"The Best Of Times" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vincenzi Penny)

CHAPTER 3

The thing most occupying Laura’s time and attention as the long summer holidays drew near to their close was Jonathan’s surprise birthday party; he was forty in early October and had said several times that he didn’t want any big festivities.

“In the first place, I’ll feel more like mourning than celebrating, and in the second I find those big-birthday parties awfully selfconscious. So no, darling, let’s just have a lovely family evening, Much easier for you too, no stress, all right?”

Laura agreed with her fingers only slightly crossed behind her back, for what she had planned was very close to a family evening, just a dozen or so couples, their very best friends, and the children, of course. She was sure Jonathan would enjoy that and would actually have regretted not having a party of any kind; and so far the preparations were going rather well. Before their return from France, she had already organised caterers; Serena Edwards had been enrolled as her helpmeet with the flowers and decorations (it was most happily a Saturday, when Jonathan was on call), and Mark, Serena’s husband, was compiling a playlist and organising and storing the wine. Everyone invited could come; and Mark and Serena had also been enrolled as decoys, and had invited them both for a drink before dispatching them home again for dinner with the family. All the children were in on the secret and thought it was tremendously exciting.

Would she recognise him? Well, of course she would. From the pictures. Only people did look different from their photographs, and Russell had clearly selected his with great care over the years.

The day was nearly here; only two and a half weeks to go. And after they had met at Heathrow-and for some reason she had insisted on that; it was neutral territory-they would travel together to London, where he had booked rooms at the Dorchester-“two rooms, dearest Mary, have no fear; I know what a nice girl you are!”-for two days, while they got to know each other again: “And after that, if you really don’t like me you can go home to Bristol and I shall go home to New York and no harm done.”

She still thought much harm might be done, but she was too excited to care.

She had told no one. She didn’t want to be teased about it, or regarded as a foolish old lady; she had simply told her daughter, Christine, and a couple of friends that she was going to London to meet an old friend she’d known in the war. Which was absolutely true.

But she had bought a couple of very nice outfits from Jaeger-Jaeger, her!-where the girl had been so helpful, had picked out a navy knitted suit with white trim and a very simple long-sleeved black dress; and then, greatly daring, she had asked Karen, the only young stylist at her hairdressing salon, if anything could be done to make her hair look a bit more interesting.

“Well, we can’t do much about the colour, my love,” Karen had said, studying Mary intently in the mirror, her own magenta-and-white-striped fringe falling into her eye, “although we could put a rinse on to make it a bit blonder-looking. Or some lowlights,” she added, rising to the undoubted challenge, “and I do think you could wear it a bit smoother-like this,” she said, putting a photograph of Honor Blackman in the current HELLO! in front of Mary.

Mary heard herself agreeing to this; after all, Honor Blackman was almost as old as she was. “You going to meet someone special, then, when you go away?” Karen said, as she started leafing through the magazine for more inspiration.

“Oh, no, of course not,” said Mary, “just an old friend, but she’s rather… rather smart, you know?”

“Mary, you’ll look smart as anything when I’ve finished with you,” said Karen. “Now let me gown you up and we’ll start with the colour. Very gently, then if you like it, we can push it a bit. When’s the trip?”

“Oh-not for another two weeks,” Mary said.

“Well, that’s perfect. We can sort something out, see how you like it, and then keep improving it.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You can go back to your own style, no problem.”

“Bless her,” Karen said, smiling after Mary as she walked out after the first session. “That took real courage, but you know, she looks five years younger already.”

They had met on a bus, Mary and Russell; he was on a forty-eight-hour pass and wanted to take a look at Westminster Abbey: “Where England ’s kings and greatest men are buried,” it said in his booklet.

“Instructions for American Servicemen in Britain, 1942” it was called, and all servicemen had been given a copy on departing for Europe. It had produced a lot of cynical comments on the troopship, with its warning that Hitler’s propaganda chiefs saw as their major duty “to separate Britain and America and spread distrust between them. If he can do that,” the booklet went sternly on, “his chance of winning might return.”

