Contents

About the Book

Can Eleanor follow her heart in troubled times?

Eleanor Roy is determined to do her bit for the war effort after being recruited by the War Artist Advisory Committee. When she meets handsome artist Jack Valante, her dreams seem to be finally coming true when Jack promises to help her pursue her ambition of becoming an artist. But after a whirlwind romance, Eleanor is devastated when Jack is posted overseas.

When Eleanor receives some unexpected news she desperately tries to find Jack. But with the young couple torn apart by war, will they be reunited and find happiness at last?

A heartwarming wartime saga perfect for fans of Ellie Dean and Nancy Revell.

About the Author

Caroline Beecham grew up at the English seaside and relocated to Australia to continue her career as a writer and producer in film and television. She has worked on a documentary about Princess Diana lookalikes, a series about journeys to the ends of the earth, as well as a feature film about finding the end of the rainbow. Caroline decided on a new way of storytelling and studied the craft of novel writing at the Faber Academy in 2012. She has an MA in Film & Television and a MA in Creative Writing and lives with her husband and two sons by Sydney harbour. Maggie’s Kitchen is her first published novel.

You can find out more information about Maggie’s Kitchen and the events that inspired the novel at www.maggieskitchennovel.com

Also by Caroline Beecham

Maggie’s Kitchen

PART I

‘What did it look like? They will ask in 1981, and no amount of description or documentation will answer them. Nor will big, formal compositions like the battle pictures which hang in palaces; and even photographs, which tell us so much, will leave out the colour and the peculiar feeling of events in these extraordinary years.’

War Pictures by British Artists,
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1942

LONDON, MARCH 1942

THIS WAS ELEANOR’S last chance: she hadn’t been able to find the last four artists she had been sent to sign, and Mr Steadman was losing patience. One for the forces, one for us, he had told her, huge eyes magnified through his glasses, expression grave. But it seemed as if she was always a fraction too late; each artist she tracked down had already signed up or recently packed out. It was looking more like ‘four for the forces, one for us’.

Eleanor felt even more irritated now because she and her driver, Clive, were lost—either that or all the roads looked the same. Just as she felt like giving up, their Austin Eighteen fought another pot-hole, rattling towards the junction, and she spotted the unmistakable yellow of Yorkstone through the trees.

‘That’s it!’ she said.

‘Very good, miss,’ Clive replied from the driver’s seat, glancing at her in the rear-view mirror.

‘It’s much bigger than I expected,’ she said, as she wondered if the rumours about the place were true.

The three-storey Victorian building was shrouded by thick canopies of oaks and pencil-thin trunks of silver birch. It was also half-hidden from street view by large detached Wandsworth houses, home to the city’s up-and-comers until war had wrenched them away. Eleanor had plenty of time to peer through their elegant windows as the large saloon crawled past, and she imagined the works of art that might be languishing inside.

Her journey from Portman Square had taken twice as long as it should have because of diversions through the bomb-damaged streets—and thanks to Clive’s overly cautious nature. The first reason was unavoidable but as for the second … She had to bite her tongue as Clive drew the car to an excruciatingly slow stop on the gravel driveway.

She had grown used to working out the routes with fewer street signs than before the war, but she would never get comfortable with being chauffeured when cars were being requisitioned and the man-power was needed just as badly. She was quite sure she could do a better job of driving than Clive too. If only Mr Steadman would agree to let her take her driving test, but there was little chance of that—only last week, the divisional officer had commented that she wasn’t ready yet: It is highly irregular for a woman to take her test after only two months of lessons, Miss Roy.

Well, they were living in highly irregular times.

Eleanor double-checked inside her leather satchel, making sure that the papers and contract were all there, and then stepped from the Austin and into the shadow cast by one of the Gothic towers.

The Royal Victoria Patriotic Building really was much bigger than she had expected, altogether more imposing, and it made her think of the stories she had heard about the place. It had been built as an asylum for the orphaned girls of the Crimea, and some said they haunted it still, while others said that it was inhabited by the ghosts of Great War soldiers who had died within its walls.

That morning, before Eleanor’s workmate Maura had left the office, she’d leaned over the desk and clutched Eleanor’s hand. Her soft Irish brogue had been hushed and full of exaggerated kindness. ‘Good luck, my dear. You do know they torture spies and traitors there, don’t you?’

Eleanor had laughed, assuming her friend was joking. But as she looked up at the building’s French-style turrets, and at the roofs that were a sinister grey, like an ominous sky before a thunderstorm, she thought that perhaps it might be true.

She straightened her wool skirt and told herself to stop being ridiculous. She was there for a purpose that was unlikely to take very long, anyway. In just an hour she would be back at the Ministry of Food, spinning Maura an outlandish tale about the ghosts she had seen—or maybe she should feign injury and make up a story of how she had been tortured but released when her captors realised she didn’t have any intelligence to share.

