L'Aimant
Summary:
A group outing to the flickers proves to be a revelation – in more than one sense.
Set after "Broken Souls". November 1944.
This chapter continues late Saturday morning, 4th November. Sam and Foyle are back on track for enjoying a cosy weekend at 31 Steep Lane. But first, Foyle has to venture out for some essential supplies.
Disclaimer:
The creative rights to the characters and plotlines in "Foyle's War" belong to Anthony Horowitz. This story is a not-for-profit homage to the television series, to the talented actors who bring its characters to life, and to a fascinating era.
Author's Note
Thanks to dancesabove for beta-editing x.
Previously, in "L'Aimant"
The bathroom was pleasantly warm from the hot water tank adjacent. Dashing outside to the airing cupboard, he returned with some towels and a facecloth. "Hold these a moment," he instructed, resting them on her knees, and turned to fill the bath, opening the hot tap full flow.
"Honestly Christopher, I can do that…"
"You could, but I'm your humble servant." He shot her a conspiratorial grin. "Would Madame like some bath salts?"
"Haven't seen any in so long, I can barely remember what they are. But, yes, if you've got some, that would be nice." Sam sat there, feeling strange, not really used to being waited on.
But Foyle was in determined pursuit of luxuries to throw into Sam's bath water. Back of the cupboard somewhere. Rosalind always kept some… there they are.
"L'Aimant," he announced, squinting at the label, and emptied the entire jar of powder into the water. "Your favourite, I think."
"Christopher, I don't think you're supposed to put the whole…" She might as well have saved her breath. He was a man on a mission. "…and we're only supposed to have five inches of w – "
"Well if we both use the same water, we can have ten inches. You can go first," he grinned.
"But you'll smell of roses too," she reasoned.
"Always been my ambition," he quipped, "but I'm in a dirty job."
Sam laughed and thought he was the most adorable thing she had ever known.
Chapter 4
In his earlier hurry to duck back indoors (away from being disapproved of in his dressing gown by Mrs Evans), Foyle had neglected to pick up the milk from the front doorstep.
This omission he now remedied, since late breakfast for the pair of them was now the order of the day.
They had both enjoyed the comfort of a deep and steaming bath, Sam first and then himself, but they had been quite shy of each other. He had withdrawn discreetly from the bathroom while she bathed, returning at her call to take his turn at relaxation.
On his return, he was surprised to find her hair still dry. "I would have helped you wash it, if you'd called," he said. There was a certain longing in his voice.
Privately Sam thought that, had she actually dipped her head in water filled with such a quantity of bath salts, her hair might have dissolved. Instead, she'd wrapped her locks up in a towel and soaked, up to her armpits in the fragrant water. It had been divine. The hair could wait till later, after all.
Returning to the bedroom cocooned inside a large bath towel that Foyle had brought for her, Sam draped the now partly-laundered woollen dressing gown over a wooden chair, and placed it, back towards the fire, at a safe distance. It probably isn't ruined after all, she hoped.
Both of them dressed at last, and decent for the latish morning hour (the clocks now read half past eleven), Foyle and Sam were seated at the kitchen table to begin a conversation that took stock of their affairs.
"My landlady is staying at her daughter's," Sam supplied. "I shan't be missed." It was mild enough, as hints went, but to Foyle it was a welcome confirmation of his own wishes: Sam would spend the weekend here with him.
He reached his hand across the breakfast table, covering hers. "I was hoping you would stay with me as long as you possibly could," he said softly.
Sam was bright of manner, but practical. "Sunday evening I shall have to go back," she observed. "I have no clothes for Monday, otherwise."
"Makes sense," said Foyle. And then they both sat, silent for a little while, each taking in the implications of a Monday back on duty, now that their working world had been turned upside down.
They cleared away the breakfast things, Sam placing them in an enamel bowl inside the deep kitchen sink. As she stood there, preparing to wield the wooden-handled dish-brush, Foyle's arms stole round her from behind, encircling her waist. She felt him rest his cheek against her hair.
"O kitchen sprite, you have bewitched me," he whispered.
"Have I really? Hmm? So you're under my spell, are you?"
"Totally and completely." He tightened his grip and kissed her ear.
"Right-oh! In which case I command you to finish the washing-up." She reached down to her waist and poked the dish-brush into his hand, turning in his arms to plant a solid kiss on whatsoever she encountered when she turned. It happened to be his chin.
Foyle was smiling too broadly to take proper advantage of this opportunity, and was still grinning like an idiot when she wriggled from his grasp and stalked off into the living room.
"Make yourself at home, why don't you?" he called after her wryly.
In truth it was a wasted trip for Sam, who had merely been practising coquettishness. Once she had left the kitchen, and was out of sight of Christopher, she found that she was bored. She wandered back again soon afterwards, to see how he was getting on.
