Transcription

by Kate Atkinson

  ‘Ah, you’re up,’ Perry said, making her jump. ‘And tea too. Splendid. Are you ready for the endgame?’

  Juliet was surprised to see that Mrs Ambrose had accompanied Mrs Scaife to the Bloomsbury flat. ‘Mrs Ambrose is such a loyal servant,’ Mrs Scaife said.

  ‘Friend, not servant,’ Mrs Ambrose amended mildly. ‘I wanted to be in at the kill,’ she murmured to Juliet as she passed her in the hallway.

  ‘Goodness,’ Mrs Scaife said, glancing around with something akin to repulsion. ‘Do you really live here, Iris, dear?’

  Juliet laughed and said, ‘Dreadful, isn’t it? Temporary digs though, Mrs Scaife. I’m moving to a flat in Mayfair next week.’

  ‘Oh, that sounds much more suitable. Let me lend you Nightingale to help you with things.’

  At this very moment police were raiding Mrs Scaife’s house in Pelham Place, looking for evidence to incriminate her. Would Nightingale have anything to say about that, Juliet wondered?

  There followed some interminable chit-chat about the German advance and what it would mean for the likes of the Right Club.

  ‘Medals, I expect,’ Mrs Scaife said.

  ‘An iron cross?’ Mrs Ambrose said, looking rather pleased at the idea. She had her knitting out, her needles click-clacking like an express train.

  ‘Tea?’ Juliet offered. ‘I’m sure Mr Vanderkamp won’t be long.’

  Juliet put the kettle on the hob in the mean little scullery and tiptoed back out to the hall to check on Cyril. He had been drafted in and was already installed in the hall cupboard, monitoring the recording equipment.

  He gave her the thumbs-up and whispered, ‘It’s the Black Hole of Calcutta in here.’

  ‘I’ll sneak you some tea,’ Juliet whispered back.

  ‘Who are you talking to out there, Iris, dear?’

  ‘Just myself,’ Juliet called out.

  The tea had been poured with the usual fussing over sugar and spoons when the doorbell rang.

  ‘Mr Vanderkamp – do come in,’ Juliet said. He was shorter than she had expected, but spry and sporty-looking and, in contrast to the native males of Juliet’s acquaintance, he seemed radiant with New World health and energy. She led him through to the living room and there were introductions all round.

  ‘I think we know some of the same people,’ Mrs Scaife said, every inch the society hostess.

  ‘I think we do, ma’am,’ he said, every inch the guest. The rats were in the trap. They had excellent manners for rats.

  There was more business with the teacups, more prattling about imminent Nazi victory. ‘It will be a great day when the Germans march down Whitehall and help us restore sanity to this country, won’t it, Mr Vanderkamp?’ Mrs Scaife said. ‘Then we’ll throw out all the Jews and foreigners, regain our true sovereignty.’

  ‘Bully for you,’ Chester Vanderkamp said.

  And then, finally, the telegrams were produced. Vanderkamp opened his briefcase and took out a Manila envelope. He removed the telegrams from the envelope and pushed the tea things aside so that he could spread the papers out on the table. Mrs Scaife leant in to examine them. Juliet feigned indifference, getting up from her chair and wandering over to the window. She had a good view of the street from here. There was no sign of any of Mrs Scaife’s thugs. They had been ‘dealt’ with, presumably. She could see a man standing on the pavement opposite. One of the grey men. He was staring up at the window. Juliet stared back down at him.

  ‘Wonderful,’ Mrs Scaife said. ‘I can’t tell you how useful this will be to our cause.’

  ‘Glad to help,’ Vanderkamp said, gathering up the telegrams and stuffing them back into the Manila envelope. Juliet took her handkerchief from her sleeve. ‘There you are,’ Vanderkamp said, handing the envelope to Mrs Scaife. Mrs Scaife took the envelope. Juliet blew her nose. It seemed a rather mundane signal.

  ‘You’re not getting a cold, are you?’ Mrs Scaife asked solicitously, the envelope clutched now to her grand bosom.

  ‘No,’ Juliet said. ‘I’m not.’

  Where were they, she wondered? They were certainly taking their time. But then there was a tremendous crash as the front door was broken down. Did they have to be quite so melodramatic? If they had rung the bell she would have simply let them in.

  ‘Here we go,’ Juliet said to Mrs Scaife, who frowned and said, ‘What do you mean, dear?’

