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The King’s Whiskers—November 23, 1917

  THERE IT WAS. The barbershop. The King’s Whiskers. James smiled. Hazel Windicott lived right above the King’s Whiskers. Did that make her, perhaps, a nose?

  The joke was so bad, it made him snicker.

  The dark windows of the second-story flat mirrored, dully, the orb of a streetlamp on the corner. A light on the third floor silhouetted a gramophone. He heard strains of a plaintive opera song. Mezzo-soprano. Very romantic.

  But there was no hint of Hazel Windicott. Had she told him the wrong address?

  He rounded the corner and stopped. The piano girl leaned against her window, lost in thought. James saw long hair spilling down her back, and the neckline of a white nightgown.

  Her reverie rooted his feet to the ground.

  By day, this corner would ring with the sound of Hazel’s piano playing. That lucky barber, Mr. King’s Whiskers, got to hear it all day long, over the sound of mechanical clippers.

  James Alderidge, he warned himself, you only met her once. You don’t know her at all. And you’re a fool.

  DECEMBER 1942

  An Interruption

  “HE’S RIGHT ABOUT that,” Ares says. “This tale is dull is dirt. Boy meets girl, they dance a bit, and moon about each other. So what? Nothing’s happened.”

  Aphrodite’s eyes narrow. “Everything has happened.”

  Ares rolls his eyes. “Get to the real doings,” he says. “Get to the Front. The killing fields. That’s where war stories happen.”

  “Who asked you?” inquires Hephaestus, diplomat.

  “I’m not telling a war story,” says Aphrodite. “This is what I do, and how I do it.”

  “Go on,” Hephaestus says. “I’m curious.”

  “Then you’re a sap,” the god of war replies. “Here. I know this story. Two sheltered souls meet, boom—they get the hots for each other. They think they’ve invented romance. They gad about for a few days, then he heads off to war. It’s terrible, boo-hoo, he misses his girl, she misses him. They write letters at first, until the trenches turn him from Loverboy into Kid Trying to Keep the Rats from Eating His Face Off. She does some volunteer work”—Ares affects a sneer—“in a brave attempt to be like the boys abroad and do her measly bit. She cries into her pillow, wondering why the letters have stopped. Time passes. They both change. Tragedies pop up like boils. They blame me for their problems. Et cetera.”

  If Ares were mortal, the look Aphrodite aims his way would char the flesh off his bones.

  “Are you finished?” asks the goddess of love.

  Ares doesn’t bother to answer.

  “Thirsty, my dear?” asks Hephaestus. He conjures a martini glass filled with ambrosia and causes it to appear in Aphrodite’s open hand. She seems surprised, but she takes a sip.

  Hephaestus fluffs a pillow from the bed and arranges it behind his stooped shoulders. “I’m not here because I’m dying to hear from you, warmonger,” says he. “I want to hear my wife.”

  Ares laughs. “Are you taking love lessons from mortals now, blacksmith?”

  “You could stand a few yourself,” says Aphrodite.

  APHRODITE

  Caught—November 23, 1917

  JAMES THOUGHT HE’D get away without Hazel seeing him.

  But Hazel saw him.

  I may have had a little something to do with that.

  As I say, I wasn’t interfering, but the whole scene, the street corner, the lamppost, the shadows, the gentle opera spilling down from above, the ruffled nightgown—what was I to do? I’m an artist.

  I directed her gaze down to the street. She pulled back from the window when she saw someone standing there. When she saw his head turn away, she leaned in closer.

  It was James Alderidge.

  Should she mind that he was there? How could she mind something so marvelous?

  At the sight of her, his face lit up. He raised his hand in a half wave, then jammed it into his coat pocket and hurried on up the street.

  APHRODITE

  A Note—November 23, 1917

  YOU IDIOT, you idiot, he told himself. Peeping in windows? She should call the coppers on you.

  A creak behind him made him stop.

