When Jacob had gone off to work at his bank, Vida had smiled to herself, the purring gently soothing her body, bringing only nice thoughts to her mind. For five minutes of foreplay and not much else beyond throwing a dinner party once a month, her payment was splendidly out of all proportion. Her scheme worked out in Germany to change her life, purporting to be a Jewish victim of Hitler, had been more successful than her wildest dreams. One forged letter of introduction to the head of a New York bank and here she was, richer than anyone she had known before in her life. And the war was going Germany’s way with the whole of Europe under the German jackboot other than England, an England close to capitulation according to newspaper reports, making Vida mentally hug herself with excitement.

  She had made up her mind. When Germany won the war with American connivance through non-participation, she was going back to Berlin to flaunt her wealth. The besotted ‘old goat’, so happy to get his life back again, had not put one stipulation in the wording of the trust. She was free as a bird. Kurt, for forging her papers, would have his reward. Germany would dominate the world, Berlin its capital.

  From being a penniless thirty-two year old of Lebanese extraction, she would go home in triumph, a real German, the Wagner name she had used in her false papers to America, her real name for the rest of her life.

  “Amy, we’re throwing a dinner party on Friday. Make me a coffee.”

  “Yes, madam.”

  The purring went on. That was what she really liked. Respect. Being called madam by a scullery maid. No longer a nanny for Jewish families in England to order around.

  Then, while Amy was making her coffee, she went to the phone and called Gillian Kannberg to invite her to dinner. It was called the Battle of Britain by the paper she avidly read while waiting for the exchange to put through her call. The New York Post was all doom and gloom in its reports from London.

  “And they are losing it,” she read with satisfaction.

  “What are they losing, madam?” said Amy from the kitchen.

  “The war, Amy. Britain is losing the war.”

  “I read it was touch and go. Another paper said the RAF are shooting down five German planes for every one the Germans are bringing down. That the RAF pilots who bale out in time are back in the air the same day in a new aircraft the British factories are turning out.”

  “What do you know, Amy?”

  “Only what I read in the papers. My boyfriend says we Americans should go and help. That if we don’t, we’ll be next. He thinks the Japs are going to side with the Germans. That fighting a war on two fronts will leave us Americans in a right royal mess.”

  “The Japanese would never be so silly as to go to war with America. They have enough on their plate with their war against China. America and Germany have always been friends. Hurry up with my coffee.”

  “The coffee pot is just coming to the boil. I know you like it hot.”

  Only when Vida was halfway through the cup of coffee did she reflect on the irony of her situation. Only in New York did it pay to claim to be Jewish. Everywhere else, the Jews were trying to hide. Luckily Jacob went to shul at infrequent intervals, taking her when he went. Whether he believed the full extent of her story was a worrying question. Twice in shul, Vida had got the procedure wrong, explaining afterwards shul in Germany had been different, that ever since Hitler came to power her family had maintained a distance from their Jewish religion.

  ‘Men believe anything when it suits them,’ she thought, her lower lip twisting upwards. ‘It’s how they are made’.

  The call to Gillian Kannberg had been brief. In Vida’s opinion the woman was a social climber out of her depth. Every time Vida had seen Gillian with Bruno she understood; the girl had her husband under her thumb which, she smiled to herself, was all a woman required to be successful in life. They had the same thing in common, the two of them. They were both on the make. Both with men besotted by them.

  Later, Vida went for a walk in Central Park, opposite their apartment in Abercrombie Place. To pass the time she looked at people’s faces, many washed by the sun. None looked worried. None looked concerned. The war in Europe was nothing to do with them. Genevieve and Gregory L’Amour in Holy Knight were more real to them on the screen than the stories of war from Europe. Most New Yorkers she watched in the park were smiling. With the war effort in England frantically buying American goods, the depression was finally over. Good times were going to roll for everyone, the pursuit of money a pastime once again in vogue.

  Vida looked carefully at each of the faces passing her by. There were many with expressions she mostly understood, expressions each of them had cultivated to see them comfortably through their day. Inside each of the heads behind the faces, like inside her own head, was a squirrel’s nest of plans and expectations, all of them centred on themselves. Like Vida, all of them, she knew, were scheming something or other, the park and the trees only fleetingly noticed, each head an island unto itself. Only a squirrel not far up a tree, looking her square in the eye, knew what she was thinking.

  “Just as well I can’t ask you what everyone’s thinking,” she said to the squirrel as she picked up her stride in the sun, the leaves and trees suddenly real to her.

  A row about money began the moment Bruno Kannberg reached home from work. If he had had any money he would have gone to the small bar near the office to talk over the war with his fellow journalists, the war Arthur Bumley in London had said on the phone was reaching a critical point.

