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She was going to chuck her typewriter at the next person to knock at her office door.
Emberly was unfortunate enough to be the next. She sprang up, thrust the door open and pierced him with a glare that even the most rookie of reporters knew not to question.
“How long have you been in this business, Emberly?” She did not pause. The question was rhetorical; God help him if he answered. “Presumably you do know what the phrase ‘deadline’ means?” He did not speak and yet she managed to cut him off mid nod. “So what part of ‘I am on deadline and not to be bothered’ do you not understand?”
“Miss Frazil”....he trailed off. She would have taken advantage of this and shut the door in his face if she hadn’t seen the gravity of the situation in his eyes. Years of interviews had given her a knack for sensing when someone was about to say something shocking. And right on cue her pulse sped slightly before he even finished telling her.
“Miss Frazil, there’s been a shooting at the old Bleinhem Vale Boy’s School.” He paused waiting for her reaction. She gave him none, and he continued, “Just got an anonymous tip from the hospital. They weren’t sure of a name but said he’s the Detective Inspector. Again, nothing certain but said there was talk among the officers that brought him in that it was a detective constable that shot him.”
“Miss Frazil?”
She recovered. “Being an anonymous tip this was all off the record, yes?” He nodded. “Of course it bloody was. Alright, get Cowley Station on the phone. It’ll probably be in vain. They won’t release a statement before tomorrow morning, but at least maybe feel them out as to what kind if any details they will or won’t release.” She dispatched him with a quick flick of her head and shut the door.
Still on deadline, but she needed a moment.
Detective Inspector? How many Detective Inspectors did Cowley have? She had met the one before. Professional, terse without being rude, a calming presence while Morse nearly shook with rage when her offices had been robbed. Morse…. That funny slip of a man. So stiffly principled when she’d been trying to dash off a fluff piece and enjoy his lovely singing voice all in the same evening.
She froze halfway to her chair. “It was a detective constable that shot him.” No, surely not. She’d seen them together. Morse’s admiration for the man had been painfully clear. Surely he was the victim of circumstance, but what circumstance? Her fingers itched for her notebook, but her heart hurt for him. If she knew anything about Superintendent Bright she knew that getting a statement out of him would be like pulling teeth and then when he finally did cave it would be riddled with cliches that told her and, by extension the general public, nothing. Even if they did allow her an interview with the Detective Constable in custody, if it was Morse the stubborn git would give her nothing.
Emberly materialized at her door. She nodded him in.
“Detective Inspector Fred Thursday in critical condition. Investigation will be ongoing, et cetera.” He rolled his eyes, “And they aren’t releasing the name of the constable in custody.”
“I’m surprised they gave you that much. All we could manage before we go to press would have been a brief anyhow. Do the best you can with their appalling vagaries and put something through.”
He nodded then hesitated.
“Presses run in a quarter of an hour. Why are you still standing there?”
“I’ve followed up on crime stories that Thursday was involved in before. I do have an address...he’s in critical condition but he does have a wife. Might be able to catch her tomorrow morning if she’s running home from hospital.”
What bothered her most was his expectant look as if she were going to commend him on his “go-getter” attitude. “Emberly, step inside. Close the door.” He did. “This woman is the wife of the most well respected Detective Inspector that Cowley Station has seen in years. I would expect you have more knowledge of your profession than to risk upsetting his wife, the person closest to him in this world, thereby forsaking an already somewhat shaky relationship with one of our most important sources for the crime beat.”
She was used to dressing down young reporters but surprised by the stirring and passion she had to almost fight against in what she said next, “Oxford Mail is a respected publication. I have worked for twenty years to hold it to the very highest of journalistic standards in a time where thirty-second newsreels threaten to put us out of business everyday. We are not a gossip rag. We will tell a story thoroughly and fairly or not at all. We have our integrity or we have nothing.”
He was staring at her, as if in shock. She couldn’t blame him. She was incredulous too and yet she continued, “I will not stand for you harassing this poor woman staring down widowhood. Not today. Not ever. Is that clear?”
“Certainly...Ma’am.”
