Tea Time with JC and Bertie

Tuesday, 19th of May, 1953

Bertie was awoken by the low growl of a motorcycle engine and the flurry of barks of her father's pack of labradors. Porgy had whisked her away immediately after he had spotted her walking back to the club from JC's apartment. He hailed a cab and took her home.

She rolled over and stretched, groaning as the morning sun shone through her gossamer curtains.

A light tapping came at her bedroom door. "Miss, there's a gentleman caller downstairs for you." Marjorie, her governess turned lady in waiting squeaked through her bedchamber's door.

Bertie sighed in exhaustion. "Tell him I'll be down in a moment."

With as much urgency she could muster, Bertie arose, dressed and made her way down from her quarters to the entrance hall, grumbling that she hadn't even had her morning tea as she gracefully floated down the grand staircase.

The butler, Tommy, stood at the foot of the stairs and announced the caller. "A Monsieur Chasez."

"Mr. Chasez will be fine." JC batted away the formality as he removed his motorcycle gloves. He looked rather dashing though he was only wearing a leather jacket, jeans and boots, Bertie silently observed.

"Good morning, Mr. Chasez." Bertie curtsied as she reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Um, hey." He smiled, slightly bowing.

"What brings me this pleasure?"

JC took a light lilac pocketbook out from inside his jacket. "You left this at my apartment last night."

"Oh..."

"Your address is on the front cover of your ration book. It's good to know that someone of such..."-he looked around the room at the gilded ceilings and gold panelled walls-"stature complies with rationing."

She snatched the pocketbook off him. "We all have to, even Yanks like you."

"Of course."

Tommy cleared his throat to gently remind Bertie of her manners.

"Oh, would you like a tour of the grounds?"

"Um, OK," JC accepted.

"Tommy, organise some tea and sandwiches for afterwards."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Thank you." Bertie softly guided JC through to the back garden.

"Fairly nice digs you've got here," JC commented.

"Thank you. My great-grandpapa had the house built when he expanded the business into London."

"And why did your grandpapa-"

"Great-grandpapa," she corrected him.

"-Great-grandpapa build such a... palace."

"It is only a modest place. I wouldn't call it a mansion."

JC chuckled. "It's a mansion in comparison to the house I was raised in."

"I'm sure."

"Well, if you want to know, the house I grew up in had two rooms. A living area downstairs with a stove for cooking, a table for eating and there was a loft upstairs with two beds, one for my parents, and one for me and my younger brother and sister."

Bertie paused. "I think I would die if I had to share a bed with any of my sisters, let alone two."

JC chuckled. "Imagine how difficult it was when I started interfering with myself."

"Real gentlemen don't do that."

"Well according to my time in the army, I can assure you that all men of every stature do."

She sat down on a swing tied to the boughs of a willow tree. "If you don't mind me asking, since we've moved to such sensitive topics, how was one to bathe in such a... limited situation?"

"In the army, or back home on the farm?"

"Either, I guess..."

"Well, in the army, at least at the training camp, there was a shower block. Basically a building with just showers and lavatories. Whilst out in the field, at base they put up a tent with showers, and built lavatories nearby. In the foxhole, you were rationed soap and you gave yourself a sponge bath when you could. Either that or you just... stank. As for taking a shit, you just tried to do it away from everyone else. At home, we had a basin mother would fill up with hot water throughout the day. As for the other, us boys could use the chamber pot in winter, but during the summer we just... shat in the woods. And you?"

"Pardon?"

"You asked how I bathed as a child. What was the bathroom situation for you?"

"We had bathrooms with lavatories. Everyone I knew growing up did."

"Well, there's a few acres of rural Maryland sprinkled with my fossilised shit."

"I imagine it would've been absorbed by the earth, most likely eaten by the worms."

"Why do you figure that?"

"Well, that's what happens to horse droppings in the field."

He shrugged his shoulders. "I guess."

He gently started to push the swing. "Did you grow up around horses?"

"Yes. I'm quite the accomplished rider myself. Did you?"

"Yeah, my folk have an aversion to modern technology, so they use horses for everything."

"Why?"

"Because it's the work of the devil."

"Really?"

"To simplify it."

"And yet you have a motorcycle?"

"I need it to get around somehow."

"Do you miss America?"

