Wives at War (7 page)

Gloomily he contemplated the wave-streaked waters of the estuary. His father had been born and raised on one side of this river, his mother on the other. His brother, Jamie, an ambitious son of a bitch, had used the Scottish connection to persuade him to accept the assignment.

The array of ships was impressive, though: Clyde-built corvettes, MTBs and destroyers were tucked into every cove behind the boom defences, a gigantic steel net that stretched between the Cloch lighthouse and the weed-strewn rocks of the Gantocks hard by the little town of Dunoon.

The door of the lounge creaked open.

Figuring it would be Marzipan at last, Christy turned.

It was only a girl, very young, very nervous. She brought in a tray with two bottles of light ale, two glasses, and a plate of what looked like ship's biscuits. She put the tray on a knee-high table in the window bay, bobbed a curtsy, and went out again.

No sooner had the girl left than Marzipan entered.

He closed the door, and said, ‘Refreshment?'

‘No thanks,' Christy said.

‘What's the matter? Don't you like our Scottish beer?'

‘Not much.'

Marzipan lifted one of the brown bottles and fiddled with the cap, then, changing his mind, put it down on the tray again. ‘I hear you've left the aerodrome, struck out on your own, sort of thing,'

‘Yep.'

‘Have you made contact yet?'

‘Not with the target,' Christy said. ‘With her sister.'

‘The one who works in recruitment?'

‘Yeah, I'm lodging with her.'

‘My, my! You are a fast worker.'

Marzipan was a beanpole with sunken cheeks, a hawk nose and a little sand-coloured moustache. His hair was set in tight curls, sand-coloured too. He wore no topcoat and his tweed jacket had seen better days. His shirt was spotless, though, the knot in his tie as small and tight as a peanut. Christy wondered if he was a naval officer like Jamie, and struggled to recall what he'd heard about navy regulations; no moustaches, no moustaches without beards, something like that. He knew better than to ask.

‘Do I have a codename yet?' Christy asked.

‘Would you like a codename?'

‘Not especially.'

‘You don't need one.'

‘But you do?'

Marzipan smiled. He had small, foxy teeth.

Christy figured him to be about forty, maybe a weathered thirty-five. He spoke in a clipped Scottish accent, snipping the words into sentences as if he were used to dictating to a secretary.

‘I do, alas,' said Marzipan. ‘Tell me about the sister.'

‘What's to tell,' said Christy. ‘She's not important.'

‘Are you sleeping with her?'

‘Nope.'

‘It doesn't matter to me if you are.'

‘I'm not,' said Christy. ‘I'm just approaching from the rear…'

‘Really!'

‘… like you told me to.'

‘What about the husband?'

‘In the army. Tanks. In Devon.'

Marzipan nodded. He knew that already, of course.

Christy said, ‘Did he work with Manone?'

‘He did, but he was small fry, very small fry.'

‘There's a brother-in-law too – Dennis.'

‘He's at sea,' Marzipan said, ‘serving on an aircraft carrier.'

‘If you already have all the answers, what do you need from me?'

Marzipan seated himself on the arm of a broken-down sofa. He said, ‘Unfortunately we
don't
have all the answers. Even more unfortunately we aren't calling the tune. After you make contact with Manone's wife, we should have a clearer picture of what's going on.'

‘Just what is going on?' Christy said.

‘That's what you're here to find out.'

‘When do I get my clearance to sail with a convoy?'

‘All in good time,' Marzipan told him. ‘Meanwhile, is there anything we can do for you? Anything you need? Money?'

‘I'm fine.'

‘The London office is coming through then?'

‘Like clockwork,' said Christy.

‘Where do you deposit the cheques?'

‘No cheques. Postal orders.'

‘Good.'

‘Is that it?'

‘For the time being.'

‘You brought me down here just to pat me on the head?'

‘Progress report,' Marzipan said. ‘Candidly, I had hoped for a little more. Do you still have the number I gave you?'

‘Yeah.'

‘I'll be gone for a week or two,' Marzipan said. ‘But the person at the other end can be trusted to take messages. I'll be in touch as soon as I get back.'

‘From where?'

Marzipan laughed. His blue-grey eyes became wet. He wiped them with a knuckle as if Christy had just told him the funniest joke in the world.

