The Silent Tide (20 page)

Isabel

‘It’s wonderful,’ Isabel said, taking the pages from the envelope and smoothing them out. ‘You
are
clever.’ She and Hugh were sitting at a table in the corner of a tea shop near McKinnon & Holt in Charlotte Street. It was a crisp Friday afternoon in February 1950; the street outside was bathed in wintry sunshine.

Hugh looked extremely pleased. ‘I don’t usually show anyone my work,’ he said, ‘but this time it’s different. Nanna has to convince.’

‘Of course, you’re portraying her through a man’s eyes,’ Isabel said, anxious to be tactful. ‘You mean, I take it, that she should still emerge in a true-to-life fashion?’

‘Yes, precisely, though there must be a progression from being the woman he wants her to be to how she really is.’

‘I see that,’ Isabel said. She unfolded the pages and pushed them towards him. He drew his chair nearer so they could both look. ‘Perhaps the thing to do later on is to dramatise her a little more so that we learn her side of the relationship. May I make one or two small suggestions? Here, look, and here. Remember she wouldn’t be able to “stride” in high heels.’

‘Hmmm,’ he said, turning the pages and frowning at the pencil marks. ‘No, here, “hysterical” was deliberate on my part. That’s how a man like him would have viewed her.’

‘Even though he knows he’s insulted her? Surely her reaction is understandable.’ She was aware of his warm closeness as they pored over the paper. He glanced up at her as he thought about what she’d said, and she felt his breath on her cheek. She could see flecks of emerald in his hazel eyes, the shadowy roughness of his jawline. The corners of his moulded lips turned up softly, lending his intense expression vulnerability. He stared down at the pages again, rubbing his wiry dark hair as he puzzled at what he’d written, whispering the words to himself. Finally, he gathered the pages back into the envelope, which he pushed back into his inside breast pocket.

‘Thank you, anyway,’ he said. ‘That’s useful.’ She started to move her chair away politely, but he stayed her with his hand on her arm. ‘What should we do now, do you say?’

‘What should we do? I suppose I must go back to the office,’ she replied. ‘I told Trudy I’d only be a short while.’

‘I’m sure she’ll understand. I’ll explain.’

‘There’s no need,’ she said, more tartly than she intended. She didn’t require anybody to stand up for her at work.

‘Of course not,’ he said, letting go of her arm. ‘Well, if you must.’

‘I ought to.’ She smiled. ‘Don’t be angry.’

‘I’m not,’ he said tightly. He felt for his wallet and summoned the waitress, and for a moment Isabel was worried she’d offended him. But by the time they were outside in the sunshine his mood had improved.

‘Are you free on Saturday?’ he asked. ‘Perhaps we could go somewhere for dinner. I’d like to say thank you properly for your advice.’

‘There’s no need, but yes, I’d like that,’ she said, happiness spreading through her.

He walked her the short distance back to her office and she hurried up the steps, turning briefly to wave. Inside, there was only Jimmy at the trade counter, slitting open a box of books and whistling something unrecognisable. Trudy was away from her desk, though the way a manuscript was spread across it suggested she wouldn’t be long. There was no sign of Audrey either. Through the window she could see Hugh as he stopped to light a cigarette, hunched over a cupped hand as he shielded the flame from the breeze. She watched, liking the picture he made, then he strode off in the direction of Oxford Street.

She sensed someone come to stand behind her and turned quickly, thinking it was Audrey – to find it was Stephen.

‘That Morton you were with?’ he said.

‘Yes. He wanted some editorial advice.’

‘I see.’ Stephen seemed about to say something he couldn’t quite frame. Finally, he sighed.

‘That was all right?’ she said anxiously. ‘You don’t mind?’

‘Do I mind you giving Morton advice about his writing? No, not at all – why should I? This is the next one, is it? What’s it looking like?’

‘Very promising,’ she said, going back to her desk. ‘It’s early stages though.’

‘Well, I can’t wait to hear more. I must say, the critical reaction to
Coming Home
has been first-rate. He has something, Morton, we should keep a hold of him. But, Isabel . . .’ Stephen was looking at her seriously now. ‘I don’t like to interfere, but you’re still very young and, well, take care of yourself, won’t you? It strikes me that he finds you . . . attractive. Not at all surprising, of course, but if you should ever, you know . . .’

‘What do you mean?’ Isabel asked, a bit taken aback.