While the building was foreboding, its vast gardens were inviting. To the east, manicured lawns led down to a lake surrounded by a cathedral of trees; a refreshing wind barely moved the branches, whistling through the long, fragile grasses. They were only six miles from the Ministry’s office at Portman Square, but it was strangely peaceful. Quiet, except for the chatter of finches. The noisy, battle-scarred streets could have been a hundred miles away as the afternoon slowed to its natural rhythm. For just a moment, Eleanor felt as if she and Clive were the only people there—until a door banged inside the building.

She lowered her head to her driver’s window. ‘I shan’t be too long, Clive,’ she said, her hazel eyes holding his gaze. ‘You will wait here, won’t you?’

It was more of a request than a question, and he winked up at her, tapping his grey cap with crooked fingers. ‘Certainly will, miss.’

She hoped that he meant it this time, that he wouldn’t park the car and stroll around as he had done before—especially when she might be eager to get away. The woodland and birdlife might prove too much of a temptation for him, and she really didn’t want to be stuck here any longer than necessary.

‘You don’t need to stretch your legs then?’ she asked.

‘Oh no, miss,’ he said, extending them out under the steering wheel. ‘I reckon they’re just about as long as they’re going to get!’

‘Jolly good,’ she said, smiling.

Inside, the building was not nearly as impressive—the painted walls were flaking badly and the plaster had come away in places, leaving large areas of exposed brickwork. The air was so thick with dust that Eleanor wanted to throw open the windows to let the building breathe but they were bolted shut with grimy locks. Maybe she wasn’t in the right place after all; it didn’t look like somewhere to bring grieving children for comfort and support.

A large entrance hall extended into a reception area with three doors and a wide staircase, but the only noise came from the floors above. She followed the echo upwards, slowly trailing behind dust motes that chased the sun before they disappeared into the roof-light.

Voices drifted from somewhere higher up, and so she carried on: past the first floor, where rooms stretched along unlit corridors that disappeared into shadows at either end, and up the second set of stairs. The voices were becoming clearer, and she could make out words—the closer she drew, the stronger they became, tiny voices, some barely more than whispers, singing ‘Ring-a-Ring O’Roses’.

Up here the walls were in an even poorer condition. Splintered planks of bare wooden studwork gave glimpses into the room behind, where a small group of children sat cross-legged on the floor at the feet of a woman seated on a stool. The woman, in her mid-twenties like Eleanor, flipped through a book as they started on a new nursery rhyme.

When the woman glanced up, Eleanor raised her hand in greeting. The woman waved back as she continued to sing.

Eleanor drew closer, so she was level with the door, and was so absorbed by the children’s singing that it was a moment until she noticed the outline of a man. His tall frame would have looked awkward, arched forward as it was over the easel, had he not moved so gracefully, white shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal unusually sun-tanned skin.

On the walls around him was a scattering of black-and-white sketches: some depicting the children grouped together, others of them individually. These pictures weren’t as beautiful as Murillo’s seventeenth-century street children, but they were mesmerising in their detail, a fretwork of greys and blacks. Eleanor moved forward, drawn to the startlingly intricate lines that built the shading, with smaller lines indicating where an eyebrow might be or the edge of a smile.

The artist was sketching a girl of about six, and every time he looked up his dark hair fell across his face, hiding it from view.

The room was an old dormitory—skeletons of bedframes were spaced along its length, and windows with rails but no curtains were higher up on the walls. Across the narrowest part of the room, a simple line was strung, now home to delicately coloured paintings from the same hand as the sketches. The artist must have been here for some time, Eleanor realised, since there were several of these watercolour pictures, raw in form but each capturing the expression and characteristics of the child.

Eleanor glanced across the frayed and dirty creatures with their slumped backs and earnest faces. They presented a strange contradiction, not because such sweet song arose from them, but because of the enthusiasm with which the tribe did their best to sing and the woman her best to lead them. Perhaps they were bewildered by their recent fate and exhausted, allowing themselves to be easily shepherded and cajoled. The last thing Eleanor wanted was to disturb them, so she stood quietly as they sang and the artist sketched; she imagined it to be minutes of welcome abandon for them all.

Then the artist twisted round, exchanging his pencil for a brush, and she noticed how quick and fluid his movements were. She supposed he would have to be nimble to go where he went, to do what he did. And as she watched him drawing, she wondered what other qualities a man like this would need. People were used to seeing beauty in nature, to seeing its magnificence reflected back and preserved in great works of art: there had been centuries of it, from Constable to Monet, from landscapes to monuments. But now British artists were engaged to record the atrocities of war—all that was base and deplorable in humankind. And yet here were watercolours so beautiful, the children so vulnerable, that they were some of the most haunting images she had ever seen. She knew the artist’s work, had seen his book illustrations and some of his portraits, but these were something different. He had captured the souls of these children, brought the angels out of them, preserved their innocence before the war had the chance to pluck it away.

Eleanor was so engrossed in watching him work that as she took another step, her foot hit a loose plank. The wood squeaked, and the artist turned around.

He glanced up, dark eyebrows knitting in a momentary frown, then he smiled. As his green eyes bore into her, her cheeks burned. It was clear now that, as his name suggested, he was of Mediterranean descent. He was also much taller than she had expected, and altogether stronger and more poised, with the physique of an athlete rather than an artist.

