Transcription

by Kate Atkinson

  (Laughter all together)

  There was some discussion about the different routes home they were going to take. Godfrey said it was a good idea to vary the routes.

  GODFREY. Thank you for a very fruitful evening.

  They all leave together.

  End of RECORD 21. 19.45

  Invisible ink, Juliet snorted to herself. Perry and Godfrey, together with MI5’s department of tricks, were always coming up with little gifts and gimmicks to keep the neighbours fooled. The invisible ink (‘Hard to get, use sparingly,’ Godfrey advised them), or rice paper that could be eaten (‘If necessary,’ he said solemnly). Stamps and envelopes, too, for all their endless communications with other people. Money for telephone calls. Godfrey’s flat had a telephone – VICtoria 3011 – so they could contact him when he was there. Apparently GPO engineers had spent some time trying to devise a remote answering machine before giving it up as a thankless task.

  Godfrey’s informants were suitably impressed by how much value the Third Reich placed on them. They were hopelessly gullible. ‘We believe what we want to believe,’ Perry said.

  Occasionally someone from MI5 would phone Juliet and ask her to take a message for Godfrey. She would write it down and then nip next door and leave it on the little hall table for him.

  ‘While you’re in there, Miss Armstrong,’ Perry said, ‘perhaps you could whisk around with a duster, empty ashtrays and so on. Better you do it than have some charwoman snooping around.’

  By the time she had formulated a response to this (But surely, sir, I wasn’t recruited by MI5 to whisk dusters around?) he was out of the door. A moment later he was back and, giving her the encouragement of his really rather lovely smile, said, ‘There’s a carpet sweeper somewhere, I believe.’

  Cyril arrived, eager as ever. ‘Evening, miss.’

  ‘Evening, Cyril.’

  ‘Do you fancy a cuppa, miss?’

  ‘No, thanks, I’m almost finished.’

  ‘Well, I’ll get on then, the equipment needs a bit of tinkering with.’ The equipment was sacred to Cyril, he tended it constantly. He was a listener, too, an amateur radio enthusiast who had been ‘volunteered’ by MI18 to spend his spare time intercepting German broadcasts, scanning shortwave bands and transcribing Morse code. Juliet wondered when he ever got time to sleep.

  Juliet hammered her way to the end of the final record. She rubbed her temples – she had been getting more headaches than usual because she had to concentrate so hard to understand what the informants were saying. Quite a bit of it was guesswork. Sometimes she wondered if she wasn’t just making things up, filling in the gaps to make sense of it. Not that anyone would notice. And if she didn’t, she would look like an idiot and Perry might go looking for another girl – although whoever he found would need to have the hearing of a bat.

  Juliet had been off for a couple of days with a cold and another girl – Stella Chalmers – had been drafted in to take her place. ‘I don’t know why Miss Chalmers bothered,’ Perry said, showing Juliet the transcriptions, which were as full of holes as a fishing-net. ‘It’s hardly worth you going to the bother of filing this nonsense. Apparently Cyril found her weeping over the typewriter.’

  ‘It is rather frustrating work, sir,’ Juliet said, secretly pleased with how inadequate poor Stella had been. She obviously hadn’t learnt how to fill in the gaps.

  ‘It’s work that needs a good ear,’ Perry said. ‘Or two,’ he amended and laughed self-consciously – in an attempt to please her, she supposed. ‘I hope your cold is better. You were missed.’ (Oh, be still, my beating heart, she thought.) ‘No one makes as good a pot of tea as you do, Miss Armstrong.’

  Juliet rolled the last sheet of paper and the carbons out of the Imperial. Her fingers, as usual, were smudged with purple from the carbon. She put the dustcover on the typewriter and placed the top copy of the transcription on Perry’s desk for him to read later. One carbon was filed and another was placed in an out-tray for a messenger boy to pick up eventually and take somewhere else. Juliet imagined that it lingered unread in yet another filing cabinet, in a Ministry somewhere, or back at the Scrubs. There was going to be an awful lot of paper left at the end of the war.

  Juliet was surprised to find that she missed the Scrubs, even the worst bits – the debs, the awful metal staircases, even the horrible lavatories inspired a kind of nostalgia. She still saw Clarissa all the time though, pulled into her hectic social orbit three or four evenings a week – in fact she was meeting her tonight.

