The Words I Never Wrote

by Jane Thynne

  “Did he?”

  That seemed to cheer him.

  “Yes. He said you would be good at what you do because you were a journalist.”

  “Journalism does come in useful…”

  Philby tended to cover his stammer by leaving pauses in his sentences. Cordelia found it unnerving and suspected that he used that to his own advantage.

  “…when one’s teaching propaganda.”

  “Is that what you teach then? Or should I not ask?”

  “You know the answer to that.”

  He exhaled, before grinding the cigarette out under his heel, then picking up the stub from the litter of leaves and pocketing it. The habit of not leaving a trail was ingrained in everyone at Beaulieu.

  “If you absolutely insisted, though, I would say I teach a certain kind of etiquette. When you join the Diplomatic Service you’re taught any amount of damn fool rules, such as not lighting your cigar until your third glass of port, but this service has an etiquette that is somewhat more useful. We teach how to make quick decisions and accurate assessments. How to know what amount of pain one can bear under torture. Everyone’s body gives in at a different time. The trick’s to know when you’ll crack.”

  “You speak as though that’s inevitable.”

  He gave her a sharp look. “In most cases it is. You know the odds of our chaps coming back alive?”

  One in five, half that for radio operators. Statistics that were never uttered, but seared in every mind. If agents were wounded or betrayed, with luck they would go into hiding and be collected by a Lysander, or escape across the Pyrenees to Lisbon or Gibraltar. But most had no luck and were captured, imprisoned, tortured, and shot.

  Philby dug his hands in his pockets, for all the world like a university lecturer discoursing on Kantian ethics.

  “The ones who survive have the ability to form intense bonds of loyalty, yet the strength to order the execution of a comrade if he’s jeopardizing a mission. They can detach themselves from their emotions. And ultimately they need to overcome that instinct all well-brought-up British people possess, of looking someone in the eye and telling them the truth. That’s where I come in.”

  “You show people how to lie?”

  “Perhaps lie is not the right word. Ultimately, training a man or a woman to lead a clandestine life is more a question of inculcating a habit of mind. It’s about living that life, every day, until not only other people can’t tell who you are, you genuinely can’t tell yourself. Until the truth of your life is closer than your own shadow. Everyone’s fighting a war now, but here we’re fighting a secret war.”

  “So how do you go about it? Keeping secrets that close?”

  They passed the mossy trunk of a fallen tree, and Philby sat down, stretching out his legs.

  “Ah, Miss Capel. You intend to prize my confidences from me with a charming smile. And your smile can be very persuasive. In fact, that smile is precisely why we’re here.”

  * * *

  —

  FROM THAT DAY ON, her job changed. The days remained the same, but in the evenings she became the final test for agents about to be sent into France. She would book a room in a hotel in Bournemouth, where the new recruit, relaxed by the certainty that he had completed his training, was taken for a celebratory meal. Cordelia would present herself, be accosted, and asked to join them. She would feign reluctance yet be persuaded, until the moment Kim was called away and she was left alone with the recruit. Then she would flirt, chat, and probe the reason for his presence, and later that evening report back.

  Pass or fail.

  * * *

  —

  THAT EVENING, THE ROUTINE was precisely the same. She came down into the dining room and looked across the sea of heads toward the nook in the corner that Kim habitually reserved. She saw them immediately, Philby in close conversation with the new recruit, the back of his head toward her. But as she approached, arranging her features into pleasant surprise at their chance encounter, a genuine shock ran through her. The nape of the neck, with its strong channel and dipping V of hairline, was instantly familiar, as was the face that turned away from the lamplit glow, its shining brown eyes and wedge of dark hair. The upturned crescent of scar below the right eyebrow. All provoked a searing jolt of recognition. She stared at him rapt, her legs refusing to move. The blood drained from her and she heard Kim’s lines as if from miles away.

  “My God, it’s Margo. Margo Cunningham. What the devil!”

