As I prepared for maternity leave, I came across a self-contained chapter of my book The Whispers of War that I had removed from the manuscript because it no longer it. However, this charming date between my heroine Marie and a widower named Richard always stuck with me so I pulled it out of my archive, expanded it, and I’m now publishing in two parts as the short story “The Typewriter.”
Below you will find Part 2. If you missed Part 1, you can find it in my Substack archive by going here.
The Typewriter
III
After lunch, they walked west. It was a beautiful afternoon without a cloud in sight. As they passed through neighborhoods, they saw young people spilling out of cinemas in gaggles of three and four. Women pushed children in prams, and there was a woman in a cloth coat and long skirt selling flowers on a street corner who smiled at Marie and Richard as they passed.
If she squinted, Marie could almost believe that it was a normal day. That there was no war. But every few roads, little reminders would puncture the easy fantasy. A gas mask swinging from the shoulder of a man disembarking from a bus. The headline of a newspaper abandoned on the side of the road. The churned up earth where the iron gate around Hyde Park had been pulled up to be used for scrap metal. Reality tugged at the edge of her mind, but somehow, having Richard by her side made it a little easier to bear those things.
Perhaps it was the conversation. Again they talked, lazily ranging from his boyhood growing up in Sussex to the books she was reading. They even toed up to the question of what each of them wanted their lives to look like after the war. There was some certainty in Richard’s Reserved Occupation keeping him away from the front lines but, as he pointed out, that was only good for now. So many things could change in a war—so many things had changed with the threat of German invasion seeming more and more real as the days rolled on—that everyone’s position was uncertain.
As for Marie, she told him things she’d only ever spoken to Hazel and Nora about. She’d shared her hope that she would one day have a home of her own. She’d expected to shock him when she told him that she also wanted a career—a real career—that she could nurture and grow and become good at, even if she didn’t yet know what it was that she wanted it to be.
“Then a career is what you should have,” said Richard.
“That’s a rather enlightened opinion, if you don’t mind me saying so,” she said.
“I often think that if we stopped forcing everyone to do the things that they don’t wish to do, everyone would be a great deal happier. I know for a fact that not every woman wants to stay home and raise children. My own sister, for instance, wants nothing to do with that sort of thing,” he said.
“Then she has a career?”
“She’s a medical doctor in Canada and probably the most extraordinary person I know,” he said.
“I can’t imagine the things she went through to become qualified,” she said.
He looked up at the sky, as though reaching for a way to describe his sister that would translate. “Helen is…unique. I sometimes wonder if she was born with steel in her veins, but she reassures me that she bleeds when she’s cut just like the rest of us.”
“Do you miss her?”
“I do,” he said with a smile.
“I can’t imagine that you two see one another very often if she lives in Canada,” she said.
“The last time I saw her, she appeared on my doorstep a week and a half after I’d telephoned to tell her about my wife’s death. Apparently the moment she put the phone down she started packing. She said that she didn’t trust me to be by myself. Our parents died when I was just twelve and Helen was seventeen, you see.”
“She took care of you,” she said.
“All through university and the first years of medical school.”
“She sounds like an extraordinary woman,” said Marie.
“She is. She’s also an incredible pest when it comes to trying to run my life. After three weeks of her in London, I woke up one morning and told her that if she didn’t buy a ticket for a boat sailing for Canada, I would abandon the house and make for Scotland.”
She laughed. “What did Helen have to say to that?”
“She closed the book she was reading, took off her spectacles, and announced that clearly I was feeling better so she should be on her way home. The next day she bought her passage and three days later she was on her way back to her patients.”
They’d turned on a little street south of Brompton Road lined with shops. Richard stopped in front of one filled with bric-a-brac and pointed to something in the window.
“You could be a writer still,” he said.
She laughed when she saw a typewriter sitting on a small table. “I don’t know about that. I don’t even know that I’m any good at it.”
“There’s only one way to find out,” he said.
She shot him a quizzical look.
“You need to write,” he said. “And to do that I think you need a fine instrument with which to write. Come along.”
He tugged on her arm, but she sank her wait into her heels. “Richard, I don’t know….”
“The light’s on and there is an open sign on the door,” he said.
“But it seems cruel to look and make them think that I might actually be serious about purchasing one.”
“Let’s just see if we can have a look. What fun is a dream if you don’t sketch out every detail that you would need to make it happen,” he said, twisting the knob of the shop door and pushing it open before she could stop him.
A bell jangled above them, and for a moment they stood in the shop’s entrance seemingly alone. Then an older woman with her gray hair pinned back at the nape of her neck appeared in a doorway leading to what Marie presumed was the back. When the shopkeeper saw the pair of them, her expression softened, and she bustled forward.