He was standing at the sink, shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbows, an apron tied around his waist, head bowed over the task in hand. She gazed at the short and greying chestnut curls above his nape, and the sinews of his forearms flexing as he scrubbed lightly at the breakfast plates and cups.
"Christopher, I absolutely don't want to go out," she said suddenly.
"You don't… want? What don't you want?" He asked absently, wondering quite where that idea of hers had come from.
"You were probably going to invite me out to dinner tonight. I don't want to go."
"You don't?" There was a hint of worry in his tone, but he trusted that Sam would eventually clear things up enough for him to make out what was in her mind.
"No. I don't. I don't want other people milling round us, making us self-conscious. Is that bad of me?"
"You mean you don't want to be seen with me?" His back was to her, so she couldn't see his lip quirk upwards as he phrased the question.
"Noo! Oh, no, Christopher! That's not what I meant. I mean, let's stay in. Just us." Sam rushed up and threw her arms around him, so now their original positions at the sink were exactly reversed.
Foyle dropped the dish-brush and grasped both of Sam's hands around his middle. "So. Let's get this straight: just you and me, indoors all weekend with – I don't know what – mouldy rabbit stew? Whatever's in the pantry? Won't be much. I haven't done the shopping in a week…"
"No food?" she fretted.
"Not a lot," he declared. "So maybe you should make a list. You'll have to send me into town."
"Alone? You'll manage?" Sam looked quite alarmed to think of Foyle running loose, doing his own shopping.
"Sweetheart," he told her kindly, "I've managed on my own for over ten years."
It was almost one o'clock when Foyle walked down Steep Lane and into HastingsTown. In his hand he held a sturdy leather carrier containing two string bags. Sam's ration book and shopping list were in the pocket of his overcoat, but there was a separate item on his own agenda that he would be buying first.
George Street was busy on a Saturday. People were forced to leave the pavement and walk right in the middle of the street over the cobbles. Foyle made his way past Woolworth's and Sayer's Milliners, tipping his hat to Miss Chance through the window, and on down to the chemist's.
Firm in his mind was the preoccupation that, in case the horse had not already bolted in the contraception stakes, he ought to buy some johnnies.
Entering Timothy Whites & Taylors, Foyle saw to his dismay that the pharmacist was already busy with another customer, which left him no other option than to approach the lady assistant.
The badge on her immaculate white coat read "Mrs Hutton". She was a vision of sophistication, standing crisply behind the fine cosmetics and perfumes arrayed along the counter. Good-looking, tall, well-spoken. Flawless skin. Hair pinned up into curls atop her head, clear varnish on her nails with whitened tips. Foyle could no more ask her for johnnies than belch in her face.
But even as his nerve faltered, Mrs Hutton's quiet elegance put a lovely "Sam" idea into his head, and he asked to make a different purchase. "I don't suppose you have…" he named the fragrance.
"L'Aimant? Actually, sir, yes we do have some. Perfumes by Coty," – she stressed the latter syllable – "have been rather scarce since the Occupation. But now that Paris isn't under Hitler, a few of the old favourites have begun to filter through again." She bent to reach under the counter and pulled out a squat, trapezoid bottle of amber liquid, with a square glass stopper and an oblong gold cartouche affixed below the neck.
Foyle thought that Sam would certainly adore it, and felt quite smug as he took out his wallet to pay. "Excellent, thank you. Would you wrap it carefully for me?"
"No trouble at all, sir."
No closer to getting a rubber hat on it, though, are you? Foyle reminded himself as he left the chemist's shop. After the disaster of their first attempt at making love, he was determined that the same mistake would not be made a second time. Considering Sam's persistence on that first occasion, he concluded that, when she actually did recover, the chances of her taking "no" for an answer next time would not have increased by much. It was therefore his duty to be prepared.
A new idea came to him, and he turned and headed for the nearest red-and-white-striped pole. All men in there, he reasoned. So you can't go wrong.
Foyle stepped inside the barber's and removed his hat.
"Afternoon, Mr Foyle!" came a cheery voice. Its owner was a thin man, about 60, with a shock of snowy hair.
"Afternoon, Bertram. Wouldn't normally expect to see you open at this time."
"Normally I'd close at one, but business is brisk today, and I'm me own boss, after all. So just this once I'll be closing at half-past two."
"Glad to have caught you, then."
Bertram glanced up quickly from his current gentleman and sized up the situation without further prompting from his latest client. Foyle's hair was closely cropped, and he had shaved very recently.
"Something for the weekend, sir?"
"If you wouldn't mind – um – don't let me interrupt you…"
"No trouble at all, Mr Foyle. Excuse me for a tick, Fred."
Moments later, Foyle emerged from Bertram's shop with a hefty load off his mind. Tucking his and Sam's insurance policy into his inside pocket, he headed off in search of food.
The shopping list Sam had written him was quite a long one. Having inspected the contents of the pantry, she had definitely concurred with his assessment that the cupboard was, quite literally, bare.
