by Mary Wesley
‘The Party?’ Mylo put innocence in his tone.
‘That’s the sort of thing, yes.’
Mylo laughed. ‘He told me his cousin is the daughter of an officer; she would be the same sort of girl as the girls you have here.’
‘They are not as silly as your tone suggests.’ There was a snip of huffiness.
‘What exactly do you want to know?’ (I hate this man, I hate his kind.)
‘Anything that doesn’t quite fit, you know the sort of thing.’ (Non-committal, yet insistent.)
‘Is this an order?’
‘I should call it a request.’ (Smiling now, bland.)
Mylo stood up. His questioner rose, too, walked with him to the door. ‘Wasn’t your father a communist at one time?’
Mylo grinned. ‘My father thought all party politics ludicrous. He was not a joiner.’
‘Wasn’t there something he did in South Africa? I seem to have heard …’ (The voice trailed.)
‘He was asked to leave. He went to one or two Party meetings, he liked the songs.’
‘Songs?’ (Puzzled.)
‘They were better than the Whites’, the Black and Coloured songs.’
‘Oh, dear. Here we get into colour.’ (Pained.)
‘Uncomfortable thing, colour.’
‘Uncomforting too. Well! Have a good time, show him around. Let me know how you get on with the girls and so on.’ (Hearty now.)
‘I am not in the business of betrayal.’
‘My dear fellow! What an idea.’ He was pained.
‘And expenses?’ suggested Mylo.
‘What? Oh, expenses. Oh, yes, well now. Victoria is the girl you need.’ (Expenses are beneath me.) ‘Victoria, sweetie?’ They had reached an outer office. ‘Yes, sir?’ Victoria (a brigadier’s daughter, perhaps) showed no pleasure at being addressed as sweetie.
‘Fix Mr Cooper up with the proper forms and so on, he needs expenses.’
‘Very good, sir,’ snapped Victoria.
‘Goodbye, Mr Cooper.’
‘Goodbye,’ said Mylo. They shook hands, watched by Victoria.
‘This way,’ said Victoria, ‘follow me.’ She led.
‘Do you know whether the Hamman Baths are still open?’ Mylo asked Victoria’s back.
‘People do come out of that office feeling they need cleansing,’ said Victoria over her shoulder. ‘Unfortunately the Turkish baths are closed, a stick of bombs fell across Jermyn Street a fortnight ago and demolished the baths and everybody in them.’
‘Ah me!’
‘It’s all in the mind,’ said Victoria cheerfully, ‘nothing an ordinary bath can’t cure. When I get that besmirched feeling, I buy myself a cake of expensive soap, that helps.’
Mylo laughed. ‘I’ll try that.’
‘Used I not to see you at the Malones’?’ asked Victoria. ‘Aren’t you a friend of George and Richard’s?’
‘It’s a small world. I tutored George.’
Does she know Rose, too, Mylo wondered, has she heard her voice lately? He walked back to where he was staying, stopping on the way to buy sandalwood soap. On reaching his lodgings he telephoned Picot to invite him and his cousin Chantal to spend the evening, do some sightseeing first. He was not surprised to hear that the Wren, Margaret, had turned up in London and would join the party. What do the buggers take me for, he thought, as he lay in his bath before keeping the rendezvous. No amount of soaping washed away the feeling of grubbiness engendered by the smooth-talking man who had toyed with him in his office in the building in Broadway.
They met early, while it was still light, having planned to make a lightning tour of bombed London for Picot’s benefit. Mylo hired a taxi (Victoria had been generous with her promises to reimburse). They drove through the city as office workers streamed away, anxious to get home before the air raids started. Picot leaned forward in his seat, staring at the faces of the crowd, trying to read their mood. ‘They show so little; is it already a habit?’ He chatted with his cousin, exchanging family news while Margaret sat silent on his other side. Why must we all spy on one another; it is unreal. Mylo longed for Rose, comparing her favourably with these self-assured girls.
As they drove round the docks Picot fell silent, stayed silent at the spectacle of the ruined Guildhall, smashed Wren churches, blocks of offices where firemen still hosed the smoking ruins of the previous night’s raid, their faces grey with fatigue. Through the open window they smelled the stink of fire. Chantal, wrinkling her nose, asked for it to be shut. Mylo watched her sitting back in the taxi, looking unmistakably French in her perfectly cut uniform, her white shirt speckless against her young throat, her face so carefully made up.
