L'Aimant – Chapter 27
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 27: Sam dispenses advice, then solace. Back to work after the New Year break.
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:
Constable Davis (ew! he's a problem) belongs to Tartan Lioness.
...
Groins loom large in romantic fiction, as they do along the beaches of most seaside towns. In British English, it amuses us to spell the seaside type of groin '-oyne', in case of worrisome confusion. A groyne, therefore, is a rigid, man-made structure built perpendicular to an ocean shore to prevent a sand or pebble beach from being washed away by longshore drift. In Casualties of War (S5E2), Foyle strolls the length of a Hastings groyne, on his way to impart the news of his resignation to Sam and Milner.
And while we're in that area, 'todger' is Brit-slang for penis.
...
dancesabove added her usual inspired polish.
Previously, in "L'Aimant"
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.
Chapter 27
Wednesday, 3rd January 1945
"WHERE ARE THEY SENDING YOU NEXT?"
From her unaccustomed place in the passenger seat of the MG, Sam raised her voice to yell at Andrew's profile. She had no option but to shout—the soft top of the roadster was an ineffective shield against the noise of engine, wind, and tyres on asphalt.
"Don't know, Sam. Even if I had the gen, I'm not allowed to give the game away. You know the rules."
Sam knew the rules full well. It hadn't stopped her asking, for her husband's sake. "Your father worries so..."
Andrew cupped his hand around his ear.
"YOUR FATHER WORRIES!" reiterated Sam, full volume this time.
Not a flinch. Andrew's eyes stayed focussed on the road ahead. "Can't think about that. Hard enough without."
Samantha gave a nod of understanding. "I'll look after him. You mustn't worry."
"I know you will, Sam."
"We'll have each other for support."
"Yes, I'm glad. It sets my mind at rest."
"HARDER FOR GEORGIE, THOUGH—NOT KNOWING WHERE YOU'RE OFF TO." Sam dangled the bait. Andrew hadn't mentioned the proposal, but now, to his credit, he wasted no time by hedging. Of course the news had reached Samantha. It made perfect sense. In fact, it would've been a huge surprise if Georgie hadn't told her everything.
"You think I'm being selfish, asking her to marry me?" He stole a fleeting sideways glance to catch and gauge his passenger's expression.
Sam sent him a sharp look. "I think... that if you're asking her to wait for you, you'd better be a lot more serious this time than you've ever been with other women."
Andrew grimaced, staring sheepishly through the windscreen. "Fair comment. I know I treated you abominably."
"At least you made a clean breast of it. You were honest with me." Sam lowered her eyes. "Not sure I ever was with you," she added, shamefaced.
He turned and cocked a teasing eyebrow at her. "Oh, I see. Had your eye on my old man even then, eh?" An entirely too smug grin spread across his face.
Sam tried to be annoyed, but in all fairness couldn't muster anything approaching indignation. To tell the truth, he wasn't too far off the mark. Andrew's letter breaking off with her, in spring of '42, had hurt her pride, but hadn't hit her half as hard as had the sudden resignation of his father the following spring. Sam gazed into her lap, reliving the deep misery she'd felt, the awful day her boss had shared the bombshell news of his departure from the Force. A rush of vertigo had taken her, as though a void had opened at her feet. If not for Milner's presence, standing with them on the groyne that morning, she thought she might have lost her self-control and wept. Then, hot on the heels of his departure from her daily life, Christopher's kind offer of a job typing his memoirs. If not for that, the pain of separation would have snapped her heart in two for sure.
Horseracing and illegal rambling. Sam's hand stole up across her mouth to hide a bashful smile. The nervous flutters she'd endured those mornings, spent ensconced with her former boss in his dining room! No wonder her poor typing hadn't quite come up to scratch. Alone with him inside his house, all informal in their cardigans, and Mr Foyle solicitously serving her with tea. It put her world at sixes and at sevens. Then DCS Meredith had caught a fatal bullet meant for Milner, and—awful though it was to think of it this way—the balance of her working life had been restored.
Sam blinked in shame. A man's death as the price of being comfortable again. There'd never been those roller-coaster leaps of joy or jolts of misery over Andrew.
But Sam smiled at him now, a hint of an apology behind her words. "You and I were equally confused about what we wanted, weren't we?"
