Jack was back at the forefront of Billie’s mind now: that smile, that soft mouth, those warm, strong hands.Billie, wait for me. I want you. I want to be yours.She hungered for him, for that deep, reassuring voice, that physical chemistry, that touch her body recalled so achingly, so devastatingly well.
Her mother seemed to read her thoughts. “Darling, he’s not coming back,” she said, as gently as she could. But, of course, there was no way to say it gently. “He may have been a good man, but he’s gone.”
Billie’s whole body erupted in gooseflesh, a feeling of sickness sweeping over her, mingled with unbearable longing. She’d long suspected that Jack and his Argus camera had taken on one too many assignments. If she was truly brave, as he’d often said she was, then he was a step beyond, positively reckless in his pursuit of the Nazis and their war crimes. The two of them had played a small part in turning the tide, but a part nonetheless, Billie’s words and his photographs helping to tell a story to the world of cruelty against civilians, against children, in what had been a bold attempt at absolute and total genocide. Together they’d been part of something larger than themselves, Billie and Jack. His last assignment that she knewof had been in Warsaw in ’44, when the Polish Home Army, an underground resistance group, had risen against the German occupation forces. It had been risky for a press photographer by then, far riskier than it had been in 1938. He’d sent one letter from Warsaw—and then nothing. Word had come on the wireless that the rebellion had been crushed, the Soviet forces having failed to help. The center of the city had been razed in October of that year, with more than one hundred thousand killed. And no word from Jack.Nothing.The British paper he’d worked for had no information on his whereabouts.
He’d vanished only months after he and Billie had married, following a wartime affair of several years, broken up into romantic interludes and stolen weekends of intense intimacy. Then Jack was gone. And Billie had left Paris to return to Australia and her ailing father, arriving too late. In no time at all she had lost not one but the two most important men in her life. It had been more than two years now since she’d seen Jack, she reminded herself again, but time moved strangely after the war.
Billie looked down at the luxurious fabric of her evening gown, finding it surreal against her thoughts of the war. Everything had changed when the war began, and now it was so different again. So little was the same; her whole life before was almost like a dream. Sometimes it was as if she watched her world through the lens of Jack’s Argus, distant and somehow disconnected, everything in monochrome.
“Darling, being a spinster suits some, but not you. I know you yearn for something else,” her mother was saying.
“I made a vow to Jack,” Billie managed in a tight voice. Her mouth felt as dry as the outback. Their vows had to do with eachother, but also their common cause. They would do whatever they had to in order to bring the truth of what was happening to the world, and especially to America, where isolationist public sentiment had finally turned, changing the course of the war. Hitler had wanted more than Poland and Austria, more than all of Europe. He had wanted the world reflected in his terrifying image. He had come closer than many cared to admit.
“You may well have done, my girl,” Billie’s mother said, bringing her back to the moment. “You may well have made a vow to that man, but that was the war. Things are different now. The war is over and you have no ring, no papers, and no husband. There were two witnesses and you haven’t seen them since. Such things happened in the Great War, too. No one would begrudge you moving on. He wouldn’t.”
“You never met him,” Billie said softly. It wasn’t much of an argument, but it was true. They would have got on, she thought. Both were free spirits in their own ways. Complicated. Stubborn. Exciting.
Love was often more intense in times of war, she knew. But that knowledge didn’t change the shape of it, didn’t release her from her feelings about Jack Rake, wherever he was, whatever fate he’d faced in Warsaw. It was true their wedding had been makeshift—a borrowed dress, a homemade cake—but that made it no less real to her. Their lovemaking had been real. What was still in her heart was real.
“You need to face facts, Billie. You are a war widow,” her mother said.
War widow.