"I miss my family. I don't miss the farm, though. If I grew up as well as you did, if the war didn't happen, I imagine I would've gone to college and found work in the city somewhere. Hell, if I wanted to go back home, I could use the G.I. bill to do that."

"Why don't you?"

"I like it here."

He motioned for her to scoot over, sitting next to her. "Do you prefer it here, or your fancy country estate?"

She swallowed as her body tensed up. "Well, the country estate has my horses, but London is so much more full of life."

"And your friend from last night?" he asked in barely a whisper.

"Oh, Porgy. What about him?"

"Am I to expect a wedding announcement? If so, would it be the Times... or...?"

"Oh, no. I don't see Porgy settling down for a while." She bit her lip at the sensation of his breath on her cheek. She squeezed her legs together, trying to subside her arousal. "I mean, I guess if he found the right girl one day, but he currently prefers the company of men, if you get what I mean."

"I think I do."

He took her hand in his. "I guess that means I have a chance then."

Bertie snickered. "I don't see my father giving my hand to someone outside of our social circle. Even if you were upper class, the fact that you're a complete stranger works against you."

JC slowly slipped his hand up her dress , squeezing her thigh. "But you are your own woman. Why do you need daddy's permission for everything?"

"Because I'm living off his money."

He leaned his lips as close to hers as he could without touching them. "I don't need your father's money to fuck you," he growled.

Tommy cleared his throat, interrupting them. "The tea is ready in the drawing room."

"Shit!" Bertie brushed him off her, starting towards the house. She practically locked herself in the drawing room as she waited for her guest. She dug her teeth into her bottom lip and her fingernails into the tablecloth, almost about to rip it off. No man had made her feel this way: her heart was racing and her breath short. She had goosebumps even though she felt like she had a fever. The only thoughts she had were how caught off guard she was and the faint images of the incredibly animalistic things he could do to her that she barely knew of.

A light tapping came at the door of the drawing room. "Yeah, I mean, yes, Tommy?" she answered.

"You left your guest in the garden, Miss," Tommy replied as he bowed to JC as he entered the drawing-room.

"Thank you, Tommy."

"You're welcome." Tommy bowed once again as he closed the door behind him.

Bertie took a deep breath, making a tight smile. "Tea?"

"Thank you, yes." JC pulled a chair out for her, waiting for her to sit down. He took a seat perpendicular to her.

It took a while for Bertie to catch her breath. "You're quite the singer."

"Thank you."

"I've never heard anyone sing like that..." She tried to find the right words to finish her compliment as she poured them cups of tea. "I've never heard someone sing with so much... sadness in their voice. Everyone's so cheery when they sing, like they're trying to show off. Something about you is different." She stirred a teaspoonful of sugar into her cup.

He smiled. "Thank you. I guess you're not well acquatinted with the blues."

She delicately tapped her spoon. "The blues?"

He struggled to find the best way to put it. "Well, think of it this way: It's pretty hard out there for a lot of people. All some people have to express their sadness is the ability to perform music. That's where the blues come from. That aching sadness in their hearts that they have no other way of getting out."

"And you have that same aching feeling?"

JC sputtered, "No, no, no, no." He placed his cup in its saucer. "As hard as it is for me sometimes, it's not as hard as other folks have it."

"But your heart aches?" She watched as he sipped his tea. "If you're so sad, why don't you go home then?"

"Because I had this heartache at home."

"Was it a girl?"

"At one point. My sweetheart didn't want to wait for me to come home so she found someone else, but it was there further back than that." He leaned his head onto his hand. "The best way I could put it is that for a long time, I've just never felt like I fit in anywhere. Not at home on the farm, not in the army, nowhere. It feels more apparent here, ‘cause I'm a foreigner in another country, but I've always felt it."

Bertie sat in silence, trying to express her own feelings. "I'm not saying I feel the same way, but I do feel like I've been left behind a little. All of my sisters and friends are now married or coupled up, or they're enjoying what careers they can have before they choose to marry. I honestly don't feel like I have a purpose, you know? I'm too stupid to go into the family business. I'm not a good enough rider to compete at a high level, I mean I'm no Lis Hartel."

"And I'm no Duke Ellington, but I still play because I enjoy it."

"Yeah, but you still have a purpose."