"Yeah. Weren't we just. A proper pair!" He shrugged. "It's ancient history now, all things being equal." His glance darted sideways and down, skimming across her midriff.
He wasn't quick enough; Sam caught him in the act and rolled her eyes. "Really subtle, Andrew."
"Sorry." Her driver snapped his gaze back to the windscreen, grinning cheekily. "Can't pretend that seeing you and Dad together didn't give me a firm boot up the backside, though. On top of which, along comes Georgie, and suddenly it starts to look as if there's hope of life beyond this bloody war. S'pose you could say both events conspired to clear my head." He paused, a broad smile forming. "It's been the best kind of conspiracy."
He gave a sudden chuckle, and Sam found herself joining in.
Emboldened by the camaraderie, and satisfied that the stretch of lane ahead of them was straight and clear, Andrew let his eyes drift from the road to give his passenger a look of undisguised affection. "Don't take this the wrong way, Sam, but... she reminds me of you."
Sam smiled softly in acknowledgment, recalling Christopher's initial, quietly amused reaction to Georgina that first evening. Her husband had been too polite to make direct comparisons then or since, but the soft spot he'd developed for her young friend had been very much in evidence.
Christopher, however, was not the issue here.
"I'd like to think," she ventured, partly out of mischief, "that Georgie does a good sight more for you than I did; otherwise, things won't be worth a fig between you when the chips are down."
"O YE OF LITTLE FAITH." Andrew's wry but equable dismissal was spoken forcefully, but with a warm glint in his eye.
Sam settled back into her seat, reflecting that his amiable withdrawal from discussion of the subject counted for a lot more than would any lengthy, laboured effort to convince her of his good intentions. It imbued her with a nice, warm feeling about how the situation with Georgina would evolve. Sam sighed contentedly, relaxing to enjoy the winter scenery along the journey.
A couple of minutes later, Andrew arched an eyebrow with an air of nonchalance and added: "You realise, of course, she's already kicked me once, and cuffed me round the ear?"
Sam's eyelids, which had drifted closed, now shot abruptly open. "Marry her at all costs, Andrew."
Hands in pockets, Foyle hovered on the steps of 31 Steep Lane, watching stony-faced as the tail-lights of his son's roadster disappeared downhill and round the corner. His top and bottom lips were taking concentrated punishment from his teeth. Sam's hand slid gently under his elbow, tugging lightly.
"Come inside, Darling. He'll be all right. He said he'd ring before he leaves on Sunday. Come on. It's too cold to be standing out here."
Foyle's eyes fastened mournfully on his wife's. "Why he can't drive up to Town tomorrow when it's light, I don't know."
"It's only four o'clock now. He'll be there by dinner time," she reassured, and tugged again. Finally Foyle yielded, allowing her to lead him up the steps.
"Glad my son got you home in daylight at least, Sweetheart." He took her by the shoulders. "Listen, need to finish some reports in the study. Brought them home because it's quieter. Leave me to it for a bit, hmm?" He pecked her on the cheek, preparing to withdraw.
"Christopher?" Sam took and hung on to his hand. "If I thought you were shutting yourself inside your room to brood..."
He gave a tight, sad smile. "Need to work, my love. Give me a couple of hours."
Reluctantly, Sam let him go. He needed to work. Needed. She gazed up at the ceiling, sighing wearily. So what did she need to be doing?
Sewing an elastic loop to the waistband of your skirt so you can button it tomorrow, that's what. Then, inventing dinner out of Spam, dried egg, milk and flour, to judge by what ingredients languished in the pantry. Christopher's work? Reports. Your work? Skirts and Spam. Better get used to it, Dear.
Sam turned the wireless on low in the living room to bolster her mood. Buddy Stewart's dulcet tones embraced the air with Just a Little Fond Affection and she sashayed into the kitchen. Spam was quite delicious, actually. And Christopher might like a cup of tea to carry him through till dinner. A good excuse to check he wasn't sitting there just brooding about Andrew...
The kettle on the hob, Sam cast around the house to draw the blackouts. Spam-in-the-hole. She could manage that. Spam—God bless America!—didn't shrink when cooked the way that sausage did.