  “They’re hitting the radar stations, directly attacking Fighter Command at the airfields and command centres. They know where to attack. Another month, the RAF will be exhausted, not enough pilots left to fly. In Kent and Surrey the battle’s right over their heads. A monumental struggle. Churchill sent a squadron of Blenheims last night to bomb Berlin. To give the Germans a small taste of their own medicine. Bomber Command isn’t strong enough to take the war to Germany. They didn’t have adequate fighter escort. Tell your American friends to write in their papers we need some help.”

  “How long can the Luftwaffe take their casualties? Even when their pilots bale out they are out of the battle. Prisoners of war.”

  “We don’t know, Bruno. The fog of war. We don’t really know what’s happening in our own squadrons. Two chaps fire on the same Jerry and both claim the kill.”

  “Don’t we know our own casualties?”

  “That we do. The numbers are terrible.”

  “Is Tinus all right?”

  “How do I know? Tangmere’s taking the brunt of the fight with the rest of the stations near the south coast. They won’t tell us the truth. Propaganda on both sides.”

  “Won’t bombing Berlin make Hitler bomb London?”

  “I think that’s Churchill’s hope, God help us. Take the fight away from Fighter Command. Give them a chance to regroup. The pilots are on drugs to keep them awake. Some pilots are going up four times a day as the waves of German bombers come over. Thank God for radar. They don’t have to patrol, looking for the Germans. They can sit on the ground and wait to be scrambled by telephone from the command centres. They’re pulling squadrons down from Scotland, so we just heard. We’re out of reserves in the south.”

  “I’d better come home and join the army.”

  “Stay where you are. Do your job. You’ll do more good making the American public see sense. We’re fighting their war as much as ours, single-handed. No, not single-handed. Thank God again for the empire, for the Canadians, Australians, South Africans and New Zealanders. We’ve even got Rhodesians in the RAF and a squadron of Poles who escaped when Poland collapsed. Your old friend Harry Brigandshaw wants to get back in the air. They won’t let him. Say he’s too old. My guess is losing Harry would be bad for British morale with all the publicity if he crashed. When’s Gregory L’Amour coming over?”

  “Poor chap feels terrible. Max Pearl is not publishing a book of my magazine serial. Gregory pulled it. Are you all right, Mr Bumley?”

  “Found myself a girlfriend. Billy Glass at the Mail suggested it. We’re both in a rut… I’m all right.”

  “Does your wife know?”

  “Don’t be bloody stupid. She thinks I can’t get it up anymore. How’s Gillian?”

  “The same. Spent every penny I’ve made.”

  “Tell me about it. Good sex costs money.”

  Without the price of a round of drinks in his pocket there was nothing he could do. The worst sin in Bruno’s eyes was leaving a drinking session when it was his turn to pay for the round. He had never done it, and despite Arthur Bumley’s suggestion to talk to his American colleagues he went straight home to find Gillian grinning all over her face, a sure sign she wanted something.

  “Marvellous dinner party at Jacob Rosenzweig’s residence. Hollywood. Publishers. Max will be there. And we’re invited. You are so clever writing books about the famous. Vida phoned. She’s such a dear. Bet she’s glad to be out of Germany. They don’t like Jews in Germany I’m told. I’ve just got to have a new dress. At that kind of level you can’t be seen in the same dress twice. I’ll stun them again. There’s a lovely shop on Fifth Avenue. Has just what I want. I’m sure Vida will be showing off a new piece of jewellery. Jacob’s so generous. Well, I’ll just have to settle for a nice new dress. Jewellery like hers is out of the question for the moment. Maybe you’ll write a bestselling novel about the rich and famous. All our new friends.”

  “We don’t have any money.”

  “Just enough for a dress, Bruno. You know how nice I can look.”

  “We don’t have any money.”

  “Ask that nice man Max Pearl for an advance on the new L’Amour book.”

  “Gregory’s pulled it.”

  “What on earth for? Then the one you’ve been talking about. Who’s this one about? You don’t have to keep secrets from your wife. I hope the person is very famous. The more famous they are the better it sells. Max is rolling in money.”

  “I don’t have a new book.”

  “But you told everyone you did.”

  “I lied.”

  “Well, you’d better think of something sharp. There are lots of famous people in New York.”

  “Don’t you think of your parents in London?”

  “Of course I do but they’re there and I’m here. What can I do? Father’s a grocer. Everyone has to eat.”

  “There’s food rationing.”

  “What can I do about it, Bruno? I get us an invitation to a top-notch private dinner party at a rich banker’s home and you’re more worried about my mother and father than you are about what your wife’s going to look like on Friday night!”

  “There’s a war raging over England. You’re English. My father’s Latvian and I worry about England every moment of the day. Arthur Bumley says the war’s coming to a head. We may lose. Instead of arguing with you about some stupid dinner party I should be right now getting my American friends in the Fourth Estate to write about England, to call for help from America. Convince the American public it’s going to be them next if we lose the air battle raging over England. It’s your bloody country, Gillian. Arthur’s worried out of his mind, thinks Germany’s about to bomb the centre of London, not just the docks. That’s right, London docks. They bombed the East End last night.”

