L'Aimant – Chapter 56
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 56: Sam and Foyle return from London to developments at home.
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 chapter is for Wolseley37, whose wonderful UXB has equalled and surpassed canon, nudging the story just the way I would've loved to see things go—and done so with such clever understanding of the personalities, that it's impossible to see the join, or question where she steers the characters.
Now, if you're still reading my tale after 55 chapters, the chances are you're not averse to the Foyle/Sam ship. I know that not everybody subscribes to the idea, but I'm incorrigible about it. Imagine, then, my satisfaction at a recent get-together, when a neighbour of mine turned out not only to be an avid Foyle's War fan, but also (and with absolutely no prompting from myself in that direction), revealed herself to have suspicions that "Foyle had got his eye on Sam". Quite made my day ;o)
...
The narrative has been licked into shape by dancesabove.
Previously, in "L'Aimant"
Afterwards they had lain on the bed for several minutes to recuperate, legs dangling over the edge in utter exhaustion—too tired even to climb up on the mattress properly. Christopher had even dozed for a short time—he knew not how long, but when he came to, his eyes peeled open to find Samantha on her knees in front of him, showing a renewed interest in his attributes.
"What's this?" Propping himself up on his elbows, he tucked in his chin and raised an amused eyebrow. "What are you up to?"
"Bird watching."
"Sam," he told her patiently, "I'm spent."
"So you say."
"Nnnot joking, Sam. The evidence is, um, difficult to hide..." Indeed, he hardly needed to remind her of the sticky subject.
"But it's still..." she curled her tongue and applied it to him, glancing up artfully to check the effect, "... sensitive?"
"Tssss!" He screwed his eyes tightly shut, and Sam knew she had him. "God! This thing's a danger to itself," he groaned.
"How can it be a danger to itself?" she countered pertly. "Danger to me, yes. Damage done," she patted her belly in pretend annoyance. "But not to you. Wouldn't you like to even up the score?"
"Sam," he pleaded. "I'm exhausted. Shot my bolt. Have pity..."
"Relax, my love," she purred, "I've wrapped you in my silk cocoon, and now... the way of things in nature, this is how it has to be: a spider always eats her mate."
Chapter 56
Tuesday afternoon, 17th April 1945
"I realise I should know better than to ask..."
Sam's overture interrupted Christopher's extended spell of gazing through the train window at the urban sprawl. It was mid-afternoon, a little before rush hour. She and Christopher were travelling home to Hastings on Ministry warrants, in a slightly shabby, but otherwise empty, First Class compartment, each enjoying the privilege of a window seat.
"Hmm?" Foyle pulled himself back from his contemplations. "Ask what, Sam?"
"About Miss Pierce."
A smile of quiet vindication curled one corner of his mouth. "Surprised you've held out this long. Not a peep of interest from you last night. Or while we were out shopping earlier. Thought it seemed suspicious."
Sam shrugged off the gentle jibe. "Well, there's a time and place. But, more importantly, I have a bet with Alice that you'll tell me what they wanted."
"You have a... ? Pity's sake, Sam!" Foyle's expression livened to dismay. "Alice? Alice should know better."
"Alice does know better, Christopher. Apparently, Charles sings like a canary."
"Does what?" Foyle's eyes narrowed, his expression darkening.
"Oh, all right," Sam backtracked, plucking an invisible bit of lint from the knee of her skirt. "He only twitters discreetly, in the privacy of their bedroom."
Her husband's eyebrows lifted in a look of shock that veered towards a challenge.
"Well... about some things," amended Samantha, in a smaller voice, policing herself carefully around his reaction.
Christopher tilted his head, one eye closing sceptically.
"I mean to say," she persisted gamely, feeling the wind leaching from her sails, "he told her one thing, once."
Foyle parked his tongue behind his upper teeth and blinked across at her, and waited.
Sam's gaze sank to her lap. "Well... some months after it was over."
"Rrright. And so, um..."—a friendly gesture of his hand invited her to step into the hole she'd dug herself—"Alice bet you that I'd, ah, 'sing'?"
"Well, not exactly."
"Inexactly?"
Sam fidgeted amidst a nest of Swan & Edgar bags and parcels, and a floral bouquet of apology delivered to their room that morning, signed Lieutenant Orville T. Bodell.
"I bet her."
Disapproval twisted Christopher's mouth.
"I detest being kept in the dark," Sam parried. "Absolutely hate it."
Foyle pinched between his eyes, exhaled, and patted the upholstery of the empty seat next to him.
"Can't shout across at you, Sam. Walls have ears. C'm'ere and sit by me."
"Oh, good!"
Brightening, Sam reached out for him to grasp her fingers and hand her across the gap.