Tomorrow she would need to queue all through her lunch-hour to replenish their supplies of food.
And see about applying for her extra ration-book. That nonsense keeling-over business had to stop. She had a job to do. It might not be a big, important job like Christopher's, but by George, while she still had it, nothing was going to stop her doing it.
Thursday, 4th January, 1945
Brookie was at their door by eight o'clock sharp the following morning, delivering the car for Sam's first day back.
"Morning, Mrs Foyle! And Happy New Year to both of you."
Though Brooke's cheery grin was greeted by Samantha as a welcome sight on their front steps, Foyle was quick to notice his wife's determination to regain possession of the car keys... and the driver's seat. He watched with veiled amusement as Brooke was relegated to the back seat of the Wolseley.
Descending the front steps to the pavement, Foyle stifled a smile at Sam's stiff, formal stance as she held the passenger door open for him. It was all he could do to resist the impulse to permanently relieve his wife—his wife, for Lord's sake—of that particular habit. Fighting his own discomfort at seeming to ignore the old-school courtliness he felt he should be showing her, he nevertheless straightened his tie and climbed in, with a courteous "Thank you, Sam."
As Samantha steered the car up Steep Lane and back down the hill again, Foyle drifted off into his own thoughts, shutting out Brooke's chipper narrative of goings-on at Hastings constabulary over New Year. Satisfied that Brooke seemed to be amusing Sam without requiring any input from him, Foyle applied his intellect to the delicate issue of how, in the approaching weeks, he might keep his wife, who was also an expectant mother, usefully employed whilst sparing her unnecessary strain. On ordinary days, the challenge would be small—but extraordinary days were bound to crop up in the weeks before Samantha finally withdrew from duty.
"So, in comes Hardcastle," began Brooke, behind Samantha's shoulder, "with a fistful of Shore Leave Sheila's mangy fox-fur collar. He'd only hauled her in again for loitering round the huts down on the Stade—oh! Begging your pardon, Mrs Foyle..."
"That's all right, Brookie. Don't mind me," Sam grinned, appreciative of his consideration, but unashamedly curious to hear the story.
"Right-oh, then. So she leans across the front desk, reekin' of a mix of Sussex ale and seaweed—and says to me, 'Scuse my arsking, Luvvie, but are them yer own teef?'. And I go: 'Whose else's would they be then, Sheila?' So she goes, 'Fawlse ones, a-course! 'Ad mine out years ago, to save meself the trouble o' the dentist.'"
Sam frowned. "That sounds jolly daft to me, Brookie. Didn't she have to go to a dentist to get them pulled out in the first place?"
"Well, that's what I said, but apparently she got it done for cheap by 'aving the whole lot pulled in one session."
Sam winced and met Brooke's cheery gaze through the rear-view mirror. "She's a tough old girl, Mrs Foyle," he grinned. "'Ardy as you like. Davis took her down and put her in a cell, so she could sleep the booze off."
"I doubt the poor woman would have had much sleep on those cots," Sam observed, recalling her own excruciating sojourn in a Hastings police cell. She gave a shiver. "Hardy would have to be the word."
It was at this point that Foyle's attention snapped back to the conversation going on inside the car. "Sorry, Sergeant. Miles away. What were you telling us?"
"Shore Leave Sheila, Sir. Showing me her bargain-basement false teeth. In the station foyer. I ask you!"
"Ah. Trust you were suitably... admiring of them?" Foyle stretched his eyes, in fervent hope that was the limit of Brooke's anecdote in mixed company.
"Yes, Sir," replied Brooke earnestly. "I told her they looked very fine. Didn't seem no point antagonisin' her. Season of goodwill, an' all."
Foyle—along with most of the constabulary—was well acquainted with Shore Leave Sheila. Her tenure of the Hastings seafront went back fifteen years at least. Brooke's predecessor, Sergeant Rivers, could've told a tale or two on that score—indeed he had done, out of Foyle's earshot. Or so Rivers thought. The tale he'd told went thus: that Sheila might be proud of her dentition, but generally plied her trade without her dentures in.
Foyle speculated that, if Sheila hadn't gone so far as to remove her false teeth in the presence of his current sergeant, she couldn't have been feeling in a generous mood that night. Unless her tastes had caused her to latch onto a different target...