  ‘Mr Gibbons here?’ Cyril asked.

  ‘No, I haven’t seen him since first thing,’ she said, shrugging her coat on.

  She had no idea where Perry was. She saw much less of him than she had originally envisaged. Sometimes when she came in to work in the mornings the flat didn’t seem to have been occupied all night and she presumed he had stayed at his ‘other place’ in Petty France. Although it wasn’t easy to tell as Perry had the frugal presence of an ascetic, strangely at odds with both his exemplary taste in restaurants (l’Escargot, l’Etoile, the Café Royal) and his rather flashy style. The Oxford bags, the rakish fedora, the bow-tie all seemed to indicate a different Perry.

  She was certainly finding him quite mercurial. There was the charm – for he really could be extraordinarily charming – and then the darker side when he seemed moody, almost fierce. A man of contradictions. Or thesis and antithesis. She had read Hegel for the Oxbridge entrance she had never taken. Perhaps there was a synthesis to be had, a Perry who was on an even keel every day, helped by the devoted girl who was his helpmeet. (I would be nothing without you, Miss Armstrong.)

  On leaving the flat, Juliet came across Godfrey Toby standing indecisively in the corridor. The key to ‘his’ flat was in his hand but he was gazing absently at the front door as if lost in thought.

  ‘Good evening, Mr Toby.’

  ‘Ah, Miss Armstrong. Good evening.’ He tipped his hat and with a faint smile said, ‘I’m early. You and I seem destined to be ships that always pass in the night.’

  ‘Or the couple in the weather house.’

  ‘Weather house?’ he puzzled pleasantly.

  ‘You know, the woman comes out when it’s sunny, the man when it rains. German, usually,’ she added, feeling suddenly and rather ridiculously unpatriotic to have mentioned it.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I meant – we’re hardly ever in the same place at the same time, as if … as if …’ She was twisting herself into knots trying to explain something she didn’t understand. ‘As if it were impossible for us both to exist at the same time.’

  ‘A transgression of the natural laws.’

  ‘Yes. Exactly!’

  ‘And yet patently we can both exist at the same time as we are both standing here together, Miss Armstrong.’ After a rather awkward pause he said, ‘It is interesting, don’t you think, that the man represents the rain while the woman is the sunshine? Are you leaving? Shall I walk you to the lift?’

  ‘That’s really not necessary, Mr Toby.’ Too late – he was already steering her down the corridor.

  Was there a Mrs Toby at home in Finchley, Juliet wondered? Or a Mrs Hazeldine, she supposed, for it seemed unlikely that an English housewife would be part of MI5’s charade. She was not supposed to know his real name but Clarissa had investigated the esoteric depths of the Registry for her.

  He seemed the type of man who grew potatoes and roses and kept a neatly trimmed lawn. The type who sat by the wireless in the evening, reading his newspaper, and attended church on a Sunday. What Godfrey Toby did not seem, even in Juliet’s wildest imagination, was the type to have been working for years as a spy.

  He pressed the button to summon the lift. ‘Do you have plans for this evening, Miss Armstrong?’

  ‘I’m going to the Royal Opera House. We always go on a Thursday.’

  ‘Ah, some culture to light the way in these dark days. I am fond of a little Verdi myself.’

  ‘Nothing so high
brow as Verdi, I’m afraid, Mr Toby. The Royal Opera House is a Mecca ballroom now. I’m going dancing with a friend.’

  Godfrey removed his tortoiseshell spectacles and began polishing them with a handkerchief that he pulled with a conjuror’s flourish from his coat pocket.

  ‘You are young,’ he said, smiling wanly at her. ‘You will not feel it as much. As you grow older – I am fifty – you begin to despair of the wicked foolishness of the world. It is a bottomless pit, I fear.’

  Juliet wasn’t sure what this had to do with dancing or Verdi – neither struck her as particularly wicked. She supposed it must be quite a strain for Godfrey to sit for hours on end with the ‘neighbours’, pretending to be something he was not.

  ‘But you seem to get on quite well with them,’ she ventured. ‘The informants.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Of course.’ He gave a little chuckle. ‘I sometimes forget that you hear everything.’

