L'Aimant – Chapter 26
Summary:
A group outing to the flickers proves to be a revelation—in more than one sense.
Set after "Broken Souls". November 1944 onwards.
Chapter 26: Andrew comes to a decision. Sam is immortalised.
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 Notes:
This is a long one, to make up for the extra wait.
...
Dame Laura Knight (then Laura Johnson) was just 13 years old when she was enrolled as a student at the Nottingham School of Art in 1890. She is thought to have been their youngest ever pupil.
It was there that she met her future husband, Harold.
...
'Town' with a capital T is London.
...
Thanks again to dances for her valued critique and beta-work. She added some lovely, inspired tweaks to this chapter.
Previously, in "L'Aimant"
Mrs Allingham thought she might just add a little seasoning. "Never see sech a sight in the world as this'en, Georgie, when 'e come into my kitchen fust. I tell you summat—fell in a bunch o'neddles, didn'ee? T'ather side of th'ouse. 'Is legs were middlin' fierce wi' weals. But never made a peep, mind. 'Ee weren' alf limpin', though!"
"I remember that!" cried Andrew. "What was I? Fifteen?"
"An' still in short trousers, poor soul. You'd been jumpin' the brook."
Georgie snorted, mouthing 'jumping the brook', and rolled her eyes.
"What's funny?" scowled Andrew.
Mrs Allingham pressed on with her story. "Mrs Howard'd just 'ad the new fridge delivered, so I filled a bowl wi' ice and Andy sat in it."
"I bet that cut you down to size," remarked Georgie, and chopped the end off a large carrot.
When they left the kitchen ten minutes later, Mrs Allingham was making liver faggots for Samantha's dinner.
Chapter 26
Monday afternoon, 1st January, 1945
"Can't imagine why I'm coming out with you," protested Georgie. "You were perfectly horrid."
"I said a horrid thing, but I'm not completely horrid. So you're giving me a second chance," explained Andrew, shepherding her out towards the car.
Busy woman that she was, Mrs Allingham was not about to tolerate her kitchen being upset by a lovers' tiff. She'd stood about ten more minutes of the loaded atmosphere before turfing them both out, with a sardonic, "Come back when the war's over, you two, ye're turnin' the milk sour."
Andrew's borrowed roadster was parked in the stable yard around the back, and they left the house muffled in their overcoats.
Georgie clapped her hands around her ears. "Gosh, it's freezing! Why did I agree to this?"
"Because you're bored, Sam's occupied, I asked you, and you like the feel of speed," he told her patiently, taking the woollen scarf from round his neck and tying it fetchingly around her head. "There," he said, tweaking her already reddening nose, "you look about twelve, now."
"Perhaps I should be jumping the brook, in that case," she scoffed.
They drove out of the village past the BaptistChurch and up towards the woods, and in no time the old church on St Peter's Hill hove into view. Georgie pulled her coat more tightly round her, and climbed out to have a closer look. Andrew followed, first scanning the churchyard for signs of life, then fixing his gaze on Georgie's small form ahead of him.
"This is Norman," she announced to him knowledgeably over her shoulder. "Look, it says it used to be called the church of Pep— of Pep-in— Pep-in-ge-be-ria. Golly. What a mouthful!"
"You're a mouthful, Georgie." Andrew ambushed her from behind, sweeping her off her feet and up into his arms. Grinning, he pecked her on the lips then twirled her round the churchyard to the sound of her delighted squeals. The noise alarmed a family of snowy-coloured stoats inside a rotting tree-stump, and sent them scurrying off into the undergrowth.
When at last they came to a breathless halt, he gazed into her eyes. "You are the most"—he gasped—"exquisite thing I've held in my arms, bar none, ever."
"Coo," breathed Georgie, regarding him with stunned amusement. Still in his warm arms, she peered around the churchyard a little nervously, then began to kick her legs. "I think you'd better put me down now."
"What's the matter, hmm?" teased Andrew. "Sun will be going down soon. Scared of the undead?" He drew back his upper lip to bare his canines at her.
"Rot." She cuffed him on the ear. "More scared of the living. What if the vicar comes out, and catches us?"
"He can't be in two places at once," smirked Andrew, anchoring her stubbornly to him. "Alice says today's services are down the road at the new church."
Georgie's eyes shone. "So we can sneak inside this one and have a nose around?"