Spoken out loud, the words stung, though it wasn’t the first time she’d heard them. Through her work, Billie knew the fate of war widows in Australia—some were objects of pity, others considered athreat. Widows were the common targets of gossip, thieves, and swindlers, men on the prowl, and the suspicions of married women who believed any widow was looking for a new husband and willing to do anything to get one. Society defined women with those two words, and they were stigmatized by it—until they could change their status by marrying again, that is. Though the words might be accurate, they made Billie squirm, extinguishing all hope of Jack’s return, and like Mrs. or Miss, defining Billie by her marital status. Further, despite the tireless advocacy of the War Widows’ Guild, widows with children received but a pittance, and a young civilian widow of the war, with no children, was not eligible for anything. Their sacrifices during the war were not recognized by the government, and the men in charge believed that what a charming, young childless widow needed was not a pension but another husband. If Billie wanted to remarry, she would need to seek a certificate of presumption of death, but she would have to provide evidence first, and that was not something she had yet.
“But I...” Billie began to protest, and her mouth closed again.
If not a war widow, what was she? If Jack was alive she would be within her rights to seek divorce on the grounds of desertion, something she had helped other women attain through her investigation agency. Unless he turned up or she could furnish more information about precisely when and where he was last seen, she could have no way of knowing what had happened to him. She didn’t want a divorce. She wanted Jack. Or at least answers.
She swallowed back the bitter taste that had settled on her tongue.
“Let’s talk about something else, can we?” Billie pleaded. She stalked off to the kitchen to get herself a glass of water. Alma wasthere, bent over an open oven. The air coming from it was hot and sweet.
She downed a glass of water and returned to the settee. “What can I do for you tonight? You said there was something you needed help with. Urgent, was it?” Billie watched her mother take a long, slow sip of sherry. “There’s not really anything, is there?” Billie looked at the thin watch on her wrist. “Lunch on Sunday? The usual?” She stood impatiently and gave her mother a kiss. “I have to go and fix my hair, Ella. I’m half-dressed.”
“I didn’t want to say anything,” her mother teased.
“Well now, thatisunlike you.” Billie smiled. Some of the tension had dispersed. She just couldn’t talk about Jack with her mother. It wasn’t helpful.
“Your neck is too bare, my girl. Alma, could you fetch the sapphires? The drop set?” Ella called.
“No, no. I have plenty of adequate costume jewelry,” Billie protested, but it was no use. In a few moments her throat and earlobes were decorated by a stunning deep blue sapphire and diamond Art Deco set, which she accepted without further fuss. She caught a glimpse in the mirror of the coat rack at the door and did a double take. Billie had to admit her mother had picked it right. The drop earrings held ten little square sapphires in a vertical line, surrounded by small diamonds. The matching pendant drew attention to her slender clavicles and long neck. A small round diamond hung off the bottom of each earring, swaying gently and catching the light. The blue set off the dress and subtle red hues in her brunette hair perfectly and made her eyes seem larger and more striking. The jury was out on whether Billie’s eyes were blue or green, and even Jack hadn’t been able to make up his mind.
Billie laughed. “You’re right. You win. It’s perfect. I’ll return these on Sunday when I pick you up for lunch.”
“Would you like the car? Alma could drive you.”
“No, thank you,” she answered. She strode across the flat to give her mother another kiss. “I love you.”
Billie left the matriarch with her book and her sherry and Alma’s loyal company. As she retreated down the hall toward the stairwell, she heard the soft sounds of the wireless being turned on.
Six
Resplendent in her dark ruby-redsilk gown and her mother’s shining blue sapphires, Billie returned to her office by taxicab. Despite her mother’s diversion, she got there in plenty of time for Sam’s arrival and busied herself with paperwork, leaning back in her chair with her stockinged feet up on the desk, the split in her gown falling open to just above her knee. The prospect of an interesting evening ahead made the tedium of her least favorite part of the job bearable.
It was but twenty minutes later when she heard the outer door of the office open, and the little buzzer that alerted her to visitors sounded. Her eyes went to the Bakelite clock. He was very punctual, that Sam. Billie closed her file, pulled her feet down, and slipped them into her shoes. Soon the doorway filled with the outline of one Samuel Baker. He had the kind of shoulders that could plug a doorway handsomely. He was several ax handles across, as the saying went.
“Do I pass?” he asked and turned for her.
