Wake: A Novel (19 page)

“What sort of things?”

But it is as though whatever energy Ivy has mustered for this has gone, and she is sagged, finished now. “Oh, goodness, Ada. I don’t know. I can hardly remember, honestly. Here.” She steps forward, handing over a piece of paper.

Ada takes it; there’s an address written on it in a small, careful hand.

At the door, Ivy turns back. “I will say one thing, though,” she says. “After I went, I got a letter the next week, telling me they’d found Joe’s body. Telling me where he was.”

Ada looks up, her pulse racing.

“They’d identified him from the tags around his neck.”

She nods. “Thank you.”

“Here.” Ivy crosses the room and pulls Ada toward her, pressing her against her chest in an awkward hug. Ada can smell the wet wool of her cardigan, the soft cleanness of her friend’s skin. Ivy steps back, gripping her hands. “Come with me on Thursday. It’ll be good for you. For all of us. Might put a few things to rest.”

“I’m sorry, Ivy.” She pulls away. “I’m just—not sure I can.”

“Well.” Ivy nods. “You take care of yourself, won’t you?”

“Yes.” Ada fingers the thin piece of paper in her hands. “I will.”

Even with her old tam-o’-shanter on, Hettie’s head feels different: the skin more alive, as though her nerve ends are exposed. And under her coat she can feel the dress, the weight of it somehow reassuring and terrifying all at the same time. She can’t quite believe she is here, could almost imagine it is a different street altogether, were it not for that strange blue bulb and the bronze plaque beside the door.

She hopes she has timed it right.

She didn’t go home after her visit to the barber’s but went straight to Di’s instead, who squealed and flung open the curtains and made her turn around and show herself from every angle and finally pronounced her hair
utterly killing,
then helped her bandage her breasts so they looked as flat as they ever have in her life. Di had to go to work then, and Hettie sat and waited in her flat, smoking too many of Di’s cigarettes, her hand constantly straying to the newly shaved V at the nape of her neck, stroking it one way and then the other, standing up every five minutes to check her reflection in the mirror, to adjust the dress, until nine o’clock came, and she slipped her old coat on and pulled her old hat over her hair, and went to the tube.

But when she emerged at Leicester Square it was a quarter to ten—way too early, since she and Di had agreed she had to be late:
You don’t want to wait in the club on your own, do you? You know what people will think of that!

So she walked a few steps down from the tube, self-conscious in the crowds of chattering people coming out of theaters, milling on the pavements, and eventually ducked into a small café, where she sat nursing a cup of tea while the sad-eyed waiter wiped smeared fingerprints from the glass shelves and stacked cake stands in the sink. At twenty past ten he turned to her. “Sorry, love,” he said, folding his cloth with a weary motion of his hands. “Now I really have to get home.”

She carried her empty cup and saucer to him and caught sight of herself in the mirror behind the glass counter. She looked terrified.

“Are you all right? You look ever so pale.”

She swallowed. “I’m fine.”

But she felt anything but fine leaving the lights of the Charing Cross Road behind and coming down this street alone. Even though it was earlier than last time, the street was still deserted, the only sign of life that eerie blue bulb above the door.

And now here she is.

She takes a breath, lifts her hand, and knocks. The hatch is opened; the same oblong of light appears. “Yes?”

She clears her throat, trying to steady her voice. “I’m here to meet Ed.”

A pause, and then, “Ed who?”

Oh, God.
She hasn’t thought of this. Why hasn’t she thought of this?

But the door opens nonetheless and she edges around it to stand in front of a different doorman this time, older, suspicious, with a thin, ratty face. “How old are you, then?” He looks her up and down.

“I’m—twenty-two.”

The man snorts. “If you’re twenty-two, I’m forty, love.”

Hettie thinks longingly of Graham, smiling from his cubbyhole. She’d even eat one of his meat lozenges to see him now.

“You can’t go in there unless you’re with a member. We get a lot of girls…” He leans forward. “Trying their luck.”

She tightens her belt, knowing what he might think she is. Had thought to guard against this. But it looks as though she’s gone and mistimed it after all, and the night is over before it has even begun.