  A swarm of assorted policemen entered the flat. Mrs Scaife gave a little scream and struggled to her feet and Chester Vanderkamp said, ‘What the heck?’ Juliet recognized the tall detective from the other morning. He tipped his hat at her.

  Vanderkamp was arrested and handcuffed. He stared at Juliet in disbelief. ‘You bitch,’ he spat at her.

  ‘Now, now,’ the tall detective said. ‘No need for language like that.’

  Mrs Scaife, meanwhile, had dissolved into a puddle of lace on the sofa. ‘Iris, dear,’ she said feebly, ‘I don’t understand.’

  Before Juliet could say anything Perry appeared, Giselle trailing in his wake. She seemed vague, like someone surprised to find themselves suddenly on stage. Perry said to Mrs Scaife, ‘We have you now, madam. We have recorded this meeting and in your house we have found letters to Joyce and other kinds of Fascist low lifes, even a “fan” letter to Herr Hitler, and –’ a dramatic pause uncharacteristic of Perry before he produced ‘– the Red Book.’ It turned out to be more burgundy than red, but Juliet supposed that no one present was about to quibble over the shade. He held the pièce de résistance aloft and turned to Juliet. ‘In this lady’s house, just as you said, Miss Armstrong.’

  Mrs Scaife stared open-mouthed at Juliet. ‘Iris, dear, what is this?’ She reached for Mrs Ambrose’s hand as if she were a lifebuoy and said, ‘Mrs Ambrose – Florence – what is going on?’ Mrs Ambrose said nothing. Juliet wondered if Mrs Scaife had read her horoscope for the day and what it would have said if she had. You will have a surprise today.

  Mrs Scaife turned helplessly to Giselle. ‘You too?’

  ‘Oui. Moi aussi,’ she agreed indifferently.

  It was rather like a farce, Juliet thought, and wondered who would wander on the stage next. A butler, perhaps, or a bluff brigadier, but Giselle proved to be the final cast member assembled and, indicating Mrs Scaife, Perry said to the nearest policeman, ‘Arrest her. Take her to Bow Street.’

  ‘But I’ve done nothing,’ Mrs Scaife protested. She looked suddenly old and helpless. Juliet almost felt sorry for her. Almost.

  ‘There is no action without consequence, madam,’ Perry said sternly.

  ‘What about these other ladies?’ one of the policeman asked. ‘Are we to arrest them too, sir?’

  ‘No,’ Perry said. ‘They’re MI5 agents.’

  ‘All of them, sir?’

  ‘Yes.’

  How absurd, Juliet thought. She glimpsed the briefest of smiles on the face of the tall detective and wondered if he felt the same.

  ‘I’ll kill you, you little traitor,’ Chester Vanderkamp yelled at Juliet as they hauled him away.

  ‘I wouldn’t worry,’ the tall detective said to Juliet. ‘He probably won’t.’

  And that was that. The end of the operation meant the end of their careers as spies, apparently. Perry took them all to Prunier’s for a late lunch; Cyril was included in the party and was overwhelmed into silence by the restaurant and the food and being in the company of Perry’s harem of women. ‘A bevy of beauties,’ the maître d’ smarmed as he seated them. Mrs Ambrose gave him a withering look.

  Giselle smoked one cigarette after another. She seemed distracted and only picked at the chicken in front of her. Juliet had wondered if they would have lobster again, but the waiter said quietly to Perry that he had a Poularde au Riz Suprême. The chickens had ‘come up that morning on the milk train from Hampshire’, he said, and Juliet laughed because she imagined the station platform of some sleepy halt crowded with chickens fussing and clucking like commuters waiting for the train to arrive.

  Perry
raised an eyebrow at her. She presumed that as his fiancée she was supposed to behave with dignity. He had not – thank God – announced their engagement to the assembled company, she would not have been able to bear the curious looks. (Was that how prospective brides normally felt? Probably not.) It was as well that he was a man who liked secrets. Her engagement ring had been consigned ‘for safekeeping’ to one of the multifarious drawers of Perry’s roll-top.

  ‘If you’re not having that, then I will,’ Juliet said, sliding Giselle’s plate over.

  ‘You’ll get fat,’ Giselle said.

  ‘I won’t,’ Juliet said. The unfathomable hollow inside her would never be filled. ‘What will happen to them? Mrs Scaife and Vanderkamp?’ she asked Perry.