Andrew frowned in mock annoyance. "Georgie, I've just paid you an enormous compliment, and you're telling me that you prefer to sneak into a church and look at tombs?"
"It's interesting."
"And I'm not?"
"Don't be silly, Andrew." She canted her head slightly towards the wide wooden front door, her eyes dancing. "There are pews inside. You know... pews."
Andrew's lips formed into an O. Obediently he lowered her to the ground, then led her with a new determination up the path and through the church door into its echoing interior. Sticking his head inside, he exhaled experimentally to test the temperature. He hadn't smoked a cigarette since lunch, but he might as well have done. His breath came out opaque and white as smoke against the chill church air.
"It's hardly what I'd call a cosy rendezvous," he told her, sceptically.
"It's all right. We can huddle together for the extra warmth, and I'll tell you all about my family—if you want to know."
"I'd really like that," he told her seriously, hugging her against him as they walked inside.
Georgie sat on Andrew's lap in the back pew, and launched into a summary of the Family Rose. Her mother Moira, she explained, was her father's second marriage—his first wife, Judith, having died of flu in 1918.
"They met when she was working as a young nurse in a military hospital. Graylingwell in Chichester." explained Georgie. "Have you heard of it?"
Andrew offered a quiet nod and a smile. He could've added that some of his own chaps had spent spells there, in the battle neurosis unit when the stress of combat missions got too much. Very nearly ended up there himself, hadn't he? Oh, he knew Graylingwell, all right.
Georgie seemed satisfied, and so she continued. "Mother cared for wounded soldiers home from war. Her brother Laurence had joined the Ayrshire Yeomanry, you see, and got shipped out to Gallipoli. After that, she felt she didn't want to stay in Ayr, and so she moved down south to work at Graylingwell. Father and she—his name is Thomas, by the way—married in 1923. I have a half-brother, Desmond. He's forty; naval captain in command of a destroyer. His wife, Faye, is beside herself with worry for his safety. Their son is sixteen and wants to join the navy, like his father—whom he's barely seen in five years. Tom tried to join the Home Guard twice, pretending he was seventeen!"
"Didn't they recognise him, after the first try?" chuckled Andrew, trying to imagine what ruses Tom might have employed.
"No, actually. He bleached his hair blonde with peroxide and went back again. Forged Faye's signature on the enrolment form. But the platoon commander had an idea there was something up, so when Captain Bullock turned up on Faye's doorstep later in the day, it rather blew the gaffe. She'd wondered why Tom wouldn't take his school cap off inside the house. He'd told her that his head was cold. Anything else you want to know?"
Andrew scratched his head. "Well," he said, "how did Desmond like it, when your dad remarried?"
"Mother says he was quite the young man already, when she married Father. One leg out of the door, and on his way into the navy, if you see what I mean. She was only five years older than he was! But what clinched it was Faye. Faye and Mother became friends, and Desmond just fell in with it. He married Faye in '25, just after I was born. And four years later, they had Tom. By that time they'd moved to Portsmouth, but when the war broke out, Faye and Tom decamped to Arundel, out of the line of fire. Desmond insisted it would be safer. But… you know the strangest thing?" Georgie shivered and her eyes grew large.
"What?" Furrowing his brow, Andrew rubbed a hand up and down her arm to warm away the shiver.
"When Tom was twelve—just after they'd moved to Arundel to stay with us—an air raid shelter at a Portsmouth school was bombed. It was in a place called Arundel Street, and fifty people were killed. News filtered through to Desmond somehow, and he got the wrong end of the stick: thought they'd bombed a school in Arundel. (Arundel's not very big.) So he was frantic."
"Gruesome coincidence, I have to say," mused Andrew, "but it doesn't do to read too much into things like that. You also mentioned that your dad is Jewish?"
"Mmm. Yes... Jew-ish. His parents practised, but my mother says he left all that behind him once he moved away from London with his first wife. I have cousins in the East End whom I've never seen—mainly because they're all Desmond's age or older. And as for Father, Mother says the only time she saw him in a prayer shawl was at Graylingwell when he would sit with dying soldiers to recite the Shema—that's the last prayer that you're s'posed to say before you die. He hasn't got much time for organised religion, but he's... he's curious. He told me when he did a stint in Lyminster once, he crept into the Quaker meeting house in Littlehampton and sat there quietly for a while to find out how it felt."