It was dark here in the attic, with less air circulating, fewer windows to open; perhaps that was why she felt overwhelmed. Then she remembered why she had come. She stepped towards him, offering her hand. ‘Hello, Mr Valante. I’m Eleanor Roy, from the Ministry of Food. I’m here with the contract for you to sign.’ She had been ready to be efficient and businesslike, get the contract signed then return to the office as soon as possible, but all she could think about was how this unexpected man could create such extraordinary work. He looked vague, though, his expression so remote that she continued: ‘We wrote to you about having some of your pictures decorate our British Restaurants.’

Her purpose must have finally registered because he came towards her, rubbing his hands on a rag, until he was as close as the narrow ceilings would allow. He carried the scents of turpentine and tobacco.

‘Pleasure to meet you, Miss Roy,’ he said, extending his hand. ‘Call me Jack.’

His skin felt warm and smooth, not the dry and callused palms she experienced from days spent painting and long nights cleaning equipment and brushes.

‘You too, Jack,’ she said brightly, ‘and I must just say, I am a huge admirer of your work.’

She was so relieved to finally be speaking with an artist, she had got carried away. As soon as she’d spoken the words she regretted them; self-conscious, she looked about to see what the children were doing. The infants were lying on their bellies, while the older ones sat cross-legged, their singing now muted as they drew or painted.

‘Oh, really,’ Jack said, sounding surprised. ‘Where have you seen it, Miss Roy?’

‘At the Slade School of Art—they had two of your pictures on loan last year.’

‘Yes, The Warrior …’

‘And Excavate. Stunning pieces.’

‘Thank you. Do you go to many exhibitions?’ he asked, his arm resting on the beam overhead, his body filling up the space.

‘I try, but I was a student there … until last year.’

‘Really? You must have worked with Aubrey Powell?’

‘Yes, I did,’ she said. ‘He is a tireless advocate for his students … in fact, he put me forward for our decoration scheme.’

‘Oh.’ Jack looked at her more intensely. It was an artist’s gaze: one that she recognised, one that assessed the subject. ‘And what do you like to paint, Miss Roy?’

He’d caught her off guard and she hesitated. ‘Well, I don’t get to paint much anymore … but I really am much more useful at the Ministry,’ Eleanor said, hoping she sounded convincing. ‘Anyway, unless I was as talented as Anna Airy, then I doubt very much that anyone should miss me,’ she added with a forced laugh. Anna Airy was her hero. Also a former Slade student, Anna had painted during the Great War, often in very difficult circumstances, and had shown Eleanor how female artists could share the stage with men.

Jack smiled warmly. ‘So tell me again, what brings you here, Miss Roy?’ he asked.

‘I have the contract for you to sign,’ she said. She raised the document towards him.

He took the paper and glanced over it, then handed it back. ‘I am sorry, Miss Roy. I’m afraid there’s been a misunderstanding.’ His smile turned apologetic, and he moved away from her, going back to his painting. He picked up a brush and traced the outline of a child’s silhouette. Then he glanced round and smiled again. ‘Please thank the Ministry for its interest, but—’

‘What sort of misunderstanding?’ she asked.

‘I cannot sign any contract. I’m truly sorry you came all the way here.’

The wind was picking up outside, reminding her of Clive waiting in the drafty car to drive her back into town—and of the irritation she would be greeted with from Mr Steadman at her failure.

The children also carried on with their artworks, so she watched them as she decided what to do; an artist had never just flatly refused to sign a contract before—at least as far as she knew. Surely there must be some protocol or procedure to follow, but she couldn’t think what it was.

‘You do know that it really is quite an honour,’ she said, her heart beating faster, her breathing constricted beneath her navy woollen suit.

‘How so?’ Jack asked.

‘A great many artists would be flattered to have their work as part of this scheme. Dozens, in fact, would jump at the chance.’

‘Well, perhaps you should ask one of them, Miss Roy.’

Eleanor was about to tell him that she had clear instructions to get the contract signed, and that she needed a date for the completed lithographs, when there was a heavy tramping on the stairs.

Two men appeared in the doorway. They weren’t in uniform, but something about the way they wore their dark suits and trilbies suggested they weren’t ordinary civilians. The tall one had his face half-hidden, black moustache just visible beneath the shadow of his hat, and the shorter one, with fair hair and a ginger beard, held an unlit pipe balanced between his lips.

Jack looked alarmed.

The two men were about to come in, until they noticed the children.

‘Excuse me for a moment,’ Jack said to Eleanor.

Her gaze flicked between him and the children. They were so very tired that they paid little attention to the visitors, while outside the doorway there seemed to be some kind of disagreement going on.

After a few minutes, Jack returned and began packing away his equipment, then paused to slowly roll down his sleeves. He seemed composed but his movements were hurried and clumsy, and he fumbled over his shirt buttons.

‘Here,’ Eleanor said, moving towards him, ‘let me help you.’

She felt his eyes on her as she finished them.

‘Thank you,’ he said when she fastened the last one.

