Chapter 8

The Shoulder of Mutton reared its thatched head at Buckingham and Newton roads, the bar cozy and bright, the private sitting room low beamed and inviting. It was everything Beth feared about social gatherings: tight quarters, loud noises, cigarette smoke, fast conversation, strange people, and men. Anxiety choked her throat, and she couldn’t stop fiddling with the end of her plait like it was a lifeline.

“—you billet here, Giles? ” someone was asking the lanky red-haired man. “Blimey, you got lucky. ”

“Don’t I know it, Mrs. Bowden’s a gem. Not much bothered by rationing; I swear she’s queen of the local black market. We’ve got the private room, get your drinks. . . ”

Beth found herself clutching a sherry she didn’t dare sip. What if her mother smelled liquor on her breath?

“Swig that down, ” Mab advised.

“W-what? ” Beth was eyeing the group piling around the table. Osla, laughing as an army lieutenant lit her cigarette. . . several gangling academic sorts gawping at Mab like puppies. . . red-haired Giles and a truly massive black-haired man who had to duck under the rafter. . . all of them worked at the mysterious Bletchley Park, so what was Beth doing here? She didn’t know what to make of these people—some looked so shabby in their patched tweeds that her mother might have taken them for tramps, but they talked in such overeducated drawls she could hardly understand a word they said.

“Relax, ” Mab said. She had a glass of beer, and she’d thrown one leg over the other in casually elegant fashion. “We’re only here to talk books. ”

“I shouldn’t be here, ” Beth whispered.

“It’s a literary society, not a bordello. ”

“I can’t stay. ” Beth set her sherry down. “My mother will pitch a fit. ”

“So? ”

“It’s her house, her rules, and I—”

“It’s your house, too. And really, it’s your father’s house! ”

Beth’s words dried up. Impossible to explain how slight a presence her father really was in the Finch household. He never put his foot down. He wasn’t that kind of husband, that kind of father. The finest of men, Beth’s mother always said smugly when other women in the village complained of overbearing husbands.

“I can’t stay, ” Beth repeated.

“‘The greatest tyrants over women are women, ’” Mab quoted. “Have you read that far in Vanity Fair? ” She arched one brow, then addressed the men across the table. “So, shall we vote on a book every month? How shall we tally up—”

“Popular vote, ” one of the skinny academics was saying. “Or the ladies will have us all reading romantic tosh—”

“Romantic tosh? ” Osla demanded, squashing in on Beth’s left. “The last thing I read was Vanity Fair! ”

“That’s about girls, isn’t it? ” Giles objected.

“It’s written by a man, so that’s all right, ” Mab said tartly.

“Why do you men get the swithers if you have to read anything written by a female? ” Osla wondered. “Aren’t we a century out from poor Charlotte Brontë signing herself Currer Bell to get published? ”

Fish and chips arrived, leaking grease. Beth didn’t dare touch hers, any more than the sherry. Nice girls did not eat in public houses; nice girls did not smoke or drink or argue with men. . .

Osla’s a nice girl, Beth thought, marshaling arguments for later. Nothing Mab did was going to find approval with Mrs. Finch, but Osla was another story. She’s been presented at court; you can’t say she isn’t a lady, Mother! And here Osla was crunching up chunks of fried cod, swilling sherry, and arguing with Giles about Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, obviously having a grand time.

Somehow Beth didn’t think that argument was going to weigh much with her mother, either. Mrs. Finch wasn’t going to care about anything except that Beth had gone out, without permission.

“I vote for Conan Doyle, ” the huge dark-haired man on Beth’s right was saying. “Who doesn’t like Sherlock Holmes? ”

“You’ve already read everything Doyle ever wrote, Harry. . . ”

He didn’t look like a Harry, Beth thought, trying not to stare at the man. He wasn’t just enormous—nearly a head taller even than Mab; broad enough he’d nearly turned sideways through the door—but he was black haired and swarthy, almost dark skinned. Beth could imagine the village ladies whispering, “Is he a wog or an Eyetie? ” but he didn’t sound like a foreigner. He had exactly the same university drawl as the rest.

“Maltese, Arab, and Egyptian, ” he said, catching Beth’s eye.