"How did it feel?" Andrew genuinely wanted to know. Many were the times he'd hankered after a bit of peace.
Georgie grinned. "That's the thing. He nodded off. And when he woke up, there were four other people in there with him. Terribly embarrassing. But when he got up to go, they all smiled and nodded. He said he felt... accepted."
"Sounds good to me," Andrew grinned back at her. "Religion can get very complicated."
Georgie went on. "Mother's a Presbyterian—she used to take me to St Nicholas Church with her on a Sunday, so I got into the habit. Father mostly stays at home and reads The Lancet while we're out. On Wednesdays he plays chess with our vicar, Father Maurice. They sit there discussing important matters, such as whether Hell exists."
Andrew contemplated Georgie's rosy cheeks and thanked God she was this side of the Channel. In Nazi eyes there wasn't any –ish about a Jew, and if Hell didn't already exist, Hitler's lot were in the business of creating it.
"Your turn." Georgie's huge dark eyes challenged him. Her nose shone like a glacé cherry.
Good enough to eat. Andrew took a moment to be entranced, but she was staring him down, so he sighed in resignation, and gathered his thoughts. "In a nutshell, then. You know that Dad's a widower—at least, he was until just. My mother died when I was fourteen. Dad kept it all inside and carried on. Alice and Uncle Charles were bricks; helped in any way they could. I finished school, went up to Oxford to read English, and then packed it in to join the RAF."
"Will you go back and finish studying, when the war's over?" wondered Georgie, stroking the lovely firmness of the arm wrapped around her waist.
Andrew cast his eyes down. "I don't know, Love. Sometimes I think it never will be over." Or you won't be here to see things when it is, his demon hissed darkly. "It's been a bloody time." A dozen of your friends killed or maimed, persisted the demon. "Just finished one tour overseas. Anybody's guess, where they'll dump me next."
Involuntarily, he squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them to her concerned ones as she studied him expectantly.
"And as if Jerry wasn't bad enough, you get some bloody idiots in charge. Penguins. Never flown and never will. Sit behind mahogany desks, and when they see the losses, blame the pilots."
He assumed a mock-authoritarian tone. "'You know, Foyle, it's not the aircraft, it's the man!' I could've floored him on the spot, superior officer or not." Andrew felt himself grow agitated. "What does he know about combat flight decisions—ack-acks, bogeys, blinding sun and deafening noise, the stink of fuel inside your nostrils..."
"Andrew..." Georgie reached one woolly mitten up to stroke his face. "Stop. It's awful for you. Stop." Gently, she soothed the tension from his jaw and kissed him, soft lips moulding to his own. Not the puckered chaste kiss of the night before, but questing and exploratory, pulling at his lower lip and shyly asking for reciprocation.
Andrew's turmoil faded and his eyes grew soft. "So," he added calmly, "wherever it is, just hope I get a decent set of wings to fly." He focussed on the small, vivacious bundle in his arms. If memories of active service were his hell, then this was heaven. Dark eyes, a cherry nose and dimples, all only inches from his face. He eased the woollen scarf back from her head to free the raven curls. They tumbled loose. No matter how he combed his fingers through those glossy waves, however he tousled them, they sprang back again.
"Your parents made a perfect beauty, Georgie. And I'm a perfect beast for hurting you. I want to say I'm sorry, and I'll try to do much better in future."
"Smile at me, then," she requested softly. "A proper, sunny Andrew smile."
Andrew gave her his best. It wasn't any effort. Georgie pulled off her mitten and traced the lines around the corners of his mouth and eyes, glimpsing his father in him. "You'll still be handsome when you're fifty and these lines are permanent, but you're positively gorgeous now."
"Oh, Love." He bent his head, and set about exploring what the word meant to him in the context of Georgina. In that kiss, he walked a tightrope between tenderness and fire, and could have taken things beyond what was quite acceptable in the rear pew of a building consecrated as the House of God.
But again, the sense of holding something precious and enduring in his arms restrained him. And if his hand strayed just a little in the quest to reassure himself that Georgie's heart was beating every bit as fast as his, it was a reverent, uninsistent touch, through layers of clothing that stayed safely undisturbed.
"What are you doing this week, my Georgina Rose?" Andrew murmured, lips humming against her hair.
Georgie gave a great big sigh. "Driving Commander Howard to London. Aaaand... then... staying in a billet near Whitehall, waiting to be needed." She frowned intently. "I do an awful lot of that."
