And she had placed herself opposite him in a near empty carriage.
Stanton pulled his thoughts up short.
He stared hard at his newspaper.
She hadn’t placed herself opposite, the waiter had. Doing that irritating thing that restaurant staff often did, clustering their customers together despite there being plenty of space.
Besides which, what did it matter where she sat?
What the hell was he thinking about?
This was the second time in less than a day that he’d been struck by feminine beauty and the first time had turned instantly to tragedy.
Still, he stole another glance.
She was in her late twenties or early thirties. Not much younger than he was. Travelling alone. Such a sweet face.
He poured himself another cup of coffee and, putting aside his Tribune, tried to focus on his German-language newspaper. He was on a mission, active service. He shouldn’t be thinking about girls. Besides which, he was in mourning for his wife. He resolved not to look again.
Then the woman spoke.
‘Well, what do you think?’ she said, quite out of the blue.
Stanton looked up and glanced around, imagining that she was about to be joined by a companion.
‘No, you,’ she went on, looking squarely at Stanton. ‘I was wondering what you thought.’
Oi was wondering what yez tort.
Such a lilting accent and quite pronounced. He wondered whether she didn’t affect it a little, feeling that a smartly dressed woman who could afford to travel first class would in this age have been brought up to speak less colloquially.
‘Excuse me?’ Stanton said. ‘Thought about what?’
‘Me, of course,’ the woman went on, ‘or what else have you been thinking about since I sat down?’
‘Well, I …’ He was completely taken aback. Stanton was a handsome man and not unused to female attention but even in the twenty-first century he couldn’t remember being called out in such a way. He expected it much less in a time when women most certainly didn’t address strange men in public. ‘I can assure you, miss …’ he began.
‘Oh, don’t deny it and make me look a fool,’ she said. ‘Be a gentleman and admit it, why don’t you?’
Stanton struggled to reply. She’d thrown him completely.
‘I don’t believe you caught me looking,’ he said finally.
‘So you were looking then?’ she replied, affecting a semi-comical frown, like a prosecution barrister leaping on an inconsistency.
‘I don’t say that. I don’t say that at all. I only say I don’t believe you caught me looking. Be a lady and admit it, why don’t you?’
She smiled and her eyes seemed almost to laugh.
‘Ah,’ she sighed, ‘now, being a lady is never something I’ve been awfully good at.’
‘So you admit you didn’t catch me looking?’
‘I never said I had caught you looking. I merely said that you were looking. And were you?’
He knew that denial was pointless.
‘Well, perhaps a bit.’
‘So, to get back to where we began. What did you think?’
Now he was really flustered.
‘Well, I … how did you know I was looking at you if you didn’t catch me?’
‘Oh come on, Mr …’
‘Stanton.’
‘Mr Stanton, how much of an expert in human nature does a lone woman who’s sitting opposite a lone man on a train have to be, to know that he’ll steal a glance? I don’t say you thought much, mind you. You might not have been interested at all. Or you might have thought, “Bother, wish she’d been blonde like those lovely Viennese girls.” But you thought something.’
She looked at him with those very slightly hooded eyes, twinkling emeralds they were, framed beneath wild strawberry blonde tresses.
‘All right,’ he admitted. ‘I have in fact been thinking about you since you sat down. And what I was thinking, I had no business to think, because I was thinking how very … nice, you looked.’
‘Nice?’
‘Yes. Very.’
‘And why had you no business thinking that? I think it’s a lovely thing to think.’
Oi t’ink it’s a lovely t’ing to t’ink.
‘Well, you know … a lady sitting alone and …’
‘Oh yes, of course, because you didn’t know I wasn’t a lady, did you? Shall I tell you what I was thinking?’
‘Uhm, yes, that’d be great.’
‘Well. First of all, I thought you looked nice too. But on its own that wouldn’t have made me speak to you. There’s a lot more handsome men in the world than there are interesting ones, and to find one that’s both is rarer still, and to come across one when you’re sat alone on a train with hours and hours to go is a blessed miracle. I’m Bernadette Burdette, by the way.’
‘Very pleased to meet you, Miss Burdette,’ Stanton said. ‘What made you think I might be interesting?’
Her nose wrinkled slightly in thought.
‘Well, now. You have an interesting face but that can be deceptive. I suppose mainly the newspapers. Any man who is able to read the news in two languages and chooses to do so can’t be a complete bore, can he? Particularly a soldier. Soldiers aren’t usually the most sophisticated people in my experience. Certainly not my brother’s comrades anyway. Or my brother for that matter.’
‘How on earth did you know I was a soldier?’
‘Oh, just your bearing, I suppose. And when I heard you order, you sounded like a soldier.’
‘Heard me order? You mean, you …’
‘Oh yes, I’ve been in the carriage for a little while. In a seat at the end. I had them move me to this one.’
Stanton tried to take stock. What was going on? Was she hitting on him? Did girls in 1914 hit on guys? For a mad moment he wondered whether in some way she was on to him. A mysterious female spy on a train who knew about his mission. But that simply wasn’t possible. Perhaps she just wanted to talk to him.
And he knew that he wanted to talk to her.
‘Might I join you?’ he asked. ‘Perhaps we could even have a bit of lunch together.’
‘Well, I’m afraid that depends,’ she replied. ‘First you have to pass the test.’
‘Test?’
‘Where do you stand on female suffrage?’
He should have guessed it, of course. There was one issue and one only that dominated the thoughts of independently minded women in the early summer of 1914.
‘I’m afraid I couldn’t lunch with a man who didn’t consider me of equal value as a member of society. It’s a very strict rule.’
Stanton decided to lay it on thick.
‘I think the fact that the women of the world are denied the vote—’ he began.
‘Except in glorious, wonderful New Zealand,’ she interrupted.
‘Except as you say, in New Zealand … is crazy, illogical, unjustifiable, imbecilic and deeply immoral. That is where I stand on the issue of female suffrage, Miss Burdette.’
‘In that case, I think we must certainly have lunch,’ she said. ‘And I’d be obliged if you’d call me Bernadette.’
‘After all,’ Stanton added, ‘women hold up half the sky.’
‘Oh my goodness,’ she said, gulping, ‘that is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard anybody say. Let alone a man. Call me Bernie.’
25
HE HAD KNOWN that he was properly flirting when he played the Chairman Mao quote. And sitting down opposite Bernie Burdette, he wondered to himself how he felt about that. He’d never imagined himself flirting again.