To this end, there were many and disparate warnings: not to use American slang, lest offence might be given-“bloody is one of their worst swear words;” not to show off or brag-“American wages and American soldiers’ pay are the highest in the world, and the British ‘tommy’ is apt to be specially touchy about the difference between his wages and ours.” And that the British had “age not size-they don’t have the ‘biggest of’ many things as we do.”

It had warned too of warm beer, and of making fun of British accents, but most relevantly, to Russell, of the British reserve. Soldiers should not invade the Brits’ privacy, which they valued very highly; and they should certainly not expect any English person on a bus or train to strike up a conversation with them…

The bus he was on made its way down Regent Street, stopping halfway. Several people got on, and Russell realised a girl was standing up next to him; he scrambled to his feet, doffed his cap, and said, “Do sit down, ma’am.” She had smiled at him-she was very pretty, small and neat, with brown curly hair and big blue eyes-and she thanked him, and promptly immersed herself in a letter she pulled out of her pocket.

The bus had stopped again at Piccadilly Circus. “See that?” said one old man to another, pointing out of the window. “They took Eros away. Case Jerry ’it ’im.”

“Good riddance to ’im, I’d say,” said a woman sitting behind, and they all cackled with laughter.

The bus continued round Trafalgar Square, and Russell craned his neck to see Nelson’s Column: he wondered if Jerry might not hit that as well. They turned up Whitehall; about halfway along, a great wall of sandbags stood at what one of the old men obligingly informed the entire bus was the entrance to Downing Street. “Keeping Mr. Churchill safe, please God.” There was a general murmur of agreement.

Everyone seemed very cheerful; looking not just at his fellow passengers, but the people in the street, briskly striding men, pretty girls with peroxided hair, Russell thought how amazing it was, given that thousands of British civilians had already been killed in this war and London was being pounded nightly by bombs, that the city could look so normal. OK, a bit shabby and unpainted, and everyone was carrying the ubiquitous gas mask in its case, but on this lovely clear spring day there was a palpable optimism in the air.

The bus stopped and the woman conductor shouted, “Westminster Abbey.” Russell was on the pavement before he realised the girl he had given his seat to had got out too, and was looking at him with amusement in her blue eyes.

“Are you going into the abbey?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You know,” she said, “we do speak to strangers. Sometimes. When they’re very kind and give us seats on the bus, for instance. I bet you’ve been told we never speak to anyone.”

“We were, ma’am, yes.”

“Well, we do. As you can see. Or rather hear. Now, that’s the abbey to your left-see? And behind you, the Houses of Parliament. All right? The abbey’s very beautiful. Now, have a good time, Mr… Mr…”

“Mackenzie. Thank you, ma’am. Thank you very much.”

Her amusement at what he had been told about her countrymen had made them friends in some odd way; it suddenly seemed less impertinent to ask her if she was in a great hurry; and she said not a great hurry, no, and he said if she had just a few minutes, maybe she could come into the abbey with him, show him the really important things, like where the kings and queens were crowned.

She said she did have a few minutes-“only about ten, though”-and together they entered the vast space.

She showed him where Poets’ Corner was; she pointed out the famous coronation stone under the coronation chair, and then directed him to the vaults where he could see the tombs of the famous, going right back to 1066.

“I’ve never been down there myself; I’d love to go. You know Shakespeare is buried here, and Samuel Johnson and Chaucer-”

“Chaucer? You’re kidding me.”

She giggled again, her big blue eyes dancing.

“I never thought anyone actually said that.”

“What?”

“‘You’re kidding me.’ It’s like we’re supposed to say, ‘Damn fine show,’ and, ‘Cheers, old chap.’ I’ve never heard anyone saying that either, but maybe they do.”

“Maybe,” he said. He felt slightly bewildered by her now, almost bewitched.

“Now, look, I really have to get back to work-I work in a bank just along the road, and I’ll be late.”