Andrew drew his face back from her hair, and sought her eyes. "The waiting could be over if you wanted it to be. I need you. Always. Marry me?"
"Andrew?" she gaped at him. "Did you just hear yourself? You've only kissed me twice... not counting that quick peck outside," she added, for the sake of accuracy.
The best two kisses of my life, his eyes pleaded.
Georgie wriggled uneasily. "I can't marry you... it's silly. It's too soon."
The good sense of her words made a slight dent in his impulse, but not enough to penetrate. "Well, if today's too soon, I'll ask again on Wednesday up in Town. And if the answer's still no, there's still Thursday, Friday, Saturday..."
"Andrew..." she warned, shifting in his lap, "don't make fun of me."
He gave her an intense look. "I'm completely serious," he whispered, and brought a finger up to trail along her bottom lip. "Can't stand the thought of anyone else kissing these."
His finger tickles. And he seems to think I'm his. Just a day ago, Georgie had imagined Andrew might be difficult to hang onto. That he'd soar up, off and away. But the opposite had turned out to be true. He seemed to crave her as a mooring.
In their short acquaintance, she had laughed with him, teased him, bullied him, kissed him beneath a staircase, fought with him, listened to him whinge, kicked him jolly hard, ignored him, contemplated kicking him again, scoffed at him, forgiven him, told him her life story, caressed him in a church, and now... refused—no, she corrected herself—deflected his proposal of marriage. A lot of Andrewness had somehow packed itself into the last twenty-four hours, and her mind was still reeling with the strangeness of it all.
Georgie contemplated Andrew steadily, and tried to introduce some order into her thoughts. It appeared quite likely, once they were apart, that Andrew would continue to occupy her mind one way or another. In the last day or so, the business of provoking or reacting to Andrew had become a major occupation for her. That much was for sure. But marriage? Marriage was an unknown quantity.
And yet his eyes were owning her as if she'd already accepted his proposal.
Which she hadn't. But on the other hand, 'no' sounded very wrong as an answer.
Georgie let out a long breath and took his cheeks between her hands. "Kiss number three," she announced, "and after that, you'll really have to bear with me, Andrew. I'm not saying 'no'. I just don't understand what saying 'yes' will mean. You have to give me time."
Andrew knew what Georgie's 'yes' would mean to him. Warmth, vitality and purpose—something he had witnessed in the union of his father and Samantha. He wanted that, like fuel in his Spitfire and a lifting force beneath his wings. "I'll help you see, Love," he promised her. "Give me half a chance."
The sunbeams sank below the chamfered sandstone windowsills, and kiss number three filled every minute left till sunset.
Tuesday, 2nd January, 1945
"Christopher, I'd like to borrow your young lady wife, if she'd be willing."
Foyle paused on their way out of breakfast. "Ah? How may we help, Dame Laura?"
Laura addressed Sam at his side. "Not to beat about the bush, I'd like to paint you, Dear. The Ministry of Information, in their wisdom, are eager to own canvases of plucky young women doing their bit for the war effort."
Sam gazed, bewildered, from Laura to her husband and then back again. "Really, Dame Laura? But why me, especially?"
Laura took her arm. "Now then, Samantha,"—a low chuckle accompanied her words—"your husband is very proud of you. He's fond of telling people you're the sort of girl who knocks criminals senseless with an adroitly-wielded dustbin lid."
Sam looked at Christopher in astonishment. "You tell people about that?"
Foyle's eyes twinkled impishly over his upside-down smile. "Only... um... every opportunity I get?"
"So," Laura went on, "I fancy that the world would like to have a good look at a girl like you, poised—or in this case, posed—for action. We'll have you standing beside the car out back, I think. Dustbin-lids are easy to come by. You wouldn't happen to have brought your uniform?"
Sam's face fell. "Oh, bother! No. I didn't pack it for this trip. I'm sorry, Dame Laura."
"Ah, such a shame. But surely young Georgina would oblige and lend you hers?"
Brightening at the idea, Sam immediately frowned again and turned to Christopher. "But Darling, we're off back to Hastings this afternoon..."
Foyle shrugged. "I need to be back, but no reason why you can't stay an extra night? Andrew could drive you back tomorrow. If you want to stay, that is."
Sam beamed. Not half! And so things were arranged.
