Philippa Gregory - Fallen Skies

The kitchen was light; it was warm from the kitchen range. Coventry was at the stove, warming a teapot. He looked up when Stephen entered and took him in, took him all in, with one comprehensive glance. Stephen sighed with relief at the sight of him. ‘Had a bit of a dream,’ he said. ‘Fancied a cup of tea, and here you are. Ministering bloody angel.’

Coventry smiled his slow crooked smile. As Stephen watched, he spooned five heaped spoonfuls of tea from the caddy into the teapot, adding them to the old dregs left in the pot. He poured boiling water on the stale brew and stood the pot on the range for a few moments, then took up the two mugs. He put four spoonfuls of sugar into each mug and poured a dark stream of tea from the pot. It tasted stewed, and sour from the old tea, as strong as poison and teeth-grittingly sweet. It was how it had tasted in the trenches. It was that taste which told you that you were alive, that you had come back, against all odds, from a night patrol, from a dawn attack, from a lonely dangerous sniper’s mission. The strong sweet taste of tea was the taste of survival. The taste of mud was death. Stephen sank into one of the chairs before the range and put his slippered feet against the warm oven door.

‘Good Christ, Coventry! I wish you would speak again,’ he said. ‘I wish I could stop dreaming.’ He sipped a taste of tea, the strong sour brew rinsing his mouth clean of the taste of dream-mud. ‘I wish it had never happened,’ Stephen said with rare bleak honesty. ‘I wish to Christ it had never happened at all.’

Stephen Winters first saw Lily on the stage of the Palais music hall on the opening night of the first show, 5 May 1920: her debut. He missed her solo song – he was at the bar and then in the gents. But in the can-can finale his cousin David Walters, on a flying visit to Portsmouth, had nudged him and said: ‘See that girl? Can’t half kick. Bet she’s French.’

‘Damn the French,’ Stephen said automatically. ‘Beer at five francs a glass and then someone’s peed in it.’

‘See that girl?’ David persisted. ‘Pretty girl.’

Stephen had looked, blearily, through the glass window of the bar and seen Lily dive down into the splits and then fling her head up, beaming. She looked ready to laugh for joy.

‘Oh yes,’ Stephen said, surprised. ‘Oh yes.’

‘Pretty girl,’ David repeated drunkenly.

They watched while the orchestra galloped into the walk-down and the artists came downstage and took their bows. There was something about Lily’s face that appealed to Stephen. Something he could not name.

‘I know what,’ he said suddenly to David. ‘She looks like the girls used to look – before.’

‘No! She’s got short hair. None of them had short hair before.’

‘She does, she does,’ Stephen persisted. ‘She looks like the girls used to look. She looks …’

David was cheering the star, Sylvia de Charmante, who was curtseying deeply, like a debutante at court.

‘She looks like there had never been a war,’ Stephen said slowly. ‘She looks like there had never been a war at all.’

‘Go backstage!’ David said with sudden abrupt determination. ‘If you like the look of her, take her out!’

‘D’you think she would come?’ Stephen asked. The curtain had dropped and now rose. Lily was at the end of the line; he could see her blush at the applause and her frank grin.

‘Oh yes,’ David said cheerily. ‘Heroes we are. Bloody heroes. We should have worn our medals.’

‘I didn’t think you’d got any medals. I didn’t know they gave medals for pushing papers in London.’

‘We can’t all be you,’ David said pleasantly. ‘Charging around, blowing your whistle and massacring Huns single-handed.’ He slapped Stephen on the back. ‘Let’s have a little bracer and ask the girl out,’ he said. ‘She can bring along a friend for me. They’re all tarts, these girls. She’ll come like a shot.’

He shouldered his way back to the bar and shouted for two single whiskies. Stephen downed his in one thirsty gulp.

‘Come on, then,’ David said cheerily. ‘There’s usually a stage door around the back somewhere.’

The two men pushed through the crowd spilling out of the little music hall and then linked arms to stroll down the dark alley at the side of the theatre. Further down the alley a couple were locked in each other’s arms; the woman’s hat was pushed back as they kissed passionately.

‘Dirty bitch,’ Stephen said with sudden venom. ‘I hate tarts.’

‘Oh, you hate everybody when you’ve had a drink,’ David said jovially. ‘Bang on the door!’

A hatch in the stage door opened at once. George, the stage door porter, looked out.

‘Please send our compliments to the dancers,’ David said with assurance. ‘We were wondering if you could tell us the name of the little blonde one.’

The porter looked blankly at them. A shilling found its way from Stephen’s pocket to gleam in the gaslight. George opened the door and the shilling changed hands.

‘The young one, with the fair bobbed hair.’

‘Miss Lily Valance, gentlemen.’

‘We wanted to ask her to dinner. Her and a friend.’

‘She can bring the plump dark one who was on with the conjuror,’ David interrupted.

‘Miss Madge Sweet, gentlemen.’

‘Ask them both. Shall I write a note?’

The porter nodded.

Stephen took out his card case. It had a small silver propelling pencil inside. On one of his cards he wrote in small spidery script: ‘My cousin and I would be honoured if you would come to the Queens Hotel for dinner with us. We are at the stage door.’

‘We’ll wait for a reply,’ he said to the porter.

The porter nodded and was about to go inside when a middle-aged woman, drably dressed, came down the alley behind the two men, quietly said ‘Excuse me’, and stepped between them and through the open door.

‘These gentlemen are asking for Lily,’ the porter told her.

Helen Pears turned and looked at them both. ‘My daughter,’ she said quietly.

Stephen had to remind himself that she was only the mother of a chorus girl and therefore she could not be a lady. There was no need to feel abashed. She was a tart’s mother, she was probably an old tart herself.

‘I am Captain Stephen Winters,’ he said, invoking his wartime status. ‘This is Captain David Walters. We were wondering if Miss Valance and Miss Sweet would like to have dinner with us.’

The woman did not even smile at him, she had the cheek to look him straight in the eye, and she looked at him coldly.

‘At the Queens,’ he said hastily to indicate his wealth.

She said nothing.

‘We can go in my car, my driver is waiting,’ he added.

Helen Pears nodded. She did not seem at all impressed. ‘I will tell Miss Sweet of your invitation,’ she said levelly. ‘But my daughter does not go out to dinner.’

She went inside and the porter, raising sympathetic eyebrows, shut the door in their faces.

‘That’s that then,’ David said disconsolately. ‘What a harridan!’

‘You go on, I’ll meet you at the Queens.’

‘You’ve got no chance here, not with her ma on sentry-go.’

‘I’ll give it a try,’ Stephen said. ‘Go on.’

‘Forlorn hoper!’

Stephen walked with David down to the end of the alley and waved across at Coventry, waiting in the big Argyll limousine in front of the music hall.

‘Bring the car up here,’ he called.

Coventry nodded, and drove the car up to the end of the alley. Half a dozen of the cast looked at it curiously as they went past. Stephen stood by the rear passenger door and waited.

He could see the streetlight glint on Lily’s fair hair, only half-covered by a silly little hat, as she walked down the shadowy alley, her hand tucked in her mother’s arm. They were laughing together. Stephen was struck at once by the easy warmth between them.