"There!" she beamed, and settled herself next to her husband. "Knew you'd see it my way."
Foyle gave a tight smile. "So, um, you reckon you can keep a secret, do you?"
"As well as you can."
"But you're asking me to divulge one." He sent her a sidelong look of teasing admonition.
Sam blushed, wrong-footed for a moment. "That's... that's different!" Then her embarrassment flared into annoyance. "Ooh! Don't you dare resort to logic, Christopher. We're a team, you and I. We always have been."
"Ah," he stretched his eyes, "but who runs the team?"
"Pardon? Now you're pulling rank on me?" She flashed her ring. "We're married, and there's weighty evidence," she glanced down at her belly then back up at him, "that you're not my boss any more."
Foyle swivelled in his seat. "Sam..." Studied patience wrote itself across his features. Clearly, even before she had conveniently demolished reason and authority, consideration of the law had vanished from Sam's mind. "What weapons are allowed, then?"
"I don't see why you feel compelled to fend me off with weapons," Sam protested.
"Because," he explained calmly, "the rules dictate I'm not allowed to tell you. Simple as that."
Sam turned hurt eyes on him. "But I deserve to know if you're at risk. It's only fair."
He conceded with a nod. "There I can help you. I am definitely not at risk."
To his satisfaction, he saw her shoulders relax, and used the opportunity to add more reassurance. "It'll be all right, Sam. I just can't talk about what's happening, is all."
"I wouldn't tell."
His lip quirked mischievously. "What, even under torture?"
"Don't be absurd, Christopher."
"Nnnot absurd. How's this?" Flexed fingers darted under Sam's unbuttoned coat, diving for her flanks. In seconds she was in a state of helpless giggles.
"There," he observed as he released her. "Ticklish people are the proven worst for keeping secrets. Nnot that way myself, as luck would have it."
Wiping tears of mirth from her cheeks, Sam grappled with her underlying unhappiness.
"You don't take me seriously."
Christopher's lips turned down, cajoling. "Not true, Sam. But if you won't have truck with logic, rank, or more importantly, the law, then we're reduced to this."
Sam gazed gloomily into her lap. "You used to trust me."
"Still do," he assured her with unsentimental candour. "Trust you implicitly. But the rules..."
"Oh, I see"—pulling back her shoulders, she sat stiffly to attention—"Sir!"
"Look," he began reasonably, reaching for her hand. "You said yourself: a time and place. Can't talk about this here. When we get home, I'll tell you... something. Not the nitty-gritty details, but enough for things to make a bit more sense. Seem fair to you?"
Sam's answer was to draw his hand around her waist and rest her head against his shoulder.
"Oh, well… I s'pose this isn't much of a reprimand, compared to some I've had from you."
He looked down on her and wondered what had stayed with her this long.
"Remember that awful time when you really told me off?" continued Sam, "When things were looking bad for Paul—as if he'd actually killed his wife?"
Christopher blinked, blindsided. Then he cleared his throat. "Nnnot so well, Love."
The reply was gruff, and, to his shame, dishonest. So vivid, now, was his recall of the occasion, that it pained him.
"Oh, you must do!" persisted Sam. "We were sitting in the Wolseley and I was upset about Paul, and pleaded with you, 'You can't think Mr Milner had anything to do with the death of his wife?'"
Foyle frowned. It hadn't been his finest hour.
"You were an utter bear." Sam deepened her tone, and hardened it, mimicking an earlier Foyle delivering a curt rebuke. "'What makes you think I'll be answering this question? Have I made it clear that cases are not for discussion? Do we discuss cases? Will we be discussing this one?'"
She glanced up, to see if he recalled now, but Foyle found he couldn't look at her. The fact that she'd remembered every syllable just served to underline how much his words had hurt her.
"All right, Sam. I, ah... not terribly proud of that. I was, um, feeling rather manipulated. Nnnot by you, I might add. You just happened into the firing line."
"Well, you crushed me completely. It was all I could do not to cry my eyes up."
"Sweetheart... I'm s—"
"You see," Sam ploughed determinedly over him, "I'm very much at your disposal in these things. I felt so utterly at sea that day. And when you lectured me and pulled rank and all sorts... well..." she gave him a sharp look. "You can be quite... cold, professionally, you know."
"Yes. Unforgiveable to use that against you."
"What would you have done then, if I had?"
"Mmm? If you'd what?"
"Cried my eyes up," she persisted. "Because that's precisely what I felt like doing."
Foyle winced, reminded of the iciness that had crept into his treatment of her that day. The truth of it was, had Sam cried, he would very probably have exited the car and left her to it. Why? If he were candid, there had been rather more to his behaviour than the sense of being played professionally. Sam's perfectly reasonable upset on Milner's account had translated in his mind to something more—a something that had tipped him into irritation bordering on anger, and earned his young driver a mean-spirited tongue-lashing. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, and to his chagrin, Christopher understood his own behaviour all too well.