Just after lunch, Andrew pulled up outside the railway station with his father.
"What are your plans this week?" asked Foyle, as Andrew handed him his suitcase at the station entrance.
"Well, obviously, I'll drop Sam off at ours tomorrow," Andrew began, then grimaced self-consciously. "I say 'ours'. Always assuming you didn't chuck my stuff into the yard after..." He trailed off, wincing at the still-fresh memory of his letter.
"It's still your home, Andrew. To live in, or to treat as an oversized storage cupboard, as you wish. You said 'drop Sam off' though. You're not staying on in Hastings?"
"Thought I'd disappear up to Town directly afterwards, actually."
"Any particular, um, reason for that? Haven't frightened you off, I hope?"
"No, Dad. It's just I've... Actually, I've got a bit of unfinished business with Georgina." Andrew's happy smile told his father all he needed to know.
Foyle's hand descended on his shoulder. "Well, um. Since you asked for my advice the other day, I, er, can only add... don't start anything you don't intend to finish? Voice of experience talking here."
"Don't worry, Dad. I've got every intention of finishing this. Properly."
"You're serious about this one, Andrew?" Foyle's expression melded concern with fondness. "Because I don't have to tell you how easy it is to balls things up by hasty... um... or ill-prepared...?"
"I know, Dad. Georgie's different. She makes me different, too."
Foyle nodded thoughtfully, acknowledging his son's commendable intentions and confidence in his self-restraint. He deposited his suitcase on the ground, then lifted his overcoat by the lapel to fumble in the inside pocket of his jacket.
Hunting for his return ticket. Andrew took the opportunity to light a cigarette and took a deep, long drag. His eyes followed the steady trickle of people entering and exiting the station.
Foyle found what he'd been looking for and smoothed his clothing into place.
"When you bring Sam home tomorrow?"—he stretched his eyes and gave the younger man a pointed look—"Drive. Carefully. Don't want to lose any of you."
His father's emphasis on 'any' underlined for Andrew the precious nature of the cargo being entrusted to his care. Andrew flicked his cigarette aside, and clasped his father's hand in both of his in reassurance and farewell. "Sam'll be safe in my hands, Dad. I promise you."
Foyle's handshake was a firm one in return. He tipped his hat and sauntered off towards the platform with a quiet smile.
Andrew glanced after him, thrown, briefly, by the odd sensation of paper sticking to his palm. He lowered his gaze.
Sitting in his right hand was a neatly-packeted rubber johnny.
Alice strolled into the former stable yard to see a tableau-in-the-making. The Riley stood parked diagonally across the cobbles, its driver's door standing open. Wearing her overcoat, Laura was sitting on a dining chair, her sketch-pad on her lap. No sign of the girls.
"Where are they, Laura? You can hardly sketch thin air. It's awfully chilly out here. Wouldn't you prefer to wait inside?"
Laura turned her head unhurriedly. "Ah! Alice! Nice to see you. Don't concern yourself, my dear. We artists are immune to cold. Indeed, Harold could tell you a tale or two from his days of shivering in the Sixième. Freezing in a Paris garret is a necessary rite of passage; one learns to acclimatise oneself. And one learns strategies..." Laura raised and flexed her left hand. "Fingerless gloves. Essential item."
Alice laughed. "The spirit of Ebenezer Scrooge, alive and well in Pembury!"
Laura went on. "And if Paris Saint-Germain was cold, by Jingo, Nottingham was colder, and the wind across the Malverns can be cruel. But Scrooge, for all his faults, was a skilled businessman. You should hear me in negotiations for my fee. Ahah!"
"Oh, Laura, stop!" Consumed with mirth, Alice took to batting her hands around her upper arms. "Shall I call Samantha down to you?"
"Leave them be. The girls are upstairs getting Sam into her uniform, and such things cannot be rushed. In the meantime, I..."—she held up her pencil—"am envisaging the scene and setting up the angle. Now then... Samantha drives a Wolseley. But for the purpose of this sketch the Riley will suffice—a Morris is a Morris is a Morris. Happily, Whitehall is crawling with ugly four-wheeled beasts,"—she licked her pencil—"not to mention two-legged ones." Laura gestured with her hand dismissively. "I shall fill in the details of the motor vehicle later."
Meanwhile, upstairs, the girls were busy kitting Sam out to be sketched.