Then she has an idea. “Can I see?” she asks. “In the book?”

He looks unconvinced, but slides it in front of her.

She can feel him watching her as she traces the line of signatures with her fingertip. No Ed, or Edward, or any other name that might fit. Damp springs into her palms. Was that even his real name? She looks back up at him. “I’m sorry. Do you mind telling me the time?”

He looks at his wristwatch. “It’s half past ten.” He turns the book back around to face him. “Sorry, love, looks like you’re out of luck.”

The door opens behind her, and she turns, her heart in her throat—but it is just a couple, the woman wrapped in fur and laughing, red lips wide as a cat’s. The man leans down to sign them in, and then they are gone again, disappearing with a clatter of heels down the stairs.

“You still here?” The doorman shakes his head. “Listen, love. Do yourself a favor. Go home
.
”

She steps forward, hands in fists. “Is there any chance he could have come in here earlier?” She’s not quite sure what is making her so bold.

The man straightens out his mustache with his fingers. “Well, you’re nothing if not determined, I’ll give you that. What’s so special about this Ed, then?”

She doesn’t answer, but he searches her face, and whatever he sees there softens his own.

“All right,” he sighs. “Let’s have a look.” He licks his finger, turning back the pages of the book. “Right, then. This is for this afternoon. But don’t tell anyone I’ve let you or I’ll lose my bleeding job.”

She leans forward, following the list of names, and halfway down the page she sees it—
Edward Montfort.
Time In:
Three p.m.—
and underneath the column where the Time Out is marked: nothing. “That must be him.” She pushes the book back toward him, her heart battering against her ribs.

The man peers at the signature. “Well, looks like he’s been in here all day.” He straightens up, concerned. “You sure it’s wise to go and meet him, miss?”

She can’t go home. Not now. Not after all this.

“Go on,” he says, jerking his head behind him. “You can send him up to tell me you’re all right. That’s if he can make it out on his own two feet.”

There’s the same dank smell on the stairs she remembers from before, but what was exciting on Saturday with Di is threatening now, seedy. What on earth was she so sure of earlier? She could be at home, resting, on her only night off this week, instead of here, walking down these stairs…toward—

Crackpot.

Limehouse.

White slave trader.

You

silly,

       silly

            girl.

No roar greets her when she opens the door. No heat and sound and fug. The club is half-empty. A different band is going through the motions on the stage; there’s no Negro singer this time, only a pasty white man with an unconvincing drawl, and a few desultory couples marking time on the floor. There’s no sign of Ed at any of the sparsely populated tables, and suddenly, with a fist of fear around her heart, Hettie cannot even remember his face. She stands at the door, hands still thrust in her pockets, and is ready to turn around and leave when a clutch of people between her and the bar shift and disperse, and suddenly there he is, sitting alone at a table in the corner, not far from the band, slightly slumped, his left hand wrapped around a glass, almost as though it is holding him up.

She steps toward him, then hesitates, caught in the middle of the floor.

He looks so sad.

Just then he glances up and sees her, and his face changes in an instant, as he lifts his hand and pushes himself to his feet. “My anarchist!” he says, stepping out from behind his table. “You came!”

He isn’t wearing an evening suit. His shirt is creased, and he looks tired. But it is him all right. And now that he is in front of her she cannot speak.

“Have you come here to cause trouble, then?” he says with half a smile.

“I—” She shakes her head; her mouth is dry. “I don’t think so, no.”

“Pity.” He straightens up and drains his drink. “Could do with some trouble. Dead in here tonight.”

She follows his gaze. He’s right. Even the band look bored.

He leans his weight on the table. “Shall we get some air? I’ve been here for
hours
…” he says, shaking his head. “Waiting for you.”

“But—you said—in your note—you said to come at ten.”

“Did I?” He picks up his coat and pulls it on with a distracted air. “Well, then…I was wrong.”

The ground shifts beneath her.

Wrong about the time?

Or wrong to ask me to come?

They walk up the stairs, and she can feel him, close behind her, leaning on the rail. She avoids the doorman’s gaze, but Ed salutes him and calls him “Sergeant” as they leave, and then they are alone together, standing in the dark on the street outside. There’s a silence, the fizz of a match. A ghostly voice, half-singing—“While you’ve a Lucifer…”—and then his face, distorted, lit from below. “Want one?” The sound of a cigarette clamped between his teeth.