‘Not that I’m the person to offer advice in that area. But take care of yourself all the same. I shouldn’t like to see you hurt.’

‘What are you telling the poor girl?’ Trudy said, coming into the room with a cup of tea. ‘Of course she can look after herself. All the girls do nowadays.’ Stephen looked embarrassed and beat a hasty retreat to his office. Trudy took a sip of tea and went on: ‘Isabel, dear, I was thinking you should make a start on the new Maisie Briggs. Goodness, I can’t believe it’s a whole year since the last one arrived.’

Isabel, sitting at her desk, found it difficult to concentrate, so many confused thoughts jostled for position in her mind. She liked Hugh Morton, liked him very much, and looked forward to having dinner with him.

She was surprised and touched by Stephen’s concern – that was sweet of him – but what did he mean about not being a good source of advice? He was married, wasn’t he, and he must love Grace, she was so pretty and elegant, though she had heard them quarrel that time. She knew they didn’t have children and wondered if they minded, but some people just didn’t have them, that was all there was to it.

She tried to concentrate on Maisie Briggs’s heroine and her eyes of cornflower blue, running her pencil underneath a phrase that was too purple even for Maisie.

When she walked into the bar of the Ritz on Saturday evening, it was to see Hugh waiting for her at the counter; the way his face lit up when he saw her made her feel special. He kissed her tenderly on the cheek and asked her what she’d like to drink. She revelled in his closeness.

‘Oh, one of those, please,’ she said, pointing to his frosted cocktail glass.

‘A margarita for the lady,’ he told the barman and looked at Isabel with appreciation. ‘That’s a very pretty dress,’ he said. ‘Is it new?’

‘It is,’ she replied. She’d bought it with money her parents had sent for her twenty-first birthday. Russet and gold with a wide waistband and a little bolero jacket, it perfectly set off the delicate gold wristwatch, Aunt Penelope’s present.

‘You like brown, don’t you?’ Hugh said. ‘I’ve noticed that.’

‘Brown on its own sounds very dull. In fact, there are so many lovely shades. Apricot and sherry and that warm brick-red.’

‘You’re right, of course. They all go with your eyes and hair. It’s very clever of you.’

‘Thank you. Brown is my mother’s fault. She didn’t think auburn hair went with much. I wasn’t allowed to wear red, you know, or pink. And she’s got something against green. My grandmother said it was unlucky.’

‘I’ve seen you in green – at my little party. You looked stunning, if you don’t mind me saying.’

‘Now you’re embarrassing me,’ Isabel said with a laugh. ‘I wear green sometimes to prove my mother wrong. Fortunately though, brown is fashionable at the moment so I don’t really mind it.’

When they’d finished their cocktails they left the Ritz and walked on to a little Italian restaurant in Soho, where Hugh knew the proprietor and exchanged greetings with him in Italian. ‘I was in Naples for a while in forty-four,’ he explained when she commented, and spoke a little about his experiences there in the wake of the Germans’ retreat.

‘Of course – you wrote about it in
Coming Home
,’ Isabel said, secretly wondering whether the local woman who featured in that particular scene had been based on reality, too. A slight dark girl with huge black-fringed eyes, who had helped the hero escape, then begged to go with him. He’d had to tell her no. Isabel felt an unreasonable stab of jealousy towards this fictional female.

She ate food she’d not tasted before. Wafer-thin slices of spicy ham, then a salty mixture of rice and fish. ‘It’s delicious,’ she said.

‘It really needs more butter.’

‘Oh, butter,’ she sighed. ‘There’s never enough of it. I can’t believe my mother had butter
and
jam on her bread before the war.’

He laughed. ‘And cake made with butter and jam and cream, with sugar icing on top. I remember the to meet you beautiful the co taste now!’ And this brought it home that he was almost ten years older than her. ‘I’m sure those days will come again. Now try one of these desserts, I promise you they’re delicious.’

‘Goodness,’ she said as she savoured a sugary pudding, light and creamy, ‘I’ll never be able to eat powdered-egg custard again after this.’

‘There’s even proper vanilla in it, I think. God knows where Luigi gets hold of the stuff.’

‘Vivienne likes vanilla. She would adore this place.’

‘Ah, your boffin friend. I swear the Steerforths and the Robinsons still haven’t got over her. How is she?’

‘Very well, but maybe not happy. A man she works for treats her abominably,’ she explained.