"I, um, owe you an apology for that... singular brutality," he told her, shamefaced. "Confession to make," he worked the inside of his mouth. "That day... the way I acted... hhad a notion that... you'd come to care for Milner. What you saw, in consequence, was just about the worst of me."
"Christopher! Why would you think th—?"
"Wull, I s'pose... um, fear, if I were honest with myself. Nearly lost you to that limpet child Farnetti, then to anthrax. Barely back on your feet after your illness. Always envied Milner your easy manner around him..." he pressed her fingers. "Nnnot proud of myself, Sam."
Sam's jaw gaped. Limpet child? Christopher had always been so placid in Joe's presence—all of her young American suitor's visits to the station had been greeted with barely a raised eyebrow from her boss.
"Joe irritated you?"
Foyle's lip curled. "Immeasurably. Talked to me as if I were your father. Wooing you with ffancy goods and doughnuts. Upstart."
"You felt those things about me, even then?" Sam's hand rose to hide her raw amusement at his mention of the doughnuts.
"Think I just said so." He bowed his head, and watched her from the corner of his eye.
The sound of heavy footfalls in the corridor warned them it was time to part, and by the time the door of the compartment slid open, they were already sitting respectably upright in their seats.
The guard leant in.
"Tunnel, Madam."
Decorum demanded such announcements for the benefit of ladies, on a trip where all the carriage lighting-regulators would be out of service. In this case, taking in the relative positions of his passengers in an otherwise unoccupied space, and particularly, now that he looked, the pregnant state of the young woman, the guard deduced his warning was unnecessary (or at least a little late). With a smile, he tipped his cap and added, "Sir", before continuing on his way.
The same call was soon audible from the neighbouring compartment, and then the footfalls faded, leaving just the tickety-thump of train on track.
Craning her neck around Christopher to peer through the window, Sam wondered aloud how far they'd come.
"Umm... passed Tunbridge Wells a while back. Coming up to Wadhurst Tunnel, I should think. 'Bout a mile long. Better steel yourself for daytime blackout."
They joined hands and prepared to be plunged into darkness.
"I've never travelled first class before." Sam's head lolled back contentedly against the crisp white linen antimacassar. "You?"
Foyle drank in her profile—the same way that he surreptitiously often had in the not-so-distant days when she'd been seated at the wheel and he beside her. His features softened.
"In your careful hands, Miss Stewart? Always first class travel."
The daylight blinked out as the train sped into blackness, and the locomotive noise reflected from the tunnel walls roared through the carriage like an ocean wave. Sam felt his breath against her cheek before his face bent round to hers, petitioning her lips.
"I'm sorry, Love," he pressed her. "Sorry I was jealous then. And sorry now that circumstances mean I have to keep you in the dark."
"Don't mind your jealous past," Sam whispered. "Don't even mind a little darkness, just as long as there's the promise of some light ahead."
With careful tenderness, he drew her round across his lap. Cradling her in his protective arms, he poured his special brand of soft illumination through their kiss, until the locomotive swept them into daylight once again.
...
Georgie dragged herself out of the powder room at Hastings Railway Station, hoping that the train would be on schedule so that she could pick them up and they could all go home.
It hadn't been an easy day. When Christopher had telephoned his travel plans to the constabulary that morning, Georgie had likewise been in what she loosely thought of as the powder room—the visitor's convenience at Hastings Nick. Her monthly cramps were bad, and what's more, happening outside her normal cycle. Once or twice today, they'd put her in a tingling sweat that sent her rushing to the lavatory. There she'd knelt, face hovering over the less-than-pristine pan, wishing she could jolly well throw up and get it over with. She'd bled, well almost normally—a little light perhaps—since Andrew, and the mussels episode she'd certainly viewed as an unfortunate difference of opinion with her saltwater friends. So all these setbacks she'd ascribed to troublesome hormonal hiccups of the state of womanhood—and shrugged them off.
Now she smoothed her jacket down over her hips and stood smartly on the platform, feet apart, gloved hands clasped behind her back.
Being a natural fidget, Georgie didn't lend herself that easily to stillness, and soon caught herself rocking on her toes, continually peering up the track to see if she could spot the train. Beneath her uniform, her stomach rumbled.
The 18:12 arrival from London Victoria pulled into the station at a respectably British 18:20 and disgorged a large number of passengers from Second Class at the rear. Just a handful of people alighted from First Class at the front of the train, and were received by two station porters hovering at their carriage doors. Christopher's figure was the first to descend after the bags and parcels, swivelling on his toes as soon as he alighted, to offer Sam a helping hand down from the train.
