The FitzOsbornes at War

  I found her stretched out in the cool dimness of her sitting room with her friend Daphne, both of them drinking some strange green concoction.

  ‘Darling!’ Julia cried from the chaise longue. ‘Too kind of you to come and stay, just when I desperately needed cheering up!’ She held out a hand to me.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I asked, dropping my suitcase by the doorway and going over to work out whether she was genuinely distressed.

  ‘Ant’s been transferred to Dover,’ she said, tugging me down beside her. ‘With German guns not twenty miles away in France, pointed straight at the town! And they’ve started bombing our ships in the Channel.’

  ‘You don’t know that Ant will be involved with any of that,’ said Daphne. ‘He’ll probably just be doing patrols. And, Julia, think about how you’ll be able to see so much more of him now. None of those awful treks up to Scotland, where you’d spend two days on a train, and then he’d get his leave cancelled at the last minute, and you’d have to turn around and come straight back again.’

  ‘It sounds so much more dangerous for him in Dover, though,’ Julia said.

  ‘Yes, but there’s nothing you can do about it, and meanwhile, you’re being a terrible hostess,’ said Daphne. ‘Sophie, what would you like to drink? I think there might be about half a glass of sherry left, or there’s some gin somewhere, isn’t there, Julia?’

  ‘Just don’t ask for one of these,’ said Julia, peering into her own frosted glass. ‘They’re lethal.’

  ‘They’re American,’ Daphne said proudly.

  ‘Daphne’s new boyfriend is from New York,’ Julia murmured to me, ‘or so he claims.’

  ‘All right, he may be Canadian,’ conceded Daphne. ‘But he’s been to New York, and he dances like an angel.’

  ‘I didn’t realise angels knew how to jitterbug,’ said Julia. ‘Does that mean there are swing bands in Heaven?’

  ‘Of course there are,’ said Daphne. ‘And he takes me to the most romantic restaurants – Oh, and that reminds me! Julia, do you remember that darling little Italian place where we all went for my birthday? Well, it’s boarded up now! The lady next door said the owner’s been interned.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Julia. ‘Someone tossed a petrol bomb through the window, the day Italy declared war. Of course, that poor man’s been living in England for decades, he’s about as much a Fascist as I am. Didn’t you hear they’ve locked up the chef from Quaglino’s, too, and the man who managed the restaurant at the Ritz? I just hope they weren’t on that ship that got torpedoed – you know, the one taking our Enemy Aliens to Canada.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Daphne. ‘But wait – the papers said it was only Nazis who drowned.’

  ‘No, there were Italians on board, too,’ said Julia.

  ‘Well, honestly,’ sighed Daphne, flopping back into the cushions, ‘this government is the absolute limit! Don’t they realise Italian restaurants are vital for the war effort – that they’re essential for keeping up morale? As if it isn’t bad enough that it’s impossible to find silk stockings now, or the right shade of lipstick! It’s all very well Vogue telling us that beauty is our duty, that our job is to cheer up our soldiers on leave – but how exactly is one supposed to do that when the government keeps taking away all the essentials of romance?’

  I smiled at her. She was dressed in her aircraft factory’s standard-issue brown boiler suit and a cotton headscarf – an outfit that went not at all with the embroidered silk upholstery and gold tasselled cushions of Julia’s sofa. But then I looked closer.

  ‘Daphne,’ I said, ‘you’re glittering.’

  She glanced down at herself. ‘Mmm. Those metal filings get absolutely everywhere.’

  ‘I don’t know how you do that job,’ said Julia. ‘The hours you work.’

  ‘I don’t know how I do it, either,’ said Daphne. ‘And I’m not sure I can stick it out much longer, unless we get another foreman. He loathes women, makes our lives a complete misery – when he ought to be grateful to us. We work twice as hard as the men, and get paid two-thirds of the wages.’

  ‘Well, darling, it’s not as though you need the money.’

  ‘I’m not doing it for the money.’ Daphne sat up abruptly. ‘Can I have a bath?’

  ‘Of course you can,’ said Julia. ‘Clean towels on my bed, I haven’t had a chance to put them away yet.’ Then, after Daphne had gone upstairs, Julia added, rather sadly, ‘Daphne’s brother’s a pilot, too, you know. Flies bombers, poor thing – that’s even worse than fighters. But she says that at least if he gets sent up in one of her planes, she’ll know it’s been perfectly put together.’

