wearing that damned jacket when Colonel Dan got there. I thought we were heading for a real showdown. “What uniform are you wearing, Captain Madigan?” the old man said. Vince saluted smartly and said, “The one with the Christmas decorations, sir.” The Colonel smiled and took the drink Vince offered him. “If the provost marshal comes in here tonight, Madigan,” said Colonel Dan, “they’ll throw us both in the cooler.” Vince grinned and said, “That’s just the way I figured it, Colonel…” That Vince can talk his way out of anything. He told me he ran off with some married woman when he was still a kid in high school.’
‘Poor Vera.’
‘Poor Vera nothing! She was sitting on the stairs petting with MM after Vince took off.’
‘Is it the war that’s made us like this?’
‘Don’t be so female,’ said Jamie. ‘People grab a little happiness while there’s a chance. All I’m saying is, don’t let’s worry about Vera or Vince. Let them work out their own lives. Who knows when MM will buy the farm, who knows when I will.’
‘Buy the farm?’
‘Collect our government insurance.’
‘Don’t say things like that, I can’t bear the thought of anything happening to you!’ She buried her head under the bedclothes.
‘Come out of there, you crazy girl.’ He pulled the blanket down and admired her bare body. ‘Are you sure your parents won’t come back?’
Her head was under the pillow; she grunted a negative.
‘How can you be so sure?’
She threw off the pillow and turned over to laugh at his nervousness. ‘Because they’re with my grandparents in Scotland. They phoned this morning. You can relax.’
‘You didn’t want to go?’
‘We were working. My father said I shouldn’t ask for extra time off—the war comes first.’
‘Your father’s right,’ he said, caressing her. ‘Fathers are always right.’ She watched him. He hadn’t looked so tanned before, but now, compared with her own skin and the white sheets, he seemed like a bronze statue.
‘Was your father always right too?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know anything about my father,’ he replied.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘He’s not dead. My parents were divorced when I was only a kid. I stayed with my mother, and she got married again to a man named Farebrother. I guess a bridegroom gets a little tired of checking into a hotel and explaining why his kid has a different name.’
‘What’s your father’s name?’
‘Bohnen. Alexander Bohnen. His family came from Norway originally. They were boat-builders.’
‘Was your father one too?’
‘Not enough money in that, I guess.’ He was still staring at the ceiling. ‘Give me a cigarette, will you, sweetheart?’
‘You sound like Vince when you say “sweetheart”.’ She gave him the packet of cigarettes he’d put on the bedside table and the gold lighter that was balanced on top.
‘My father is an investment consultant in Washington DC. Or rather was. Now he’s become a full colonel—a chicken colonel they call them—in the Army Air Force. He went from civilian to colonel over night, and naturally he’s a staff officer, the difference between a staff officer and an investment consultant being largely sartorial.’
‘Naturally? I don’t know what an investment consultant does.’
‘I don’t either,’ Jamie admitted. ‘But I guess he tells people who need a million dollars where to get them cheaply.’
Victoria laughed. It was just another glimpse of this crazy American world. ‘He sounds like a man who works miracles.’
‘You took those words right out of my father’s mouth.’
‘You don’t like him?’
‘He’s tough and practical and successful. My father works twenty-four hours a day, drinking with the right people and dining with the right people. My mother had to play hostess in a town where entertaining is a highly competitive sport, and my father’s a harsh critic. He never married again—he didn’t need a wife, he needed a professional housekeeper.’
‘And your mother’s happy?’
‘She’s always been quiet and easygoing. My stepfather isn’t a genius, but he makes enough dough for them to sit in the sun a lot and take it easy. Santa Barbara is a great place for taking it easy.’ Jamie lit a cigarette. ‘My father should have been a politician. He’s a Mr Fixit. I guess he figured Uncle Sam would lose the war unless he got into uniform and told the Army what to do.’
‘Don’t you ever write to him?’
‘I get a monthly bulletin—mimeographed, but with my name inserted in his own handwriting—the same chatty little newsletter that he sends to all his important business contacts. That’s how I know he’s with the Air Force here in England.’
‘You never write back?’
He drew at his cigarette. ‘No, I never write back. You’re not going to start chewing me out already, are you?’
‘It is Christmas, Jamie. He’s your father, you could phone him.’
‘My father will not have noticed it’s Christmas.’ He’d only taken a couple of puffs at the cigarette, but he decided he didn’t want it any more and stubbed it out on the back of Victoria’s powder compact, tossing the stub into a flower vase. Victoria was appalled but decided not to ‘chew him out’. Instead, she leaned across and switched the light off again. When she’d snuggled down into the bedclothes he put his arm around her. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll phone him in the morning.’
She cuddled closer to him and pretended to be asleep.
Even the Savoy Hotel’s youngest waiter could tell at a glance which men were Americans. They toyed with their food, holding forks in their right hands, and they distanced themselves from the table, turning their chairs sideways, and sometimes pulling back so they could sit with crossed legs. Only the British guests kept their knees under the table and addressed themselves wholeheartedly to the food.
Colonel Bohnen knew most of the men lunching in the private room that day, and even those he’d never met weren’t strangers, for he’d spent all his life with men like these—businessmen and civil servants and diplomats, even though so many of them now wore military or naval uniform. His white-haired companion was one of his closest friends. ‘If I live to be one hundred years old,’ Bohnen was telling him, ‘I’ll never equal the bang I got out of hearing my son’s voice on the phone.’
‘I’m glad he called, Alex.’
‘P-51s! He’s a captain assigned to the 220th Fighter Group. He’ll be flying fighter escort missions over Germany.’ Colonel Bohnen put his fork down and abandoned his meal.
‘You’ve arranged everything for him, no doubt,’ said the older man, with just a trace of mockery in his voice.
‘It’s my only son!’ said Bohnen defensively. ‘Certainly I had one of my assistants phone his commanding officer and mention that headquarters had a special interest in this newly assigned captain.’ Bohnen scratched his face. ‘He got a rather insubordinate response. To tell you the truth, I’m beginning to have misgivings about Jamie’s CO.’ His voice trailed away.
‘Don’t leave me in suspense,