Chapter 2

Discreet about what?

It was a question that seemed almost to be an enigma because over the next month or so she never saw any sign that Josephine was cheating on her husband and yet she rarely mentioned his name and indeed no letters arrived from him. That could be explained perhaps by the siege-like conditions imposed by the U-boats, even essential items were in short supply but apart from that, she seemed almost content to be apart from her husband.

However the primary reason Agnes never probed too deeply into Josephine’s marital status was because she was still absorbing and dealing with the profound sense of loss and the grief over losing her own husband. There were days she could hear his voice almost as if he was in the next room and then she’d blink and the voice was gone. On many occasions she’d glance up as the front door opened, expecting Frank to come in from work only to realise that it was Josephine coming in from work or a shopping expedition and she’d feel as if she was sinking into a black hole of misery and despair.

Her behaviour could even be described as erratic and compulsive. She pored over the daily newspapers, searching for news of the war in North Africa and in particular, Egypt because that’s where Frank had been when he was killed. Outwardly she told people she was just keeping up with the news but deep down she was hoping that Frank was still alive, maybe he’d been presumed dead only to reappear in a news story. But as the battle lines shifted back and forth at El Alamein her hopes began fading and in desperation she went to a psychic who lived in one of the houses in the next street. Predictably enough, the psychic told her that her husband was safe and would return one day, she clung onto that thought for the better part of three days before succumbing to grief and sadness.

Ultimately the only thing that pulled her through apart from the basic need to feed herself and go to work was Josephine, whose quiet demeanour and confidence became more and more comforting with every passing week. It was a stark contrast to some of her neighbours, mostly women who fussed over her and tried to find words of wisdom to lift her out of the blackness. However after six weeks even they began to distance themselves and Agnes was once more left alone with her thoughts and her new boarder. If she’d had her wits about her she might have noticed the way the other women regarded Josephine with studied intent and how they sometimes asked about her husband in America.

The Canadian fielded all of these questions expertly and without appearing irritated by their interest in her husband and as she began to emerge from her self-imposed exile, Agnes found herself warming to Josephine. She paid her board and lodgings every week on time and always seemed able to come up with surprising little things like extra tea, some milk and on two occasions, chocolate. Agnes suspected she had contacts on the black market but never questioned her about it, instead she just thanked her for the extra provisions and pretended that it was all above board and legal.

However Agnes was not the only one dealing with demons. Josephine was still struggling with her new role as language instructor. The teaching part was easy enough but there were other women at the house who gravitated towards her in the same way Agnes did, and whilst she found some of them attractive she was careful not to expose herself to them. They were all straight women and before the war had either been in mundane jobs or housewives, so working alongside a woman who had fought in Occupied France was something of a novelty to them.

There were a few women in her two classes, which not only involved language studies but also French culture, the little subtleties that distinguished a ‘native’ French person from a person who had merely acquired the language. The Gestapo and the average German soldier might be fooled but their collaborators, the French Milice would not be so easily fooled by a faux pas. A woman’s looks could only take her so far before the spotlight showed up the blemishes beneath the makeup.

However it was not the women in her classes who caused her the most concern, they would be parachuted into Occupied France and be out of sight, out of mind. Rather it was those women who formed part of the clerical staff, for they were always there and one woman in particular seemed to have taken quite a shine to her.

Mary Davidson came from an upper class family in the West End, a few streets away from Agnes’s place. The youngest child in a family of five daughters she had capitalised on being the baby of the family and carried this persona on into her adult life. Her father was serving in India but in general conversation Josephine gathered that even before the war he was very much the absent father. Her mother was the strongest voice and with the combination of a strong mother and four other sisters, Mary had very different ideas about the role of women in society. Not for her the more traditional womanly pursuits. She wanted to be on the front line, if the rules had allowed it she would have flown bombers over Occupied Europe.

However her impishness and childlike demeanour precluded even the thought of putting her onto the SOE program and Josephine had been approached by her superiors. She’d flatly refused to consider it. Whilst her childlike persona might belay suspicion for a while, in time the dreaded Milice would focus their attention on her and the thought of Mary falling into their hands was beyond comprehension.

Mary however seemed almost oblivious to this and did her best to play up to Josephine, even to the point of flirting, which was somewhat amusing and troubling in equal measure because she had no way of knowing Josephine’s sexual orientation. In the absence of war, Josephine might even have let it play out because she had an innocence about her that was definitely attractive, but the fates had other ideas it seemed when Josephine casually mentioned to one of the other women that she was looking for material to cover a second couch she and Agnes were trying to restore.

“Leather is too hard to come by,” she mused over the rim of her coffee cup, “but I need some fabric to cover the edges.”

“Like a wee throw?” Beatrice asked her.

“A throw?” Josephine frowned as she mentally translated the word, “a blanket?”

“Aye, a blanket or an eiderdown, we’ve got one on the couch at home to cover up the tears in the cushions and the back.”

“That’d work,” she took a sip, “maybe.”

“We have a couple at home,” Mary spoke up, “one is a green tartan and the other is pink.”

Josephine nodded as she contemplated her answer.

“I’d need to see them first, just to measure them up.”

“We can do it tonight,” Mary responded.

“All right,” she nodded, “we’ll go home via your house.”

Inevitably however, they went back via Josephine’s because Mary wanted to see the couch, which at that point was still in the shed and when they came back inside Agnes was just closing the front door. She wasn’t normally home this early and there was a moment where Josephine felt a little awkward, almost as if they’d been caught in the aftermath of a sexual encounter. Agnes looked a little wary or perhaps she was just tired and anxious because she peered at Mary for a moment or two.