"Davis took her down the cells to sober up," supplied Brooke, right on cue to underline his boss's nagging fears.
Foyle closed his eyes in irritation. "Unescorted?"
The confused reply from Brooke came in a tone of some unease. "Er...yes, Sir... No, Sir. I mean... Davis escorted her, Sir." The sergeant's eyes took on an apprehensive look.
"Rrrright." Foyle's irritation shifted into something reasonably akin to resignation. Davis surely had an ounce of sense inside him. Somewhere.
The DCS's mind alighted on his one and only professional encounter with Sheila McArdle. The interview had taken place around the time that Sam was first, as Iain Stewart had since put it, 'entrusted to his care'. He'd questioned Sheila then as part of the police investigation into the fatal stabbing of another prostitute.
The victim of the stabbing had been a dirty blonde of—Foyle had estimated middle thirties, but according to the coroner's report, no more than twenty-five. Whether the 'dirty' was quirk of colour or just plain filth and sand had been debatable—the heady whiff of Parma Violets that overlay the gruesome scene had been enough to stun a fly at seven paces. Certainly the body's owner would have been a beauty once, but even allowing for the pallor of the corpse, it was clear that the bloom had not just faded from the woman prior to death, it had tumbled from the stem and fallen underfoot. Another five years would have likely seen her in the gutter—if by any stretch of the imagination she were not already there.
He'd pondered sadly what misfortunes might have set her on the path to prostitution, and what tragic details formed the shabby prelude to her end. A brutal pimp? A back-street abortion following some squalid and perfunctory liaison in a fishing hut? The case had never been resolved. Pauline Sansom—that had been her name—had no relatives to contact; her only friends her sisters in adversity (or depending on your viewpoint, her competitors in business).
All of which had led Foyle to the questioning of Shore Leave Sheila. Their interview had ended with his witness whipping out her teeth and offering the nice policeman 'one for free'. Hardly the stuff of after-dinner anecdotes, but suffice to say, indelibly imprinted on his mind.
Foyle would've been within his rights to caution or arrest the woman on the spot. Instead, for reasons he had struggled to unravel at the time, he'd quietly declined, and risen courteously to escort her from the room. Now, nearly five years later, on the rare occasions when their paths crossed, Sheila was entirely prone to wishing him a raucous, but benign, "Good evenin', Mr Foyle", until he tipped his hat or rendered other cordial acknowledgement. The woman clearly hungered for the courtesy, and if accompanied by other ladies of the night, would elbow her companions sharply, prompting them to wish 'her copper' a polite good evening, too. Though Foyle would always feel his insides shifting with unease, he'd none the less bestow the same considerate response. His code of personal decency precluded showing scorn to women brutalised and coarsened by their circumstances. They felt enough of that from other quarters.
Dirty blonde. How different from Pauline Sansom's sand-matted hair, the honey locks demurely rolled beneath the MTC cap beside him now. The image of the dead young woman had haunted Foyle long after that investigation had been shelved for lack of evidence. He tried to recall whether the same image had hovered in a recess of his mind, that day Samantha had complained to Brooke about the shampoo shortage. Was it part of what had strengthened his determination that this lovely girl should have the means to keep her soft hair clean and shining? Had he smuggled in the Lux Flakes with the ghost of Pauline Sansom in his subconscious?
Foyle blinked in mourning for the plight of ill-used women and the casual neglect of men who took their pleasure and moved on without a backward glance. The real crime in such situations wasn't prosecutable, and, regrettably, it happened in all walks of life.
He turned round in his seat to half-face Brooke. "Mmmight want to rethink how you handle Sheila next time... if she's brought in at a future date?"
"Right you are, Sir." Brookie's face was grim.
Ambling past the station kitchen in his waistcoat, Foyle glanced up from his paperwork and caught sight of his wife precariously perched on an upturned enamel bucket, her calves straining as she rose on tiptoe. Perturbed, he checked his gait and swerved into the kitchen just as Sam began to reach for a high shelf.
Even as the sight of her propelled him into a state of mute appreciation, his pleasure at the view was tempered with alarm.