The smell of turpentine and tobacco had been replaced with something more—the scent of Jack.

‘It’s a pleasure,’ she said, gazing up at him. An hour earlier, she had never set eyes on Jack Valante, and now she felt as if she couldn’t let him out of her sight.

‘I’m afraid this can’t wait,’ he said.

‘Can’t they see you’re busy?’

‘These chaps don’t take no for an answer.’ He glanced back through the doorway to where the men waited, their eyes fixed on him.

The atmosphere in the room had changed; the gentle chorus of nursery rhymes had given way to an uneasy tension. Jack looked over at the children, then picked up his jacket, draping it casually over his shoulder, and walked towards the door.

When he reached the doorway, he stopped and turned. ‘It was a pleasure meeting you, Miss Roy. I hope you find your artist.’

Surely there must be something she could do or say? It was unclear whether Jack knew the men or not—he was reluctant but not refusing to go. Yet with barely any time to react, she just looked helplessly at the teacher, and listened as the trudge of footsteps on wooden stairs faded, and, with it, her chance of signing the artist.

BACK AT THE office, Maura insisted that Eleanor tell her all about the trip, but she had decided to keep it to herself: at least until she figured out who the two men were and why Jack had been compelled to go with them. The whole affair had been rather strange, and on the journey back she had wondered if Maura might be right about the building—that spies and traitors were tortured there.

‘Aye, you’re a dark horse, Eleanor Roy,’ Maura said, brown bobbed hair bouncing as she tilted her head to one side. ‘What is it that you’re not telling me? What have ye been gettin’ up to?’

‘Oh, you know, just the usual—tea at the Criterion and then an exhibition at the National Gallery,’ Eleanor replied with mock formality, adding her jacket to those already piled on the wooden coat stand.

Clive had actually made good time, only getting delayed in a diversion near the Chelsea gasworks where the army had been detonating an unexploded incendiary that was threatening to demolish the area. Clive had driven the long way around because, as he had so delicately put it, Miss, wouldn’t half know about it if it went off! She had been inclined to agree.

‘You seem different,’ Maura said, looking her up and down with alert grey eyes. ‘Yes, there’s definitely something different about you …’

Maura had a small frame and so could wear anything she wanted, yet she always found something to say about Eleanor’s appearance; it was as if the slogan Make Do And Mend had been created with Maura in mind: that and the fact her mother worked in a laundry and often brought home damaged clothes that Maura versioned into something far more original on the family’s old Singer. And sometimes with surprising results—a floral blouse under a corduroy waistcoat, or a man’s jacket teamed with a silk pencil skirt. It was also one of the reasons that Maura had developed an obsession with magazines; she fawned over actresses’ organza ball gowns and polka-dot tea dresses, and envied their pleated skirts and sailor pants. She had told Eleanor, on more than one occasion, that she was going to get a job in a fashion house as soon as the war was over: Everyone will want to brighten up their wardrobe and their lives!

But although Eleanor usually trusted Maura’s opinion on these matters, she couldn’t see what was so different about her appearance this afternoon. All she could think of was that her wavy blonde hair fell around her face rather than being pinned back as it usually was, and shiny black leather shoes replaced a worn-out pair.

‘No, still the same old navy suit,’ she said with a smile. ‘Only the shoes are new-ish.’

‘Are you sure you didn’t stop off somewhere else?’ Maura asked suspiciously.

Perhaps Maura had picked up on her anxiety about Jack not signing the contract … or perhaps her eyes were small and puffy because of her interrupted sleep.

‘The only place I would go,’ Eleanor said, ‘is back home to check on Cecily.’

Eleanor wished she could have stopped by to see how her sister was getting on, but the Bayswater flat they shared just wasn’t on the route back to the office.

‘Don’t tell me she’s sick again?’ Maura asked.

‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’ Eleanor sighed. ‘She was coughing all night. It seems that she’s spending more time nursing her own colds than anyone else’s.’

Ever since Cecily had started her nursing training, she had been sick with one thing or another; the doctors had told her that her immunity would build after a year or two, but it seemed their mother’s concern that she had conceived her fourth child too soon after giving birth was unfortunately being proven right.

‘Steadman wants the information about the new lithographs double-quick,’ Maura said. ‘He says the memorandum needs to be sent out to the boroughs today.’ She spoke with an exaggerated seriousness so that Eleanor couldn’t tell if she was joking. ‘Honestly, Miss Roy!’

Eleanor couldn’t see what all the fuss was about; they were already doing what Lord Woolton had asked of them. She glanced at the framed letter kept nearby as a daily reminder of their duty.

‘Well,’ said Eleanor, ‘I’m sure Steadman can wait a few more hours.’

‘Aye, if you say so,’ Maura said breezily, all solemnity forgotten.

Mr Steadman was in conversation behind the glazed door of his office, and Eleanor strained to see if she recognised the visitor from his voice or silhouette. When she couldn’t, she gave up and went back to her desk.

