Wives at War (5 page)

Kenny sighed.

Uncle Kenny, not Inspector MacGregor.

Babs, he realised, had effectively spiked his guns.

*   *   *

After ten it seemed that the city really came to life. Pubs emptied, buses and trams were packed and the streets bustled with wardens and special constables. It was ten thirty before Kenny reached Cowcaddens. Mr McVicar was already patrolling the pavement outside the tenement and a group of four or five elderly gentlemen from the neighbourhood, only two of them completely sober, were gathered in the close mouth, endeavouring to assemble a stirrup pump by the light of a hand torch. There had also been a delivery of sand that afternoon and two young women and a boy, armed with coal shovels, were filling fire buckets at the entrance to the backcourt.

‘Have you seen Rosie?' Kenny asked the warden.

‘She's fine,' Mr McVicar replied. ‘Been home all evening.'

‘I don't care for the weather. It's too clear for my liking.'

‘Aye, one of these nights we'll be in for a pasting.'

‘No doubt about it,' Kenny said, and wearily climbed the darkened stairs and let himself into the flat with his latchkey.

To his surprise Rosie hadn't waited up for him.

A 40-watt bulb burned wanly above the kitchen table, spotlighting his supper: three slices of Spam, some diced carrots and two cold potatoes dribbled over with salad cream. He felt uncharacteristic annoyance then, but reminded himself that Rosie had also had a long day of it, patiently took off his coat, washed his hands, sat down at the table and, in a matter of minutes, finished his meagre supper. He took the plate to the sink and rinsed it under the tap, then, with a cup of Bantam coffee and a cigarette, seated himself at the table again and bleakly contemplated the blackout curtains.

‘Aren't you guh-going out tonight?'

He hadn't heard her enter the kitchen. She was so thin these days that she seemed to waft about the flat like a ghost. In lieu of a dressing gown she wore an old trench coat, pyjama legs flapping beneath the hem, and a pair of his old socks. Her hair was unwashed and she wore no make-up.

He turned to face her. ‘No, I have to be up early tomorrow.' She didn't ask why he had to be up early. He lifted his cup. ‘Want some coffee?'

‘Nuh.' He glimpsed her breasts beneath the pyjama top before she tugged the lapels of the overcoat across her chest. ‘You didn't go to Babs's, did you?'

‘Matter of fact,' he said, ‘I did.'

She hauled out a chair and seated herself at the table, facing him. ‘What happened?' she said loudly. ‘Tell me.'

‘There isn't much to tell,' said Kenny.

‘Did you meet him?

‘Yes. He is what he says he is, a photographer from New York.'

‘Name, what is his name?'

‘Cameron.'

‘Is she sleeping with him?'

‘I doubt it,' Kenny said. ‘In fact, no.' He repeated the word, shaping it emphatically. ‘
No
, he is not sleeping with her.'

Rosie threw herself back. ‘Nuh-not yet.'

She folded her arms and seemed to be sulking. He longed to touch her but knew that she would only rebuff him.

‘Nice chap. Christy. His first name's Christy.'

She frowned, and experimented. ‘Cuh … Cus…'

‘Kuh-riss-tee.'

‘Christy?'

‘That's it.'

‘How old?'

‘Thirty-five, thirty-six.'

‘He spoke to you?'

‘Yes, we had a long chat. Told me a lot about his job. He was in Spain covering the Civil War, Finland during the Russian invasion and in Warsaw throughout the siege.'

‘If he is such a bloody great photographer what's he doing here?'

‘Roosevelt wants to send more aid to Britain so the owners of national magazines have been asked to send chaps over here to take inspiring pictures to persuade the American public that we're worth helping.'

‘Prop-a-ganda.'

‘Yes.'

‘Why did Babs take him in?'

‘Because she felt sorry for him, I imagine.'

‘Sorry for an American! They are all stinking rich, aren't they?'

‘Only some of them,' said Kenny.

‘Is he paying her for the room?'

‘I expect so.'

‘How much?'

‘I didn't ask.'

Rosie's eyes were distant, focused on Kenny knew not what.