Armed with Sam's list, and the steely determination of a wartime housewife, Foyle headed for the grocer's. There, using both Sam's coupons and his own, he acquired one fresh egg, one packet of egg-powder ("makes 12 eggs"), 8 ounces of sugar, a bit of margarine, a little butter, cheese, flour, pudding rice, and a loaf of bread.
Never having been a fancier of chocolate, Foyle's ration book was full of coupons for the stuff. Sam's, he noticed, was quite empty on that page, from which he was well able to deduce that his young lady had a taste for something sweet. So before he left the shop, he added to his pile of goods an 8oz block of Cadbury's Bournville. To match her lovely brown eyes, he reflected, dropping the coveted bar into his bag.
At the greengrocer's next-door, he bought, off-ration, carrots, onions, potatoes, dark spring greens and apples. As an afterthought, he added something called a mangel-wurzel, just because he thought the name and shape might tickle Sam.
The leather carrier was fairly full and both string bags were now a-bulge, the fresh egg carefully wrapped and balanced on the top of all the other purchases. Sam's Sunday breakfast, he told himself. Boiled egg with soldiers. She can dip them in the yolk… His imagination then conjured up a sunny Sam dunking thin strips of buttered bread into her sunny egg, and suddenly the cold November afternoon started to resemble in his mind a warm spring day.
His final errand took him to the butcher's, where he found a line of patient women queuing up to worship at the shrine.
The etiquette in butcher's shops had altered since the war. Any person wandering in, requesting this or that, was largely met with laughter or derision. Instead, the usual form of greeting was: "Good morning, Mr So-and-so, what have you got in today?" to which the butcher would reply along the lines of: "I can let you have…"
All butchers nowadays were demi-gods. But for all his power to feed or to frustrate the masses, Mr George Harris was known to be benevolent in his dealings with his customers, and looked to help them all as best he could. Things usually worked out well, and regulars chez Harris were rewarded with the opportunity to buy a half a pound of sausage (off the ration) or an extra pot of dripping for their gravy or their toast.
Gladys Harris was a sharper, less accommodating person, quite keen on her exalted position as the butcher's wife, and invested with an urge to find out other people's business.
"Shopping for two today, Mr Foyle?" she asked archly, as he handed across his ration book and Sam's.
"As you see, Mrs Harris." Foyle's curt response was firm enough to stave off any further questions, but as the woman turned to snip the coupons from the pages with her scissors, she took what time she needed to absorb the details inscribed upon the front of the second ration book:
Stewart, Samantha Evelyn, Miss
Date of birth: 12/06/18.
Hastings address. Feeding a young woman twenty minutes away from her own doorstep, is he? Well, I never. Gladys pursed her lips, squirrelling the information away in her mind for future reference.
Foyle was too engrossed with Mister Harris and the wrapping of his purchases to register the woman lingering to read the cover of Sam's book. He therefore left the shop unworried, and relieved to have inside his carrier the basics for some decent home-cooked meals.
It was half past three when, laden with his three bags, and his pockets full of perfume and insurance, Foyle trudged back up Steep Lane and home to Sam.
****** TBC ******
Author's Notes:
In my mind, Sam's birthdate has to be the 12th of June. That online horoscopic oracle, birthdaypersonality dot tumblr dot com, designates 12th June "the birthday of realistic positivity".
Just right for Sam, I think. Things are always going to be tickety-boo with her, and even if they aren't, she'll stickety-boo a plaster over things and carry on regardless. That's our Sam.
No idea if Sam has a middle name. Anyway, I chose Evelyn for her. "Evelyn, it's one of those names isn't it? I had a cousin Evelyn, you know. He was in the Guards…. Only for two weeks." (OK, this isn't my joke – it belongs to a friend of mine called Hilda, but I like to borrow it once-in-a-while).
Dates of birth only appeared on children's ration books, but I allowed myself this bit of licence on the grounds that Foyle was cradle-snatching.
Cosmetics and perfumes during WW2 were rationed only by price and availability. Most working women would've had to be happy with a sixpenny splash-it-all-over bottle of lavender-water or lily-of-the-valley from Woolworth's. Whilst L'Aimant wasn't a scent of the same calibre as Chanel No 5 by any means, it was nevertheless considered an elegant fragrance, and its eau de toilette was sold in the same price-bracket as Yardley's perfumes. It would have been worn by respectable women of Sam's class who were aspiring to be elegant whilst holding down a job or running a home. No change there, then, girls. ;o)
Women in provincial towns would have bought their perfume over the general goods counter at the chemist's shop, from the pharmacist or his assistant. I have no idea whether there was really a branch of Timothy Whites & Taylors in Hastings at the time (there was definitely one in Sutton, London), but these chemist/hardware-shops-combined were pretty widespread, so I allowed myself the indulgence of putting one in George Street.
More soon.
GiuC