  ‘Well, not everything, unfortunately,’ Juliet said, thinking of the endless ‘inaudible’ gaps that peppered the transcriptions.

  ‘If you met them without knowing,’ Godfrey said, ‘you would think they were quite ordinary people. They are ordinary people, but very wrong-headed, unfortunately.’

  Juliet felt rather ashamed, as her mind had been on what dress to wear this evening rather than bottomless pits of evil. The war still seemed like a matter of inconvenience rather than a threat. The Finns had just capitulated to the Soviets, and Hitler and Mussolini had recently met at the Brenner Pass to discuss their ‘friendship’, but real war, the one where you might be killed, still seemed a long way away. Juliet was currently more concerned with the introduction of meat rationing.

  ‘Yes, my wife and I shall miss our Sunday roast,’ Godfrey said. So there was a Mrs Toby. (Or he said there was one, which was different. Never take anything at face value, Perry had told her.) ‘Where is that lift?’ (Yes, where is it, she wondered? She was going to be late.) Godfrey banged his silver-topped cane on the floor as if that would help to bring the lift. Juliet had seen a stage magician do the same thing when making something appear from behind a curtain. (Or had it been a rabbit in a hat? And perhaps it had been disappearing, not appearing.) ‘They’ll be here soon,’ Godfrey said. He gave a little chuckle. ‘The neighbours, as you call them.’

  The small lift announced its imminence with a cheerful little ding. ‘Ah, here comes your deus ex machina, Miss Armstrong.’

  The lift doors opened, revealing a woman and a dog. The woman looked alarmed at the sight of Juliet and the dog lifted its lip in a rather half-hearted snarl. The woman’s eyes roamed nervously from Juliet to Godfrey, as if trying to work out what they were doing in each other’s company. The dog started to bark, a sound that Juliet knew only too well. Dib, she thought. Dib and Dolly. It was the first time that Juliet had put a face to any of them, including Dib, who, it turned out, was a poodle, rather moth-eaten.

  Dolly glared distrustfully at Juliet. She gave off a sour, dissatisfied aura, but Godfrey said, ‘Dolly!’ as if she were a long-awaited guest at a party. ‘You’re early, come along. I was just saying to this young lady that this lift has a mind of its own.’ (He was good, Juliet thought.) Dolly stepped out of the lift, giving Juliet a dirty look. Juliet replaced her in the lift. ‘Miss …?’ Godfrey said, tipping his hat again.

  ‘Armstrong,’ Juliet supplied helpfully.

  ‘Miss Armstrong. Have a pleasant evening.’

  Before the lift doors closed she heard Dolly say suspiciously to Godfrey, ‘Who was that?’ and Godfrey’s offhand reply, ‘Oh, just one of the neighbours. No one to worry about.’

  Looking At Otters

  -1-

  J.A.

  07.04.40

  RECORD 1.

  17.20

  GODFREY, EDITH and DOLLY. Some chat about the weather and EDITH’S health.

  DOLLY. Yes, he was with a young lady. (laughter)

  EDITH. A young lady? That’s (inaudible, due to Dib)

  GODFREY. Yes, yes.

  DOLLY. Very friendly! (laughter from all) I thought – a new friend.

  EDITH. He likes young ladies.

  GODFREY. One of the neighbours.

  EDITH. Do you know them then?

  GODFREY. Ships that pass in the night.

  DOLLY. They’ve no idea?

  GODFREY. No idea?

  DOLLY. What we’re up to!

  Giggles.

  Some chat about finding some ‘nice blond SS men’ for DOLLY and EDITH ‘after the invasion’.

  GODFREY. Will you have another cigarette?

  DOLLY. Don’t mind if I do.

  GODFREY. I’ve got to see someone at a quarter past 6. I’m wondering the best way to arrange things. Perhaps –

  Behind her, Peregrine Gibbons cleared his throat as if about to make an announcement, but really he was just trying not to startle her with his entry into the room. He had a way of moving very quietly, prowling almost. Juliet supposed he had learnt that from his nature studies. She imagined him creeping up on some poor unsuspecting hedgehog and giving it the fright of its life.

  He read over her shoulder; he was very close, she could hear him breathing. ‘Who is this “young lady” they’re talking about, do you suppose?’ he asked.