“No, thank you.”

He is drunk. Of course he is. He has been in there all afternoon, and now he is drunk.

Her heart stumbles. She should go.

He shakes out his match, and it falls to the ground with a tiny clatter. “Nice night,” he says, as the end of his cigarette flares red.

Hettie looks up at the sky. It
is
a nice night, though she hadn’t noticed before; the air is clean and damp with the memory of recent rain. High ragged clouds frame the moon.

“Fancy a walk? Could do with a walk. Been cooped up in there for
hours,
waiting for you.”

She’s not dressed for a walk. She’s dressed for dancing. She’ll be cold, and the dress and her new hair—her whole new self—will go to waste.

“Hate that horrible club.”

“All right,” she says, eventually, because really, what else is there to say? And it is safer, probably, in a way, to be outside.

They leave the dark side street and head back onto the Charing Cross Road, which is still alive with the lights of restaurants and theaters. Ed walks quickly, as though he is in a hurry, and she has to take long strides to keep up, but when they reach the entrance to the tube he stops and turns to her. “Listen,” he says, “I can’t be bothered with all of this. Can you?”

It is as though he has slapped her. “I’m sorry.” She shakes her head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“All of the
preliminaries.
All of the
nonsense
you have to get through. I mean…really. Can you?”

“I don’t understand.”

He steps toward her. “The stuff that keeps us
separate.
Don’t you think for
once,
we should all just…tell the truth? Say what we bloody well
mean
?”

She is silent, heart pounding.

“Sorry,” he says, throwing his cigarette away and watching it go. “I’ve just had a bit of an…odd day.” He runs his hands through his hair and lights another cigarette immediately. “Can I ask you something?” he says. “Can we make a pact? Just for tonight? Not to say anything to each other that isn’t honest? Can we do that? Please?”

“Yes.”

“All right.” He nods. “So, I’m going to say something first. And then it’s your turn.”

Hettie feels as though she is on one of those rides at the funfair that you long to get on—and then give you the familiar queasy fear in your stomach as they start to spin, and you wonder why you wanted to get on them after all.

“You remind me of someone I once met,” he says. “And ever since I saw you, that night at the club, I’ve wanted to kiss you.”

She is spinning.

“Can I kiss you now?” he says. “Please? Because I can’t think of a better time.”

He steps toward her and she closes her eyes as he tilts her mouth to his. He tastes of whiskey. It is a lovely, gentle kiss.

“Thank you,” he says quietly, as he pulls away.

When she opens her eyes he is staring at her, but his expression is softer, as though something has left him. “Now you say something,” he says. “Something true. I only want to hear true things.”

She’s not sure she’s ready to speak yet, with this mouth that has been kissed by this man. Really, what she wants is to be kissed again. She tries to think, but her thoughts are all jumbled, and “I—don’t know,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m not sure.”

“
That,
” he says, stepping back, pointing.

“What?”

“That thing you stopped yourself from saying. Just then. That thing. Tell me
that.
”

Hettie swallows. “All right.… I was going to say that I liked what you said, about blowing things up.”

“Oh, God.” Ed shakes his head. “You must think I’m barmy.”

She thinks of Fred, thinning himself to nothingness, sitting in their father’s chair, of the terrible sounds that leak from him at night. Of her mother, furious and alone, turning in and in and in. “No—” she says. “In fact, I think—I want to blow things up, too.”

He throws his head back and laughs. “Thank you for that.” Then he claps his hands, looking around him. “Bloody cold out here, isn’t it?”

She hadn’t noticed, but it is. The streets are thinner now, too. The crowds appear to have gone home.

“I need a drink. Fancy a drink? I know somewhere not so far from here.” He smiles, sheepish suddenly. “Well, it’s my flat, actually, if we’re being honest. Which we are. How would you like to have a drink at my flat?”

When she hesitates, he holds his hands up. It is the same odd gesture he made in the club on Saturday night. As though he were unarmed.