"The blasted thing will NOT do up. Breathe in." Georgina struggled with the zipper of her uniform skirt around Sam's middle. "What size did you say you were?"
"Twenty-two-inch waist. The same as you."
"I think you might have grown a bit. I'll get a safety-pin. It won't show round the back, under the tunic."
"Oh, golly, it's beginning, then," groaned Sam. "I'm going to turn into a whale."
"You won't. You're tiny. Anyway, with rationing, what on earth is there to get fat on? It's the baby. Nothing you can do. Stop fretting, I'll just pin it to."
Samantha twisted to scrutinise herself in front of the mirror. "What am I going to do? Everything fitted me before Christmas. And my own skirt's the same size as yours. Bother."
"You're going to have to give in to it, Sam. Extend the button-hole with elastic. And apply for a green ration book. Then you can have extra milk, orange juice and cod liver oil. And double eggs!"
"You're very knowledgeable about this sort of thing, I must say, Georgie."
Georgie shrugged. "Father signs the green books off. I've seen the paperwork."
Sam smoothed down the peplum of the uniform tunic, and caught sight of Georgie's reflection in the mirror. Her friend was perched on the edge of the bed, staring into space and chewing on a fingernail.
"So. Now you've sorted me out, wouldn't it be a good idea to tell me what you're fretting on?"
"Mmm?" Georgie looked up absently. "Not fretting, really. Not as such. Andrew asked me to marry him yesterday."
Sam's head snapped round so fast it gave her vertigo. Marry? Her jaw fell slack. What was Andrew playing at? "W-what did you say to him?" she stammered, awestruck.
Georgie applied her front teeth to her fingernail from a different angle.
"Georgie, get a nail file, or before you know it you'll be down to the knuckle."
The younger woman gave her a rueful look. "I said he'd have to give me time."
She leant back across the bed to rifle through her handbag. "I mean—one minute, not a man in sight and wondering what it feels like to be kissed; the next,"—she gestured with her nail file—"proposed to by the first man I've been kissed by properly. It's all a bit... Sam," Georgie's eyes were suddenly beseeching, "I can't say 'yes' this soon, can I? I haven't the foggiest idea how it would feel to be married."
Sam gave her a sympathetic look. She barely knew how marriage felt herself. She knew how it felt to be in love. And she was learning—fast—how it felt to be expecting. But married? If she were honest, married life felt little different from her very first weekend together with Christopher—apart from being calmer. And admittedly, 'together' felt like home. But that was also how she'd felt the moment Christopher had kissed her in his hallway. Fulfilment of a longing and a lack she hadn't fully realised she had was part of it, but also there was comfort, and the sense that it was somehow just… 'right'.
Georgie, on the other hand, has known Andrew about five minutes.
"I'm really sorry, Georgie," Sam told her young friend. "I feel I pushed you at him. I thought you'd have a little fun; be good for each other. I didn't think he'd get so..." ...what? intense? Sam had no clue what was going on in Andrew's mind. Was he even thinking clearly?
Fortunately, Georgie appeared to be. "He's coming straight up to London, once he's run you back to Hastings. And then we're going to talk some more."
Sam jolly well hoped so. "Talking sounds a very good idea," she gushed, relieved. But one element was missing from the younger woman's account of things. "How does he make you feel, Georgie?" Sam prompted.
Her new friend frowned, considering her answer. Fancying the sight of Andrew was all very well. Visually, he'd made a very favourable first impression. In fact, a girl might be forgiven for losing her head over his looks. And then there was the uniform, which didn't make objectivity any easier...
Georgie had been known to moon and dream about the unattainable, but meeting Andrew had, strangely, caused her to remove him from that category. They had 'clicked' almost immediately, and sparked off each other, causing her to skip the mooning phase. Things being thus, Georgie found it easier to tell Sam what she thought and what she liked, rather than what she felt.
"He's... on my mind an awful lot. I think he's gorgeous-looking, and interesting and exasperating, and I love it when he smiles and when he kisses me. And I like to tease him. And I know I'll start to worry for him when he's out of reach. And when I'm angry with him, I want him not too far away, so I can lay into him if I need to. Does any of that make sense?"
Sam had to smile. Exasperating and engaging. Andrew to a T.
"Perfect sense," Sam reassured her. In fact, with the romantic slant removed, it wasn't all that far from her own opinion of the younger Foyle. "But it's a good job one of you has got their head screwed on. Andrew lives..."—Sam chose her words as carefully as she could—"I mean, the flying puts his life a little on the edge. He's been flying combat missions on-and-off for nearly five years now."