  “Kim.”

  She could barely articulate her line. Summoning a weak smile, she looked at Torin, willing him not to respond. His eyes widened infinitesimally.

  “This is Martin. Martin Furnish,” Philby continued genially. “He’s an old friend and we’re having a jolly good catch-up. What on earth are you doing here, Margo? It’s been donkey’s years. I say, won’t you join us?”

  They were eating fish—haddock it must be—covered in a hard, yellow oilskin, resting in a puddle of salt water. Cordelia stared at it blankly. She was supposed to demur, but she had quite forgotten the script.

  “If you’re sure…”

  She took her seat and went through the motions, forcing herself to consume the joyless meal. The fish was accompanied by toast, hard as tarmac, and a mushy rubble of peas. She was aware of the slightest sensations, the soft creak of the ice cube in Kim’s glass of Scotch, the flare of a struck match, Torin’s fingernails tapping on the side of his glass. The burnt woodiness of Craven “A.” Even the scent of laundry starch rising from the tablecloth. She endeavored to conduct her usual conversation but the lines had entirely vanished.

  Closeness to Torin made every nerve stand on end. Questions coursed through her mind. Where had he been for the past four years? Why had she not heard from him? Had that been his choice? All she could know for certain of his past concerned the last six months. Torin would have undergone all the usual rites for the departing agent. Survival skills in Arisaig in the Scottish Highlands, parachute jumping at an airfield outside Manchester, training in sabotage, firearms, and close combat. He would have learned to use a Sten gun and a commando knife and to jump from a moving train. It was not until he reached Beaulieu that he would have learned the reason for his training, and undergone Philby’s psychological polish to assess him as suitable for working in the field. In the past few days his false identity would have been inscribed on a sheaf of documents, as well as on ration and clothing coupons, leaving only the very final touch, one that she herself, with almost wifely devotion, had performed that very day; assembling his clothes, placing Métro tickets in a pocket, a chocolate wrapper, and a small amount of francs. Checking and double-checking everything and laying all the items out ready.

  Mercifully the old waiter eventually hobbled over, and Kim was called away to the telephone. She leaned toward Torin.

  “Offer me a light.”

  She was keenly aware of Philby in the foyer, only just out of sight, checking his watch and adjusting the knot of his tie. Torin found a lighter and raised it, his sleeve brushing her bare arm. His face was thinner than she remembered, and tanned from his time in the outdoors, and she fixed on the crescent scar above his eye like a distinguishing mark, as though she needed physical proof that it was the same Torin who had materialized in front of her.

  “I’m in room thirty-nine,” she murmured. “Come as soon as you can.”

  They managed a few more minutes of conversation before drawing back. Getting up from the table, she said more loudly, “It’s been simply marvelous to meet you, Martin. Good luck with the sales work, and thank you for explaining it to me. Who would have thought toothpaste was such a fascinating business!”

  Kim was returning. As they passed, her legs trembling, she murmured, “Watertight, that one. He won’t give you any trouble.”

  * * *

  —

  ELEV
EN MINUTES LATER, the knock came at her door. She opened it and stepped into his arms.

  The moment she had seen him, she realized it made perfect sense. Torin was half French. He spoke the language like a native. He was the ideal recruit. He would have been recommended—all approaches came by word of mouth—and she knew he would have accepted without a moment’s hesitation.

  She had a hundred questions, but his mouth was on hers hungrily, ravenous for her.

  “You’re here.”

  He moved to her neck, with soft, wrenching kisses. She felt alternately limp and taut with desire.

  “I thought of you every day.”

  She kicked off her shoes and stood on tiptoe to reach him as he caressed her. He ran his hands down her body, and as his shirt lifted she glimpsed a tanned belly and the dark line of hair. He had a fading gash down the side of his cheek—the result of a recent accident—jumping from a parachute perhaps, or in hand-to-hand combat—and a fuzz of shadow along his jaw.

