The Gallery of Vanished Husbands: A Novel (4 page)

Juliet said nothing, long resigned to being a popular topic of conversation among the women, along with the price of lamb chops and the length of Rabbi Weiner’s sermons.

‘Ah, Brenda. I was just telling Juliet how much we admire her,’ called Mrs Ezekiel to a woman who was piped like a sausage into her winter coat.

‘Oh yes. An inspiration,’ said Mrs Brenda Segal, hurrying over and setting down a dish. ‘I was telling my Helen. Don’t you complain that it’s hard with little ’uns. You’ve got Harold, whatever his faults. Think of poor Juliet Montague.’ Mrs Segal started to carve at the fat grey tongue roosting on her dish, making it wobble. ‘Those daughters of ours, always complaining. And they’ve got no right. No right at all.’

‘Spoiled. That’s what my Sarah is. Doesn’t realise how good she’s got it.’

‘It’s terrible,’ agreed Mrs Segal, happily.

The two women smiled at Juliet, their heads cocked to one side like a pair of chaffinches. Juliet was exhausted by their pity, sickly sweet as marzipan. She’d found herself longing for a helping of old-fashioned condemnation.

‘Excuse me,’ said Juliet, escaping across the lawn. ‘Frieda!’

A reluctant Frieda appeared, cheeks shining.

‘What? I’m busy.’

‘Put on your coat, love. You’ll be cold when you stop. No, I won’t have that face. Go on.’

As Frieda tore into the house, Juliet leaned against the fence, savouring a moment alone. Perhaps she could remain in the shadows for the rest of the night. The children were happy. That was enough. If she kept very still and quiet and didn’t glance at anyone, then maybe, just maybe she might be left alone. She muttered a prayer through her teeth.

‘Hello, doll-face. Looking fine as ever.’

‘Thank you, John.’

John Nature had once been the catch of the community – blue eyes, a handsome face, a smile that made girls smile back. Ten years ago he’d placed third in the Bromley Amateur Wrestling Championship, a feat that caused assorted knees to tremble. Since then the strong jaw line had been blurred by a decade of
schmaltz
on toast and
lokshen
puddings, and now he only wrestled with the straining buckle on his belt. But the eyes remained as blue as ever and he twinkled them at Juliet.

‘Lovely kiddies you’ve got there. But that’s no shocker. They’re yours after all.’

Before she’d met George, John had tried to take her out on several occasions and she’d always turned him down. She knew he believed that she regretted him. Men like him always believed themselves to be regretted by the women they didn’t marry. Now he looked thoughtful and bestowed on her his famous smile, accessorising it with a wink.

‘What a wonderful night. Surrounded by family. Friends. Pretty women.’

Juliet was quite accustomed to the charitable flirtations of the husbands of Chislehurst. She knew that they liked to believe themselves to be doing her a
mitzvah
but they always remained slightly anxious, as though, starved of sex as she was, she might leap on them at any moment. Even John, for all his smiles, kept a careful distance between them in case sheer physical proximity to him might overwhelm her self-control.

‘I understand your wife’s made her celebrated cinnamon slice.’

‘Ah, yes. Quite a cook, my girl. Alas, my downfall,’ he said patting his belly with benign affection. ‘And you? What delight did you bring? I’m sure you’re a beautiful cook.’

‘I’m afraid not. That’s my downfall.’

She spoke with such seriousness that John’s face fell and Juliet knew he was considering whether this was what had caused the unfortunate business with George. She smiled to signal it was a joke, and he laughed, relieved.

‘What does it matter if a lovely woman can’t cook? That’s what restaurants are for.’

Juliet made no reply. He knew perfectly well that she couldn’t visit a restaurant with a man. A chained woman must stay at home. She imagined the scandal if she were caught sharing a schnitzel with a man not her husband and wanted to smile, but found she could not. She caught herself thinking of Charlie Fussell. He didn’t see the stain. She hadn’t told him, and yet she suspected that even if she did, he wouldn’t see it. He would not speak to her with the wariness of these good men, apprehensive and privately delighted that they, however fat or balding or tedious, had become irresistible to her. Charlie would not study her, wondering what concealed defect had made George Montague disappear.

