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Authors: R. F. Delderfield
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Barring Monica every Judy I’ve seen in three months has been a compromise between a wardress and a musical-comedy bandsman. Where do we celebrate?’
‘I’m off until six a.m. tomorrow,’ she said, ‘I swopped duties with a staff nurse. It cost me thirty bob. It took a world war to make me understand the real value of money!’
‘What the hell made you go back to nursing?’ he asked, chuckling. ‘You didn’t have to. Andy told you to keep the Birmingham flat going. It couldn’t have been the bombing or you wouldn’t have come here.’
‘I was bored and I didn’t fancy joining anything and being bawled at by one of those horse-faced daughters of the Empire. Besides, nursing was the only thing I knew. You remember how Andy abducted me from a hospital, don’t you?’
He hadn’t remembered but he did now. They had both been involved in a road crash in South Wales and Andy had been detained with a rib fracture. Later he had returned to the hospital and whisked her from under an outraged sister’s nose, and Monica had thought it all rather silly and common, until she realised how completely Andy was bewitched by this droll little Welsh girl. She got used to her however, for Andy had seen to that and so, in a less direct way, had Stephen himself, for he had never underestimated the value of her cheerfulness that offset, to a great extent, Monica’s starchiness and Andy’s occasional sulks. Until now he had never thought of her as anything more than a woman who was pretty and companionable, and he realised that this was because, without actually giving offence, Monica had always contrived to downgrade her into the shop-girl class. She said, as they hailed a taxi, ‘Don’t unload now, Stevie, wait until we’ve got a meal inside us. I’ll take you to a joint the Americans use in Soho. All the places you once knew are blitzed or closed up. It isn’t easy to eat in town nowadays, you have to know the right people and pay the right price.’
He was surprised by her newly-acquired sophistication and wondered where she had found it. Was it the company of civvies she had taken up with since Andy had sailed away, and if so, did she do more than flirt with them? He decided that it wasn’t his business and also that she was entitled to make the best of a bad job in this drab ruin of a city.
He had forgotten how heavily the Luftwaffe had plastered London in the winter of ’40–’41, and the sight of rosebay willow herb growing in clumps on piles of rubble made him wonder if Bomber Command was doing the same to Hamburg, Dusseldorf and Cologne. He doubted it for, so far, the attacks were largely experimental and the night offensive had hardly got into its stride. He said, ‘You haven’t had any bombing in a long time, have you?’ and she told him not since the big fire-bomb attack of May last year and that Londoners were very pro-Russian on that account. Then she said, squeezing his hand, ‘Don’t let’s go on talking about the old war, Stevie! I can see Monica’s point, you know, it is a fearful bore, although I don’t see why she had to take it out on you.’ She leaned forward and called through the glass panel, ‘Turn right here, then first left! It’s called “ Lune de Paris ”,’ she went on ‘although God knows why! It’s run by a crafty bunch of Cypriote!’ and then she sat back rather heavily somehow contriving to half sit on his knee so that he thought again, with an inward laugh, ‘She’s a sexy little bitch! I wonder if she’ll tell me a pack of lies about what she does in her off-duty moments?’ and they left the taxi and entered a café where the tables were already laid for dinner.
The food was good by wartime standards and Margaret told him that the owner had extensive black market contacts in Smithfield and who could blame him for using them? Everybody had to eat and could hardly be expected to survive on spam indefinitely. ‘You can bet they don’t down among the
‘I’m off until six a.m. tomorrow,’ she said, ‘I swopped duties with a staff nurse. It cost me thirty bob. It took a world war to make me understand the real value of money!’
‘What the hell made you go back to nursing?’ he asked, chuckling. ‘You didn’t have to. Andy told you to keep the Birmingham flat going. It couldn’t have been the bombing or you wouldn’t have come here.’
‘I was bored and I didn’t fancy joining anything and being bawled at by one of those horse-faced daughters of the Empire. Besides, nursing was the only thing I knew. You remember how Andy abducted me from a hospital, don’t you?’
He hadn’t remembered but he did now. They had both been involved in a road crash in South Wales and Andy had been detained with a rib fracture. Later he had returned to the hospital and whisked her from under an outraged sister’s nose, and Monica had thought it all rather silly and common, until she realised how completely Andy was bewitched by this droll little Welsh girl. She got used to her however, for Andy had seen to that and so, in a less direct way, had Stephen himself, for he had never underestimated the value of her cheerfulness that offset, to a great extent, Monica’s starchiness and Andy’s occasional sulks. Until now he had never thought of her as anything more than a woman who was pretty and companionable, and he realised that this was because, without actually giving offence, Monica had always contrived to downgrade her into the shop-girl class. She said, as they hailed a taxi, ‘Don’t unload now, Stevie, wait until we’ve got a meal inside us. I’ll take you to a joint the Americans use in Soho. All the places you once knew are blitzed or closed up. It isn’t easy to eat in town nowadays, you have to know the right people and pay the right price.’
He was surprised by her newly-acquired sophistication and wondered where she had found it. Was it the company of civvies she had taken up with since Andy had sailed away, and if so, did she do more than flirt with them? He decided that it wasn’t his business and also that she was entitled to make the best of a bad job in this drab ruin of a city.
He had forgotten how heavily the Luftwaffe had plastered London in the winter of ’40–’41, and the sight of rosebay willow herb growing in clumps on piles of rubble made him wonder if Bomber Command was doing the same to Hamburg, Dusseldorf and Cologne. He doubted it for, so far, the attacks were largely experimental and the night offensive had hardly got into its stride. He said, ‘You haven’t had any bombing in a long time, have you?’ and she told him not since the big fire-bomb attack of May last year and that Londoners were very pro-Russian on that account. Then she said, squeezing his hand, ‘Don’t let’s go on talking about the old war, Stevie! I can see Monica’s point, you know, it is a fearful bore, although I don’t see why she had to take it out on you.’ She leaned forward and called through the glass panel, ‘Turn right here, then first left! It’s called “ Lune de Paris ”,’ she went on ‘although God knows why! It’s run by a crafty bunch of Cypriote!’ and then she sat back rather heavily somehow contriving to half sit on his knee so that he thought again, with an inward laugh, ‘She’s a sexy little bitch! I wonder if she’ll tell me a pack of lies about what she does in her off-duty moments?’ and they left the taxi and entered a café where the tables were already laid for dinner.
The food was good by wartime standards and Margaret told him that the owner had extensive black market contacts in Smithfield and who could blame him for using them? Everybody had to eat and could hardly be expected to survive on spam indefinitely. ‘You can bet they don’t down among the
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