  Julia glanced at the photograph of Anthony on top of her desk, and he grinned back at us, his RAF cap tilted at a dashing angle. Julia frowned, and I saw she really was upset (and also, possibly, a tiny bit drunk).

  ‘This bloody war,’ she said. ‘I hate what it’s doing to us. Husbands and wives are meant to be together, but I haven’t seen Ant for weeks and weeks –’

  Some of my thoughts must have shown on my face.

  ‘Oh, I know,’ she said quickly, ‘I know I wasn’t always very nice to him, not at the start. But that was just the strain of . . . of trying to live up to his image of me. He put me up on a pedestal, Sophie, he really did, he worshipped me. He didn’t have a clue how to go about living with the real me, let alone how to . . . Well, never mind about that, I don’t want to put you off men, because they really are terribly sweet when one gets used to them. But that’s what I mean, it was all my fault, for having my own ridiculous expectations about him.’

  She stared down at her drink.

  ‘And it wasn’t until the war started that I really understood that. Once I realised Ant would be in the middle of it, putting himself in danger . . . You see, that’s why I’m determined to be the perfect wife now. Anything he wants, anything that makes him happy. I’d never, ever forgive myself if we had some silly tiff over the telephone one day and it turned out to be the last time we . . . Well. I’m not even going to think about that. But I do believe he’s happy now. He so loves flying – I just wish they’d move him to a training unit. He’s such a good teacher, so patient and persistent. He ought to think about doing something in that field, setting up a flying school or something – I mean, once the war’s over.’

  She sighed, then shook her head. ‘But tell me your news, Sophie!’ she said brightly. ‘Where’s Veronica gone off to?’

  ‘Who knows?’ I said.

  ‘Ah, something hush-hush, is it? There’s a lot of that going around. Isn’t there, Rupert?’

  ‘What?’ said Rupert, coming into the room. ‘Oh! Hello, Sophie.’ His hair was damp and he was fiddling with his cuffs.

  ‘You’d better not have used up all the hot water,’ Julia told him. ‘Now – take Sophie’s suitcase up to her room, but before that, see if there’s another bottle of sherry somewhere and pour her a drink, and then go and find a different shirt, one that doesn’t clash quite so horribly with that jacket.’

  ‘Actually, I was going downstairs to make a pot of tea,’ said Rupert, giving me a sweet smile. ‘Would you like some, Sophie?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, that’d be lovely,’ I said, because I secretly think sherry tastes like petrol. I followed him down to the kitchen, where Mrs Timms was folding her apron.

  ‘I’ve left cold chicken and potato salad for your dinner, and the peas are on the stove,’ she told him. ‘There’s an apple charlotte for pudding, but no cream left to go with it, I’m afraid.’

  That reminded me. ‘I brought my ration book,’ I said, handing it over to her.

  ‘Oh, bless you,’ she said, tucking it away in her bag. ‘I’ll be queuing up at the shops first thing on Monday. Well, I’m off now. And I’ve fed that cat, Mr Rupert, so don’t you go giving it your share of the chicken.’

  I noticed a sleek tabby crouched on the windowsill, eyeing Rupert expectantly.

  ‘I didn’t know Julia had a cat,’ I said.
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  ‘She didn’t, until a few weeks ago,’ said Rupert, putting the kettle on the stove. ‘I found him on the doorstep when I arrived here one morning. The poor thing was starving, and he’d got one of his paws tangled up in a piece of rope.’

  The cat, who appeared far from starving now, gave me a sly look. He’d probably wound the rope around his own paw, then arranged himself on the doorstep in a pitiful pose when he heard Rupert coming. Rupert’s soft heart was the first thing – often the only thing – anyone noticed about him. But as I watched him move around the kitchen, handling cups and tea canister and milk jug with quiet efficiency, I perceived something different about him. He seemed taller, somehow, or simply more at ease in his own skin.

  ‘Do you like your job?’ I asked, as he placed my cup in front of me.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Very much.’

  ‘I suppose,’ I said, ‘that you enjoy it because you know you’re doing something worthwhile.’

  ‘Mmm. Although I can’t really talk about what I do.’ He sat down and offered me the sugar.