"Oh, just marvellous. I can barely see my feet, let alone where to put them," Sam joked under Christopher's solicitous attention, feeling for the step.
Georgie trotted excitedly down the platform to meet them.
"Hello! Hello, you two! I've missed you!" Barely waiting for acknowledgement, she relieved the porter of Sam's case, and swinging it before her, launched into a stream of news and anecdotage that left Foyle convinced his daughter in law had been vaccinated with a gramophone needle.
By the time they reached the Wolseley, Georgie was concluding a detailed tale of woe about narrowly escaping being trapped in the basement.
"... and then the wretched knob came away in pieces my hand! Luckily I found some pliers in a drawer, otherwise I might have starved to death down there."
Foyle laconically brushed off the drama. "Not likely in two days. Any case, you could've climbed out of the window." He cast an eye over Georgie's healthily upholstered, compact figure and added, "Once you'd starved a little bit."
"Christopher!" Sam elbowed him. "Stop it!"
But Georgie was already burrowing inside the boot to make room for the bags. "Honestly, the junk in here," came her muffled voice. "Who looks after this car anyway?"
Sam pinned her lips between her teeth at Christopher's eye-roll, and gave his hand a contented squeeze.
"Right-oh!" Georgie extracted her head and snapped upright. "Hand me the ba— Ooh!" A sudden wave of vertigo took her balance and, swaying backwards, she grabbed for the inside rim of the boot.
Sam let out a startled "Oh!" as Christopher dropped his case and caught Georgie by the elbow. "Steady. You all right, there?"
Georgie grasped his arm. "Mmm. Gosh. Stood up too fast." She blinked at both of them, disoriented.
Foyle squinted. "What brought that on?"
"Don't know..." she grasped for explanations. "Perhaps I'm just a little weak from hunger. After all, it's nearly dinner time and honestly, Christopher, there's not a biscuit to be had at the police station. You know how it is, Sam," she appealed for support.
"Oh, quite." Sam couldn't quite suppress a small frown of concern.
Foyle studied Georgie. For all her cheery smile, her cheeks were pale.
"I'll load up," he announced to her. "You get into the car. Sam?" he invited, walking to the driver's side and opening the rear passenger door.
As Sam tucked her legs into the passenger well, Foyle pivoted on his heel and noticed Georgie's hand reach for the car roof for support. "You okay to drive?" he asked, uneasily.
"Oh, I'll be fine!" she answered brightly. "You're so sweet to ask."
There was a chuckle from the back seat. "Tell him how sweet, Georgie. I'm resisting the temptation."
"Righty-ho." A mischievous peck from Georgie landed on her father-in-law's cheek.
"All right. Enough, you two." Foyle drew back a pace, hand darting to his tie as if to check his head were still attached.
Installed inside the Wolseley, Sam twisted in her seat and watched the sway of Christopher's deliberate saunter as he moved around the car to claim his seat. When he bent to climb inside, she could tell that he was battling a smile.
...
"Sam," Georgie ventured confidentially after dinner, tugging at her skirt under the table—Christopher had last been seen making for the basement with a screwdriver in his hand—"I think I'm in a bit of trouble. Bleeding when I shouldn't be."
Sam reached across the tablecloth and squeezed her wrist. "So awfully sorry, Darling. Do you feel unwell?"
"Feel better after a hot meal, but I have felt out of sorts. What d'you think I should do?"
"Not much you can do, is there? Grit your teeth and wait it out, unless you're in a lot of pain. Do you think you're... erm, were you... ?"
Georgie splayed her elbows on the table and lowered her chin to rest on folded hands. "Hardly matters now, does it? If I was, it's all over in a whimper." She bit her lip. "D'you think there might be something wrong with me, for this to happen? I mean, look at you and Christopher... and your mother in her forties. Honestly, I feel like such a failure. It's pathetic."
Sam's eyes misted. "Darling, I'm so sorry. Wish I could tell you one way or another, but really I'm ignorant about these things. Have you thought of speaking to Papa Rose? Might that set your mind at rest?"
Georgie laid her cheek on top of her fingers. "I'd like to, but in front of Christopher... I can't."
As if on cue, the sound of rattling and a swallowed oath rose from the basement.
Sam patted Georgie's arm. "The telephone lead will reach into the living room, and you can close the door. I'll see to it that you're not disturbed."
"Thanks. You're a brick." Georgie got up from the table and crossed the dining room. Rubbing absently at the small of her back, she turned and sent her friend a rueful smile.
"Sometimes, life's such a bother, isn't it?"
"Try not to think that way."