"Sam, you're a menace to yourself," he told her quietly, once he was safely within reach of her. His hands went to her waist to guide her down. "I'll fetch whatever it is you're after. Get down off that thing. It isn't stable."
Reluctantly, Sam turned and stepped off her makeshift platform. "I don't know," she huffed. "There must be a giraffe in the constabulary. I'm trying to reach down the tea-caddy. Somebody's put it right on the top shelf. At any rate," she raised an eyebrow at her husband in challenge, "if you're proposing to reach it, you'd better grow an inch or two, or prepare to climb up on the bucket yourself."
Foyle narrowed his eyes and looked at her askance in mild warning before standing on tiptoe and deftly reaching down the tin. "My arms are longer than yours," he told her smugly. "So just mind your cheek. And don't climb on any more buckets."
Settling his hat on his head, Foyle walked out through the foyer, stopping to address the new face seated at a desk in the back office. "Jacobs, is it?"
"Yes, Sir?" The young man rose up from his seat—and rose, and rose. Foyle thought the fellow must be close to six-foot-two. The DCS's lip quirked almost imperceptibly.
"Good to meet you. You're settling in?"
"Yes, Sir. Sergeant Brooke's been explaining the filing system. I'll be on the beat tomorrow with Constable Hardcastle. Learn the area a bit."
"Splendid. Small request. Um. When you put away the tea, spare a thought for those of us who live at ground level? Mrs Foyle, particularly? Middle shelf all right with you?"
Jacobs nodded, eyes earnest. "As you say, Sir."
"Thank you."
Foyle inclined his head and exited the station, chewing morosely on his inner cheek. I'm giving orders about where he puts the tea-caddy because my wifecan't reach it. This has got to be the beginning of the end.
Friday, 5th January, 1945
Brooke looked up from his desk and saw, for the umpteenth time that day, his constable's lower body fidgeting behind the counter top.
"Hold still, will ya, Davis?" he called irritably, "You look like one of them poofy Latin dancers. Or a bloke with an ants' nest in his knickers." Then under his breath: "Come to think of it, there ain't much difference between the two."
"It ain't my fault, Sarge. Somefin's makin' me skin crawl down there." Davis' voice sank to a whisper on the last two words.
Brookie paled. "Oh, my giddy aunt. Come 'ere." He beckoned Davis over to his desk, then pointed at the startled-looking lanky young man wrestling with a pile of forms. "You. Jacobs." Brookie jerked his thumb towards the counter. "Watch the front desk."
Grabbing Davis by the arm, the sergeant gestured sharply with his head to indicate that they were making for the gents, and hissed, "This better not be what I think it is, Mate, or your bits are goin' to stink of pitch and mothballs for a month." On the way, he added quietly, in exasperation, "That's if your dick don't drop off in your trousers first."
"Aw, Sarge! Don't say that..." Davis whined.
"Yeah, well," seethed Brooke, ushering him through the door and locking it behind them, "you make me sick. The bloody dog has got more sense than you. And what d'you mean, 'it ain't my fault'? Who else is givin' orders to your todger?"
"Dunno, Sarge," groaned Davis. "Beats me, sometimes. Think it's got a mind all of its own."
"If the boss finds out what you've been up to, you're for the high jump."
Davis found a spark of indignation. "Oh, yeah? Is 'e the only bugger round 'ere who's allowed to stick 'is—"
Brookie rounded on his constable and bared his teeth. "Don't even THINK of finishin' that sentence, Eddie, or you're OUT." He glared at Davis for an instant; then his temper fell as fast as it had risen. Brooke's voice assumed a measured and indulgent tone, as if explaining to a child.
"Eddie. Whatever Mr Foyle is doin' with Miss Stew—with 'is missus don't bear no resemblance to what 'appened between you and Shore Leave in that cell."
"Nothin' 'appened, Sarge."
"Eddie..." Brooke's head twisted and his voice gave warning.
Davis looked down at his boots, deflated. "I didn't start it, Sarge. I never. Honest. She were at me 'fore I 'ad a chance. An' I ain't never even..."
"Davis. Put a sock in it. I never want to know. Now, drop 'em. If it's clap or lice, you're straight off to the quack. Today. And get your mum to change the sheets before you get in bed tonight as well—you hear me? Tell 'er you got fleas from Hector, or... got lousy arrestin' a tramp. Got that?"