  ‘I expect you’re also very good at it. That would help.’

  ‘Oh, well . . . ’ The old, shy, self-effacing Rupert appeared, like a flickering film image, then vanished. ‘It’s funny,’ he said, stirring his tea. ‘Right from the start, they assumed I was an expert in the field, that I’d manage everything perfectly without any help – and so I did. I wasn’t given any opportunity to start doubting myself, so I didn’t. I simply got on with it. I do still have moments when I feel as though I’m impersonating a responsible adult . . . but I think if one pretends something long enough, one eventually convinces even oneself.’ He leaned back to allow the cat, who’d been rubbing himself industriously against Rupert’s ankles, to jump onto his lap. ‘But why do you ask? Don’t you like your job?’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘It just seems a bit pointless, that’s all, compared to what most people are doing.’

  ‘Food is important,’ said Rupert. The cat popped his head up above the tabletop and seemed to nod, although he was probably just calculating the distance to the milk jug.

  ‘I’m not actually feeding people, though,’ I said. ‘I’m just sitting in an office, editing pamphlets.’

  ‘Well, you’re providing people with valuable information about . . . Oh, wait. Am I meant to be arguing with you? Or agreeing? Which would make you feel better?’

  ‘Neither, probably,’ I said, although I already felt slightly better, merely from being the subject of Rupert’s steady, sympathetic gaze.

  ‘Is this about Veronica?’ he asked. ‘About her going away for her work? Because I don’t think you’d really want her job, would you?’

  ‘No,’ I conceded. ‘I wouldn’t be able to do it, anyway. But I can’t help comparing myself to her – and of course, whenever I do compare, I always come off second best.’ Then, realising that sounded as though I were fishing for compliments, I hurriedly added, ‘But you have older brothers, you know what it’s like.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not really. David and Charlie were already at school when I was born, so no one ever bothered to compare us, least of all me.’

  ‘Oh. I suppose it’s a bit like the gap between Henry and the rest of us,’ I said.

  ‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘Henry adores you. I don’t adore David.’ Then Rupert grimaced. ‘Sorry, I know I shouldn’t say anything bad about him when his regiment’s abroad. Valiantly fighting for our nation, and all that.’

  I’d met David, and knew he was an insufferable prig, so I just smiled. ‘What about Charlie? Did you get along with him when you were growing up?’

  ‘He was all right. He used to take my side when David was being a bully, but that’s only because he loved annoying David. Charlie’s always been a bit . . . contrary.’

  ‘Have you heard from him yet?’ I knew that when the war started, the Colonel had tried to track down Charlie, who’d been living abroad for years.

  ‘Not directly. It seems he’s joined the Canadian army, so he might get posted over here. Poor Mummy, I do wish he’d write to her, at least. She really worries about him.’ Rupert looked down at the cat, whom he’d now stroked into a stupor. ‘But speaking of brothers – I saw yours on Wednesday.’

  ‘Did you? In Sussex?’

  ‘Mmm. I was driving back past his aerodrome, so we met for a drink. Well, we tried to, but he nearly started a riot when we walked into the pub.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘There were a couple of soldiers there on leave – hopelessly drunk – and they went berserk when they saw Toby’s uniform. “Where was the bloody RAF when we were getting shot up on that beach at Dunkirk?” and so on. Toby tried to explain there were planes there, they were just high up and hidden in all the smoke, but I could see he wasn’t going to get anywhere with logical reasoning, not with that lot. So I dragged him out and we drove back to his base and had dinner. He’s got everyone there, from the Wing Commander down to the cook –’

  ‘– wrapped around his little finger,’ we both said, starting to laugh and waking up the cat. Then Julia came in to see about dinner, and I went upstairs to unpack.

  Dinner ended up being very late, because Julia kept getting called to the telephone to argue about her shift at the ambulance station (‘No, darling, I’m on tomorrow night, I swapped with Arthur’), then Daphne arrived unexpectedly with mascara smeared down her face (‘That two-timing bastard!’) and had to be consoled, then Julia burned the peas, the only item on the menu that required cooking.