She flinched. “What? ”

“My father’s family is originally from Malta, my mother was born to an Egyptian diplomat and the daughter of a banker from Baghdad. ” He grinned. “Don’t be embarrassed; everyone wants to know. I’m Harry Zarb, by the way. ”

“You speak English very well, ” she managed to reply.

“Well, my branch of the family’s been London based for three generations, I was baptized Church of England, then went through Kings College in Cambridge like my father and grandfather before me, so. . . be rather embarrassing if I didn’t speak English well. ”

“I—I’m so sorry, ” Beth whispered, mortified.

“Look like me and everyone thinks you were born in a tent on a sand dune. ” He shrugged, but Beth was too embarrassed to answer. She let the talk pass over her head, reaching for the newspaper abandoned at the next table and turning for the crossword. It was half obliterated by grease stains but she fell into it gratefully, doing it up with a pencil stub.

“You went through that like a Derby winner, ” Osla laughed, but Beth just stared down at her feet. Would this night never be over?

ONE LOOK AT her mother, sitting at the kitchen table with her Bible, two bright spots of color flaring in her cheeks, and Beth shriveled down to her bones. “Now, you mustn’t put yourself in a pucker, Mrs. F, ” Osla attempted with her winning smile as they filed into the kitchen. “It’s not Beth’s fault—”

“We dragged her out, ” Mab added. “Really—”

“Hadn’t you better get to bed, girls? ” Mrs. Finch looked at the kitchen clock. “Lights out in twenty. ”

There wasn’t anything the other two could do but go upstairs. Mrs. Finch’s nose twitched at the smells of cigarette smoke, beer, sherry. “I’m sorry, Mother—” Beth began, but that was all she managed to say as her mother seized her arm.

“The whole village will be talking. Did you think about that? ” Mrs. Finch didn’t shout, she spoke sorrowfully. That made it so much worse. “The ingratitude, Bethan. The disgrace. ” She held out her Bible, open to Deuteronomy. “‘If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them—’”

“Mother—”

“Did you think that didn’t apply to daughters? ‘They shall say to the elders of the city, “This daughter of ours is stubborn and rebellious, she will not obey us, she is a glutton and a drunkard—”’”

“I didn’t drink a drop—”

Mrs. Finch shook her head sadly, holding out the Bible. Beth took the heavy book and held it straight out, tear-blurred eyes fixed on the page of Deuteronomy. The longest she’d ever had to hold it up was thirty agonizing minutes. Surely it being so late, Mother wouldn’t—

“You’ve disappointed me, Bethan. ” A hard pinch to the inside of Beth’s arm as the Bible began to droop, then the gentle disapproval flowed on. Beth had behaved shamefully. She had disgraced her mother, who took care of her when she was too slow-witted and head-in-the-sky to look after herself. Beth was lucky she’d never marry and have children, so she’d never know how they broke your heart. . . Fifteen minutes later, Beth was hiccupping with sobs, tears dripping off her hot cheeks, arms shaking and burning with the effort to keep the book level with her eyes.

“Of course I forgive you, Bethan. You may lower the Bible. ” A pat instead of a pinch to Beth’s arm as she dropped the book. “This is bringing on one of my headaches. . . ”

Beth flew teary eyed for a cold cloth, a footstool. It was half an hour before she was allowed to go to bed. Her arms hung loose as noodles, muscles aflame. Finally daring to massage the tender flesh inside her elbow—Mrs. Finch had strong fingers; they pinched so hard—Beth reached the first landing and heard voices through Osla and Mab’s door.

“—poor Beth, ” Osla was saying.

“She could grow a spine, ” Mab responded tartly. “If my mother went at me like that at my age, I’d dish it right back. ”

“She’s not you, Queen Mab. I’ve never seen anybody so perfectly, hopelessly Fanny Price in my life. ” Mab made an inquiring noise. “You know, the dishrag heroine in Mansfield Park, who goes about looking like a dog’s dinner and raining on everyone’s fun? Don’t tell me you haven’t read Austen—”

Beth didn’t wait to hear any more. Tears sliding from her eyes all over again, cheeks burning with dull humiliation, she stumbled into her bedroom. How idiotic, how pathetic, thinking that because the Bletchley Park girls threw her a few nice words like a bone to a dog, they actually liked her in the slightest. Even more idiotic and pathetic to think that just because the redbrick mansion down the road had become a hive of wartime activity, life would change.

Nothing for Beth was going to change, ever.

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