  He turned to see Hazel’s face leaning out the window, with ropes of long hair dangling below her shoulders. “Pssst,” she said, and dropped something white onto the pavement. Then she pulled the casement shut and disappeared.

  James found the white thing amid the bits and bobs of rubbish littering the street corner. It was a folded piece of paper. James had half expected a lace-trimmed handkerchief. But this wasn’t blooming Camelot, and he was no knight.

  He stepped farther into the street, closer to the streetlamp, and opened the note.

  Eight a.m. tomorrow, it read, in a tall, precise, vertical hand. Letters like the stems of musical notes. Coffee at the J. Lyons tea shop on Chrisp Street at Guildford.

  James Alderidge looked up at the now-dark window and grinned. Miss Hazel Windicott was no longer in sight. Swallowed by the darkness. Could she see him? He didn’t know.

  But I knew. You’d better believe she could.

  APHRODITE

  The Tea Shop—November 24, 1917

  SINCE SOME PERSONS, who shall remain nameless, seem impatient with the depth of detail I devote to this pair in their heart-fluttering first hours of finding each other, I’ll pass over the drama of James’s and Hazel’s sleepless nights, their ridiculously early hours of rising, and their anxious dress and grooming, silent to avoid waking uncles and parents on a sleep-in Saturday morning. I will spare my critics the excited nausea that gripped the young darlings’ stomachs as they made their way out into a London morning to find J. Lyons tea shop. I will make no mention of the constant rapping of doubt—the fear that this something, which they hoped was something, was actually nothing, that they’d allowed their feelings to fizz and froth for absolutely, positively nothing.

  It wasn’t their fault that they fizzed and frothed. They could no more scold themselves into indifference than they could will themselves to stop breathing.

  It was time for James and Hazel to get properly acquainted. Time to see if the magic of music and moonlight and graceful movement were all that they had shared, or if a grimy gray London dawn and a cheap cup of coffee could make them feel the same way.

  J. Lyons tea shops are scattered all about London. James’s illogical dread was going to the wrong one. He arrived well before eight o’clock and, finding Hazel not yet there, paced the street. At eight he entered the shop, sat on a bench, crushed his hat, smoothed it, and crushed it again.

  Hazel was late. Not surprising, given that her journey went as follows:

  She would walk a block, then turn around and walk back, then retrace her first steps and go a little farther, than panic and scamper back toward home base. By the time she reached J. Lyons tea shop, she was perspiring under her sweater and blouse, even though the morning was chill and damp. So, holding her breath as though that might somehow compel James Alderidge to do the same, lest he notice any body odor, she entered the tea shop.

  James leaped to his feet. That looked too eager, he realized, so he stiffened. He hadn’t a clue what to do with his face.

  Hazel saw him jump up in a spasm of obvious disappointment, then grimace in disgust.

  She knew it. She smelled terrible. She looked terrible. She was terrible. And inviting him to meet her here was a terrible, terrible idea. She kept her hand on the doorknob and tried to think how to escape. Her parents need never know. It would be as if it had never happened.

  James’s heart sank as he watched her panicked expression. She was even more adorable by morning light, in everyday clothes. But clearly, she wanted to flee. What could he say to relieve her distress and let her know she was free to leave?

  “Good morning.” He smiled by reflex. It
’s what one does when one says “Good morning.”

  “Good morning.” She held out her hand. It was what one did when one said “Good morning” at a tea shop to someone whom one doesn’t hug or kiss.

  But she had kissed him. Oh, mortification!

  He pressed her hand between his. He smiled again, and Hazel forgot about fleeing the tea shop. The scent of bay rum may have had something to do with it.

  “Table for two?” I said.

  They followed me to a secluded corner table. James pulled the chair out for Hazel and hung her coat in the doorway. There was only one free peg, so he placed his own coat over hers. It made him blush. He took his seat opposite Hazel.

  I love this boy. In a purely spiritual sense.

