Lovely War(9)

James Alderidge. He was heading off to the war. Training, then trenches. That would be an end, not only of their acquaintance, but, very possibly, of his life.

Or, the end of his life as he knew it. Already there were honorably discharged men to be seen, coming and going, in wheelchairs, missing legs. With sleeves tucked into jackets to hide missing hands. With hideous, disfiguring scars where shrapnel had torn their faces.

She knew this, of course. All of Britain knew what a terrible price young men paid each day to stop the wretched Kaiser. That evil, stupid, horrid man who’d unleashed his army like a dark flood across Europe.

The thought of that fearful price carved into the face of the boy with the dark brown eyes filled her own eyes with tears. So she failed to notice the figure on the street corner, gazing up at her bedroom window.





APHRODITE


     The King’s Whiskers—November 23, 1917





THERE IT WAS. The barbershop. The King’s Whiskers. James smiled. Hazel Windicott lived right above the King’s Whiskers. Did that make her, perhaps, a nose?

The joke was so bad, it made him snicker.

The dark windows of the second-story flat mirrored, dully, the orb of a streetlamp on the corner. A light on the third floor silhouetted a gramophone. He heard strains of a plaintive opera song. Mezzo-soprano. Very romantic.

But there was no hint of Hazel Windicott. Had she told him the wrong address?

He rounded the corner and stopped. The piano girl leaned against her window, lost in thought. James saw long hair spilling down her back, and the neckline of a white nightgown.

Her reverie rooted his feet to the ground.

By day, this corner would ring with the sound of Hazel’s piano playing. That lucky barber, Mr. King’s Whiskers, got to hear it all day long, over the sound of mechanical clippers.

James Alderidge, he warned himself, you only met her once. You don’t know her at all. And you’re a fool.





DECEMBER 1942


     An Interruption





“HE’S RIGHT ABOUT that,” Ares says. “This tale is dull is dirt. Boy meets girl, they dance a bit, and moon about each other. So what? Nothing’s happened.”

Aphrodite’s eyes narrow. “Everything has happened.”

Ares rolls his eyes. “Get to the real doings,” he says. “Get to the Front. The killing fields. That’s where war stories happen.”

“Who asked you?” inquires Hephaestus, diplomat.

“I’m not telling a war story,” says Aphrodite. “This is what I do, and how I do it.”

“Go on,” Hephaestus says. “I’m curious.”

“Then you’re a sap,” the god of war replies. “Here. I know this story. Two sheltered souls meet, boom—they get the hots for each other. They think they’ve invented romance. They gad about for a few days, then he heads off to war. It’s terrible, boo-hoo, he misses his girl, she misses him. They write letters at first, until the trenches turn him from Loverboy into Kid Trying to Keep the Rats from Eating His Face Off. She does some volunteer work”—Ares affects a sneer—“in a brave attempt to be like the boys abroad and do her measly bit. She cries into her pillow, wondering why the letters have stopped. Time passes. They both change. Tragedies pop up like boils. They blame me for their problems. Et cetera.”

If Ares were mortal, the look Aphrodite aims his way would char the flesh off his bones.

“Are you finished?” asks the goddess of love.

Ares doesn’t bother to answer.

“Thirsty, my dear?” asks Hephaestus. He conjures a martini glass filled with ambrosia and causes it to appear in Aphrodite’s open hand. She seems surprised, but she takes a sip.

Hephaestus fluffs a pillow from the bed and arranges it behind his stooped shoulders. “I’m not here because I’m dying to hear from you, warmonger,” says he. “I want to hear my wife.”

Ares laughs. “Are you taking love lessons from mortals now, blacksmith?”

“You could stand a few yourself,” says Aphrodite.





APHRODITE


     Caught—November 23, 1917





JAMES THOUGHT HE’D get away without Hazel seeing him.

But Hazel saw him.

I may have had a little something to do with that.

As I say, I wasn’t interfering, but the whole scene, the street corner, the lamppost, the shadows, the gentle opera spilling down from above, the ruffled nightgown—what was I to do? I’m an artist.

I directed her gaze down to the street. She pulled back from the window when she saw someone standing there. When she saw his head turn away, she leaned in closer.

It was James Alderidge.

Should she mind that he was there? How could she mind something so marvelous?

At the sight of her, his face lit up. He raised his hand in a half wave, then jammed it into his coat pocket and hurried on up the street.





APHRODITE


     A Note—November 23, 1917





YOU IDIOT, you idiot, he told himself. Peeping in windows? She should call the coppers on you.