“I’ve seen you around somewhere before.”

“My parents live out on Byres Road,” she explained.

“Mary is here to look at the couch we’re thinking of fixing, she has a couple of throws that might be a better alternative to recovering the whole couch.”

“Oh, I see,” Agnes finished unbuttoning her coat.

“We’re going to look at the throws now,” Josephine went on, “would you like to come along as well.”

“I don’t know,” Agnes looked past her, “I was going to start dinner, such as it is.”

“Oh, come on,” Mary smiled, “we can set a couple of extra places. My mum always cooks as if all her daughters are still at home but there’s only two of us at home so there’s always extra food most nights.”

“Why not?” Josephine glanced at Agnes, “it’s not far from here, we can walk back.”

“All right,” Agnes replied, “just let me get changed out of my work clothes.”

She headed to her bedroom while Josephine and Mary took a seat by the window and when she reemerged from the bedroom she’d changed into a floral dress and cardigan. She slipped the overcoat on and eyed her shoes.

“One of these days I’m going to find the money for new shoes.”

They headed out not long after. Agnes was quite talkative on the way to Byres Road, she was home early because they were still waiting for the next delivery of parachutes but there had been delay because the railway line had been bombed the previous night and it would take a day or so to repair it. However when they reached the house she suddenly recalled where she had seen Mary.

Well not Mary in particular, it was actually one of her older sisters, Meredith who had taken up with a woman in what everyone knew was an unofficial marriage even though they all pretended that she was just boarding with this other woman. She’d known Meredith from her previous job as a shop assistant at a flower shop. Meredith had come in with Mary to buy flowers and it was only afterwards that her boss had commented that the flowers were for that ‘queer lass.’ The story had come out then, about the woman who could have married a very eligible bachelor only to shun him and move in with the ‘queer lass.’

She almost expected Meredith to be there as well but thankfully she wasn’t, although her name was mentioned in passing over dinner and oddly enough the mother seemed to think that Meredith was quite happy.

“I love all my daughters, Meredith is a little strange but she’s much the same as I was at her age, more or less.”

However it was only as they were walking home an hour or so later with the tartan throw that Agnes finally revealed why she had been so reserved and afterwards Josephine felt as if she’d just stepped into the spotlight.

“It happens, more often than you think.”

“Have you ever thought that?” Agnes glanced at her.

Josephine opened her mouth to say no but then shut it again as she tried to find another word that might suffice and in that instant Agnes came to a direct stop.

“Are you?” Agnes stared at her, “attracted to women?”

Josephine knew then she’d been found out, she should have replied in the negative straight away and instead she looked away and fixed her eyes on a nearby door.

“I, um,” she swallowed, “I am attracted to women.”

“Even though you are married to a man? That is not so unusual. Does he know?”

“He does,” she took a step forward somewhat cautiously, “he likes men and I like women but because that is seen as obscene we came to an arrangement. We would marry to put on a front for the rest of the world but have our affairs as well. It’s the way women like me manage to live without being condemned,” she picked up her pace.

Josephine felt the colour rising in her cheeks and even in the blackness she felt as if she stood out like a searchlight.

“I didn’t know that,” Agnes finally spoke up.

“I kept it from you because it is difficult to explain.”

“It didn’t sound so difficult,” Agnes replied.

“No, I understood perfectly,” she fell into step beside her, “and I am grateful you were honest with me.”

“You are?” Josephine didn’t sound convinced as they kept walking, “I didn’t move in with you because,” she stopped short as Agnes slipped her hand into the crook of Josephine’s arm.

“I know, but perhaps if I’d known then I might have hesitated before suggesting you find another place but you have become a friend,” she stared straight ahead.

“It will be our secret but all I ask is that if you bring one of your lady friends home that you at least warn me. I would hate to walk in on you and embarrass anyone.”

“All right,” Josephine exhaled, “not that I have met anyone.”

“What about Mary? Maybe she is like Meredith.”

“Mary is too young and I suspect she is hoping I will suggest she gets promoted and in the place I work that is not a good thing. She is young and impetuous, and that kind of thing can get you killed very very quickly.”

“You have never told me about your work yet.”

“And I still can’t,” Josephine replied.

“Then don’t,” Agnes bowed her head, “but now something at least is clear.”

“The reason you aren’t constantly talking about your husband. You got one letter from him last month and you didn’t shed a tear, I thought at first that you were incapable of emotion or maybe the marriage wasn’t as fulfilling as it should be.”

“We are good friends, the best of friends but we also know that we can’t be with each other in that way.”

“I understand,” Agnes paused at their front door.

“Before the war and even when it first started I saw things in black and white, there was evil and good, and good must overcome evil because,” she inserted the key in the lock, “well you know why but now I have come to realise that war doesn’t work like that. War is much more,” she frowned, “nuanced,” she turned the key.

“The other week I saw the picture of a German officer killed in Tunisia and I had to look twice because I thought I was looking at Frank,” she opened the door.

“There were some differences, of course it wasn’t Frank but at a casual glance they could have been mistaken for each other. I can’t even remember his name,” she closed the door behind them.

“But it got me thinking about that German. Does he have a wife and maybe even children? Should I rejoice over his death or mourn it? At first I thought I was going mad but then I realised that war is something that is started by men who will never be on the front line and so they have nothing to lose but their reputations,” she flicked on the light and watched as the globe began to glow.