Now she’s shouting down the telephone at a woman, I don’t ken who.”
I hesitated. “Mr. Kilgore, you said you were Eve’s driver. Could you—could you possibly take me somewhere? I don’t know London well enough to walk, and I don’t have the fare for a cab.”
I thought he’d object, considering he didn’t know me from Uncle Sam, but he shrugged, scrubbing his hands dry. “I’ll pull the car up.”
I looked down at my old dungarees and sweater. “I’ll need to change.”
By the time I was ready, Finn was standing in the open doorway, tapping his boot as he stared out at the street. He looked back over one lean shoulder as he heard the clack of my heels, and not just one but both of those straight black brows rose. I didn’t mistake it for admiration. The ensemble was the only clean change of clothes I had in my traveling case, and it made me look like a china shepherdess: a fluffy white skirt over layers and layers of crinoline; pink hat with a half veil; spotless gloves; and a tight pink jacket that would have molded to every curve, if I’d had a single curve to mold to. I lifted my chin and flicked the silly veil down over my eyes. “It’s one of the international banks,” I said, and handed him an address. “Thank you.”
“Lasses in that many petticoats don’t usually bother thanking the driver,” Finn advised, holding the door open so I could walk under his arm and outside. Even in heels, I cleared his elbow without needing to duck.
Eve’s voice came from the end of the hall as I reached to close the door. “You bat-blind bloody French cow, don’t you dare hang up on me . . .”
I hesitated, wanting to ask her why she was helping me. She’d been dead set against it last night. But I didn’t press for details yet, for all that I wanted to shake her bony shoulders till she coughed up what she knew. I didn’t dare anger her or put her off, because she knew something. Of that I was certain.
So I left her to it and followed Finn outside. The car surprised me: a dark blue convertible with the top pulled up, old, but buffed shiny as a new dime. “Nice wheels. Eve’s?”
“Mine.” The car didn’t match his disreputable stubble and patched elbows.
“What is it, a Bentley?” My father had a Ford, but he liked English cars, and he was always pointing them out whenever we came to Europe.
“A Lagonda LG6.” Finn opened the door for me. “Hop in, miss.”
I smiled as he took his seat behind the wheel and reached for the gearshift half buried in my spreading skirts. It was rather nice to be among strangers who didn’t know my soiled recent history. I liked looking into someone’s eyes and seeing myself reflected as someone who deserved a respectful miss. All I’d seen when I looked into my parents’ eyes the past few weeks was whore—disappointment—failure.
You are a failure, my nasty inner voice whispered, but I pushed it away, hard.
London went by in a blur; gray, cobblestoned, still showing rubble, cracked roofs, and bites taken out of seemingly whole walls. All from the war, and yet it was 1947. I remember my father exhaling contentedly over the newspapers after V-E Day, saying, “Excellent, now it can all go back to the way it was.” As if roofs and buildings and shattered windows just leaped back into wholeness the day after peace was declared.
Finn negotiated the Lagonda through a street so badly holed it looked like a piece of Swiss cheese, and a thought made me look at him curiously. “Why does Eve even need a car? With gas as short as it is, wouldn’t it be easier to get around by tram?”
“She doesn’t do well with trams.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Trams, confined spaces, crowds—they set her off. She nearly blew up like a grenade last time she took a tram. Shouting and throwing elbows at all those housewives with their shopping.”
I shook my head, wondering, and with a rumble the Lagonda pulled up before the imposing marble-fronted bank that was my destination. My face must have betrayed my nervousness because Finn said rather gently, “Want an escort, miss?”
I did, but a lurking Scotsman who needed a shave wasn’t going to make me look any more respectable, so I shook my head as I swung out of the car. “Thank you.”