The War Comes to Witham Street

2-2

Valerie Dowland had met him in the spring of 1934. She remembered the first thing that struck her about him was his dark, sallow features. He had been sent on a training course to London, before taking over his father’s firm at the age of only twenty-eight. His father was gouty and worried constantly about who would carry on if he cracked up. Valerie, just eighteen, had a job with her own father, as his assistant, which mostly meant reminding him of his appointments and when to take his pills. Her mother had been adamant about having her daughter leave Aberdeen with him for London as a treat for her birthday, so she might finally get to see the bright city lights she had so craved. Father and daughter travelled overnight on the Royal Scot.

George was in the canteen at lunchtime on the first day. He was standing aloof, leaning against the far wall, a glass of milk in hand. Painfully thin with hollow cheeks, he had the look of a poet obsessed by the thought of committing his thoughts to paper while he still had time. Valerie’s father introduced himself and spent a little while swapping information about marketing methods, something on which he was an expert. Valerie, trying hard not to yawn hung in the background, although she noticed that George peered round her father’s body to glance at her from time to time. At the lemon curd tart course she whispered to her father that it might be a good idea if she did a little sightseeing. She asked, planting a kiss on his balding head, if he minded being on his own for a few hours. He said he did. Or rather he did not think it was a suitable thing for a girl of her age to go gallivanting around a big city like London on her own. Valerie sighed and left for the adjacent room where she slumped into the nearest armchair, glad to avoid the next barrage of sales talk.

George took a seat next to Valerie’s father when the men got together again for the afternoon session. “I say, sir,” he leaned forward towards him, murmuring low so as not to be heard by the man expounding some method of how to boost sales by mail order. “Would it be all right if I took your daughter on a short sight-seeing trip? Nothing tiring, mind you. It’s just that this afternoon isn’t really of much interest to me. Not my subject — ‘Selling by post’, especially as we trade in glass! But I’d be delighted to have her company and a chat and all that.”

“See what she says. I expect she’ll be happy to oblige.”

George bent low and half-crawled from the room to avoid the panning eyes of the speaker, then dashed into the pavilion where he found Valerie taking tea. She was thumbing through a pile of magazines whose titles all flaunted words like ‘purchase’, ‘sell’, ‘profit’, or ‘market’. He began: “I was talking to your father.”

“Oh.” Valerie looked up towards the slender, smoothly dressed man peering over her. She scrutinised him carefully. He had dark brown hair, which was neatly parted and shiny, an effect obtained by the combination of rigorous brushing and regular dots of hair cream. His suit was a navy pinstripe, which he had matched with a navy tie with just one fine white stripe cutting across. He reeked of self-confidence. She wondered if he ate enough as his cheekbones were taut, and the skin that clothed the long bones of his fingers was tense and whiter near the knuckles. His nose, his mouth, and his forehead were all chiselled in regular smooth curves. He did not smile, nor did he seem inclined to let his feelings ever reach beyond his inner gaze.

“Yes. I knew you wanted to see something of London and, well, I thought I’d offer to take you and show you around.”

“I’m glad for the break.” Valerie deliberately slowed down the rate she was stirring her tea.

“We could start with Kensington which is a smart area to explore. You know, just wander round — see what we find.”

Valerie seemed to ponder the question for longer than it deserved. Did she really want to go? Of course she did. This place was tedium personified. She would at least get to see a few of those monuments they stuck on postcards. She could at least say she had seen Nelson’s Column. She tried to think of something of sightseeing value in Kensington and remembered the statue of Peter Pan. “Well, that sounds pleasant. Why not?” she answered, tossing the magazines back onto the occasional table and picking up her hat.

They toured Knightsbridge and Kensington High Street with its shops spilling an over-abundance of frills and spangles, and where mannequins of bisque stiffness peered into nothingness. In the High Street the windows sported clothes for a life Valerie could only dream of: jungle khaki, picnic hampers fit for ten guests, shimmering beaded silk for receptions, and a bridal train which could trip up eight bridesmaids at one go. They headed towards Chelsea, looking into dwarfish workshops: artists’ studios, places where craftsmen carved wood to fine patterns, workrooms for tailors and seamstresses, and a few which proclaimed with pride that they were temporarily closed for renovation. Nearer the river, an acrid smell of sewers seeped through, mixing with the light breeze. George took her arm to steer her onto the Embankment. There they gazed down at the green plane of water where tugs chugged up and down, barges moored to the banks rattled their chains, and steamers honked their horns and belched long chains of smoke towards Battersea.