  “I recommend the lemon cake,” I said, and handed them menus.

  The serving girls were slow that morning. These two maybe-lovebirds-maybe-not teetered on a knife’s edge, and if I didn’t get them seated at a table, there was no telling what might happen. So I took shape in the form of a matronly, middle-aged table server. How it pained me to adopt the joyless uniform of the J. Lyons waitresses, I can’t begin to express. But I do make sacrifices.

  No, I don’t consider that cheating, interfering, or manipulating. I was only doing what a competent waitstaff ought to have done. Sometimes fates hang in the balance over matters even more trivial than a waitress flirting in the back with a pastry chef.

  Hazel and James studied the menus as if their very lives depended on it. Safer than glancing at each other. I sent a little puff of attraction wafting back toward the kitchens, to keep the real waitress chummy a bit longer with Mr. Pastry Chef, who was making roses with a frosting pipe. This forced me to serve a few other customers as well, but I armed myself with a self-replenishing pot of hot Colombian coffee and made everyone’s morning that little smidge better. One stout, bald gentleman, in particular. I think he suspected there was more to me than met the eye, the old rascal. He’d been a bit of a Romeo once, several belt sizes ago.

  I swept back toward James and Hazel. They’d relaxed into conversation.

  “Excuse me,” Hazel told me very earnestly. “We don’t see lemon cake on this menu.”

  It was all I could do not to giggle. “It’s today’s special,” I told her.

  “I wonder how they got the sugar,” Hazel mused. “Rationing’s so tight.” She turned to him. “Shall we order some, then, James?” Just like that, he became a first-name friend.

  “It sounds delicious, Hazel.” He turned to me very seriously. “Two slices, please.”

  My pretty little pets, having a nursery-room tea party for two. The little boy, playing grown-up man for his girl. The girl he hoped would be his girl. You see why I love my work, don’t you? Why it’s not a career, it’s a calling?

  I returned to the serving table, conjured giant slabs of cake, and served them. The bald gentleman tapped me on the elbow to order some. Before I was done, I’d served cake to four tables. Compliments of the goddess. With the Great War in its fourth year, Britons needed cake.

  James and Hazel faced the new predicament—do they eat in front of each other, at the risk of spilling crumbs or blobs of lemon curd? Then again, if they didn’t eat, they must talk. How does the old Gaelic ditty go? O ye’ll tak’ the high road, and I’ll tak’ the low road, and I’ll be in Scotland a’fore ye? Hazel took the high road, cake, and James took the low road, speech.

  “I’m so glad to see you again,” he said.

  He was in Scotland a’fore her.

  Well, there it was. He’d skipped the preliminaries. There was no turning back now.

  His words caught Hazel with the tines of her fork still in her mouth, and a very large bite of cake melting on her tongue.

  “Mmph” was her elegant reply.

  But there he was, all brown eyes and kindness, waiting patiently, watching her face as if he could watch it forever. Her wide eyes drank all this in, and she managed, by a miracle, to swallow the cake without choking.

  “Me too.” She remembered her napkin. “I mean, you too. Glad to see you.”

  She was, and there was no hiding it.

  APHRODITE

  Questions—November 24, 1917

  IT’S NOT EASY, overseeing love in its toddler phase. It’s a noisy, chattering, babbling thing. Listening closely would turn me old and gray, except that, of course, I don’t get old or gray. But it’s still an effort, though also a joy, to follow all they say, and all they don’t. For example:

  What made you go to the dance last night, where you didn’t know anyone?

  Imagine if you hadn’t!

  Do you always play piano at dances?

  Or do you dance with other lads?

  Tell me about Chelmsford.

  I’ll bet the girls are prettier in Chelmsford.

  How long have you studied piano?

  How is it that a girl this talented is eating lemon cake in a tea shop with a bloke like me?

  What do you do in the building trade?

  Do heavy beams ever fall on builders and kill them?

