Fallen Skies Read online

  Muriel in the dining room made no sound. She sat with her tea cup still in her hand, waiting and listening. She heard the click of the telephone being picked up, she heard Lily’s low voice say to the operator: “Would you get me Portsmouth 214?” Then she heard Lily’s hushed moan of anxiety as the phone rang and rang at the other end.

  Muriel put her tea cup down on the saucer with microscopic attention. She twisted her napkin in both hands and held it tight.

  “Charlie?” Lily said in a soft voice in the hall. “Oh! I’m so glad you’re there!”

  There was a momentary pause as he spoke at the other end. “No, I’m fine. No, I’m well. It’s you—I heard you were going. I heard from Stephen that you’d been offered a place in the American band . . .”

  Muriel’s face muscles were locked rigid. There was a tone in Lily’s voice she had only heard before when Lily was talking of her childhood and her mother. It was a warmth, a trustfulness. Muriel thought that the hall of her house had never heard that tone before. It was a tone of confident love. No-one in Muriel’s house ever spoke like that.

  “And do you want to go?” Lily asked.

  There was a pause.

  “I do ask,” Lily said hesitantly. “I am sorry, Charlie. I know I shouldn’t. But I do ask you not to go.”

  There was a silence as Lily listened to Charlie’s answer. Muriel found herself perversely wishing against her own interests, that Charlie would obey Lily. That Lily’s heart should be given to a man who cared for her. Who cared enough to sacrifice an exciting career for her. Who would stay with her, even if he only saw her four times a week for tea, and that in her mother-in-law’s house.

  “Thank you,” Lily said in a small voice. “Oh my darling, thank you.”

  Muriel found she had been holding her breath and took a deep sigh.

  “I’m very glad,” Lily said softly in the hall. “I’m sure I’m a selfish pig but . . . oh, Charlie . . . I can’t be without you. Not now, with the baby coming. I can’t live here without you at least sometimes . . .”

  Muriel put her hands over her face, but she did not block her ears.

  But Lily said no more. She whispered, “Goodbye,” and then, “Yes, yes, goodbye.” Then there was the quiet click of the telephone being replaced.

  Muriel heard Lily humming as she went up the stairs. It was a Victorian lovesong Charlie had taught her last week:

  And if she cannot come to me

  then I shall wait for ever more.

  For if she cannot come to me

  then I shall wait for ever more.

  Muriel rested her face in her hands and found she was weeping.

  24

  THAT NIGHT AT THE TROCADERO CLUB the black jazz band played better than ever. Charlie hunched over the keyboard, laughing with pleasure as he tried to follow them, “jamming.” When they went to a bar for their break, the sweat was pouring off his face. “God! You’ve got some nerve!” he said, nodding to the barman for a pint of beer. “I didn’t have the faintest idea what you were doing! I was just following along. Something like two bars behind all the time!”

  They laughed and the trumpeter did a hunch-backed mime of Charlie trying to keep up, but always lagging two bars behind, when the door opened and Marjorie Philmore fell into the club. Her dress was ripped and she had a raw graze on her shoulder. Her hair was rumpled and there was a red mark which was turning blue on the side of her cheek.

  “Christ, Charlie,” she said. “Thank God you’re here. Can you take me somewhere to clean up? I can’t go home like this.”

  Her voice was loud, edgy. Charlie threw a quick glance around the club. Everyone within earshot was staring. He gave an apologetic shrug at the band. “Catch you later,” he said. “It seems I have to be a white knight.”

  “A what?” the trumpeter asked.

  “I’ll be back in an hour,” Charlie said. He spoke quickly to the barman and borrowed the manager’s car which was parked at the back of the club. He slid his dinner suit jacket over Marjorie’s shoulders to hide the damage to her dress and the long graze on her shoulder and arm, and he took her firmly by the elbow and led her out of the club.

  She was drunk; she walked hesitantly and stumbled once or twice. When the night air hit her she steadied a little and gave a short sob which ended in a hiccough. “Christ,” she said again.

  Charlie pushed her gently into the passenger seat of the car. It was an old Ford and he had to crank-start it. When the engine was running he got behind the wheel. Marjorie was leaning forward, against the dashboard, her eyes shut.

  “Who hurt you?” Charlie asked grimly.

  She shrugged. “What does it matter? He won’t do it again.”

  “You want me to clean you up, you tell me what I want to know,” Charlie said reasonably. “Who was it?”

  Marjorie dropped back in the seat and yawned in his face. “Stephen Winters,” she said bitterly. “The bloody war hero.”

  Charlie’s face was set. “Why?”

  “Because he caught me with one of the band,” she said wearily. “He’s a bit of a prude is our Stephen. He went barmy, frankly. He called me a whore and God knows what else and then he slapped me and when I tried to get away he pushed me against the wall.” Her hand crept inside the jacket to touch the sore graze. “Not quite the gent we all thought,” she said.

  “D’you want to charge him?” Charlie asked levelly. “Assault? Grievous bodily harm? Shall I take you to the police?”

  Marjorie laughed shrilly. “And tell them I was spooning with a nigger in the alley, and that my married lover caught me and slapped me around? No thanks, Charlie-boy. Just take me to your place and let me have a wash and powder my little nose and then I’ll take a taxi home. Chances are, Ma won’t even see me.”

  Charlie let the clutch in and the little car went forward. “Stephen’s your lover, is he?” he asked.

  “Not any more,” Marjorie said. She rested her head on the back of the seat and closed her eyes. “I’m not that kind of a fool.”

  “How long has it been going on?”

  Marjorie shrugged and then winced at the hurt on her shoulder. “Oh, a couple of months. His wife’s pregnant—but of course you’d know. You’re round there almost every day, aren’t you?”

  “I teach her the piano, I’m her accompanist,” Charlie said.

  “I bet.”

  There was a little silence.

  “He’s a bit free with his fists, isn’t he?” Charlie asked, keeping his voice carefully neutral.

  Marjorie shrugged. “He’s one of those who hate women at the same time as having them, darling. You know the sort. He calls us all whores but can’t keep his hands to himself.”

  Charlie turned the car right down his road. “Is he all right?” he asked. “I mean, in his head.”

  Marjorie smiled. “Well, he has nightmares and screams about the trenches. If he smells Devon violets perfume he gets down on the floor and covers his mouth with his hands. That’s what the gas used to smell of, they say. He dreams about a raid he made on a farmhouse where some women and a baby were found dead. And he cries in his sleep and says the name Juliette. He hates his job, he hates his parents, and he loves and hates his wife.” Marjorie laughed her sexy low laugh. “In a word—right as rain. You find me a man with the right number of arms and legs and adjacent parts who doesn’t cry in his sleep and I’ll marry him tomorrow, darling. They’re all crazy as coots, or missing essential bits as far as I can see.”

  “He hit his wife once,” Charlie said, stopping the car outside his flat.

  “So would I,” Marjorie said unkindly. “Po-faced bitch.”

  “I mean, he’s violent,” Charlie said. “D’you think he’s dangerous?”

  Marjorie opened her wide beautiful grey eyes. “No more than anyone else,” she said certainly. “He’s quick-tempered and he’s spiteful. He’s half-mad from the war and he drinks too much. But he’s no more dangerous than you or me. We’re the jazz age, remember? We’re br