  ‘Me, sir! I encountered Dolly coming out of the lift yesterday evening. Godfrey – Mr Toby – pretended not to know me. He was very good.’

  ‘Excellent.’ He cleared his throat again. ‘Sorry to interrupt, Miss Armstrong.’

  ‘That’s all right, sir. Did you want something?’

  ‘Today is Friday, Miss Armstrong.’

  ‘All day, sir.’

  ‘And tomorrow is Saturday.’

  ‘It is,’ she agreed. Was he going to name all the days of the week, she wondered?

  ‘I was … thinking.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Would you like to come on a little expedition with me?’

  ‘An expedition, sir?’ The word made her think of Scott and Shackleton, but it seemed unlikely that he was planning on taking her to the South Pole.

  ‘Yes. I’ve been thinking about you.’

  ‘Me?’ She felt herself growing rather hot.

  ‘About how perhaps your duties here might be imposing a limit on your talents.’

  What did that mean? Sometimes he had such a roundabout manner of speaking that his intentions got lost along the way.

  ‘I thought perhaps we should become better acquainted.’

  To assess her suitability for practising the dark arts of counter-espionage? An induction? Or – blimey – a seduction?

  A car and a driver had been requisitioned (from Hartley, presumably) for the ‘expedition’, for which Juliet had to rise from her bed several hours earlier than she had planned. She yawned her way through the first hour of the journey, and then for the second hour she could think of nothing but the breakfast she hadn’t eaten.

  A mist had only just begun to clear as they drove past Windsor, the round tower of the castle rising white and ghostly from the brume. ‘This England,’ Perry said. Juliet thought he was about to quote Shakespeare (this sceptr’d isle), but instead he said, ‘This England’ (as if there were another one somewhere). ‘Or perhaps I should say, that England.’ He nodded in the direction of Windsor in the distance. ‘Is it worth fighting for, do you think?’

  She wasn’t sure if he was asking the question of her or himself, but she said, ‘Yes.’ What other answer was there, really?

  They drove to the Hambledon Valley, where they swapped the comforting warmth of the car’s interior for a chilly riverbank. It’s still only April, for heaven’s sake, she thought, but Perry seemed insensible to weather, although his layers of tweed must be keeping him warmer than her own ensemble – a rather light coat, thin sweater and her best skirt. Not to mention her good pair of stockings and smart shoes, for she had been expecting to be viewing the landscape from the windows of the car, not to find herself standing in the middle of it. ‘Countryside’ was m
ore of a concept for Juliet than a reality.

  ‘Otters,’ he whispered, spreading a tarpaulin sheet on the riverbank.

  ‘Sir?’ Had he said otters? Not seduction then.

  Time rolled by, very slowly. Very damply. Very coldly. Juliet wondered if waiting for the otters was perhaps part of her training in some way – surveillance, perhaps. Or patience. She did need training in patience, she knew that. And it did feel strangely like an undercover mission as they sat, breathlessly still, on the riverbank, waiting for a little family of otters to show themselves.

  He glanced at her when the first otter appeared and flashed her a delighted smile. He really did have a nice smile, his whole face changed, and he became a man who looked capable of happiness – which was not the impression he normally gave. The otters, she realized, were an offering to her in some way.

  ‘Neither fish nor flesh,’ she murmured, and then felt embarrassed because she recalled there was something bawdy about Falstaff’s description of an otter, although she wasn’t quite sure what. The quotation, vulgar or otherwise, was wasted on Perry, who said, ‘Well, certainly not a fish. The European otter – Lutra lutra – is from the family Mustelidae, which includes badgers and weasels.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said.

  Juliet had never seen otters before and the kits (and she knew that was the term for them because he told her) were charming – sleek and playful. But really they were just otters, and if he was going to give her anything she would rather it was the picnic that she had expected him to bring. She had to hide her disappointment when she caught a glance of the empty boot of the car. Perhaps they would have a pub lunch later – she imagined a half of shandy and a beef and ale pie, and the idea lifted her spirits.

  The otters, however, so slow to make an appearance, now seemed intent on putting on an all-day show, and Juliet was relieved when her fit of coughing startled them and they slipped under the water and disappeared. Perry frowned, but she wasn’t sure if he was disappointed in her or the otters.