"Do I? I was raised to believe that my purpose was to serve God, then I was drafted and my purpose became to either kill as many Nazis as I could or die trying. Now my usefulness to the U.S army has passed, what else can I do? I have no education beyond simple reading and arithmetic, and my only other skills are tending to poultry."

"You can sing."

"Yeah, singing. That's only good for a few bob here and there. Barely enough for board and food. I'm lucky if I can afford gas for the bike."

A depressed tension grew between them, neither of them wanting to continue on in their conversation, nor silently wallow in their individual miseries.

"What kind of poultry does your family keep?" Bertie finally asked to break the silence.

"Oh...all kinds I guess. Mostly waterfowl like ducks and geese."

"I thought you Americans preferred turkey."

"For Thanksgiving? Anything would do honestly. It's just that my father finds turkeys to be too aggressive for his liking."

Bertie paused for a moment. "Aren't geese rather aggressive?"

"Yes. I don't understand that either."

After tea, Bertie escorted JC back out to his motorcycle. "Tell me, what does the ‘A' stand for on the front cover of your ration book, Miss Myer?"

"Alberta."

"Well, thank you, Alberta."

"Please, Bertie's fine. Everyone calls me Bertie."

"But that's a boy's name."

Bertie chuckled. "I know. When I was born, my mother swore that she was finished having children. My father, having been denied the son he always wanted to name after himself, he named me Alberta."

JC nodded. "OK."

"Yeah, so," she explained as she rolled her fingers through each ancestor she shared a name with, "I was named after my father, who was named after his father, who was named after the Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha."

"So you're named after a prince?"

"Well, now... quite a few princes and kings. My parents seem to like royal names, my older sisters being Georgina, Mary and Elizabeth-not at all a coincidence that they share names with two of the most recent kings and the two former queens and our current queen, though Elizabeth was born before her royal highness. Are you named after a royal?"

"Technically," he explained as he put his gloves on. "In the Old Testament, Moses had an assistant, an Egyptian named Hoshua, but Moses named him Joshua. After Moses died, Joshua became the leader of the Israelites."

"Oh, OK. Not a prince, though." She tucked her hands into the pockets of her dress. 

"Why do you go by JC then?"

"Well, apparently, no one in the US forces can pronounce Chasez, so they just call me by my initials." He straddled the bike.

"Wouldn't the initials JC be rather common though?"

"It is. I actually served under a Lieutenant called Joshua Crowley, but he was just Lt. Crowley to everyone."

"What was your rank, after you were discharged?"

"I didn't get much higher than private."

"How long were you in the service?"

"Until ‘48, so four years. I've been in England ever since. I was supposed to fly home immediately after my tour of duty was up, but I had a little bit of money, so I came here for a little while. Got caught up in the bohemian lifestyle and never left." 

He tapped the fuel tank. "As for this baby, I learned to ride in the army. Saved up a little playing here and there and got her secondhand."

"I didn't ask about the bike."

"I know, but I think you were still curious."

"I think you're just trying to impress me, and frankly, unless you have a thoroughbred between your thighs, I'm not going to be very impressed."

JC made a coy smile. "I might not have any experience riding competitively, but I can handle a filly if I need to. On the topic of riding things, I can think of one thing I would like to see in between your thighs." 

She pursed her lips in amusement. "If it's you, I'm not interested."

He leaned forward, like a puppy in a playful stance. "I think you are."

"I'm not, really."

"Sad, ‘cause horse-maidens fuck the best."

"Why are you flirting with me if you said that I wasn't easy?"

"I said you weren't easy; I didn't say that I was turned off. Sometimes the chase can be as fun as the catch." He turned the key in the ignition. "Anyway, if you're not into it, I'll stop," he said before he strapped his helmet on. "Do you want me to stop?!" he yelled over the hum of the engine.

Bertie looked around as the groundskeeper ran to the gate to open it. "I beg your pardon?!"

"Do you want me to stop?!"

"Want me to what?! I'm sorry, I can't quite hear you!"

He bit his lip as he smiled coyly. He jump-started the bike, taking her hand out of her pocket and squeezing it. "We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when. But I know, we'll meet again some sunny day," he purred underneath the roar of the engine. He saluted her, and rode off.

She stood and watched him ride off down the road, confused by his motives.