Back when the Ministry had first approached her about the decoration policy for British Restaurants, she had been surprised. It took her barely a moment to agree, and she soon realised that it was Aubrey Powell, her professor at the Slade, who had put her forward for the scheme. She wrote home immediately to tell her parents about the new role, and of the fifty-five boroughs she would have to visit and the hundreds of pictures and lithographs they would need to supply. There were murals by students from all over London, and it had sounded simple enough: she would visit the restaurants, assess their requests and make sure their conditions were satisfactory—not too much condensation or dust—and then report back directly to Mr Steadman, the chief divisional officer for London.

The job had been a challenge to begin with, and each week she wrote home with details of her new responsibilities. She’d hoped it would prove her father wrong for writing off her desire to be an artist as a waste of time, but he still insisted that her place was at home and helping with the family business. It seemed as though he would never be satisfied with her choices or accept that all their lives had changed—especially women’s—but now she also had concerns over whether Mr Steadman would keep her on after she had failed to sign another artist.

Across the room, coats dangled unevenly on the wooden stand, and she went over to rearrange them as neatly as if they were flowers in a shop display. She couldn’t bear the way the other office workers had no interest in their surroundings. At least these rooms were bright and recently painted, the high ceilings with pillars and cornices a slightly darker shade of cream for contrast, and with brass fixtures and fittings that reflected the fleeting sunlight. Even the solid wood bureaus and desks were arranged neatly, some looking old enough to have been there as long as the building had, as if they had taken root. Even in sparsely furnished government buildings, a little beauty could be found if you knew where to look: a small painting here or there, a window that offered a view of the treetops or a panorama of the city’s skyline—you just had to use a bit of imagination.

‘I say, you don’t fancy having a go at the memorandum yourself, do you?’ Eleanor asked Maura as she slid into her seat and placed the folders on the desk’s scratched leather surface. ‘There’s a packet of ciggies in it for you if you do.’

‘You must be desperate. What are you working on that’s so important?’

‘I’ve got more visits to make and, well … there’s just a lot to think about.’

But it wasn’t only the workload. Eleanor knew she was being melodramatic, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Jack and what had become of him. Who were those men? He’d appeared to go with them willingly, but it was so abrupt. Where had they taken him? Perhaps she should tell Mr Steadman after all—ask what he thought, at the very least.

The memory of Jack’s pictures was distracting her too, and how he had made it all look so easy. Her own brushstrokes were clumsy and childlike in comparison, and she’d meant it when she told him that she no longer had time to paint; now that they were working every hour God sent, she wouldn’t have time to complete any of her unfinished paintings, let alone start new ones.

Eleanor reached into the side drawer of her desk and pulled out a linen-bound sketchbook. She placed it on her lap, half-hidden from view, and looked through the pages; they were sketches, pencil figures, roughly drawn in pen and ink, all images from streetscapes and parks around the capital. Mild depictions of war and the struggles on the home front, not the grand records of combat that war artists like Pitchforth, Bawden and Cundall had produced, of men and their machines.

Maura tutted. ‘Eleanor …’

‘Just a minute,’ she replied, searching the drawer again. She pulled out a book of earlier sketches and flipped through until she found the picture of a female worker at the wool mill her family owned. Her fingers traced across it; she had embellished only the fabric with colour, a pastel watermark staining the page, and had left the worker in black and white. The worked-up painting from this draft, The Factory Worker, had secured her place at the Slade, from where she had been recruited for the Ministry. It was a privilege to be working here, but to be offered a contract for her art, to be contributing paintings to the schemes that would help improve wartime morale—that was all she hoped for, and she just couldn’t understand how Jack could turn it down.

‘Come on, what is really so important?’ Maura asked.

Eleanor took the contract from her satchel and passed it to her. ‘Can you file this with the others, please?’

Maura looked at the empty signature line and back at Eleanor. ‘But he didn’t even sign it …’

Eleanor shrugged, not sharing the fact that she wanted to be able to find it again soon.

‘And what’s wrong with your filing, anyway?’ Maura continued. ‘Or have you forgotten the alphabet? It goes under “V”.’

‘“V” for very funny,’ Eleanor said, smiling. ‘So, what’s in the diary for later?’

Maura picked up her teacup, narrowing her grey eyes at Eleanor over the rim as she drank. Despite being employed as a clerical assistant, Maura still didn’t like taking instructions from Eleanor and she considered herself to be on an equal footing—even though she was far less qualified and a little younger.

Maura’s parents, Patrick and Caitriona Sullivan, came from Kilkenny—just south of the River Nore, she always specified—and had moved to Greenwich just after they were married. Before then, her father had worked for the local brewery and her mother the wool mill, so Eleanor believed that she and Maura had something in common—although she had only three siblings in contrast to Maura’s five, and her family owned the wool mill where they worked. Because Maura had grown up living hand-to-mouth, she made no secret of the fact that she couldn’t wait to move, and that her upward mobility would require as much instruction and help as Eleanor was willing to give.

Maura drained the cup, making Eleanor wait for her to reply. ‘You’ve got the restaurant in Finchley this afternoon. It’s your third visit, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, hopefully they’ll have sorted themselves out this time. Far too steamy for any of the paintings, though maybe not for a lithograph or two.’