With a sigh, Georgie left the room, only to return a moment later through the adjoining door into the sitting room, telephone in hand.
"I'll let you have some privacy," said Sam, taking herself out into the hall. The click and whir of the phone's rotary dial followed her down into the basement, where she found Christopher in waistcoat and shirtsleeves, stooping at the foot of the narrow stairs, two metal screws protruding from the side of his mouth.
The sound of Sam descending made him glance up, mildly startled. Immediately he rose to offer her a hand.
"Hold the handrail coming down," he cautioned through a mouthful of metal-ware, and guided her down the last few steps till he was satisfied she was on level ground. Then he stooped again, squinting at the door catch assembly, and reached for the new doorknob he was preparing to fit.
"Shan't be long," he mumbled. "Was there something important?"
"Georgie's upset," began Sam, unceremoniously.
He turned to her and plucked the screws from between his lips.
"Looked all right to me. What do you know that I don't?"
"She's missing Andrew…" Sam hedged.
"What, again?" He let out a snort. "The irresistible younger Foyle weaving his spell from darkest Uxbridge?"
"Not funny. Georgie's down in the mouth. It might be time to deliver on that promise of yours."
"What promise was that?"
"You told her she could have a dog."
"Ah." He pushed a screw into the drilled hole of the mounting plate and twisted it until it took. "Weak moment. Was hoping she'd forget."
"Well, she remembered long enough to tell me about it. So... who 'does' spaniels in Hastings, Christopher?"
"Dunno. What's the urgency, anyway?" Tongue peeking out between his lips, Foyle began the deliberate task of screwing the escutcheon to the door stile.
Sam lowered herself onto the bottom-but-one step and wrapped her arms around her knees.
"Your daughter-in-law is miscarrying," she informed him quietly.
Foyle blinked hard at the door, then hung his head. Laying down the screwdriver, he swung up from his crouch and planted himself beside her on the stair.
"Thought you said she couldn't be."
"Well, I—and she—were obviously wrong."
"Drat Andrew," he cursed, rubbing irritably at his knee. "Warned him to be careful. This isn't a good time."
Sam stared at him, wide-eyed.
"I can't believe I just heard the word 'careful' from your lips."
Foyle winced at the reproof. "Well, this is different. You know what I mean."
"Do I?" Sam's tone was cool, and he felt her stiffen. "Got enough trouble already, have you?"
"Nnnot what I meant, Sam. You know I feel immeasurably more fortunate than I deserve. But Andrew is... away. At least I'm here to care for you." He trailed a finger down her cheek, remembering the bruises that had marred her beauty. "Not that I've been that successful," he added sombrely.
Sam softened, slipping her hand into his. "Shall we just stop being hard on family, hmm? And focus on the practical?"
"Yep." Twisting round, Christopher trained a concerned look up the basement stairs. "How bad is she?"
Sam's sad little shrug told him the truth of it. "She's carrying on as normal. But it'll be hard for her, with Andrew not around to talk to."
"I imagine so," he said.
"You need to be especially nice to her. Promise me, Christopher. No quips or digs?"
Christopher touched his forehead to hers. "Yep. Promise."
They joined hands, eyes closed, and lapsed into a quiet, grateful tenderness.
By the time Christopher pulled away, his mind had switched to business and a plan had formed. "Brooke deals with licensing infringements," he announced. "By now, he must know all the dog breeders in the area. I'll have a word tomorrow."
Sam smiled up at him shyly. "Parts of you are excellent."
"Wull, thanks. I do believe you saved me from curmudgeon-hood in time."
He levered himself up off the stair and stooped to finish working on the doorknob. "Mind your step going up, Sweetheart. Hold the rail."
"Never fear. Oh, and don't forget," Sam cast him a stern glance over her shoulder, "you promised me some explanation of this latest cloak-and-dagger business."
"In bed later, when it's quiet," he muttered round a fresh mouthful of screws.
Sam reassessed him from her elevated position on the stairs: shirtsleeves rolled up tidily to the elbows, exposing the downy hair of his forearms above strong wrists. She found herself tempted back downstairs again to stand behind him.
"Mmm? Something else?" He rose, hands and mouth occupied with ironmongery and tools and bits of door furniture, putting him in a defenceless state. Sam's arms slid round his middle and she nuzzled the soft curls behind his ear, planting a kiss, followed by a soft lick to the hairline.
"Who says it's going to be quiet in bed?"
"I hope you know," he spoke carefully around the screws protruding from his lips, "that if we get a dog, you're going to be saddled with it every day."
"Ah, but not just any dog—a spaniel," she coaxed, "soft, wavy fur with curly bits. It's going to feel as if I'm stroking you."