  ‘I expect they’ll be tried in camera in the Magistrate’s Court. Mosley’s been arrested as well and quite a few of the others. Mrs Scaife will probably be interned in Holloway along with her pals.’

  ‘I rather thought she might hang,’ Juliet said. A noose tight around that wrinkled neck instead of a Hermès scarf.

  ‘We don’t want to make martyrs. We’ll probably have to hand Vanderkamp over to the Americans. I expect they’ll pack him off home with a flea in his ear, post him to some God-awful South American country. They’ll be furious that we haven’t involved them in the operation.’

  At the end of the meal, Mrs Ambrose said, ‘Well, must be getting on,’ as if she were leaving a Women’s Institute meeting. ‘I’m moving to Eastbourne to live with my niece.’

  ‘I thought she lived in Harpenden?’ Juliet said.

  ‘I’ve got more than one niece,’ she said with a little laugh. Before leaving, she presented Juliet with the results of her knitting, a piece so perplexingly shapeless that it was impossible to work out its purpose. It would do for Lily’s basket, Juliet supposed.

  Giselle roused herself from her dormant state and said she was bidding them all adieu. Not au revoir then?

  She was going on active service, Perry explained when Giselle had left.

  To fight? To kill people, the enemy, Juliet thought. No wonder she had seemed even more abstracted than usual.

  The arrests had, in the end, proved to be a rather disappointing anti-climax. Juliet had hoped for something more than the cold hand of the law. A little violence would not have gone amiss. Perhaps I would like to be ‘on active service’ too, she thought. To kill the enemy.

  ‘Time and tide wait for no man,’ Perry said. ‘Or woman, for that matter. Back to work, Miss Armstrong.’

  Juliet sighed and said, ‘Come along, Cyril. Let’s return to the fray.’

  Juliet delved into her coat pocket for the key to Dolphin Square. Her hand closed on the little green leather box. She had slipped the diamond earrings in there when she had bumped into Mrs Scaife in Garrard’s and couldn’t quite bring herself to return them. And, of course, there was all the drama of the arrests and so on. A girl could be forgiven for forgetting.

  ‘All right, miss?’ Cyril asked as she turned the key in the door.

  ‘Yes, everything’s all right, Cyril.’

  The war stretched ahead, unknown, and yet it felt as if all the drama of it was over.

  Juliet hung her coat up and removed the cover from her Imperial. She sat down in front of it and flexed her fingers as if she were about to play the piano.

  -9-

  RECORD 3 (contd.)

  18.10

  GODFREY and TRUDE present. General discussion about the weather. Some chat about TRUDE’s friend MRS SHUTE who has a daughter who is marrying a man in the Army Intelligence corps. TRUDE proposes going to visit MRS SHUTE next week.

  G. In Rochester? Yes, and talk to the daughter?

  T. Congratulate her! (Laughter)

  G. Do you feel you’ve made good progress? I wondered if (?) had made you lackadaisical?

  T. (Surprised) No! (shouts with laughter. Something inaudible, sounds like news(or views)) It’s the same sort of stuff they push down your neck at every newsreel.

  G. Yes, yes.

  ‘Back to the hum-drum, eh, miss?’ Cyril said.

  ‘’Fraid so, Cyril.’

  How wrong they were. ‘Hum-drum’ was the very last word that could be used to describe the horror of what happened next.

  1950

  Technical Hitch

  JULIET RETURNED FROM Moretti’s, arming herself mentally for the afternoon’s recording of Past Lives. The bolshy girl on reception was missing – consumed for lunch by the Minotaur in the basement, presumably. In her place Daisy Gibbs was hovering. A beast would think twice about eating her – edible but indigestible, Juliet thought. ‘Oh, there you are, Miss Armstrong,’ she said. ‘I wondered where you were.’

  ‘I was at lunch,’ Juliet said. ‘I’m not late. Hardly, anyway. Is there a problem? With Past Lives?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Daisy smiled. She was both enigmatic and unflappable. It made her hard to read. She would be a gift to the Service. You could never be entirely sure if she was being ironic or merely diffident. Again, a good trait for the Service.

  ‘We’ve got a late scratch, I’m afraid,’ Daisy said. ‘We’re a woman down,’ she added, leading the way to Juliet’s office as if she might be unsure of her own way there.