“What…” Could he ask her this? Could he appear possibly intrusive but… well, surely not rude… and say, “What time do you finish?” He risked it. She didn’t seem to mind.

“Well-at five. But then I really do have to be getting home, because of the blackout and the bombs and so on-”

“Yes, of course. Well-maybe another time. Miss… Miss…”

“Miss Jennings. Mary Jennings. Yes. Another time.”

And then, because he knew it was now or never, that he hadn’t got another forty-eight for ages, he said: “If you’d accompany me around all those people’s graves for half an hour or so, I could… I could see you home. Through the blackout. If that would help.”

“You couldn’t, Mr. Mackenzie. I live a long way out of London. Place called Ealing. You’d never find your way back again.”

“I could!” he said, stung. “Of course I could. I found my way here from the States, didn’t I?”

“I rather thought the United States Army did that for you. Sorry, I don’t mean to sound rude. Where are you stationed?”

“Oh-in Middlesex.” He divided the two words, made it sound faintly exotic. “Northolt.”

“Well, that’s not too far away from Ealing, as a matter of fact. Few more stops on the tube.”

“Well, what do you know?”

“Goodness, there you go again,” she said, giggling.

“What do you mean?”

“Saying, ‘what do you know?’ It’s so… so funny to hear it. It’s such a cliché somehow. I didn’t mean to sound rude, to offend you.”

“That’s OK. But… maybe in the cause of further cementing Anglo-American relations, you could agree to meet me. Just for half an hour.”

“Maybe I could. In the cause of Anglo-American relations.” She smiled back at him. “Well… all right. I’ll meet you here at ten past five. Anyway-better go now. Bye.”

And she was gone, with a quick sweet smile, half running, her brown curls flying in the spring breeze.

And so it began: their romance. Which now-most wonderfully, it seemed-might not be over…

Patrick Connell was tired and fed up; he’d stopped for a break on the motorway, and was drinking some filthy coffee-why couldn’t someone provide some decent stuff for lorry drivers? They’d make a fortune.

Life on the road wasn’t a lot of fun these days, and you didn’t make the money either, because you were allowed to work only forty-eight hours a week, and that included rest periods and traffic jams, and the traffic just got worse and worse…

And so did the sleep problem.

It was turning into a daytime nightmare. It started earlier and earlier in the day, a dreadful, heavy sleepiness that he knew made him a danger. Even when he slept well and set out early, it could catch him halfway through the morning; he would feel his head beginning its inexorable slide into confusion, force himself to concentrate, turn up the radio, eat sweets: nothing really licked it.

He’d actually gone to the doctor the week before-without telling Maeve, of course; she was such a worrier-to see if he could give him anything for it. The doctor had been sympathetic, but couldn’t. “If I give you pep pills, Mr. Connell, you’ll only get a kickback later, won’t be able to sleep that night, and that won’t help you, will it? Sounds like you need to change your job, do something quite different. Have you thought about that?”

With which unhelpful advice Patrick had found himself dismissed; he had continued to take his Pro Plus and drink Red Bull and eat sweets and struggle on somehow.

Everyone thought lorry drivers could do whatever speed they liked; everyone was wrong. The lorry itself saw to that: a governor in the fuel pump that allowed exactly the amount of fuel through to do the legal fifty-six mph and no more. Some of the foreign drivers removed the fuse, or adjusted the pump, but Patrick wouldn’t have dreamed of doing that. Not worth it. You got caught, you lost your licence. And anyway, then there was the tachograph fixed in your cab that told it all: how many hours you’d done, how long you’d stopped, whether you’d speeded at all. So you literally got stuck in some god-awful place, unable to leave because your hours were up. And they could be up simply because of being stuck in traffic, not because you’d made any progress.

What he longed for more than anything right this minute was a shower and a shave and a change of clothes. Life on the road didn’t do a lot for your personal hygiene. On the English roads, anyway; it was better in Europe. Like the food. And the coffee…