamant, or just in need of persuasion?’ When Basil did not answer, she went on, ‘This ship going down off the coast of Ireland …’
‘I knew you’d bring that up. We might interview a widow, I suppose, if only we knew who the widows were.’
‘Basil, you know how much getting into one of these internment camps means to me. I need material for my book.’
‘Yes, dear, I know. However, even if I did manage to get you into one you’d only get to see what they wanted you to see.’
‘This country is becoming more like Nazi Germany every day,’ Vivian said. ‘Whatever happened to a free press, let alone civil liberties? We have a right, a positive right, to know what’s happening to all the Italians who’ve been spirited away without a word to anyone.’
‘Have they arrested David yet?’ Basil asked innocently.
‘Apparently not,’ Vivian said. ‘Stop trying to distract me. I want to see inside one of these camps for myself.’
Basil put down his cup and, reaching across the table, took her hand. ‘What would you do in exchange for, say, a Home Office carte blanche?’
‘Practically anything.’
‘Would you marry me, for instance?’
‘Beg pardon?’
‘It’s simple. If I succeed in getting you a carte blanche, will you marry me?’
‘Hah!’ Vivian said. ‘You’re daring me to take you on, aren’t you? Well, my dear Mr Willets, given what you’ve told me about the Home Secretary’s intractability, never mind all the brouhaha with the War Department—’
‘Yes, or no, Vivian?’
‘Well, let’s see just how desperate you are to make an honest woman of me. My bet is that it’s just a ruse to soften me up because you know you’ll never pull it off.’
‘But if, somehow, I do?’
‘All right, damn it, if you do, I will.’
‘Scout’s honour?’
‘Scout’s honour.’
Basil dipped a hand into the pocket of his dressing gown, brought out a long manila envelope and a small leather-bound box and placed them neatly side by side on the tablecloth.
Cagily, Vivian said, ‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a letter to the commandant of an internment camp at Congleton Grove, which is up near Nottingham, I believe. It grants limited permission for you and one other to visit the camp and talk with the internees.’
‘Good God, Basil, how did you do it?’
‘Bribery, corruption and a deal of special pleading.’
‘And the box? What’s in the little box?’
‘Your engagement ring, of course.’
‘What a devious swine you are, Basil Willets.’
‘Aren’t I just,’ said Basil, and giggled.
‘Isn’t this a bit early even for you?’ Bob Gaines said.
‘Look who’s talking,’ Pete Slocum said. ‘You guzzled that gin like it was branch water. Will I send our man downstairs for another bottle?’
‘Not unless you’re planning on getting pie-eyed before lunch,’ Bob said.
‘I have every excuse.’ Pete Slocum sank back in the sofa, crossed one long leg over another and stirred the air with the toe of his shoe. ‘Tossed out of Berlin, barred from the Ruhr and now we neutrals aren’t even welcome in Paris. Is your girl still sleeping?’
‘Hell, no,’ Bob said. ‘She’s been gone for hours.’
‘Will she be here for the party tonight?’
‘What party?’
‘My welcome home party,’ Pete Slocum said. ‘You don’t think I’m passing up the chance of a boozy do just because you knocked up some tart.’
‘She isn’t a tart,’ Bob said, ‘and she isn’t knocked up.’
‘Just pretending, was she?’
‘She panicked a little, that’s all. She was late by a week and jumped to the wrong conclusion.’
‘London’s a far cry from Passaic Falls, chum. Big city girls will always make you pay for your folly. Didn’t wise old Uncle Pete warn you that this one was dangerous?’
‘It was a genuine mistake,’ Bob said. ‘A miscalculation.’
‘Was her husband walking in on you also a miscalculation?’ Pete Slocum asked.
‘It certainly wasn’t intentional,’ Bob answered. ‘Susan was pretty damned cool about it, though.’
‘She’s a pretty damn cool lady.’ Pete paused to remove the olive from his glass and pop it into his mouth. ‘Has she asked you for dough yet?’
‘Susan’s not like that.’
‘Well, if it ain’t your dough she’s after it must be you, body and soul,’ Pete Slocum said. ‘Jesus, Bob, I can’t leave you alone for five minutes ’fore you get yourself in trouble.’
‘She’s not in trouble. I’m not in trouble.’
‘You shake hands with your lover’s husband and you think you’re not in trouble?’ Pete reached for the cocktail shaker and poured more of the mixture into his glass. ‘Don’t you get it yet, you dope? She’s got you on the ropes. She’s your girl now, your responsibility. Next thing, you’ll be invited to meet her folks.’
‘Not if Susan has anything to do with it.’
‘Ditched her family too, has she?’ Pete Slocum said. ‘Ditched the family, ditched the husband. Now it’s just you and her against the world. Gaines, you’re cooked.’
‘Maybe,’ Bob said, ‘but it’s me that’s cooked, not you. Keep your big nose out of it.’
‘Sure, I will, just make sure you bring her along to the party tonight.’
‘Why?’
‘So that I can look Medusa in the eye.’
‘Do you want me to bring her sister, too?’
‘She has a sister? I thought you said—’
‘Kidding, Pete, just kidding,’ Bob said and, putting down his glass, went into the bedroom to sleep.
The little scrap of paper that Breda had preserved was soiled and crumpled but the numbers Mr Jessop had printed upon it were still legible. Tongue between teeth, she dialled the number and pressed the receiver against her ear as if she expected to be answered in a whisper.
On the third ring a brusque female voice with an upper-crust accent shouted down the line, ‘Which department do you require?’
‘I’d like to talk to Mr Jessop.’
‘There is no Mr Jessop here.’
‘Oh, but—’
‘Thank you. Good day.’
Breda fiddled with the coin return button but six unsatisfactory seconds of conversation had swallowed up her pennies. She dug into her purse and, muttering under her breath, fished out more coins and dialled the number again.
‘Which department do you require?’
‘Listen,’ Breda said, ‘I gotta talk to Mr Jess—’
Once more her request was cut off.
Chucking her purse on the shelf, she shook out the last of her loose change, dialled the number for the third time and steeled herself to cope with that glacial voice. But there was no voice, no ringing tone, just a prolonged, high-pitched whine that set Breda’s teeth on edge.
Throwing the receiver back into the cradle, she stepped out of the telephone box and, pacing up and down, lit and smoked a cigarette before she went back into the box and, after several deep breaths, rang an operator.
‘Can you get me a number?’ she asked.
‘Local or national?’
‘Local – I think.’
‘Have you tried to dial it?’
‘Yeah,’ Breda said. ‘I’ve tried to dial it.’
‘What is the problem?’
‘I keep gettin’ cut off.’
A sigh: ‘What’s the number?’
Breda gave the operator the number and, hopping from one foot to the other, waited for a connection – waited and waited, while the receiver hummed in her ear.
At last: ‘Caller, are you still there?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘I’m afraid that number has been discontinued.’
‘Discontin—’
‘Sorry. Please try again.’
‘Try again? How am I supposed to bleedin’—’
‘Sorry. Please try again.’
‘Piss off, you cow,’ Breda yelled into the mouthpiece and, leaving the receiver dangling, gathered up her purse and stomped out of the phone box, not one whit wiser as to her father’s fate.