Foyle's eyes stretched and he spat the screws into the hand that held the screwdriver.
"Demoted to the level of a dog in my own house?" he growled, even as his insides turned a somersault of happiness.
"C'mon," purred Sam, and nipped his ear. "You can't resent a puppy."
...
Georgie's free hand stroked the mouthpiece of the receiver.
"Papa, I shan't fret forever, but today, I just can't help it."
She listened with serious demeanour while her father recounted an occurrence from the year before her birth. Georgie's eyes flew open.
"Mother never told me that," she gasped. "And so, how long then before I...?"
Her father answered, and her eyes closed in relief. "Well, yes, I suppose it does. A little better... No, he doesn't know. It's only just dawned on me what's happening myself. And, well, he's got a lot to cope with. But Papa, I feel so useless..."
There was a pause, as Dr Rose weighed in with reassurances.
"Is it silly?" Georgie wondered. "I don't know... Hmm? What about Faye?... No! Nobody tells me anything, it seems... Oh, Papa," she chuckled in spite of herself, "that's not fair. They get a word in sometimes...
"Well. I s'pose it does put a different complexion on things if both Mother and Faye... No, Pa, I'm not on my own. Sam and Christopher are back from London."
Sam hovered outside in the hallway, eavesdropping unashamedly throughout the exchange. She waited until things appeared to be drawing to a natural close before making a respectably noisy entrance through the dining room door.
"Yes, Papa... I shall. And I'll be fine. Yes, if that's quite convenient for you... in the next week or two… that would be lovely... You as well... 'Bye now. I love you, too. And thanks. Bye-bye."
Returning the receiver to its cradle, Georgie lifted moist eyes to meet her friend's. Sam saw the tear-streaks dried on the rosy cheeks, and felt her heart leap in sympathy.
"How was it?"
Georgie squared her shoulders, and wiped both hands down her face as if to erase the earlier emotion. "Father told me this is very common. Even Mother and my sister-in-law have been through similar. So," she managed a small smile, "there you are."
Sam squeezed her shoulder. "There'll be so many other chances for you both," she offered, painfully conscious of her own blooming pregnancy rubbing salt into the wound. "And after all, this one... wasn't intentional, was it?"
The younger woman shook her head pensively. "That's why I think I'll keep it from Andrew. He doesn't have to know. There must be thousands like me. Papa seems to think it happens all the time."
She sighed. "Don't know whether that's a reason to be comforted or depressed."
"It tells you that there's nothing wrong with you, at least."
"You know what?" Georgie slapped her thighs in a flash of decisiveness, and sprang up from her seat. "I think I'm going to the pictures! I can still be in time for the nine o'clock. And it'll take me out of myself. D'you want to come?"
Any other night, Sam might have said yes, but it had been a long day, and she felt desperately tired. And, she added to herself, very pregnant, and on a short leash since Fielding.
Georgie read it in her face. "Oh, that's... no, of course, you should stay in and rest. Yes. You stay."
One foot already in the hall, she called over her shoulder. "I'll just nip upstairs, and then I'm off. The evening air will do me good."
Georgie's footsteps thundered up the staircase, followed by the bathroom door slamming shut. Energy, thought Sam, as she sank wearily down on the settee and flexed her ankles.
Minutes later came the steadier clump of footsteps in descent, and Georgie peered around the door jamb as she pinned on her hat.
"That's me," she whispered, "safely padded up against eventualities for now. I'll see you later, then. That's if you don't decide to have an early night. And oh," she crossed the room to kiss Sam's cheek, "thanks awfully for listening."
"Georgie..." Sam made to rise from the low sofa, but found herself embarrassingly slow in getting to her feet. "Now, don't overdo it."
"Nonsense. I'll be sitting down, lazy as you please, curled up in the stalls. Don't worry."
A second affectionate peck and she was gone, the clunk of the front door behind her bringing Christopher's surprised face up from the basement.
"Should she be going out in her state?" Purposefully, he crossed the living room and lifted the net curtain, but Georgie had already disappeared downhill. "Where's she going at this hour?"
Sam moved to stand beside him. "The pictures. Seemed determined not to let it get her. Actually, I thought it best to let her go. Not that she asked my permission, if you see what I mean."
Christopher started on his inside cheek.
"I might, um, stroll downhill, make sure she's, er, managing," he sent Sam an uncertain look, "don't you think?"
"I think that would be an excellent idea," she beamed. "Shall we find out what's playing?"
He screwed closed a dubious eye, and steeling himself for whatever arrant nonsense The Ruby had to offer, watched as Sam plucked the The Chronicle from the settee and turned to the back page.
"Great Day," she announced. "Flora Robson, Eric Portman."