  Who’s your favorite composer?

  Please have one. Don’t be a musical ignoramus.

  Do you have a gramophone?

  Smile again. Just like that. Wish I had a photograph of that to keep in my wallet.

  Tell me about your parents.

  Look how neat you are. I’m so glad you’re not one of those grimy sorts.

  Tell me about yours.

  Do they know you’re here with me? Is that all right?

  Do you think you’ll ever play at the Royal Albert?

  I could talk to you all day.

  Why not? I’ll bet you could.

  I’d be there in the front row.

  If you could build any building at all, what would it be?

  Oh, why do you have to be heading off to the Front? Why now?

  Do you know where you’ll be stationed in France?

  I’m sorry. Forget I asked you that.

  Do you speak any French?

  I know you can tell I’m afraid to go. Will you despise me for it?

  Do you need to get back home soon? Got anything going on today?

  Please, no. Don’t leave me yet. We have so little time.

  Let’s go for a walk, all right?

  When do I get to return the kiss you gave me?

  DECEMBER 1942

  To Forge, to Meld

  ARES LOUNGES UPON the couch, underneath the golden net. Aphrodite has a faraway look, and a soft expression.

  Her husband watches her. A tear shines in her eye. These mortals do something to Aphrodite. But what? They sound to the blacksmith god like any two mortals among millions.

  Until he remembers the surge of awe, of rightness he feels when he raises a red-hot sword from his forge. This is what he was born to do. To make, to meld, to master heat and iron with all their power and all their resistance, and bring forth works of usefulness and beauty. If it made him fiery and unbending, how could he not become something like the iron in his forge?

  The ecstasies and the wounds of love were Aphrodite’s work. Forging passions was what she was born to do. She, too, was a melder, a mistress of fire of a different sort, working in materials more powerful and resistant than carbon and iron. And what did that toil do to her?

  If he’d wanted a goddess of hearth and home, of safe domesticity and simple loyalty, Hephaestus could’ve married Hestia. Maybe he should have. She was single, and by all accounts the cooking was good.

  But Hestia could never be . . . Aphrodite. There’s no going back once you’ve known the goddess of love. There is no forgetting. No moving on. No letting go.

  APHRODITE

  A Walk—November 24, 1917

  I FELT LIKE a mother watching little Junior toddle off to school for the very firs
t time when those two exited J. Lyons tea shop, huddled together against the cold gray morning.

  They took Guilford Street to Upper North Street till it became Bow Common Lane. “This way,” Hazel said, “I’ll be less likely to run into anyone I know.”

  James’s face fell. “Am I a secret, then?”

  Hazel glanced sheepishly at him. “Secrets are fun, aren’t they?”

  He said nothing, but tipped his hat low over his eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” Hazel said after a moment. “I’m new to all this. You shan’t be a secret.” She grinned. “Just last night, Father said I ought to live a little.”

  James wanted to hug the man. “If I’m not a secret,” he said, “what am I?”

  Hazel’s mind raced. What to say? What words might tumble out in spite of her?

  Horses and wagons, noisy motorcars, hawkers, bickering children, haggling shoppers all passed by them on the street, but Hazel and James might as well have been alone on a desert island.

  “You’re a brand-new piece of sheet music,” she said slowly, “for a song which, once played, I’d swear I’d always known.”

  “Always known” meant something, didn’t it? Clever, clever girl.

  She turned her face up toward his and waited for proof that she’d said too much. Opened her heart too much. If his heart had wanted to meet hers halfway, surely he would’ve smiled.

  Or had he, only just?

  “A piece of sheet music, am I?” he teased. “Makes me rather flat, doesn’t it?” The joke was so terrible, it was perfect.

  “I prefer gentlemen who are sharp” was her quick reply.

  She got the joke! Of course she did. “There’s nothing ‘new’ about me, Miss Hazel Windicott,” he told her. “I’ve been rolling around Chelmsford for years.”