"Yes, Sarge." Sensing that he might be off the hook, Davis brightened. "Sarge?"
Brooke suppressed a sigh and arched an eyebrow. "What?"
"'Ow d'you know so much about it, then?"
Brooke looked at him as if he'd come down with the last wet shower of rain. "Are you kiddin', Eddie? I did four long years at Deptford Green."
"Sam?" Christopher was still rolling down his sleeves from washing up as he walked into the living room that evening. Dinner hadn't been a particularly happy meal; conversation had been strained and Sam had been despondent, showing no interest in pudding, unusually for her. Afterwards she'd pleaded a sick headache, and gone to lie down on the settee with a cool, damp flannel draped across her eyes.
"Feeling any better, Sweetheart?"
"I suppose." Sam's tone was grudging.
Foyle crossed the room and lowered himself onto the rug, propping his back against the front of the settee. He reached behind him for her hand. Sam's fingers absently pushed the open shirtsleeve back from his wrist, combing through the soft hair there, and lingering over the sinews of his forearm. At last, they came to rest against the delicate flesh in the crook of his elbow.
With a frown, he watched the wandering motion of her fingers, then brought his other hand across to cover hers. "Tell me what's up, Darling. Otherwise there's nothing I can do."
"I've got a headache." Sam was giving him no quarter. The damp flannel still obscured her eyes.
"You've been quiet all day. You're not yourself." Foyle squeezed her hand.
Sam snorted lightly underneath her flannel. He tried again.
"Was it the lorry? Just because I wouldn't let you chase it?"
Her reply was plaintive. "I could've caught it. The Wolseley's faster. We could've had them."
"Really wasn't worth the risk," he told her patiently. "We got the registration, after all..."
"I was up for it." Sam's tone was insistent, and hard-done-by.
Foyle widened his eyes. What did she think they could have done if they'd caught up with the lorry, anyway? Armed themselves with lengths of four-by-two and overpowered three men?
"You might have been. I wasn't." Some steel had crept into his tone.
"Right." Sam's voice was clipped and cool. "That's it then. You're the boss, of course."
Foyle blinked at that. He was the boss. Well, wasn't he?
Unsure how to proceed with the discussion without exacerbating things, he tried for humour. "It would've been a different matter if you'd had your dustbin lid to hand. You could have done your Boadicea act."
"IT ISN'T FUNNY, CHRISTOPHER." Sam yanked the flannel from her eyes and swung her legs off the settee. Pushing herself to her feet, she stalked out of the room, leaving him beached on the carpet.
"Sam?" Foyle scrambled to his feet to follow her, but she was already halfway up the stairs before he made to the hall.
"All right!" he called up after her, exasperated. "Tell me WHY I'd risk my wife and child to chase a lorry load of building stuff..?"
"I'm GOING for a BATH." The door slammed hard behind her and he heard the taps go on.
Foyle stood there on the staircase in his shirtsleeves, French cuffs dangling uselessly over his fingers. After a moment he sank miserably onto a middle tread and pushed both hands up his face and over the top of his head. So this was how the extra-ordinary days were going to be, from here on in.
He sat there several minutes, until he heard the splashing noises of a body sinking into water, then he climbed the stairs and listened at the bathroom door. The sound of gentle sobbing reached him, and he tapped the door. "Sweetheart? I'm coming in."
"Go away." It was a small voice.
Foyle thought he knew the tone. Unless he was very much mistaken, it belied the words. Quietly he turned the knob. Exactly as he'd thought. Sam hadn't locked the door against him.
Sam was sitting in the tub, her bare back towards the door, arms wrapped around her bent legs, and her forehead resting on her knees. Her hair was piled up on her head, gathered inside a moss green georgette scarf tied at the front in an outsized bow.
He reached to stroke the soft arch of her neck, relieved to see she didn't flinch.
"What's the matter, Christopher?" Sam's tearful but haughty voice was muffled as she spoke into the narrow space between her thighs and upper body. "Afraid I'll drown in five inches of water? Is a bath too risky now?"
"Sam," he cajoled softly. "Don't you see how things have changed? I want you with me, but I can't put you in harm's way. If you don't see that..."