  “I thought of you forgetting me. Of being with someone else. Calling them ‘darling.’ ”

  “How can you have thought that?”

  “When you’re in a prison camp, there’s a lot of time for thinking.”

  She moved away and took his face in her hands. Only his breath touched her cheek.

  “So that’s what happened to you? I was convinced you were dead.”

  “I almost was. When Barcelona fell to Franco, I was taken prisoner. I was careless, but by then we were so exhausted we were all making mistakes. The regime instigated thousands of reprisal executions against anyone suspected of Republican sympathies, so I was lucky not to be shot. The horrors I saw there, my darling—I can’t really bear to tell you. Children burned alive, their mothers shot, priests burned inside their own churches…The Nationalists were capable of such atrocities. And you know, the Communists were too.”

  He paused a moment, detached himself from her arms, then went over to the bed and sat down, kneading his eyes.

  “I spent a year rotting in a Spanish jail. We would wake every morning to find some of our companions had been executed in the night. Once the Nazis overran France, they transferred me to a camp called Gurs in the Pyrenees. That was a truly dreadful place, worse than a Spanish prison, I’d say. It was an internment camp for Jews, Communists, troublesome Spaniards, and German dissidents who fled when Hitler came to power. It was four hundred squalid wooden huts surrounded by barbed wire, run by guards armed with leather crops. Everyone in rags, their toes sticking out of their shoes. People beaten up every day. I spent the days quarrying rocks and the evenings playing chess.

  “One morning at roll call I saw a group of new prisoners who I recognized from my time in Barcelona—some I had fought alongside—and we managed a breakout. Most of them were recaptured, but I made my way via a fishing boat to Lisbon and from there to England. Before I even reached shore I was asked if I was prepared to consider special training, and of course I agreed. I went straight to Scotland.”

  Cordelia sat beside him in absolute stillness, her hands folded in her lap, eyes locked on his face.

  “I always wondered why you ever had to go to Spain. I know you said you needed to rescue Koestler, but I felt there was some other reason. You’ll think I’m mad, but I always thought it had something to do with the man you met, that time in Paris. The day I followed you.”

  “How astute you are, darling. I never underestimated that.”

  Torin traced a finger along her cheek, as if contemplating the answer to her question, then seemed to make a resolution.

  “You’re right, of course. I didn’t go entirely of my own volition. Do you remember I told you that I’d been to Russia, back in ’thirty-four?”

  “You weren’t impressed. You thought it was all for show.”

  “Precisely. But when I came back I was approached by a chap who I thought was offering me a career at the Foreign Office. He was a nice enough, anonymous fellow in a pin-striped suit, and he seemed to know a lot about me, but it wasn’t until halfway through the interview, when he mentioned that I would not be able to tell anyone what I did, that I realized he was talking about intelligence gathering.”

  “Spying, you mean?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “And did you…”

  “No. I told him I wasn’t interested. I preferred to gather intelligence for a wider audience. He said that needn’t be an obstacle. Journalists have unique access, they can get into places other people can’t, they’re trained to ask questions, and so on. I insisted that I had no interest, but one day in Paris he got in touch again.”

  She knew instantly the man he meant. The man in the Café de la Paix.

  “It was to do with Koestler. They had suspicions that he was a Soviet agent and asked me to follow him a few times. I found he regularly reported to an organization called the World Society for the Relief of the Victims of German Fascism.”

  The building in the Marais. The plaque on the door.

  “My contact told me that it was a front organization for the Comintern—that’s the Soviet intelligence outfit—being run by a chap called Willi Münzenberg. The Soviets were stepping up their recruitment against Britain, and they used Paris as a place for agents to meet their controllers because it was safer—there was less scrutiny. Anyhow, it was Münzenberg’s idea to send Koestler to Spain, and they got our newspaper to do it. My contact wanted me to track Koestler down and speak to him. Turn him, if possible.”

  “And that’s all?” she asked.