Christopher's brows lifted. "Wull, I can tolerate them, at a pinch."
Sam hooked a thumb into the back of his trousers and, scooping up his cufflinks from the table where he'd left them earlier, dropped them into his outstretched palm.
"Roll down your sleeves, Sir Galahad. I'll get your coat."
...
It was perhaps another quarter of an hour before Christopher left the house, and a further ten minutes' stroll to The Ruby, by which time the main queue had abated and only a few stragglers were making their way into the illuminated building.
Foyle nodded pleasantly to the ticket-seller.
"Shirley. Looking very cheerful, now the lights are on."
"Evening, Mr Foyle. Isn't it though? Fancy seeing you here midweek." She craned her neck to peer around him. "Mrs Foyle not with you tonight?"
"Not this evening. Joining my daughter-in-law inside. Stalls." He dropped a two bob piece into the tray and waited for his ticket and the change.
"There you are, Sir," the girl smiled at him and pointed round into the foyer. "Just tell Brenda on the door what the lady looks like. Got a good memory for faces in the dark, has Brenda." She giggled, "Well, we should all have, shouldn't we? Been living on bloomin' carrots for so long!"
"Quite so." Foyle tipped his hat and sauntered through the soft-carpeted entrance towards the swelling music that announced the start of the main film.
Before he reached the double swing-doors that led into the auditorium, they opened a crack, and an usherette in teal blue braided jacket with crimson button-back lapels slipped out.
"Hello, Sir. Just in time," she whispered. "'Fraid you've missed the newsreel. Oh but it was nasty, though. Close on a dozen people legged it during. Oooh, those blimmin' Nazis. It ain't human."
Foyle cocked his head. "What, um…?"
"Well, it's that Belsen, innit? Bet I've seen it seven times today. I 'ad to look away at first. It made me feel quite queer. Poor souls."
He watched her face intently as she clipped his ticket and clicked on her torch. "People left, you say?"
"They did. And who can blame 'em? But you're all right, Sir—the main film's on now. Stick close to me and mind your step. I'll show you in."
Foyle caught her lightly by the sleeve. "Brenda, is it?"
"Yes, Sir?"
"Of those who left... was there a young woman... early twenties... pretty... upturned nose, dark curly hair, about your height...?"
"Wearing a nice dark blue coat with a fox collar?"
"That's her."
"Yeah. I remember her. That coat was lovely. But she didn't look none too clever. Had her hanky out..."
"See which way she went?" Foyle's tone was quiet but insistent.
"No, but I bet our Shirley did. Oi, Shirl!"
They crossed the floor together to the ticket kiosk, where Foyle ascertained that Georgie had left hurriedly a few minutes before his arrival, in the direction of the seafront. With hasty thank-yous to both girls, he quit the cinema and set off at a brisk pace, coat billowing behind him.
Out on the street, he offered silent thanks that there was at least some lighting now to aid his pursuit. Still he had to strain his eyes on reaching the end of Robertson Street, before he could make out the small hunched figure, standing in front of the barbed wire off towards the pier on his right.
"Georgie!" he called, his voice echoing along the mainly empty street.
Snatching a glance each way for bicycles, he jogged across the road towards the solitary form, and was soon beside her, panting lightly from the effort of his run.
Georgie turned her head, face bathed in the lightpool of a single street lamp, and Foyle could see that she'd been crying.
"Why are you here, Christopher?" she dabbed around her makeup at the tears.
"Grrreat admirer of Eric Portman," he bluffed, leaning forwards to catch his breath. "Sam said you'd be at The Ruby, so, um, thought I'd join you."
She raised her chin, and sniffed, with a half-hearted laugh. "What a miserable criminal you'd make. You're such a poor fibber."
The lamplight caught the vulnerable beauty of her features, and all of a sudden, Foyle found he didn't know where to look. She needed Andrew at a time like this. What consolation could he offer? He plunged his hands into his pockets, and clearing his throat, gazed down at his feet.
"Y'know," he offered awkwardly, "a lot of the audience jumped ship during that newsreel. Nnnot the sort of thing to serve up with a night's entertainment. Management should have put out a warning."
Indeed, he knew exactly what the newsreel would have shown, for on his second meeting with Miss Pierce, he'd had a private viewing of unedited material he wished he could forget. And not just Bergen-Belsen footage, either.
Georgie reached out a gloved hand and touched the spikes of the barbed wire.
"I hear they're clearing all of this away soon," she said. "Isn't that right?"
"Yep. Absolutely." He moved up close beside her. "It'll all be gone in the next week or so."
"All back to normal..." She stared out to sea. Her voice was distant.
"So they tell us."