‘The States?' said Christy.

‘Not the States, no.'

‘If you happen to bump into my brother—'

‘It's highly unlikely.'

‘Yeah, well, if you do,' Christy said, ‘tell him to go shoot himself.'

‘I'm sure you don't mean that,' said Marzipan, still laughing.

‘I'm goddamned sure I do,' said Christy.

*   *   *

Lizzie should have been pleased to see her daughters but she had become so set in her ways that she was quite disconcerted when all three turned up at once.

They were no longer bright young things. They had husbands, children and worries of their own, and sometimes seemed to converse in a language she could not now understand. The war had snapped the natural chain of events by which women her age anchored themselves to the past. She was confused by what was happening in the world, and Bernard and the girls tried to protect her from its harsher realities, which made her feel even more stupid.

Babs breezed in about a quarter past one o'clock, April and a litter of bags and boxes in her arms. Puffing, she dumped the lot on a chair in the living room, stood April on the dining table and began to undo the layers of wool and flannel in which the little girl was wrapped.

‘Let me do that,' Lizzie offered.

‘It's okay,' said Babs brusquely. ‘I've got it.'

‘Mum's got it,' April said.

Leaning placidly on her mother's shoulders, she gave Granny a careful scrutiny that may, or may not, have ended with a smile.

‘Have you had your dinner?' Lizzie asked.

‘Nope,' said Babs. ‘I've brought stuff. It's in the brown bag, that one.'

‘You don't have to bring food,' Lizzie said. ‘I've enough to go round.'

April said, ‘We never went to see Angus an' the pig today.'

‘Did you not, darlin'?' said Lizzie.

‘We comed here instead.'

‘Hold still, honey.' Babs avoided her mother's eye. ‘You're gettin' too big for this old coat. Arms up, please.'

Stripped of her scarf, balaclava and overcoat, April allowed herself to be lifted from the table and placed in one of the fireside armchairs. She sat back against the cushions, legs sticking out. She wore long stockings, crimped with elasticised garters, and patent leather shoes. When she was April's age, Lizzie thought, Babs would have killed for a pair of shoes like that.

‘Where's Grandpa?'

‘Yes,' Babs said, ‘where is Bernard?'

‘Out.'

‘I can see that, Mammy, but where?'

Lizzie shrugged.

Bernard had pitched himself into the war effort with energy and enthusiasm. He was some years younger than Lizzie. He had fought in the last war and was irked at not being able to fight in this one. Lizzie couldn't shake off the conviction that if the war lasted long enough, however, she would lose Bernard on the battlefield as she had ‘lost' her first husband, Frank Conway. Frank hadn't died for king and country, though; he had deserted the army, abandoned her and the children without a qualm, and fled to America to work for Carlo Manone's outfit in Philadelphia.

‘He's gone to church,' Lizzie said.

‘Shouldn't he be back by now?' said Babs.

‘Red Cross meeting.'

‘Bernard isn't in the Red Cross, is he?'

‘Ambulance class, I mean,' said Lizzie.

She really had no idea which of her husband's activities had delayed him after morning service. Between his job as a billeting officer for Breslin town council and his volunteer work she saw very little of him these days.

‘He is a busy bee, our Bernie,' said Babs.

‘Busy bee, busy bee,' April repeated, and giggled.

It was good to have a child in the house again, Lizzie thought. She missed Stuart and Ishbel, Polly's children, missed May and June too, and Angus most of all. She hadn't been invited to visit Blackstone Farm; Babs had somehow never got around to taking her, not even in summer when the days were long.

She was on the point of picking up her granddaughter and carrying her off into the kitchen to ‘help' make lunch when the front door opened and Rosie stuck her head into the living room.

‘Uh-anyone at home?'

April was out of the chair and across the room like a shot. She threw herself against her aunt and hugged her.

Rosie firmly disengaged herself and in a voice too loud for the small room, shouted, ‘Oh, you're here, are you?'

‘Why shouldn't I be here?' said Babs.

‘I wanted to talk to Mammy.'

April tried again, hugging Rosie's arm.

Rosie shook her off.

‘Oi,' said Babs, ‘take it easy on the kid, okay?'