‘But before that, you are going to tell me what happened today,’ Maura said. She stretched herself over the top of her Blue Bird typewriter, part of her upper body nearly disappearing into the machine’s cavity.

Eleanor tried to compose the memorandum and field Maura’s questions at the same time.

‘Well?’ Maura asked impatiently.

‘“V” is actually for “very confusing”, if you really must know,’ Eleanor replied as she carried on typing.

‘Aye … and?’ Maura asked more urgently.

‘And … I’m sure you will agree with me, if you ever get to meet him.’

‘Really? Why?’ Maura said, abandoning the typewriter altogether and coming to sit on the edge of Eleanor’s desk.

A group of pigeons shuffled noisily on the windowsill outside, and Eleanor tapped the glass in an effort to shush them away.

‘Just ignore them,’ said Maura. ‘Come on, tell me!’

‘I don’t really know what to say.’

Eleanor was tempted to tell her friend about the meeting and Jack being spirited away, but Maura wasn’t known for her discretion.

‘Well,’ Maura said craftily, ‘you could start by telling me what he looks like … and what he was wearing.’

‘I suppose you would say he is rather good-looking. Maybe Italian heritage.’ Eleanor pictured his dark hair, sun-tanned skin and steady gaze.

‘Can’t you be more specific?’ Maura asked, growing irritable.

‘Maybe I should draw you a picture!’ Eleanor replied with a trace of sarcasm.

‘Now there’s no need to be like that. I just want to know the basics. You know, the important ones like hair colour, eyes, that sort of thing.’

‘Sorry,’ Eleanor replied guiltily.

‘Go on …’

‘Well, he has dark hair and two eyes,’ Eleanor said good-humouredly.

‘Aw, you know exactly what I mean. What colour are they?’

‘I didn’t notice.’

Maura scowled. ‘Why ever not! What were you looking at instead?’

‘Alright, green. They were green. And I was watching him paint. He was just so … so patient with them.’

‘With whom?’

‘The children, of course!’ Eleanor said, as if Maura should know exactly what she was talking about.

‘Aye, but what did he say to you?’

‘Well, not that much, really. He was painting, and I didn’t want to spoil the moment.’

‘Honestly, Eleanor, what’s got into you?’

‘You don’t understand. I was just standing there watching him, but it seemed so … intimate. I didn’t want to intrude.’

Maura sighed. ‘And that’s why you didn’t manage to get the contract signed?’

‘No, I didn’t get the contract signed because he didn’t want to sign it—there’s really not much that one can do in those circumstances,’ she said, knowing it to be half-true.

Clearly disappointed with the lack of any remotely interesting details, Maura returned to her typing. ‘Aye, come on then, better get this sorted before Steadman finishes his meeting. And well done, Eleanor. It’s another artist you haven’t saved from extinction.’

‘Oh dear, Steadman’s not going to be very happy with me, is he?’ she said, worried all over again. ‘Who is he in there with, anyway?’

‘Don’t you know?’

‘No.’

‘It’s Sir Robert Hughes.’

‘Really?’

‘No, I just made it up!’

Eleanor looked alarmed. ‘What do you think he wants?’

‘I have no idea, but they’ve been talking for ages. He arrived just before you got back.’

Sir Robert Hughes was the chairman of the War Artists’ Advisory Committee, and he had never visited their office before. His wife, Lady Hughes, had been advising Lord Woolton on the decoration policy in British Restaurants, so perhaps Sir Robert was getting involved now too.

Eleanor was growing excited at the thought of meeting the man she had read and heard so much about, when the door opened and Sir Robert walked out. He was taller than he looked in any of the newspaper articles. His hair was thinning across the crown, but he had the confident walk of a man with authority. Before he reached the door, he turned and smiled.

Eleanor smiled back. As soon as he had gone, she gave Maura a meaningful look, snatched the memorandum out of her Blue Bird typewriter and hurried into Steadman’s office.

‘What do you mean Mr Valante wouldn’t sign the contract?’ Mr Steadman said, astonished when Eleanor broke the news. ‘What did he say?’

‘He simply said that he didn’t want to. He said he would rather … How did he put it?’ She fiddled with the string of the manila folder. ‘He said he would rather be free to work with whichever department he chose.’

Steadman pursed his lips and frowned, wrinkling his unusually youthful features, before selecting a pen and scrawling a quick signature at the bottom of the memorandum. He wore his usual dark-grey pinstriped suit with a white shirt, red tie and matching pocket handkerchief. Middle age suited him, his fair hair and boyish features giving him an attractive youthfulness.

Eleanor was toying with how to explain what had happened next; it sounded so implausible that Jack had been virtually escorted from the room by two men who weren’t even in uniform. She was beginning to think she had imagined the whole thing.

‘Really!’ Steadman continued. ‘What sort of chap is he? The nerve of it … Hold on a minute—’ he peered at Eleanor over the top of his glasses ‘—what did you say to him, exactly? You did have the right contract with you, didn’t you?’