"Those people, in the camp..." she began, "hemmed in behind wire like this... except the camp air wouldn't have been sea air, fresh, like here. There would have been a sickly stench—disease, decay... and fear, and desperation. Christopher," her voice fell to a whisper, "the people in that camp were walking skeletons. Huge eyes," she turned and raised her own dark, now brimming orbs to his, "in sunken faces, barely human when you looked at them... and yet..." she pressed a hand to her mouth and quashed a sob.
"Ssh. Steady." Foyle's brows knitted, hands hovering uselessly each side of her shoulders.
Georgie took a hitching breath and battled on in fractured tones, "They showed us four young people—two men and two girls who'd found a scrap of food, and they were sitting on the grass, not fighting over it, you see, but sharing it."
Foyle listened, blinking slowly.
"They'd clung to that humanity through everything. Do you see? H-helping one another to survive... And guess what: even closer to them than this lamppost"—she flung an arm towards the nearby source of light—"was a pile of decomposing corpses."
Now he caught her hand between his two. "Time to go home," he said.
"And their only crime was, they were Jewish. Like my father. And like me."
Fragile as the young woman's composure had been, the remains of it collapsed around an all-out sob. She swung around, distraught, pulling her gloved hand from his grasp, and it was all that Foyle could do to stop her gripping the barbed wire and injuring herself. Arm darting round her front, he scooped her back and out of reach of danger.
"Enough of this," he told her gruffly. "Going home."
He grasped the gently weeping Georgie, for she'd folded in against him like a beach chair, and cast around behind him for a temporary resting place.
He was fortunate to find a thigh-high stack of sandbags in a seafront shelter whence the bench had long since disappeared—a casualty of war and local pilfering for firewood—and Christopher guided his charge into the makeshift haven.
"Sit here, Love, till you feel more yourself."
He felt her shivering, and shrugged out of his overcoat to drape it round her shoulders, then, with a brief "Back soon," he disappeared across the road into a local hostelry. Knowing Brooke to be on duty from their conversation earlier in the day, he made a call to the constabulary.
When he rejoined her in the shelter, she was bent forwards, forehead bathed in sweat, and clearly in some pain.
"Shouldn't be too long," he reassured her, delving for his handkerchief. "D'you feel sick?"
Georgie shook her head, bent double still. He wrapped an arm across her back, casting a worried glance westwards in the direction he knew Brooke would be approaching.
"I keep thinking," she ground out, teeth chattering between the cramps, "about the woman with the starving baby."
Foyle's thumb stroked through the layers of coat against her shoulder. "Try and put it out of your mind for now, hmm?"
He drew her head into his lap and gently mopped the beads of sweat away.
"She pushed her child into some soldier's hands, wrapped in a filthy blanket," intoned Georgie dully, "begged him to feed it."
"Hush... there..." he soothed.
"And when the soldier looked inside, the baby had been dead for days..."
"You don't mean to tell me that they showed you that?" Foyle's tone betrayed his irritation at such journalistic commitment to the truth.
"Not pictures, no," she answered wearily. "It was a story the reporter told us. But I saw it in my mind's eye, just as sure as if they'd shown it in the picture... Christopher?"
"What is it, Love?"
"Some losses are so small, compared with others."
Above her, Foyle's face crumpled.
When Sergeant Brooke arrived in the constabulary's second car, he found two figures huddled in the shelter: the boss was sitting with young Mrs Foyle's head cradled in his lap, and Brooke was hard pressed to decide which one of 'em look peakier. He helped the DCS to load the girl into the back seat of the car, still wrapped up in the boss's overcoat.
Then he nipped back round the shelter to make sure they hadn't left any belongings. As he shone a torch into the gloom, his light fell on a patch of red, soaked through the hessian of the sandbags where the young woman had been sitting. He bit his lip and gazed back at the bulb-lit insides of the police car, where the figure of the girl, wrapped in Foyle's coat, was leaning up against her father-in-law. Rubbing stinging eyes, Brooke made a quiet bet that the DCS's overcoat would not be making an appearance at the station for a fair old while.
****** TBC ******
More Author's Notes:
Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp was liberated on 15th April, 1945. A further 14,000 inmates died after liberation, because, even with the best efforts of the medical teams, the starving prisoners were so severely malnourished, their bodies could not tolerate food.
"They showed us four young people—two men and two girls who'd found a scrap of food, and they were sitting on the grass, not fighting over it, you see, but sharing it."
This came from a Richard Dimbleby report.
dancesabove shared an equally moving tale with me:
This reminded me of a Pacific Theatre soldier we interviewed for the Veterans History Project. He spoke of the way a bunch of marooned pilots, rescued after days at sea, were given water at last, and yet passed it down to the last guy in line before receiving their own.
…
GiuC