“Good afternoon,” said Richard, lifting his hat. “Would it be possible for us to have a look at your best typewriter?”
The woman cast an eye over Marie and Richard. “There’s only the one in the window. They’re harder and harder to come by. Rumor is that older models are to be melted down for scrap to help the war effort.”
“That is a shame, even if it is an understandable sacrifice,” said Richard.
The woman laughed at his solemn formality. “It’s there if you’d like to have a look. I’m just closing up the books. Give me a shout if you need anything.” And the shopkeeper retreated behind the large wood and glass counter holding all number of porcelain knickknacks and pieces of elaborate costume jewelry mounted on velvet boards.
“Come on,” Richard whispered as he grabbed Marie’s hand and pulled her around a rack overflowing with old camel coats and a rather ratty-looking fox fur.
“I really don’t see what the point in this is. I’m not going to buy it,” she said in an urgent whisper.
“Now that is a beautiful typewriter,” said Richard a little louder.
“It is,” she said, casting a look back at the shopkeeper who seemed completely caught up in the ledger open before her.
He dropped Marie’s hand to reach into the window display and turned the typewriter’s little table around so that it faced her. Although a little dusty, it was a fine-looking machine, black and sleek with brass keys and arms that stood like waiting soldiers all in a patient row.
“Why don’t you give it a try?” Richard suggested.
Marie chewed the bottom of her lip, the urge to own a beautiful piece of practicality welling up in her—a nod to the closely held dream she’d had at school and let go when she’d matured into a knowing, wiser adult. Slowly, she stripped off her brown leather gloves. She looked up under her lashes at him, surprised to see a flash of intensity in his eyes as he watched her.
She set her fingers gently on the keys and exhaled. She used a typewriter every day, just like every other secretary in London, but this one felt different somehow. This one wasn’t a tool of a job she did at the pleasure of her uncle, her cousin, or anyone else. If she owned this typewriter, it would be hers. It would become an extension of herself, the keys as natural to her as the pads of her fingers.
“Try it,” he said, his voice hushed.
She pressed down and the F key gave a heavy, visceral thud against the carriage.
“It moves beautifully,” she admitted.
“Wait here a moment.” He wove back through the shop and she could hear him ask something of the shopkeeper, although she couldn’t quite make it out. He returned a few moments later with a piece of cheap white paper in his hand.
“Try typing something,” he said, handing the paper to her.
She loaded the paper, turned the crank a few times, and set her fingers moving with practiced speed. The ink was thin—almost the end of the carriage—but it was easy enough to read when she typed out R-I-C-H-A-R-D and then looked up. He smiled.
“Say something,” she said.
“Like what?” he asked.
“Anything. I’m nearly as fast with touch typing as I am at shorthand.”
“Why don’t I tell you a story?” He gave a little laugh as she transcribed all of that. “Now, let’s see. Once there was a beautiful girl who lived at the top of a very tall tower.”
“Don’t they all?” she asked, her fingers flying.
“In fairytales, they often do. Now, this girl had been told that the reason she lived at the top of this tower was her own good, to keep her safe. For a time, she didn’t mind for she had friends who would visit her and books to read and even records to play.”
“There were records in the tower?” she asked with a laugh.
“This is a very special tower. All of that kept the beautiful girl very happy, but she didn’t stay a girl forever. You see, after some years, she grew into a woman. Now as a woman, she found she wanted different things. She still loved her friends and her books and her records, but she also wanted to go outdoors and see the great, wide world.
“One day, she asked her father, who had built her the tower, why it was that she could not go outside. He told her that just beyond where the eye could see, there was a fierce battle being fought between good and evil. When she didn’t believe him, he gave her a golden spyglass. Sure enough, when she looked through it, she could see the battle being waged. But that wasn’t all she saw. She also saw a handsome prince, riding atop a white steed with his armor flashing in the sunlight.”
Marie’s hands stilled on the keys, and she arched a brow. “If this is going to be one of those stories where the prince rides up on his white steed and performs feats of bravery to win over the beautiful woman while she does nothing but sit there, I’m going to be very cross.”
“Well, we can’t have that. How would you tell the story?” he asked.
“She watches through the spyglass as the prince is wounded on the battlefield. She’s so moved by his pain, that she jumps onto the back of an eagle that flies by the tower window and speeds to him. Although she’s untrained in battle, she takes the fallen prince’s sword, and slays the man who hurt him. The battle stops because the warrior she’s killed is actually the prince’s father, a brutish king who ruled his people by terror.