“I say,” said George, “now we’re away from the hubbub, why don’t we sit here and get ourselves a drink? We can stop and watch the river awhile. There’s a Lyons over there. Although it might be even better if we found a hotel with a nice comfortable lounge. We could get something to eat. Although, it’s getting on. I told your father I wouldn’t bring you back too late.”

Valerie wondered why her father had been so complaisant about letting her go. It was not like him. Anyway, she should have been consulted as to the hour of her return, and whether or not she really wanted to go out with George. Men presumed where women queried.

The drink slipped into dinner with hors d’oeuvres served in chafing dishes and with fancy ice cream sundae for dessert. The walk back was an exchange of pleasantries. George expressed a wish to continue the friendship. He said he had to leave the next day, but would be in touch as soon as he could.

“I tell you what,” he turned and took her hand, “I’ll come and see you in Scotland — next weekend.”

“That’s very soon.” Valerie wanted to retract the words as soon as they had fallen from her lips. People were presuming again. Did she want a stranger to visit her at home? It’s only a visit, she told herself. What is a visit? Common sense and her mother’s instinct for right and wrong had instilled in her a truth: one should never begin something that one was not interested in continuing. It was not fair.

“I don’t know. It would be nice to see you again but it is such a long way. And I don’t believe there’s a direct train from where you live.”

“I know. But I should still like to make the journey. However, if you don’t think it worth it for me ...” George’s voice trailed off into the chill air, which had shrouded the riverbank. He adjusted his trilby and buttoned his trench coat so as to trap his scarf at his neckline. His pallor had taken on the ashen tint of the mist over the river.

Valerie was gripped by gross panic, it was as if an executioner had just asked her if she preferred a noose, a firing squad, or an electric chair. A flush swept to her neck and her face, rushing uncontrollably up to the very roots of her black hair. She grasped her coat around her, pulling the collar up to hide her ruddy features.

“This is surely not a lifetime decision. I just thought it would be nice to come and see you. If this upsets you and if you really would prefer me not to, then just say ‘No, thank you’. It isn’t a problem.” George released his grip on her arm and stepped back a little.

Valerie looked at him from over the top of her sleek coat-collar. There was nothing objectionable about George, and so there was no real reason to refuse. He was good-looking in a lean, hungry way. He was manager of a firm that was practically his own now. He liked her. So without warning she heard herself saying, “Well, that would be nice. I’ll look forward to seeing you next Friday evening then.” Valerie waited for the feeling of elation. Girls did feel elated at such times. But the panic had already dissolved into foreboding. She felt she had tangled her foot in a rose briar, one that she could have easily stepped over had she been careful.

As visit followed visit, she had had to admit that George had a stockpile of good traits. His behaviour was exemplary. Just the sacrifice of the time-consuming journey was, in itself, a demonstration of his worth as a suitor. Lincoln to Aberdeen meant not only numerous changes and a long wait at Newark for the main-line train north, but also long stretches in unheated carriages. And there was smoke from the engine seeping in through the windows, guzzling his throat and inciting his chronic cough to rebellion. Despite warnings from his doctor about the dangers of anxiety, both physical and psychological, which might cause his TB to flare up again, George resolutely continued his quest. He was a businessman and that meant following up decisions with actions.

When George reached Aberdeen, he found the time left for pleasantries scythed to little more than one day. A lesser man would have botched an exercise needing such cramming. But George put into that brief time span all the charm he could muster. He sought out places of historic interest, he looked up maps of country walks, and he found the cosiest places for tea. When he said goodbye his face showed no particular distress. He merely said that he was looking forward to the next visit, if he might be allowed it. He hinted that he might not be able to make the journey the following weekend — because of business, of course. When he turned up after all, his effort was doubly appreciated.

Valerie was not quite sure what she was supposed to feel towards a man who took such trouble, who threw himself head over heels into courting. She reasoned that he must know some girls back home, so if he was now prepared to go to such lengths to see her, she ought to beware of leading him on. She asked herself time and again in her dressing-table looking glass if he was what she really wanted. With the honesty one can only give oneself, and in secret, she replied ‘Not really’. But it was pleasant. Pleasant was the strongest word she mustered. If she asked herself how much she enjoyed many of the days when he was not there, at least half of them would also have been described as ‘pleasant’ too. Especially enjoyable were her reading days, her walking-in-the-heather days, her afternoons at the Women’s League of Health and Beauty, and, especially, her meetings at the local branch of the Women in Politics group. If she assessed all her activities, the days with George came out in the upper half. But they did not come out first. She felt a stab of guilt when she mulled over these statistics. How could she be so callous, she who so wanted a new life? Why, most women would clutch at George’s coat lapels till their knuckles turned white. They would have had no scruples whatsoever about tearing any rival’s hair out by the roots for him.