At last they sat down to eat. Juliet waited until everyone else was settled, before quietly slipping into the last empty chair. Otherwise she knew that everyone would avoid the seats on either side of her – the women preferring to avoid her, and the husbands afraid of her and even more afraid of what their wives might say. She ate in silence, speaking to no one, bathed in the concert of other people’s noise. Every now and again Uncle Sollie shot a wink of camaraderie and her father smiled and sighed.

 • • • 

After supper the women made their expedition to the kitchen, conveying between them the ruins of the feast in a great gaggle. It occurred to no one that the men should help. They gathered instead at one end of the table in the
sukkah
around an ancient bottle of schnapps, which Mr Greene measured out into eggcup-sized goblets dusted off especially for their twice-yearly outing.

The children congregated at the other end of the
sukkah
, the younger on the ground, the elder seated playing grown-ups.

Leonard sprawled on the damp grass, staring up at the sky through the lattice of leaves. The weak city stars blinked, faint as torchlight beneath the bedclothes. He licked the slick of grease on the roof of his mouth and closed his eyes, secure in the blanket of the others’ chatter.

‘Good
sukkah
,
this.’ A delicate boy sat down beside him, tapping the canvas walls with his finger, an inspector making a survey. His pale skin was peppered with golden freckles, earning him the unfortunate nickname of Cornflake.

‘Thanks.’ Leonard hoisted himself onto his elbows. ‘I made it. Well, Grandpa helped. A bit.’

Kenneth from Number Twenty-Four slid in between them. Leonard did not like him. He was a boy who believed
The Banana Bunch
superior to
Dan Dare
and therefore could not be trusted. Above Kenneth’s lip was the thought of a moustache, no darker than pencil shading, but it gave the boy a swagger.

‘Didn’t your dad help?’

Leonard wound a long strand of grass around his finger. ‘You already know my dad’s dead.’

Kenneth nodded. ‘Right. Yeah. How did he die again?’

Leonard might have said, ‘He got sick,’ or ‘It was an accident,’ but he didn’t. He could almost bear Kenneth’s stupid smirk, but not Cornflake’s look of curious sympathy. Leonard Montague, son of George Montague, spy hero deb-on-air, would not be pitied by Erick ‘Cornflake’ Jones.

‘My dad was a pilot—’

‘What did he fly?’

‘Spitfire. Supermarine,’ answered Leonard, quick as a flash. ‘My dad was a great hero during the war. You can look it up if you don’t believe me.’

He glared and held his breath, daring Kenneth to challenge him. There was a second taut with uncertainty and then Kenneth shrugged and Leonard continued.

‘After the war they kept him on as a flying detective. He’s not really dead. He’s running missions. Top Secret ones of National Importance. He’s rescued other agents. Bulgarians. That’s why he’s not here. It’s not safe.’

‘That’s bloody Biggles!’ roared Kenneth. ‘Leonard thinks his dad is bloody Biggles!’

‘I do not,’ said Leonard, trying to get Kenneth to lower his voice but the children were all looking round and the laughter was spreading like whooping cough.

‘I don’t. I don’t. I don’t.’ Leonard kept talking to stop from crying but still the tears tickled the back of his eyeballs like the smell of onions.

‘Leave him alone. Our dad’s dead.’

To his great surprise, Leonard saw his elder sister looming over Kenneth, hand on her hip and fury in her eye, a harpy in pigtails.

‘You’re a nasty boy, Kenneth Ibbotson. Always poking your big, nasty beak about.’

Kenneth was a little in awe of Frieda. She was three years older than him, four inches taller and, most alarming of all, she was a girl. However, he had read
Biggles: Air Detective
on a rainy Sunday only a few weeks before and he knew truth to be on his side.

‘He said his dad was an air detective. That’s not a real job. Only bloody Biggles bloody does that.’

Frieda wrinkled her nose and gave her best impression of Juliet. ‘Don’t use that foul language or I shall have to speak with your mother.

‘And Leonard was only teasing, weren’t you?’