‘Of course I did. I know all the different contracts, including the Ministry’s one for artists working on the decoration policy.’

Its terms weren’t as generous as the six-month commissions that the WAAC gave—six hundred and fifty pounds a year with transport, accommodation and meals included—but it offered some security at a time when there was little else for artists.

‘That’s right,’ Eleanor said, ‘I remember now—he said he’d rather take his chances and submit work to the various departments than be tied to what and when to paint.’

Steadman stood up and walked to the window, gazing out thoughtfully over the square below. The grassed area had been replaced with a Victory Garden, and a few lunchtime workers were tending the beds. Eleanor stared out too, her eyes fixed on a woman who was turning the soil with a small hoe, nestling seedlings into place.

‘Is that really what he said?’ Steadman asked, looking over his shoulder at Eleanor.

She knew that she had to tell the truth now or her chance would slip away. ‘Yes, that’s exactly what he said,’ she replied, losing her nerve. Her attention came back to Steadman, noticing that his thumbs reached for his waistcoat pocket and missed.

‘And there’s nothing you can think of that would make him change his mind?’

‘I don’t think so, Mr Steadman. He seemed quite decided. But maybe if I try him again?’ She had already made up her mind to take the contract and find Jack; that way she could learn what had happened to him and convince him to sign.

‘Very well, what else is there to do?’ Steadman asked. ‘Nothing, it seems.’ He answered his own question, as was his habit.

‘So, I’ll try again in a few days then, Mr Steadman?’

‘I don’t think so, Miss Roy.’ His pale eyes lingered on her.

‘I am sorry—’

‘It is a shame, especially in light of my discussion with Sir Robert, but it can’t be helped.’

She waited for him to explain, then asked, ‘What can’t be helped?’

‘Never mind, we won’t waste any more of our time on Mr Valante. I am sure that there will be someone else suitable who can take his place.’

Of course, there were artists ready to fill Jack’s shoes—ones who were now free from their advertising jobs, former art-college teachers, commercial artists with no one to buy their work—the country was full of them. And there were no longer books for them to illustrate: the paper ration had seen to that. Artist friends of Eleanor’s who had earned upwards of twenty guineas for their work on magazines such as The Tatler or who had been regular contributors to Picture Post, The Sphere or The Illustrated London News were now all unemployed—but none of them were Jack.

‘Excuse me.’ Mr Steadman retrieved his coat and hat from a hook on the door. ‘If you don’t mind, I’m late for a meeting. Please close the door on your way out, Miss Roy,’ he said abruptly, as he left the office.

Eleanor returned to her desk, frustrated and confused; what had he meant by ‘in light of my discussion with Sir Robert’?

‘Aye, I think he’s really cross,’ Maura said. ‘Your Mr Valante has set the cat among the pigeons. I don’t think anyone has refused an offer before.’

‘No, I don’t think so either.’ But Eleanor didn’t believe that Mr Steadman was so worked up because of Jack; it was more likely something to do with Sir Robert.

‘Come on, Eleanor, what aren’t you telling me?’ Maura said. ‘There’s something more to Mr Valante …’

Eleanor agreed, but right now she was more concerned about letting the department and her family down—and about how she could find Jack and make him change his mind.

IT WAS BARELY a ten-minute motorcycle ride from the Patriotic Building to Queenstown Road, but the bulky materials strapped to Jack’s back slowed him down and made steering awkward. There had been hopes for a warmer spring, but despite an excess of sunshine, the roadside trees were still host to only small buds, and the birds that usually sang the evening song were sheltering from the rain. The roads were already congested with late afternoon traffic, and as Jack weaved through slow-moving cars, racing the dark clouds that chaperoned him home, his thoughts kept circling back to Miss Roy.

By the time he reached Battersea it had started to thunder, and he pushed his Triumph motorcycle through the gate and up the brick driveway just as the rain began to fall.

The narrow Victorian terrace was at the Battersea Park end of the road and was no different from millions of others in the capital; except it was his family home and the only one Jack had had for close to thirty years. Most of the houses in the street appeared empty, windows shattered and roofs reduced to skeletons, newly created amphitheatres of war. Battersea was on the ‘pointy end of it’, he’d explained to visitors from out of town, and he wasn’t exaggerating: their part of London had been especially badly hit during the Blitz, and even now the water service was irregular and the electricity came and went as it pleased. He had tried to persuade his mother to move on many occasions, but she refused; he had come to understand that the noise of the trains, a nuisance to anyone else, gave her a reassuring connection to the outside world. She measured her days by the time the trains rumbled in and out of Waterloo Station, and she didn’t need to use the brass carriage clock that sat on the mantelpiece.

He propped the Triumph on its stand, took off his helmet and goggles, and let himself in. He smelt cooking as soon as he opened the door, then something else—camphor—and found his sister in the kitchen, stooped over the stove.

‘Thank you for dropping by,’ she said pointedly. Her dark hair, usually smooth and neatly pinned, was frizzy around her face, her olive complexion moistened with steam from the pot she was stirring.

‘I’m sorry, Beth. I got held up—’

‘Really, where was it this time? The Rose & Crown or the Star & Garter?’