Hugh frowned. ‘Some of those fellows aren’t used to having women around. It must distract them, I suppose, though they’ll have to adapt.’

‘I don’t know whether it’s that. There’s another girl there and apparently this man doesn’t bully her.’

‘Perhaps she’s prettier,’ Hugh said with a shrug. ‘Or knows how to manage him better. She’s quite plain-spoken, your friend. Not all men take to that.’

‘You mean she has opinions, I suppose.’ So what if Vivienne expressed herself honestly? It was one of the things Isabel loved about her.

‘Oh, don’t say I’ve offended you. It’s only something I’ve observed.’ He took her hand. ‘Please forgive me.’ They were leaning so close to each other now, their foreheads almost touched.

‘Of course,’ she said, teasing him. ‘But you must behave.’

‘I will be as good as gold. You’ll make me.’ He looked so soulful.

‘Will I? Really?’

‘Yes, you make me want to behave better. I like that about you. In fact, I like everything about you.’

He caught her other hand now, and bringing them to his lips, kissed her fingers. She held her breath, confused by the feelings of excitement rushing through her. He looked up at her, his expression soft in the candlelight.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I’d better get you home before I forget myself.’

In the taxi, he put his arm round her, nothing more, and when they reached Highgate, he kissed her cheek very gently as he leaned across to open the door.

After the cab bore him away she couldn’t stop thinking about him. She wasn’t sure quite when the line had been crossed in their relationship, but it had. During the evening at the theatre, possibly, but thinking about it there had always been that frisson between them, right from the very first meeting. Tonight had been utterly wonderful.

The Rainbow’s End,
Maisie Briggs’s latest romance, was set in a remote village in the Yorkshire Dales. The heroine had fallen in love with the son of a sheep farmer, but the young man spoke only of abandoning his inheritance and leaving for the city. After various travails he chose to stay, for he realised that going meant losing her.

Isabel, sitting late at her desk a few days later, finished editing it a little misty-eyed, caught in the magical glow that Maisie famously cast over her largely female readers. A writer of romances she might be, but they were superior ones. Her characters were rounded and complex, they made realistic and intelligent decisions. However, they usually learned to put love first, and though one wished the happy couples well as they started out on the rest of their lives together, Isabel worried sometimes about the sacrifices they made, men and women both. Would the sheep farmer in
The Rainbow’s End
regret abandoning his ambitions and vent his frustration on his new young wife? It was pointless to ponder what would happen after the book ended so she might as well enjoy the romance while it lasted. As she typed up the short list of queries – Maisie was the most meticulous and professional of writers – she found her thoughts drifting deliciously to her own version of a romantic hero. For some years this imaginary paragon had been a changing presence, the features indistinct, but recently it had acquired the very definite dark hair and hazel eyes of Hugh Morton.

She was used to the interested way men looked at her, that could not be denied, and she’d dabbled in one or two relationships, but nothing serious until now, no one like Hugh. She remembered the Polish boy she’d known when she was seventeen, how after the joyful, rackety ride on his bicycle that had so annoyed her father, Jan had waited for her sometimes after school, wheeling his bike to walk alongside her, but although for a while she’d luxuriated in his attentions, and the other girls’ envy, in the end she’d not felt tempted to allow it to go further. He was a nice lad, and good-looking, too, but there had been no spark. Since coming to London she’d gone to dinner once or twice with Freddie, a lively, talkative friend of Vivienne’s brother. He’d been perfectly gentlemanly on the first occasion, but on the second he’d pounced on her in the taxi home, fondling her breasts roughly and covering her face with slobbery kisses. ‘It was almost as though he was desperate,’ she told a horrified Vivienne later. ‘He only let go when I got him – you know – with my knee.’

Hugh was a completely different proposition. She appreciated the gentle, old-fashioned way he wooed her. He flirted, yes, he paid compliments, but always with courtesy – so different from the gaucheness of her previous admirer. Hugh treated her with respect; he adored her with his eyes. And yet there was something unknowable behind those eyes. Sometimes she wondered what he was really like, deep down. His experience of the world was far beyond hers. He’d been to war, had very likely had to kill, and, if
Coming Home
was based on real life, had also loved deeply and tragically lost. Through all this he must have learned to conceal things. There was the mystery of his relationship with Jacqueline, for instance. All this made her feel uncertain, out of her depth once more. But in this garden of dark bewilderment a fresh young shoot was growing – she knew she was beginning to love Hugh Morton very much.