He had taken to the American, had found him honest and straightforward, but there was something sad about him too, a certain vulnerability. Kenny didn't really want to talk about Babs or the American any more and was bored by the gossip on which Rosie seemed to thrive. He wanted to tell her that he had lunched with Sir Charles Huserall, one of Naval Intelligence's chief liaison officers, and that Sir Charles had told him he was ‘doing a grand job' and had congratulated him on the SPU's arrest record – but he knew that Rosie wouldn't be impressed.

‘You must be tired,' he said.

‘What?'

‘Tired, you must be—'

‘I heard you the first time.'

‘Sorry.'

‘I think someone should write to Jackie. Tell him what's going on.'

‘Tell him what? That Babs is helping the war effort?'

‘She is making a fortune in the process.'

‘You're not doing too badly yourself, Rosie.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘You're earning good money at Merryweather's.'

‘Don't you think I deserve it?'

Kenny sighed. ‘Of course you deserve it.'

‘It is not a job any Tom, Dick or Harry can do. I was picked, vetted and specially trained.'

‘Of course, of course you were.'

He reached across the table and tapped his forefinger against her wrist.

‘Let's go to bed.'

She glanced at him scornfully. He felt a spurt of temper at the realisation that she was more interested in Babs's affairs than his needs, and wondered if the sex side of things was about to be swallowed up by anxiety too. He rubbed his forefinger against her wrist then up under the sleeve of the overcoat to stroke the soft flesh of her forearm.

‘I'm not tired,' Rosie said.

‘Good,' Kenny said. ‘I'm not tired either.'

She slid her arm away.

‘I thought you had an early start tomorrow.'

‘I do,' Kenny said. ‘I have to be up at six.'

‘There you are then,' Rosie said.

Pushing herself from the table, she scooped up his coffee cup and carried it to the sink. In the shabby trench coat and goblin socks, she reminded him of one of the ragamuffins that roamed the streets of the Gorbals. If he hadn't known better, he might have suspected that Rosie was reverting to type. He was no longer inclined to make love to her. What he really wanted to do was put his arms about her, kiss her and tell her that she had nothing to worry about, that he would take care of her and that everything would be all right – but he wasn't that much of a hypocrite. He stepped to one side so that she could read his lips.

‘Good night, Rosie,' he said. ‘Don't sit up too late.'

‘I won't,' she said, addressing the blackout curtain.

And Kenny, hiding his disappointment, took himself off to bed.

*   *   *

Back in the good old days when he'd been coining money from selling stolen motorcars Jackie had brought her the pale peach housecoat.

Jackie was forever buying her things – jewellery, clothes, perfume, daft little ornaments for her dressing table. He was nothing if not spendthrift, her Jackie. All that had stopped when Dominic Manone had overreached himself, and the coppers, Rosie's husband among them, had come snapping at his heels. Jackie had never been mixed up in the big-money rackets, however, and whatever deal Dominic had done with the forces of law and order, Jackie and his brothers had escaped without a stain on their characters. Lucky? Oh yes, Babs thought, very lucky. Bad enough having a husband away in the army, far worse having him banged up in Barlinne Prison; explaining
that
to the children would have been no fun at all.

As it was, she was doing all right – well, moderately all right. She received a slice of Jackie's army pay every week and civil service wages weren't bad, even for a woman. She paid a shilling a day for April's nursery school. Polly had volunteered to meet the cost of keeping the other three at Blackstone. Babs had accepted her sister's offer with alacrity for, war or no war, Polly, being Polly, was doing more than all right for herself.

She knew bloody well that Polly had told Rosie about the lodger, though, and Rosie had nagged poor Kenny into ‘dropping in' to see what was what, and that the whole damned lot of them disapproved of her taking a stranger into her house. And, she thought, what about the soldier boys out there in the great unknown? What the heck do you think they're doing, half of them? Sitting about the NAAFI every night sipping tea and playing ping pong? I'll bloody bet they're not. Besides, she told herself, as she parked herself on the toilet seat to shave her legs, this is nothing, a cheap thrill, if you like, that won't get out of hand.

‘Hi,' Babs said.

‘Hi yourself.'