She nearly snorted as he shut her door and she felt her anger dissipate leaving weariness in its wake. When had any of these self assured young men ever referred to her has “Ma’am” before now?
***
Days passed with no further statements from the station, and she found herself not worrying about the story, or lack thereof, but instead worrying about what she had said, “This poor woman staring down widowhood.” She ached for her. She had never met the woman. Never been married herself. Only really met the Inspector a few times, and yet she ached for her. She could find no real reason why, but there it was. She wished she had not given voice to that eventuality, although of course everyone knew it was possible. She tried to placate her thoughts by reasoning that at least if anything did happen to the inspector she would be among the first to know. They would have to write an obituary. This was not actually a particularly soothing thought at all.
Two days later, staring out her window, tapping her pen on the desk, she made up her mind. Poking her head out the office door, she called Emberly and requested D.I. Thursday’s home address. When he looked at her agast she played it off as needing it in her rolodex should it be necessary in the next few days.
She knew that cooking would have been the best thing to do, but she was on deadline again that evening and had been planning on popping down to the pub. She was an expert at making exactly five meals, but had exactly none of the ingredients in the ice box. So when she finally left the Oxford Mail offices at about 8:00 p.m. she found herself, feeling ridiculously like a courting lad, purchasing flowers at one of the stalls on the way to the Thursdays’ house. “What good will flowers do?”, she thought as she fidgeted on the doorstep. “What good will I do for that matter?” It was irrelevant. She was here. She would offer what few words of sympathy she could and be off to the aforementioned pub for a much needed after work scotch.
She knocked and waited. She was on the verge of turning around when the door opened just slightly and a small and sad looking face peered out.
“Mrs. Thursday?”
She opened the door a crack wider but still said nothing.
She transferred the ridiculous bunch of flowers to the crook of her arm and reached out a hand. “Dorothea Frazil”, she hated how uncertain her voice sounded as if she were ordering a coffee and not attempting some strange form of comfort. “I’m with the Oxford Mail”, she said by way of clarification. She realized her mistake as soon as Mrs. Thursday began backing up, shutting the door.
“Oh, no I’m sorry, no…”
“Wait...Mrs. Thursday, this is not a professional call, I just--” she thrust the flowers towards her, “I just wanted to see how you were doing.”
Mrs. Thursday paused. Her eyes softened. She opened the door wider and stepped back. When they were both inside the doorway she took the flowers and after a moment seemed to regain some sense of decorum. “I’ll just get some water for these then.” She walked off toward the kitchen, stopped abruptly, turned, “The sitting room is just to your right. Make yourself at home Mrs....?”
“Miss actually, Frazil, but Dorothea or Dotty to my friends.”
The smallest glint of a smile passed her lips before she nodded and turned on her way. Dotty went through to the sitting room and perched delicately on a sofa. She had a strange feeling of not wanting to disturb anything. This room looked so very lived in, and yet so effortlessly tidy. There was exactly one tea cup and saucer on the table and no steam rising from the tea. In fact it was starting to get that slight film of cream on the top. She expected that tea did not usually sit that long unattended in this house.
Every side table in the room was filled with vases of flowers and she breathed a small sigh of relief glad that she wasn’t the only one. Mrs. Thursday came bustling back into the room bearing a vase full of her own atrocious carnations. “Lovely flowers.” Dotty remarked pointing out the other offerings. It was something to say.
“Can’t think what all the officers were thinking”, Mrs. Thursday laughed bitterly. “It’s not a wake.” Dotty could see in her eyes the moment she realized her attempt at levity had backfired. She set the vase down and looked immediately apologetic. “I’m sorry. These are lovely too, of course. Good of you to come….I’m not being very gracious” she finished as she sat next to her, eyes closed sighing deeply. She had one hand to her eyes massaging them gently. Had the poor woman ever been anything but gracious to anyone? She would have given Mrs. Thursday permission to yell at her if that would have helped, but she didn’t think she would have the energy for it. How long had it been since she’d slept?
“It’s perfectly alright, Mrs. Thursday.”
“It’s Win”, she murmured distractedly patting Dotty’s knee with one hand and picking up the cold tea cup with the other.