‘She didn't hear you,' Lizzie said.

‘She did an' all.' Babs faced her sister. ‘What the heck's wrong with you, Rosie? If you want to talk privately to Mammy then go into the kitchen.'

April, near to tears, leaned disconsolately against the table.

Babs picked her up.

‘Have you had your lunch, dearest?' Lizzie said.

‘I'm not hungry,' said Rosie.

‘There's soup in the pot,' said Lizzie.

‘I don't want anything,' said Rosie. ‘I didn't know she'd be here.'

‘“She” has a name, you know,' said Babs. ‘An' why shouldn't I be here, for God's sake? I've as much right to be here as you have.'

‘I thought you went to the farm every Sunday.'

‘Well, I didn't, not today.' Babs put April back in the armchair.

Rosie's fingers trembled as she worked open the buttons of her overcoat.

‘Where is he then?' she said.

‘Where's who?' said Babs.

‘Your fancy man, your Yuh-yankee doodle?'

‘Oh, so that's it,' said Babs. ‘You came to snitch on me, did you?'

‘I thought you might have brought him along to show him how the other half lives,' said Rosie.

‘Other half? What's that supposed to mean?'

‘Fancy man?' said Lizzie, frowning. ‘Who's got a fancy man?'

‘She has,' said Rosie, with a cheap little smirk. ‘Couldn't manage without a bit of the how's-your-fuh-father so she's found a man to move in with her.'

‘If you weren't my sister,' Babs said, ‘an' if you weren't such a pathetic little bitch, I'd smash your face in, so I would. Can't you get it into that nasty wee head of yours that Christy's a paying guest.'

‘Uh-huh, but what's he paying for?' said Rosie.

‘Christy,' April put in, ‘is nice.'

‘See,' Rosie said. ‘He has even got to the kid.'

‘Got to the … got to…'

Babs slapped her palm on the table, making the boxes jump.

Lizzie was not so naïve as all that. She was prepared to accept that, in spite of Babs's denial, there might be some truth in Rosie's accusation. Sensing trouble, she plucked April from the armchair and carried her through the kitchen, out the back door and into the communal garden that ran behind the terraced cottages.

‘What's wrong, Granny?' said April. ‘Why's Mummy shouting?'

‘Because Aunt Rosie doesn't hear very well.'

‘She's deaf.'

‘Aye, deaf. Do you see what Grandpa has done with the shelter?'

April was not particularly interested in the border of broken roof tiles with which Bernard had decorated the mouth of the air-raid shelter. Eight identical shelters were humped along the length of the communal garden, all uniformly quilted with turf but individually ornamented, for it was in the nature of Knightswood folk to embellish conformity whenever they possibly could.

‘Mummy's angry,' said April.

‘I think we'll go for a walk,' said Lizzie. ‘Would you like to see Mrs Grainger's cats?'

‘Cats.' April nodded approval. ‘How many?'

‘Two,' said Lizzie. ‘A daddy an' a mammy.'

‘Do they like each other?' April asked.

‘I'm sure they do,' said Lizzie, and, taking her grandchild by the hand, led her away from the shouting match indoors.

*   *   *

‘Dear God!' Polly snapped. ‘What's got into the pair of you? You're going at it like fishwives. I heard you halfway down the street.'

Polly had arrived unannounced at the height of the argument. Babs rounded on her older sister. ‘None of your damned business. It's all your fault, anyway. I should never have told you about Christy.'

‘I didn't know it was supposed to be a secret.'

‘This way. Face me, both of you,' Rosie yelled.

Obedient to habit they turned to face Rosie.

Polly wore a mannish-cut jacket with padded shoulders and a skirt with a front pleat. Her heavy fur-trimmed coat was draped over her shoulders like a cloak and she seemed, Babs thought, bone-brittle, her voice steely.

‘All this fuss,' Polly said, ‘over nothing.'

‘It isn't nothing,' said Rosie. ‘It's morally wrong.'

‘Morally what? Are you accusin' me of cheatin' on Jackie?'

‘Stop it. Stop it this instant.' Polly glanced round. ‘Where's Mammy? Don't tell me you've chased her out of her own house with your squabbling?'