A pensive, sad expression formed on Georgie's face. "Oh, dear. You're telling me you think he's making wrong decisions because he's tired."
Alarm bells sounded in Sam's head. It was not her place to guess at Andrew's state of mind in this. Down that path lay disaster. "Nunno!" she put in. "That isn't what I mean. Because it could just as likely be that the war has concentrated his mind on what's important to him. What I meant to say was, you should do what's right for you. Don't let yourself be swept away in this. Clear thinking is the only way to reach the right decision. I think you're being very sensible and grown up about all this. I really do."
Sam bent and hugged her new young friend. "Selfishly, I'd love to have you as a"—she scrunched her brow and made a quick calculation—"erm, as a stepdaughter-in-law"—God, how old that made her feel!—"but not just so that Andrew can be happy."
"Help me, then, Sam. What will saying 'yes' mean?" Georgie's beseeching eyes latched onto hers.
It was a devilishly awkward question to answer—one that Sam would sooner have avoided. But the young woman's face was such a picture of entreaty. Sam screwed her courage and prepared to have a go.
"Best case?" Looking up for inspiration, Sam flexed her hands. "Intense passion, initially. Immense worry in the immediate future while he's away in combat. Eventual comfort and contentment in the long term… and you'll never want to kiss another man."
"Worst case?" prompted Georgie.
Sam took a deep breath. "Worst case, you could find yourself a widow before the year is out. Sorry, Darling. There's no point glossing over things."
Sam wondered briefly whether she should add a codicil on pregnancy and childbirth to the potted scenario, but really couldn't decide whether it belonged under best case or worst case, and so she left it there.
Well, almost left it. Nothing should be left to chance. Sam delved decisively into a deep side pocket of her handbag, where a small, square paper packet had lain undisturbed since Christopher had handed it to her 'just in case', back in November.
"Georgie... I want you to know that I absolutely do not expect you'll plan on using this, but it's... so easy to get carried away or caught out. And that can happen to the best of us. I'd hate to see it happening to you."
Georgie stared at the packet Sam had placed in her hand, and swallowed. "I know the facts of life, Sam. I'm a doctor's daughter, Mother was a nurse, and I've seen books. And none of it actually seems real to me on paper." She bit her lip and looked expectantly at Sam. "I think you'd better tell me everything I really need to know about the art of saying 'no'."
Sam looked at her pityingly. "Honestly, Georgie, I'd be wasting my breath."
Fifteen minutes later Sam took up position next to the Riley, wearing Georgie's uniform and a pair of sensible lace-ups, and brandishing a mean-looking dustbin lid.
"That's good, Dear," called Laura encouragingly. "Hold that stern expression. Legs apart—recall the stance... that's perfect. Hold it there now, if you would. I'm going to make a few quick pencil sketches, then a colour-chart for reference, and the rest can be completed in my atelier."
"Will it be a watercolour, or an oil, Dame Laura?" asked Sam, maintaining her Amazonian stance.
"An oil, Samantha. On canvas. Any reason why you ask?"
"Just interested. Christopher's first wife, Rosalind, was an amateur watercolourist, you see."
"Ah, yes indeed. I've seen some of her work on her dear brother's walls. Rosalind had talent. In that case, I shall make a watercolour sketch, and when the final painting is complete, you shall have the draft to hang at home."
Sam beamed, and her pleased and breathless voice sounded oh, so young. "Christopher would really appreciate that. And so would I. Thank you."
"Not at all, Dear. I've often worked that way at the ballet."
Georgina stood at Laura's shoulder, peering intently at the sketch as it took shape. Her lips were slightly parted, and her ebony hair was swept up in a mass of curls atop her head, revealing the elegant curve of her neck.
Standing in the window of the scullery, Harold Knight took out his pad and began to sketch. "A beauty. Such a beauty,"he murmured as he worked.
Laura added a few final strokes. "Samantha, I shall send you something for your trouble."
"Honestly, Dame Laura, there's no need. It's been a pleasure."
"Nonsense, Dear. The Ministry are notoriously tight-fisted when it comes to fees, but they've met their match with me. If they want the art, then they must learn to feed the artist. Do they imagine that we live on air?"