  ‘Jessica Hastie?’ Juliet guessed.

  ‘Yes. The Miller’s Wife’s a non-runner, I fear. She was also playing the Small Girl, who now seems to have leprosy. You changed the script quite a lot, I noticed.’

  ‘I did,’ Juliet admitted. ‘There was no disease in it. There was nothing but disease in the Middle Ages, I expect.’

  ‘Yes, and we seem to be ignoring the Black Death completely,’ Daisy said. ‘I had been rather looking forward to that. I’ve made new copies anyway.’

  ‘Where is Miss Hastie?’

  ‘I think she imbibed a bit too much at lunch. I corralled her in an empty studio. She was being somewhat disruptive in the Green Room.’ Their Green Room was tiny and Juliet could only imagine the panic that a sodden Jessica Hastie could cause in there.

  ‘She’s known as a bit of a lush, I’m afraid,’ Juliet said. ‘I’ll go and see her. We’ll start on time, don’t worry.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Daisy said. ‘It’ll be all right.’

  Past Lives, as the title might indicate, was a series about the way people lived in the past, although for a moment Juliet had hoped that it would involve reincarnation. The Juniors’ collective imagination might be fired by that. They would all want to come back as dogs, of course – the boys anyway. (Juliet visited quite a few classrooms as part of the job.) ‘Workaday lives,’ Joan Timpson had told her. ‘Bringing Everyman to life through the ages. The ordinary man – and woman, of course – and the society they lived in.’ There was a subtle – and perhaps not so subtle – emphasis in Schools on citizenship. Juliet wondered if it was to counter the instinct towards Communism.

  Most history for schools was of the dramatized kind. Straight facts were inclined to give them ‘hard times’, Joan Timpson had said, pleased with the allusion. (‘I hope I’m no Gradgrind!’) The war had made the world weary of facts, Juliet supposed. There had been an awful lot of them.

  Past Lives had already galloped its way through the Stone Age, Celts, Romans, Saxons, Vikings and Normans, and now they had arrived at the Middle Ages with today’s programme, entitled Life in an English Medieval Village. Joan Timpson had promised to return in time for the Tudors (‘I shan’t miss that for anything.’) Where would they stop, Juliet wondered?

  ‘The war,’ Joan told her decisively. ‘Everything stopped with the war.’

  ‘Well, not everything,’ Juliet demurred.

  ‘I believe,’ Charles Lofthouse told her later over drinks in the Langham, ‘that Mr Timpson met a gruesome death in the Blitz.’ He lingered theatrically over the adjective. The loss of his leg in the war had made him surprisingly unsympathetic to the suffering of others.

  ‘Joan seems quite sanguine,’ Juliet said.

  ‘It’s all a front, darling
.’

  But then wasn’t everything?

  Juliet found Jessica Hastie in an empty studio on the top floor. It was rarely used and on several occasions had proved useful for separating an individual from the herd. Jessica Hastie was snoring peacefully, her large head resting heavily on the desk in the control cubicle. It seemed a shame (if not an impossibility) to disturb her and so Juliet turned off the lights and closed the door.

  ‘You can manage the Miller’s Wife, can’t you?’ she asked Daisy.

  ‘I expect so.’ She was undauntable.

  The series was recorded; none of the programmes went out live, unlike other Schools broadcasts. Recording was more expensive and Juliet wondered if Joan Timpson had some special dispensation. ‘Well, you know,’ Prendergast said vaguely, ‘poor Joan.’

  Of course, Joan favoured a barrage of sound effects – the phalanx of armoured men (something that she was particularly keen on) that had clanked around in Past Lives since the Ninth Legion disappeared would alone have defeated all but the most robust of Effects assistants. Over the road, they had drama control desks that looked as though they belonged on the bridge of a spaceship from another planet. Nothing so sophisticated for Schools.

  The script for the Village (another everyday story of country folk, Juliet thought) was by a woman called Morna Treadwell and was atrocious. Juliet, supported by a glass of good Scotch and a pack of Craven ‘A’, had stayed up half the night rewriting it. Children deserved better than Morna Treadwell’s interpretation of the Medieval quotidian. Morna was a friend of the Deputy Director General and seemed to be commissioned quite a lot, even though she couldn’t write for love nor money. She never listened to the broadcasts, apparently, but then why would you, unless you were a small child chained to a desk?