“Little better than Eliza Doolittle’s violets these are”, Dotty quipped pointing at the carnations.
Win giggled then blushed as if embarrassed that she could make such a sound, but her shoulders relaxed a bit and the lines at the corners of her eyes that held so much sadness and worry were momentarily lines that struggled to contain a smile. Dotty expected that this was their normal state, and she found those eyes beguilingly, almost painfully beautiful. She was glad that her weak joke had given her an excuse for some kind of release, even if the laughter was so short lived.
Win sipped her tea and made a face realizing it was cold. She set it down then turned suddenly saying, “Oh goodness...would you like…”, she rubbed her eyes again, frowned, looked away. “I’m sorry I should have…” again she put a hand to Dotty’s knee, such a habitual unthinking gesture, it was second nature for her to take care of everyone even a stranger at her doorstep.
Dotty put one hand gently over hers. “Mrs. Thursday,”
“Win”, she corrected
“Win” she continued, “Why don’t you let me do it? And yours looks like it could do with a warm up too, yes?” She nodded looking speechless. “So if you’ll just point me in the right direction?” She pointed vaguely behind her left shoulder. Dotty patted her hand and let go, and, as if jolted back to her senses, Win stood up to follow her saying, “You really don’t need to Miss Frazil.”
“Dotty. And no, I know I don’t need to, but I want to. I’m wagering a guess that you’ve been at the hospital all day?”
Obviously too tired to deny it she nodded. “And after that entertaining no doubt well meaning but rather emotionally overtiring officer’s wives offering condolences?” Another somewhat hesitant nod. “So just let me make you some tea. No trouble at all, Win.” She gave in and sat back down.
“Win.” Making her way to the kitchen Dotty was rather appalled to find herself blushing at the thought of her name on her lips. Honestly. Was she a school girl? She felt more like a school marm these days bossing about her sometimes quite hopeless reporters. They were having tea, she told herself, lighting the gas and putting the kettle on. She had done things in the bedrooms of Oxford women, and a few men, that would make her young reporters swoon in scandalous dismay, and she was blushing at having tea with a housewife. Too much emotionally charged energy in this house she assured herself as a she lit a cigarette and waited for the water to boil.
***
Returning to the sitting room she found Win where she’d left her, nearly asleep sitting up. Waiting for their tea to cool she saw her purse her lips, take a breath and then glance away and begin straightening the figurines on the table, an attempt at appearing casual that failed when her voice shook as she said, “You’ve been to the station? Would they give you an interview? Would Morse give you an interview?” Dotty certainly wasn’t expecting the conversation to go this way so quickly. All of this would obviously be off the record but if she could get it confirmed from another source…
“No. The station gave me a comment, investigations ongoing…” She was going out on a limb here and she felt her conscience prickle, “I have to say I was surprised to hear that D.C. Morse was in custody. I’m sure you must be feeling the same.”
“They won’t tell me anything!” And here was the anger she had clearly been holding at bay for so long. “As if I wouldn’t want to know. ‘So sorry to hear about your husband, Mrs. Thursday. How is he?’ All this fuss over me. It doesn’t help. They’ve no problem making me answer over and over that--” her breath hitched, “that they don’t think he’ll make it.” She took a deep breath and slowly released it. Her breathing was steady now but she closed her eyes as she said, “All I’m asking for is some information”, tears ran down her face.
“Of course”, Dotty whispered handing her a handkerchief. “No one could blame you for wanting that.”
She blotted her eyes rather relentlessly not in the delicate manner of a Hollywood starlet dabbing at her tears, but in the fierce manner of a soldier bleeding but fighting, trying to staunch a wound. “Apparently they could blame me for wanting it. Told me next to nothing during all this mess. I knew where he was going that night. I knew who he was with. Not my fault they could never be bothered to tell their wives anything, but that’s the way it was with us.” She had been folding the handkerchief roughly between her hands as she spoke. Now she pressed it and her voice smooth in a single moment saying, “No, that’s the way it is with us.”
“That’s a beautiful thing to have.”