‘It was a rare finch, if you must know. Spotted him in the trees just off the common.’ Jack pulled a small sketchbook out of his top pocket and flipped open the page at a pen-and-ink sketch of the small bird, with detailed markings on its breast and wings. ‘Thought they had all left—pretty little thing, he was. Not shy at all.’

‘Yes, he is pretty,’ Beth remarked, forgetting she was cross with him. ‘Definitely male then?’

‘Of course,’ Jack replied with a smile.

He was relieved that he’d been able to get away as soon as he had; he had only been working with the Special Operations Executive since February but the demands on his time had already increased so much that he was having to make more and more excuses to his family for his long absences.

‘It is only the animal kingdom, you know, so there’s no need to despair,’ Beth said.

Jack looked quizzical.

‘We’ll find a mate for you yet,’ she added.

‘It’s okay, Beth. One wedding in the family is enough for now, thanks,’ he said and meant it. He appreciated her efforts to fix him up, but he knew he had no time for relationships, especially since he’d be heading overseas at some point soon.

‘You don’t know until you try it,’ she said.

‘So, what did you manage to get hold of?’ he asked, looking at the lumpy brown mass inside the pot and trying to change the subject.

‘It’s scrag end, if you must know—and I had to queue for half an hour, so mind your cheek. Anyway, go and see Mum. She’s not good today.’

He made his way noiselessly down the dark hallway and into the living room, where Anne Valante sat in an upholstered armchair, her head tipped back, mouth slightly agape. Her breathing was shallow and he thought she must be dozing; he moved the wheelchair aside so that he could sit on the stool next to her.

The room was modestly furnished with a long-neglected piano against one wall, a sofa and two armchairs around a coffee table in front of the fire, and a side table where the wireless took centre stage. The floral curtains had faded but the pale cream walls lent the room a real warmth, as well as a neutral backdrop for the many pictures that his mother proudly displayed: Jack’s framed book covers, individual lithographs and nature illustrations. On the mantelpiece, beside the carriage clock, stood a number of framed photographs of Jack in black tie at formal events alongside others of Beth’s wedding and the children’s christenings.

A copy of the Daily Mail lay open in his mother’s lap, and a thick film had formed on the cup of tea that had grown cold on the table beside her. It touched Jack that despite being house-bound, she insisted on getting dressed every day. She looked quite demure in a maroon cardigan and grey dress, with lambskin slippers on her feet, although one had fallen off. She could almost be a duchess taking tea—or, at least, his mother when she’d still been mobile.

He’d bent down to fit the slipper back on when he realised that she was looking down at him. ‘You would make a good spy, creeping up on people like that,’ she murmured.

‘I thought you were asleep,’ he replied, the irony of her words not lost on him—if only his mother knew.

‘I wish I could sleep, I really do.’

‘Not a good night?’

She shook her head.

‘Is it the pain, Ma?’

She nodded, lips pressed together as if she was bracing herself. ‘It keeps me awake at night and then the drugs do during the day.’

His mother had been diagnosed with a degenerative disease when he was still at art school, her movements growing more and more restricted until she finally became wheelchair-bound. For a while the doctors had seemingly given up on finding out what was wrong or any remedy, but they were eventually able to give her disease a name: multiple sclerosis. But it seemed to Jack that medicine had not caught up with the number of people suffering from it, because his mother was told that her only treatment option was the introduction of drugs to dilate her blood vessels, and the love and care of her family.

‘Is there anything I can get you?’ he asked, fighting the urge to take her hand and pull her out of the chair, ready for the afternoon walk they always used to take.

She shook her head.

‘Do you want me to massage the camphor into your legs?’

‘No, pet. You can show me what you did today …’ The tiredness had taken its toll and she looked pale against the cheerful floral fabric of the sofa; even her usually blue eyes were a dull grey.

He wasn’t sure if he should show her the pictures of the orphans when she already seemed so low, so he came to stand beside her and pulled out the quick sketches he had done of the Patriotic Building. He had yet to shade the towers with the yellow wash of Yorkstone and paint the roof a wintry grey, but he had captured the building’s grandeur.

‘Do you remember,’ he said, ‘you used to take us there for picnics?’

‘So we did. You’ve got a good memory,’ she said, hands barely gripping the book. ‘Just as well, I suppose …’

‘I remember how everyone said it was haunted, and Beth didn’t believe it and went inside anyway.’

‘And got lost,’ his mother said, smiling.

‘We always used to take extra bread to feed the ducks.’

‘Wouldn’t be able to do that now.’ She tried to summon another smile.

He thought of how full of life she had been; how he would do anything to see her like that again. ‘Maybe I’ll borrow a car and take you there at the weekend. What do you think, Ma?’ He put the pad away and stifled a yawn.

‘I think you’re both working too hard. I’ve told Elizabeth that she mustn’t come every night, but she won’t listen to me. Will you have a word with her?’

‘I’ve tried but you’re right, she won’t listen. Anyway, it’s my fault—if I could be here more often, she wouldn’t have to come.’