  “Art the Bumley’s an ass.”

  “Don’t you call him that!”

  “How dare you shout at me. Get out. Go and get drunk with your low-class friends. See if I care. All I want is a damn dress. Is that too much to expect from your wife? Sometimes I wonder why I bothered to marry you, Bruno Kannberg. There were dozens of men I could have married.”

  “Shorthand typists marry clerks, live in semi-detached houses in Wimbledon if they are lucky. Spend their entire lives paying a mortgage and scrubbing the floors.”

  “Some of them would have got rich.”

  “None of them. I’m going where I should have been in the first place. Earning my salary by doing what I was told by my editor.”

  “So I don’t get the dress?”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Then get out. You’ll regret this, Bruno. You’ll pay for this. Mark my words.”

  When Bruno came home drunk four hours later having borrowed twenty dollars from a friend in the bar, Gillian was in bed, sitting up, polishing her nails. Without looking at his wife, Bruno got in the other side of the bed. For the first time since meeting Gillian West he had no desire to make love to her. Turning his back, Bruno went quickly to sleep, his mouth wide open, ready to snore. In the night he dreamed of London and the bombs coming down.

  In room twenty-eight at the Independence Hotel, Robert St Clair woke in a cold sweat. In his dream the bomb had made a direct hit on Barnaby’s town house in Piccadilly, blasting out the wall of the bedroom and sending Robert down the stairs atop the grandfather clock as it shot downwards to the ground floor of the house, bouncing off the wooden bannisters. Still alive at the bottom, Robert found the blast had taken off his left foot. Then he woke screaming, Freya trying to hold him down.

  “I’ve lost the other foot, Freya.”

  Carefully, slowly, cold sweat soaking the sheets, Robert felt down with his right hand looking for his only foot.

  “It’s still there.”

  “Of course it’s still there. What’s the matter?”

  “Barnaby has taken a direct hit. I was in the house sleeping. It’s all back. The funk. Reading London’s being bombed. The same stench of the trenches. Rats, water, and bodies decomposing in no man’s land.”

  “I’ll make us some tea. They have a tea maker somewhere in the cupboard. The man who showed us the room said we don’t have to call room service. Some of the guests prefer their privacy. You’re shivering.”

  “I was always shivering in the trenches. We all were. From cold and fear. You never got used to it. Merlin said the same. In the desert it was just cold fear before an attack according to Barnaby. You didn’t know where they were in the folds of sand.”

  “You’re not going. That settles it.”

  “You can’t boast about your brave ancestors half your life and leave England in the lurch when it matters.”

  “What can you do for them in England? You should stay with me and the children.”

  “You’re American. The children are too small. You’ll be all right with your parents in Denver. I’ll give the family moral support. If we don’t all do our bit, England will go down. I’d phone Barnaby now if I thought I could get through. The tea machine’s in that cupboard, I think. The bellboy was pointing that way when I gave him five dollars for bringing up the bags. Oh no, I must go home. They expect it of me. I’ll do some writing for the propaganda department at the War Office. All that morale building. It was so real. The dream was so real.”

  “I’m coming with you on the boat. You stay or I go. Who’s going to make you tea in the middle of the night?”

  “The children need you.”

  “So do you. Mother can cope. Give her something to do. Don’t argue, Robert. Either you stay or we both go. We can both stay with Barnaby.”

  “If my brother still has his townhouse. It was so vivid. I came down the stairs on the grandfather clock that stands on the second floor landing. What time is it?”

  “Three in the morning. A nice cup of tea will get you back to sleep.”

  “You sound like Mrs Mason at Purbeck Manor.”

  “I know. Wipe yourself with the towel. You’re drenched in sweat.”

  “You always think of me and the children.”

  “That’s my job. It also gives me pleasure. I like looking after the people I love.”

  “It was nice of Gerry Hollingsworth to come all the way from California to see me off. With his wife. You know Sir Jacob’s married? She lives in London. Jacob’s wife never visits America. A marriage of convenience for family financial reasons that didn’t work.”

  “To see us off, Robert. I’m coming with you on Saturday.”

  “You don’t have a ticket.”

  “Then I’ll smuggle myself onto the boat. Chances are it’s half empty. They’re all coming this way away from the war. I’ll phone my mother in the morning. Do you really want tea?”

  “Not anymore now I found my one good foot. Turn out the light and give me a cuddle. If I start sweating again, wake me up.”

  “I don’t think he’s brought his wife.”

  “We’ll find out at Jacob’s dinner party on Friday night. Do you mind my only having one foot?”

  “It’s not the foot that counts. Come here, lover. They say people make love more often in wartime.”

  “Now I know why you’re coming.”

  Down the corridor in room thirty-six Glen Hamilton was sitting up in bed talking to his wife. As was their habit, they talked to each other about what was worrying Glen in his job.

  “It’s three in the morning. You need some sleep, Glen. For tomorrow. You can’t function on three hours’ sleep.”

 

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