“When they see what the beautiful woman has done, they drop their weapons and pledge their allegiance to her. She orders that the prince be taken back to her tower where he is nursed back to health, and the pair are later crowned king and queen together to rule side by side for the rest of their days,” she finished with a flourish.
“I think I like your story better,” he said after a moment.
“That’s because my story is better. The prince cannot always be the one who saves the day. Sometimes the beautiful woman should have her due because we women are always underestimated.”
“I would be a fool if I ever underestimated you,” he said.
His body swayed toward her, and she thought for a moment that he was going to kiss her. She wanted him to kiss her. But instead, he cupped her face and brushed a thumb over her cheek.
“Come on, I have something to ask our friend,” he said, jerking his head in the direction of the shopkeeper.
He ran his hand down her arm, lacing their fingers together again. He hadn’t kissed her, but this easy, tender intimacy was almost as good.
The shopkeeper looked up over a pair of half-moon spectacles as they approached. “Done with the paper?”
“We are,” said Richard. “I would like to inquire as to how much the typewriter is.”
“Richard.” Marie tugged on his hand.
“Twenty pounds,” said the shopkeeper.
Marie blanched. “Twenty?” Good Lord, that was as much as a new typewriter might have cost before the war.
“Twenty pounds,” the shopkeeper repeated.
“Are you certain that you can’t do any better than that?” he asked.
“Twenty pounds,” was the answer.
“Well, madam, you drive a hard bargain,” he said.
Marie shot him a look. Hard bargain? She hadn’t even tried to haggle for the typewriter, not that she was going to purchase it—
Is he reaching for his billfold?
Before she could stop him, Richard pulled out a black leather wallet and began to count out bank notes. Her head swam. Why was he buying such an expensive piece of equipment on a whim? Why on earth was he carrying around so many pound notes?
Marie gripped his arm. “What are you doing?”
“Buying you a typewriter.” He leaned into her as he put the last note down. “Not all beautiful women wield swords, I’m told.”
“Would you like it wrapped up?” asked the shopkeeper.
“Just its case, I should think. Thank you,” he said.
“I have it in here somewhere,” said the shopkeeper, opening up one of the cabinet doors opposite the display case.
Marie stood there stunned as Richard and the shopkeeper chatted while the shopkeeper moved things around until she spotted the typewriter’s case. The pair of them acted as though it was the most normal thing in the world for a man to purchase a typewriter for a woman after two dates. Yet none of this was normal.
Marie glanced at Richard. He wasn’t as handsome as a fairytale prince, but the warmth she felt toward him was as unmistakable as it was growing. He was intelligent and interesting and interested in her. There was something altogether serious about him, but without the burden of seriousness. And when he looked at her, there was a softness of something unspoken in his eyes.
IV
With the typewriter in its case, Richard waved goodbye to the shopkeeper, steering Marie out onto the pavement. He offered her his arm. Still a little shaky from the developments of the last ten minutes, she slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow, not bothering to replace her gloves.
“Thank you,” she said after they walked halfway down the road in silence.
“It was nothing.”
She stopped in the middle of the pavement. “It wasn’t nothing. No one has ever been this generous to me. No one.”
“They should’ve been,” he said.
“You don’t understand.”
“I want to understand, Marie,” he said, taking her hand and giving it a squeeze. “I want to understand everything there is to know about you.”
She could feel his eyes on her as she took a cautious half step toward him. She put her hand on his upper arm, his muscle twitching under his jacket. Then, slowly, she rose up on her tip toes and pressed a kiss to his lips.
A shudder went through him, as though he was fighting desperately to hold back something he wasn’t yet ready to show her. His lips were warm against hers, and she tilted her head back a little bit to fit him better. The movement dragged her lips across his, and it must’ve ignited him because all at once his arms were around her, the typewriter case brushing against her back, and he was pressing his lips harder to hers. He kissed her—properly kissed her—right there in the middle of the road where anyone could see as though he didn’t care who she was or where she was from. As though all that mattered was that he hold her.
When finally he pulled back, he dropped a kiss to her cheek and whispered against her skin, “I told you you overwhelm me.”
“I don’t know why. I’m not so very special.”
He set her back at arm’s length, his expression earnest. “That is where you’re wrong, and I’ll convince you of that one day, no matter how long it takes. I promise you that.”
“Maybe you can convince me a little bit while you walk me home,” she said.
“It would be my pleasure. And Marie?”
She glanced at him even as he offered her his arm. “Yes?”
“Happy birthday,” he said. “I hope twenty-four will be everything you hoped.”
A slow smile spread over her lips. Perhaps it would be.
My book The Whispers of War, a story of friendship and loyalty on the British Home Front, is available in print, ebook, and audiobook. Further information is available on my websi