He was over by the wireless at the window, twiddling the knobs, a glass of whisky – Scotch, she must learn to call it Scotch – in one hand, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his lips. The wireless whined and whistled and then, responding to Christy's delicate manipulations, released a voice jabbering in a foreign language, a voice that almost instantly melted into Monte Rey crooning ‘South of the Border'.

‘I thought you'd gone to your room,' Christy said.

He was wearing the cable-knit sweater; so far she hadn't seen him in anything else. He had rolled up the woollen sleeves, though, and she noted how muscular his forearms were, and how hairy.

‘Not without my nightcap,' she heard herself say.

The bottle on the coffee table was half empty. Christy had a puffy heaviness about the eyelids that suggested he'd been tippling steadily since she'd left the living room a half-hour ago. It was late now, coming up for eleven. After Monte wandered off down Mexico way there would be a news bulletin and that curious beeping that signalled the end of broadcasting for the night.

‘We could both use a snort, I guess?' Christy said.

‘Pardon?'

‘Neat, or with ginger ale?'

‘Oh – eh – neat.'

He poured a shot of whisky into a chunky glass and carried it across the living room. He walked with a rolling gait, like a seaman, toes turned in. She wondered what it would be like to dance with him. He gave her the glass, took the ciggie from his lips and held out his glass for a toast.

‘Here's to family,' he said. ‘Here's to Kenny.'

‘What d' you mean?' said Babs.

‘You didn't expect him tonight, did you?'

‘Well, no, I didn't,' Babs admitted.

Glasses touched, clinking. He lingered close for a moment, looking directly into her eyes and not down the neck of the housecoat, which is what most men would have done under the circumstances.

Babs drew in a deep breath and, retreating, seated herself in one of the armchairs that flanked the fireplace. She sat back, crossed her bare legs, and modestly adjusted the folds of the housecoat.

‘Nice guy,' Christy said.

‘For a copper, you mean.'

‘I've nothing against coppers.'

‘I told my sister about you,' Babs said. ‘That was a mistake.'

‘Which sister would that be?' Christy asked. ‘Polly, or Rosie?'

‘Polly.'

‘Manone's wife?'

‘You've a good memory, haven't you?' Babs said.

‘Pays off in my business.'

‘Kenny's married to Rosie. She's the deaf one.'

‘Children?'

‘Not yet.'

He nodded, approached the armchair, looked down at her. She waited for him to brush her hair with his fingertips or tip up her chin and kiss her with all the courteous aplomb of a William Powell or a George Sanders. He took the cigarette from his mouth, coughed into his fist, and backed off.

Babs sat up. ‘You okay?'

‘Fine. Frog in my throat, is all.'

The whisky seeped warmly into Babs's chest. She had bathed in four inches of water, sponged herself down using the last bar of scented soap from her store. She could smell the fragrance rising from her body, the tang of Jackie's shaving soap too, and realised that even in the cooling air of the living room, she was beginning to perspire.

‘How come she married a cop?' Christy said.

‘Why shouldn't she marry a cop?' Babs said.

‘It must've been awkward if Polly was already married to somebody from the other side of the street.'

‘Did I tell you that?'

‘Guess you did.'

‘I don't remember telling you that. Still, you're right. It fair put the cat among the pigeons, our Rosie falling for a police officer. He was on Dom's case, you see, that's how he met Rosie. It's a long, boring story.'

‘I like long boring stories.'

‘I don't,' said Babs, ‘not at this time of night, anyway.'

‘You don't much care for your sisters, do you?'

Babs hesitated. ‘How did you figure that out?'

He shrugged. ‘Shot in the dark.'

Babs had never discussed what the family meant to her, had never told anyone that she longed to turn back the years and share again the closeness of the slum tenement when Polly had been her chum, not her rival.

‘We were dragged up the hard way,' she said. ‘My old man bailed out when we were really young. My mammy worked her fingers to the bone to keep us fed and clothed. There was more to it, a lot more, but – yeah, you're right; Polly an' I don't see eye to eye. Since her husband took the children off to New York, she's changed a lot.'

‘Changed? How?'

‘You can't really talk to her any more. It's the war. It's always the war, isn't it? Anyway, that's my excuse for falling out with Polly.'