Leonard nodded, too miserable to speak.

‘See? If you go poking your nose where it’s not wanted, you’ll get told a silly answer. Serves you right.’ Frieda turned on Kenneth, her voice a schoolmistress blend of triumph and indignation.

Gratitude washed over Leonard in warm waves like bubble bath. Frieda came and stood beside him, her hand resting on his shoulder. Her thumbnail dug into the flesh of his back to demonstrate her private fury. Leonard knew he would get a clout later, but as far as the others were concerned they were united. He glanced around the
sukkout
and noticed with a tickle of unease that his grandfather and the men had retreated into the warmth of the house, whose yellow lights now seemed far, far away. A few of the older girls stopped their chatter, three glossy heads swivelling to focus on Frieda. The smallest of the girls studied her with clever eyes, blue as coloured glass.

‘Your dad’s dead?’ she asked, her voice cherry sweet.

‘Yes, Margaret,’ replied Frieda. ‘My dad is dead.’

‘Perhaps. But it’s not what I heard.’

Leonard held his breath, wanting to know what Margaret heard; not wanting to know. He watched her pretty face, its china smile.

‘I heard that
Juliet Montague can’t keep a man.
’

The whooping-cough laughter returned, more virulent than before, spreading through the children. Leonard felt his sister’s fingernails dig into his shoulder, leaving little half-moons even through his coat.

‘That’s not true.’ Frieda spoke quietly, her voice barely louder than a whisper. ‘You’re nothing but a liar.’

Leonard frowned. He didn’t understand.
Can’t keep a man.
That wasn’t a secret. It was a puzzle. But he saw that Frieda knew what it meant. His sister’s face turned very white, whiter than when she’d had the flu for a fortnight and the doctor came every day.

‘Liar.
Liar
.’

Frieda spoke the word like a curse, but Margaret set her porcelain smile and crinkled her button nose.

‘I’m not a liar. You are. Your father isn’t dead. He’s a thief.’

‘He is not.’

‘I know he is – I heard my dad say. Your dad owed mine fifty pound when he left. Fifty pound. He was nothing but a con artist, my dad says.’

The hand on Leonard’s shoulder trembled and he reached up and gripped it and Frieda squeezed back, all her annoyance with him forgotten.

‘I don’t believe you,’ said Frieda.

Margaret shrugged as though the whole discussion was nothing to her. ‘If your dad was dead, your mum would have got married again. But she can’t because he isn’t dead. And I know what your mother is.’

‘Shut up.’

‘I know.’

‘Shut up. Shutupshutupshutup—’

‘
Aguna
.’

Leonard did not know what the word meant, but he felt Frieda start to cry, great sobs against his back, sobs that made his body rattle in time with hers.

He couldn’t sleep. Or rather he didn’t want to sleep as when he did his dreams filled with puzzles he could not solve.
Couldn’t keep a man
.
Thief.
His father was a spy with two names. Leonard knew that was true – he had the paper to prove it.

He slipped downstairs to the living room and sat huddled in his dressing gown before the portrait of his mother. She smiled but not at Leonard. Without blinking, he crawled backwards to the sofa but no matter how he ducked and wriggled, she would not look at him.

Fifty pounds. My dad says. Not what I heard
. Leonard knew his father wasn’t dead, so why didn’t he come home? If he did, his mother would be as happy as her picture.
Shut up. Shut up. A con artist.

Suddenly Leonard understood. He stood up and belted his dressing gown. At last he knew what he must do. He must find his father and explain that it was time to come home. And, best of all, he knew how.

 • • • 

At five minutes to seven, Juliet slipped out of bed. At seven o’clock she knocked on Leonard’s bedroom door and went inside. At three minutes past she checked the bathroom, the kitchen and then the living room where she discovered Charlie Fussell’s portrait no longer on the wall but propped against the sideboard. At six minutes past seven she asked Frieda if she had seen her brother and together they looked in the garden and the small tool shed and the cupboard in the hall and out by the dustbins. At a quarter past seven Juliet realised Leonard had vanished.

 • • • 

‘Sweetheart, sit and have this.’