Sam felt her stomach rumble. Certainly she didn't live on anything so insubstantial.
****** TBC ******
More Author's Notes:
Laura Knight was a notoriously hard-nosed businesswoman when it came to negotiating payment for her work!
...
In the 1920s Laura was given permission to work backstage at Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. This 'backstage apprenticeship' at the ballet meant that, of necessity, Laura had to learn to produce sketches quickly to capture line and pose, then augment the detail in more accurate sketches afterwards. Her drawings were habitually so accurate that, if mistakes did make it through into the final picture, the famous ballet instructor Cecchetti was apt to blame the dancer rather than the artist.
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I've given you a lot of Laura Knight in this, but please don't neglect her husband Harold. Harold understood how to paint the beauty of a woman's neck, as his many portraits will testify
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"[Dr Rose's] first wife, Judith, having died of flu in 1918."
The influenza pandemic between 1918 and 1920 killed about four percent of the world's population. It distinguished itself from previous influenza outbreaks by killing mainly healthy young adults. One of its victims was my grandfather. He left behind a wife and four dependent children.
The effects on my mother's life were hard. The loss of her father ruined her chance of a comfortable upbringing and a good education, since her family instantly lost its source of income in an era when social welfare was still in the dark ages. The Widows, Orphans and Old Age Pensions Act was not passed until 1925.
...
"Jew-ish"
At the 1935 party rally in Nuremberg, the Nazis institutionalised their crackpot racial theories in a set of laws. The Nuremberg Race Laws existed to categorise every citizen of the Reich in terms of racial 'purity', and were the instrument of humiliation and oppression for millions. They became the ultimate criteria by which people were selected for mass extermination.
Bluntly put, Germans were required to demonstrate their Aryan ancestry, or else be labelled as being of 'impure' blood, with all the social and professional discrimination attendant to that label.
Back in the '80s I had a part-time teaching job in a grammar school in Westphalia, and lodged with a German family. The most imposing family tree I have ever seen was rendered in oils on a wall-panel in the entrance hall of their family home. Clearly the object was an heirloom. At the time its significance did not register, but, knowing what I know now, I can only assume it was drawn up under the "friendly" encouragement of the Nuremberg Laws.
How would these infamous laws have affected the characters mentioned in this chapter? Dr Rose's individualistic 'take' on religion would have had no mitigating influence whatsoever on his classification as a Voll/jude (full Jew), Georgie's mother would have been faced with the choice of divorcing her husband or accompanying him to a concentration camp, and Georgie, as a first-degree Misch/ling (mixed-blood) would not have been permitted to marry an Aryan. Andrew would have been guilty of Rassen/schande (literally 'racial infamy') for forming an intimate relationship with her.
Not that I want to send anyone hurrying away from my story (it does love to be read!) but I should like to recommend to you a book called The Empress of Weehawken by Irene Dische. It deals with the above theme, and is one of the funniest, and, ultimately, most poignant books I've had the pleasure of reading. It was sent to me a few years ago (in German translation – 'Großmama packt aus') by the lady in whose home I lodged whilst working in Westphalia. She lived through the war as a young girl, was brought up thinking that the songs of Jewish poet Heine were 'anonymous German folk songs', and lost her father on the Eastern Front. And, along with my mother, she is one of the wisest women I know.
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"You know, Foyle, it's not the aircraft, it's the man!"
Shamelessly poached from an interview with Wing Commander Thomas Francis "Ginger" Neil, DFC, AFC, AE in James Holland's BBC documentary "The Battle for Malta". As I write, this incredible man is still going strong at 93—and a more determined chin on a fellow, you have never seen. Long may Tom Neil continue. The documentary can be found on YouTube.
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"A Morris is a Morris is a Morris."
William Morris, Viscount Nuffield (1877-1963), was an industrialist and philanthropist. An exact contemporary of Dame Laura, he was an eminent designer and manufacturer of cars—the first of which was the famous 'Bullnose' Morris. He went on to absorb other marques into his range, including Riley, Wolseley and, eventually, Austin, dominating the British car industry in the early- to mid-20th century.
Beginning in 1938, he lent part of his factory for the production of iron lungs—artificial breathing apparatus for polio victims suffering temporary or permanent respiratory paralysis—and donated more than 5,000 of the machines across the world. dancesabove tells me that such a machine saved the life of her second cousin.
…
More soon.
GiuC