  “It’s all that matters now.” He looked at her grimly. “And who knows what will happen next.”

  Cordelia did. The next day he would be dropped from the night sky into enemy territory, or into the sea. Once he had made his way into the country, he would link up with other agents, a courier and a radio operator, to form a circuit. As part of the circuit he would continue his work as a saboteur, contacting London only occasionally, until he had accomplished his mission or been captured, whichever came first.

  “Are you afraid?” she whispered.

  “Of course. I should be too. Fear keeps you alive.”

  “I wrote to you, you know. I had four letters from you, but I had no way of replying, so I would simply write letters and never post them. It made me feel closer to you.”

  “Keep writing. You should always write, Cordelia. It’s your gift.”

  He took her hands in his own.

  “When we were together…in Paris…I never intended to sleep with you. It was weakness on my part.”

  “You mean you didn’t want to?”

  “Of course I wanted to. But I already knew I was going to Spain. I was in love with you. I couldn’t help myself.”

  A wave of fatigue swept over her, and for perhaps the first time in her life, words came with difficulty, as if she had to hew each one from a block of granite inside her.

  “Please. Don’t. Go.”

  “I must.”

  “I could fail you. I could tell Philby you let me into your secret. That you’re not watertight.”

  Torin took her face in his hands. She felt the roughness of his palms, and the scratch of a bandage on his finger. A French bandage, it would be.

  “I have to do this, darling. You know that. And it makes all the difference to me to know that you’re in England, safe.”

  Confusingly, anger rose in her. “You want the luxury of knowing that I’m safe, but I’m not to have the same.” She joined their fists together into a tight knot. “I can’t bear to lose you when I’ve only just found you again.”

  “You won’t lose me.”

  “Really? How do you get to see the future, Torin? You’re going to fight in a war and you’re confident that you’ll survive? You know how many of our agents come back? One in five, that’s how many.” Grief made her cruel. “And yo
u’re saying I won’t lose you. What tells you that?”

  “Come here.”

  He pulled her back into his arms, then unbuttoned his shirt and took her wrist. He whispered to her softly, reassuringly, like a parent comforting a child.

  “Put your hand on my heart.”

  It was beating, strong.

  “This is what tells me, darling. This is what I listen to.”

  She moved her hand and pressed her face instead against his bare chest, feeling the soft scratch of hair against her cheek as the scent of his sweat imprinted itself again on her senses. Far beneath, she heard the dull stutter of blood resounding through him as the muscles tightened involuntarily, quilting the flesh.

  “I love you,” she said, for the first time.

  “I know.”

  He raised her up and opened her blouse, sending one button skittering to the floor, then slipped it from her shoulders and placed a hand on her breast.

  She felt alive for the first time in four years.

  He lifted her up onto the bed.

  Later, whenever she recalled this, she could only remember how his body covered hers and the frightening intensity with which he made love to her. The urgency in his voice. Look at me. As though they were bound to each other like the atoms of a molecule.

  As if

  Chapter Twenty-three

  NEW YORK CITY, 2016

  Not all stories are straightforward. They don’t always have a neat ending. Perhaps it’s one of those stories that finishes off the page, rather than on it.

  That was what Mr. Ellis had said in the typewriter shop. But what kind of novelist lets you down midway through a story?

  It was past midnight by the time she finished. Juno flipped the pages of the manuscript and checked the dusty interior of the typewriter box in case she had somehow managed to overlook any hidden parts, but there was nothing. The story stopped there, mid-sentence.

  Frustration bubbled up as she struggled to make sense of her feelings. It was almost certainly the case that Torin had died on his SOE mission. Could Cordelia not bear to write any more? Had she preferred to remember him vividly alive rather than to confirm his death in prose? That was her choice. Yet still Juno wanted—no, she needed—to know what had happened to the two sisters. Did Cordelia and Irene meet again, after the war? And who was Hans, the recipient of Cordelia’s dedication?