  ‘Thank Heavens for Sophie,’ said Julia, when we finally sat down in the dining room. ‘Daphne, she’s an absolute genius in the kitchen – I think I’ll kidnap her and make her live here always – and that reminds me, Sophie, don’t forget to telephone your aunt, let her know you’re staying here. Or perhaps write? And forget to post the letter until Monday? And oh, Daph, do you remember that strange metal thing we were puzzling over? The one Mrs Timms left by the sink? Well, it’s an apple corer. Sophie recognised it at once! Stop laughing, Rupert, you didn’t know what it was, either. Now, let’s all have a civilised meal with lovely, cheerful conversation. No talk of the war, please.’

  But no matter how hard we tried to get away from the topic, we kept wandering back towards it, like Alice in the Looking Glass garden. Julia mentioned the difficulty she’d had finding tomatoes in the shops that morning, and Rupert pointed out that the tomato shortage would only get worse now that Germany has invaded the Channel Islands. I started to tell a funny story about my boss, then remembered he’d only fallen off that hatstand because he’d been trying to paste strips of gummed paper to the windows in case of bomb blasts. Then Daphne described the handsome Frenchman who’d kindly hailed her a taxi as she stood weeping outside the Ritz.

  ‘A Free French officer, I suppose,’ she sighed. ‘The poor dear. I almost invited him back here for dinner, except I wasn’t sure there’d be enough food.’

  ‘It’s a wonder he was so nice to you, considering we’ve just destroyed their navy,’ said Julia.

  ‘That wasn’t the Free French navy,’ said Daphne. ‘It belonged to the other lot, those awful French who’ve joined up with the Nazis. And if we hadn’t bombed those ships, Hitler would’ve used them against us.’

  ‘Well, it’s very sad, anyway. All those hundreds of French sailors killed,’ said Julia.

  ‘I thought we weren’t meant to be talking about the war,’ said Rupert.

  ‘No. We’re not,’ said Julia firmly. There was a long silence as we ate apple charlotte and tried to think of something else to discuss.

  ‘Can we talk about Diana Mosley being sent to prison?’ asked Daphne.

  ‘No,’ said Julia.

  ‘“Saucepans for Spitfires” campaign?’ offered Rupert.

  ‘No, and you are not to give any of my saucepans to those collectors if they come calling,’ said Julia.

  ‘Why? It isn’t as though you know how to use them.’

  ‘I m
ean it, Rupert! Mrs Timms would kill me. They can have all the fence railings and that old washtub in the laundry instead.’

  ‘I’m not sure saucepans are made out of the right sort of aluminium for aeroplanes, anyway,’ said Daphne. ‘This whole salvage campaign is probably just to make housewives feel more involved in the war. Far better to send a cheque to the Spitfire Fund, darling, if you want to help. And while you’re at it, enclose a note telling Lord Beaverbrook to sack our foreman. That’d boost aircraft production in our factory, I guarantee. Otherwise, I might just have to organise a protest strike against the wretched little man.’

  ‘You can’t,’ said Rupert. ‘All industrial strikes are banned now. It was on the news yesterday.’

  ‘Oh, well,’ said Daphne cheerfully. ‘It’ll just have to be arsenic in his tea, then.’

  2nd August, 1940

  LETTERS FROM MY FAMILY. First, Toby:

  Dear Soph,

  Still feels strange, writing to you in English, but I know the censors would tear my letter to shreds if I used Kernetin. I tried to explain that Kernetin is the native language of Montmaray, but they persist in believing it’s some sort of secret code. Crazy, I know, but that’s the air force for you.

  This is written in the dispersal hut at 0700, waiting for the field telephone to ring and tell us if/when/where we’re going up. Each morning, they drag us out of bed at some ungodly hour, drive us to the airfield in the half-light, then bring us greasy bacon sandwiches that none of us can eat because we’re all sick with nerves. And then . . . nothing happens. All we do is go up, fly around, come back down again. Yesterday the squadron was scrambled south to meet a lot of German bombers that were supposedly attacking a shipping convoy, but by the time we got there, there was nothing but blue sky.

  Still, anything’s better than night patrol. I was sent up last week at midnight and nearly flew into a hill (I swear the stupid thing wanders about after dark, it was in a completely different position that morning). The whole operation was pointless, anyway – how the hell am I supposed to see any Germans in the pitch black, let alone shoot them down? Perhaps you could send me some of your Special Carrots . . .