Sniffing back tears, she lifted her head and stared at the taps. "I'm overruled in everything... by my condition... and by you. You don't even want me cycling. You won't even let me climb up on a damn bucket. I'm NOT a china ornament. I WANT to do my job."
Foyle knelt beside the bath and took her shoulders in his hands, guiding her gently round to face him. Resentful brown eyes met his concerned ones, challenging him for an explanation. Foyle forced himself to hold her gaze.
"Sam. Things are not the same, no matter how much you might want them to be. What sort of man would I be if I allowed..."—he checked himself—"if I stood by while you put yourself in danger? You ask too much of me." His brows puckered, begging for her understanding.
Sam's face began to crumple afresh. "So I'm unreasonable?"
"You have to let me decide what's safe, when it's to do with work. Please. Sam. You really think I'd put you... both... in peril for a load of knocked-off timber?"
Sam sniffed and drew the back of a damp hand across her eyes, before looking away momentarily. Then she bit her lip. "I suppose... it would have been a bit... Keystone Kops to give chase, wouldn't it?"
"My thoughts exactly." Foyle cupped her face with both hands, wiping away the tear-streaks with his thumbs.
Sam closed her eyes and took a deep breath to compose herself. "All right. I am unreasonable," she granted airily. "I feel it, Christopher, but, so help me," her eyes were pitiful, "I can't control it."
"Ah, Darling." Foyle stroked across her cheek again. He'd seen it all before with Rosalind, when she was carrying Andrew. The moods, the tears...
"I have to learn..." Sam began resolutely, then hesitated. "I have to learn to worry less about the things I'm losing, and concentrate on what I'm going to gain instead." She frowned a smile. "Is that more like it? Is that what you want to hear?"
"That's my girl." He leaned in for a kiss, but she drew back. Was there something else?
"The car chase," Sam informed him earnestly. "You were right. I see that now."
"I think I was."
"But the bucket. That was totally absurd."
"It was?"
"Mmm-hmm. If I can't step on a bucket while I'm having this child, I may as well go straight to bed and haul the covers right up round my chin. I won't be wrapped in cotton wool by you." She gave him a fiercely pleading look.
Foyle rubbed a hand around the back of his neck as he raised his brows, mulling over the compromise. After a moment he heaved a sigh. "Right you are, Miss Stewart."
Sam nodded her satisfaction. "Well, that's settled then. If I get emotional again, try to excuse me. There's a demon in my brain." She leant forward to turn on the tap and sent him a shy grin. "If you're getting in with me, we can have another five inches of water in this bath."
Foyle lifted one eyebrow. "Am I getting in with you?"
"You could help me with this." Sam reached for the jar of soap solution sitting in the corner by the taps. "Lux Flakes. Dissolved in rainwater. Will you do the honours?" She undid the georgette scarf, letting her hair tumble round her shoulders.
Foyle licked his lips unconsciously. "It'll be my pleasure. Give me a moment to get out of these..." He left the bathroom to the sound of running water and changed swiftly into his dressing gown, nearly tripping over himself in the rush to shed his underpants and socks.
As he crossed the landing back towards Samantha, Siren of the Bathtub, Foyle made a mental note to remove the bucket from the station kitchen and hide it in the gents' next chance he had. Totally absurd? He didn't think so.
A few moments later, the sound of splashing and delighted feminine giggles echoed across the landing, accompanied by the floating strains of Let Me Call You Sweetheart rendered in a passable baritone—on pitch, if not great in range.
****** TBC ******
More Author's Notes:
"I didn't start it, Sarge."
Genesis 3:12
"And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest [to be] with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat."
Plus ça change...
...
"…your bits are goin' to stink of pitch and mothballs for a month."
Treatment of body (pubic) lice in those days was via NCI (naphthalene, creosote and iodoform) paste.
…
Let Me Call You Sweetheart
Published 1910. Music by Leo Friedman and lyrics by Beth Slater Whitson.
I've imagined that Foyle heard his mother singing this song when he was a youth.
Let me call you "Sweetheart"
I'm in love with you
Let me hear you whisper
That you love me too
Keep the love-light glowing in your eyes so true
Let me call you "Sweetheart"
I'm in love with you
...
More soon.
GiuC