Gerry grinned, and Josephine laughed properly for the first time that day. ‘Thanks. I’ll bear it in mind.’ The hall was beginning to fill up with guests, and it took her a few minutes to get to the bar, but Marta didn’t seem to be going anywhere. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ she asked angrily.
‘You look beautiful. Champagne?’
‘Don’t mess about. Why are you here?’
‘I wanted to see you.’
‘So you just turn up on Lydia’s arm without even warning me?’
‘If I’d warned you, as you put it, you’d have found an excuse not to be here.’
‘Jesus, you move quickly. It’s a wonder that any of us can keep up with you. I thought after …’
‘After what, Josephine?’ Marta turned to look at her for the first time, and Josephine was startled to see tears in her eyes. ‘After you left, and I wandered round the house wondering what to do with myself? After I stopped trusting myself to be on my own?’ She waited until her voice was more under control, and then said: ‘I know how this looks, and I know how angry you are, but please try to understand—being with you last night made me realise how isolated I’ve become, and how damaging that can be. I need company, friendship, love—whatever you want to call it, and I need it more often than I could ever demand it from you. You were right. I can have that with Lydia, and I can make her happy—really happy. But none of that changes how I feel about you. Everything I said last night, everything I asked of you—it still stands. I just can’t be on my own while I wait for you to come back to London.’
Marta’s vulnerability made Josephine long for the privacy they had shared the night before, but it was impossible to hold her in a hall full of people. Casually, she slid her glass a few inches along the bar until her fingers rested against Marta’s; it was the subtlest of touches, imperceptible to an onlooker, but sufficient to dispel everything else in the room. Denied the possibility of anything more, they allowed this one small gesture to become the focus of everything that was miraculous and fated about their relationship, and the moment was so surprisingly intense that it was a while before Josephine could speak. ‘What are we going to do?’ she asked quietly.
‘I love you.’
‘That’s not an answer.’
‘It’s the best I can do. Can you think of a better one?’ Josephine shook her head. ‘You have to go,’ Marta said, squeezing her hand. ‘It looks like you’re needed for the cameras.’
‘That can wait. This is more important.’
‘Yes, but this could take a lifetime to resolve, and we have approximately fifteen seconds.’ Marta hugged her, and Josephine felt her hand trace the line of pearls down her back so fleetingly that she might have imagined it. ‘You’re about to be fetched.’
‘What?’ Josephine turned round to see Celia Bannerman bearing down on her and beckoning her over to the other side of the room, where a couple of reporters were lining up guests to be photographed. She groaned. ‘That’s just what I need.’
‘Before you go, take this.’ Marta held out an earring. ‘You left it at Holly Place. I was going to keep it, but when you start holding pearls to ransom in the hope that someone will come running for them, you really are lost.’ She smiled. ‘I don’t have any more tricks up my sleeve, Josephine. You’ll come, or you won’t come. I hope you do.’
She disappeared into the crowd and Josephine fought her way reluctantly across the room to smile for
‘Yes—early next year. It’s called
‘Let’s hope it raises a bit more than a shilling, eh? You’re donating the proceeds to charity, aren’t you?’
‘That’s right, to a cancer hospital.’
‘And is there a personal reason for that?’ He must have seen the look on her face, because he added quickly: ‘I’m not trying to pry, but it’ll make a nice little story to go alongside the Cowdray Club piece. It all helps to get the public on side, doesn’t it?’
It was a cheap trick, but Josephine felt obliged to answer, as he had known she would. Remembering why she hated the press, and why she never gave interviews, she said: ‘My mother died of breast cancer twelve years ago.’
‘That must have been a sad time for you.’ She didn’t even dignify that with a response: in truth, her mother’s death had devastated her, but she wasn’t about to share that with the world, not even in the name of charity. Smiling politely, she tried to excuse herself, but the reporter hadn’t finished. ‘A lot of people say that one of the characters in Mrs Christie’s new book is based on you,’ he said with a sly grin. ‘Muriel Wills—the woman who writes plays as Anthony Astor. Is there any truth in that, do you think?’
‘I wouldn’t know. I don’t often read Mrs Christie.’ It was the best snub she could think of at short notice; she had, in fact, bought the book as soon as she heard the rumour, and had been furious to discover a ghastly creation who simpered and giggled and cluttered her home with nick-nacks; the fact that the playwright was observant and deadly with a pen did nothing to soften her anger.
‘No harm in a bit of friendly rivalry, though, is there?’ the reporter continued. ‘I just wondered if we might find a little cameo in your new book for Mrs Christie?’
‘What?’ Josephine was distracted by a commotion at the door. ‘A cameo for Mrs Christie? I couldn’t possibly say. If you look carefully, though, you’ll find a tramp with a very similar sense of humour. Now, if you’ll excuse me, there are some people I have to talk to.’ This time, she didn’t have to work very hard to get away: the commotion signalled the arrival of the real stars of the evening. As the dignitaries and charity ladies clamoured for position around Noel and Gertie, Josephine found her table and sank gratefully into a seat next to Lettice. ‘I feel like I’ve gone ten rounds with Jack Dempsey,’ she said. ‘What have I done to deserve a night like this?’
‘Looked gorgeous in that dress?’
‘You’re the third person to tell me that tonight, and you can probably guess who the other two were. The dress is stunning, though—thank you.’
Lettice poured her a drink. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t get to you first,’ she said. ‘I wanted to let you know what you were walking into, but Lydia was too quick for me.’
‘Don’t worry—it was nice of you even to try. Where’s Archie?’
Before Lettice could answer, the lights in the hall were lowered and Celia Bannerman walked on to the stage. ‘That’s it, then, girls—fun over,’ Ronnie said, slapping two more bottles of champagne down on the table. ‘Sweet charity’s arrived.’ She leaned across to Josephine. ‘And where did you spend the night? You could have had the whole of Scotland Yard out looking for you if it hadn’t been for our discretion.’
‘You? Discreet?’ Luckily for Josephine’s self-respect, a ripple of applause drowned out the rest of her reply. Celia held up her hand for silence. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the College of Nursing and Cowdray Club on what promises to be a very exciting occasion for us all. Before we go any further, I’d like you to join me in giving a warm welcome to our special guests this evening, Miss Gertrude Lawrence and Mr Noel Coward, who have taken a break from the tour of their latest production to be with us.’ The spotlight moved to a table at the front of the hall. ‘Later on, they’ll be treating us to two short pieces from
‘Here we go,’ Ronnie muttered. ‘It’ll be
‘The Actors’ Orphanage, of which Mr Coward is president, started nearly forty years ago and now offers a home and a school to sixty children at a time. I need hardly stress to you that today, even with the vast improvements that have taken place in social welfare over the last few years, one of the casualties of a modern city is still the unwanted child, or the child who is left without anyone to care for him. Hard times press hardest on our children: now that the winter has come, and the days are dreary with fog and the streets are cheerless, now that Christmas approaches, it’s only natural that we turn our thoughts to bringing some brightness into their lives. But Mr Coward and his colleagues work tirelessly to do that all year round; thanks to them, and to other organisations like the Actors’ Orphanage, women are no longer driven to the desperate measures with which they were once faced, and children find the fabric of their lives immeasurably improved each day. I’m sure you’ll agree that money