“Yes.” She agreed. “The most beautiful thing in the world.” She said it so simply as if a partnership, a marriage like that were also the simplest thing in the world. It would have been easy for Dotty, who, though by choice, lived a solitary life, to have resented that out of jealousy, and she might have if she had even an inkling that Win took it for granted, but just by looking at the home so mindfully tended and loved she could see that Win was fully aware of the ways in which the everyday and ordinary were actually the most extraordinary of miracles.
Dotty found her eyes resting on a much polished framed photograph of Mr and Mrs. Thursday and a young woman and teenage boy. She picked it up to look closer saying, “Your children?”
“Sam and Joan”, she said beaming and sniffing, warming to a familiar topic of conversation. “Joan works at the bank and Sam’s in his sixth year. Top of his class too.”
“Where are they tonight?”
“Visiting my sister. Wanted to give them a bit of break. They’ve been at their Dad’s side nearly as much as I have. And honestly…” she looked away. “I thought all this might be easier if I was alone for a bit. Not having to go on taking care of it all as if everything was alright. Course they’re getting to be so grown up these days they do a right proper job of taking care of themselves. But...now that they aren’t here.... It doesn’t seem easier at all really it just seems…. I don’t know...lonely.” She took a sip of her tea and her eyes were years away. “Bit too much like before they were born...well before Sam that is, when I was expecting our Joan and it was just me here in this house.”
“The war?”, Dotty prompted.
Win nodded. She put her cup back down and turned around to face her. Her eyes were so full of everything: sadness, hope, gratitude, worry, it was a wonder she wasn’t drowning in it all, so much so that it didn’t surprise Dotty when she took both of her hands gently but firmly, as if she were keeping her above water. Dotty squeezed them in return.
“I’m so very glad you’re here.”
Dotty picked up the handkerchief and began softly wiping at the makeup that the tears had set awash. Win closed her eyes, suddenly so calm in the midst of such an oddly intimate gesture. And then she took Dotty’s hand in her own and she kissed it. First the knuckles, then the palm, so, so very softly. She moved Dotty’s hand to the small of her back and leaned forward so that they were suddenly a hair’s breadth apart.
Time stood still while she gently tucked a bit of fringe that had fallen into Dotty’s eyes behind her ear and ran her thumb down her cheek. Then the world spun forward thrillingly as she kissed her. Such an exquisite mix of strength and softness. She gave into it for just a moment before pulling away, her face aflame, “Win…”, she sputtered. “You’re very upset. You’re very lonely. I don’t want to take advantage.”
“I know what I’m doing, love.” She rested her forehead against Dotty’s and her breath was even and calm. “I love my husband more than anything in the world, but he has had his secrets. And tonight can be mine.” Dotty let out a breath that she didn’t realize she’d been holding. She moved closer to her, ran her fingers softly through Win’s hair. And gave in to the smile that she couldn’t contain any longer. Giggling in spite of herself at the very cheekiness of the thought as she gave voice to it, “It’s all off the record then.”
***
In the morning that followed Win had remembered a one night stand she’d had with a school mate just before she met Fred. She remembered how she’d gone to bed with him, and how he’d left before she woke, and how he had pretended not to have known her any of the times that they had met in the neighborhood thereafter. She had wondered if Dotty would be the same. But when she woke, she was still wrapped in her arms on the sitting room sofa.
In the years to follow she would remember this morning too. How Dotty had cooked her breakfast in her own kitchen while she bathed and dressed, and held her hand as she sat beside her on the bus to the hospital, and kissed her forehead just before she got off at her stop. That would be the last of their few kisses but the first of their many partings.
When Sam, and later Joan left home Dotty would be there to make her tea, and listen to her many, many worries, and calm them with sometimes blunt but never cruel advice.
When Fred was out late on a job she would bring over fish and chips for the both of them, and make her laugh with stories from the Oxford mail offices, and never once ask about what was keeping her husband out so late.
When Dotty shyly introduced Win to the woman who had moved into her flat Win would recognize the partnership for what it was : the most beautiful thing in the world, and there would be room for them both at her table and in her heart.
Though their one night together would be a secret and a rarity, the friendship that followed would be a constant in both of their lives in all its strength and softness.