Beside her Margaret in her uniform looked scrubbed and British. Mylo sitting on the jump seat wondered which of the girls would be best in bed and laughed inwardly at even asking himself the question. Bed was one thing, he told himself, but Margaret would make the most intelligent report on the evening. I wonder what soap Chantal uses, he mused, or is she spared any sense of guilt?
They dined presently at the Écu de France (spared by the stick of bombs which had demolished the Hamman Baths). The restaurant was Margaret’s choice. Chantal sulked; she had wanted to go to the Café de Paris; it was safe, she said, it was underground, no need to fear in the raids which she confessed made her nervous. One could dance, she wanted to dance. ‘It is the food I am after.’ Margaret demolished the French girl’s protest. When later that year there was a direct hit on the Café de Paris, the bomb falling through its glass roof and slaughtering many people, Mylo remembered Chantal on that first and only meeting.
As it was they dined pretty well. Margaret enjoyed her food. Picot celebrated his reunion with his cousin and his first visit to England. Mylo drank steadily and too much to dull the impression of smashed London, to rid himself of the taste of betrayal and doublecross which he realised now to be endemic in the corridors of his masters. What the hell, he thought, as he grew bibulously cheerful, what the bloody hell. Coming out into the street he burst into song and seizing Chantal in his arms danced with her as he sang, ‘Hitler has only got one ball / Goering’s are very very small / Himmler’s are somewhat simmler / but Goebbels has no balls at all.’ As they whirled along the pavement, Chantal pleading in French for a translation, an air-raid warden called to them good-humouredly and Margaret climbed into a taxi with Picot and drove away, shouting that it would be wise to take cover.
When a bomb fell within earshot Chantal took fright and begged to be taken home. In the taxi Mylo put his arm around her and kissed her; arriving at her flat she invited him in until the raid was over; she feared to be alone, her flatmate was away. Mylo followed her indoors. He had by this time reached the stage of intoxication when it was habitual for him to bore whoever he might be with with a description of Rose’s charms and his love for her, and then since Chantal seemed an accommodating girl he would reward her for her charitable listening by making love to her; it would take her mind off the air raid.
When he woke, Chantal was already up and dressed in her uniform and offering restorative coffee. ‘Vous etiez soûl mais gentil.’
‘Yes, thanks,’ he took the cup. ‘Nothing a ritual bath won’t cure.’ He sat up. ‘Ow! My head! Ouch! Oh, Christ!’
‘Au revoir, je vous quitte.’ Chantal tripped away; he heard her heels click and fade on the pavement outside, looked at his watch, reached for the telephone, asked when a voice answered for Victoria.
‘Tell your boss I did what he asked. There is nothing to report. The answer is nix.’
‘Write in …’
‘You joking? It was unofficial.’
‘Margaret said you had a good time.’
‘She reported in?’
‘Two hours ago. Never mind, I’ll tell him.’
‘Can one still get American pick-me-ups at that chemist in Piccadilly?’
‘Like that, is it?’ A genial girl, Victoria.
‘Don’t tell me they’ve been bombed, too?’
‘Heppells? No, they’re still there. Did you sleep with the Free French Navy cousin?’
‘What does she say?’
‘She hasn’t reported; we aren’t on those terms with the French.’
In the unease of his hangover, Mylo was not sure whether Victoria was joking. Collecting his clothes, searching unsuccessfully for a razor (doesn’t the girl even shave her legs?), he set off for his lodgings to soak in a hot bath, soap himself with sandalwood soap, forget about Chantal and Broadway, the trickiness of intelligence and dream of Rose, soon to be in his arms, back where they left off, a joyful reunion.
32
STANDING IN HEPPELLS, WATCHING the white-coated chemist mix the concoction known as an American pick-me-up, Mylo was filled with self-disgust. What had possessed him to try and sleep with Picot’s cousin? She had yawned during his description of Rose, shown herself an unenthusiastic bedfellow, clearly only requiring his company to still her fears of the air raid.
Mylo took the nauseous brew handed to him in a tiny medicinal glass and gulped it down. As the liquid hit his stomach his system registered a revivifying shock which brought tears to his eyes; he remembered with humiliation that he had been too drunk to come, had fallen asleep, probably snored. He fumbled for money, paid the man behind the counter and stepped out into the street.
The sun shone as he walked along Piccadilly; he belched violently, startling a passer-by. The pick-me-up was working. His spirits began to rise, he was on leave, free to do whatever he liked, what he liked was Rose, but first to settle his mind as well as his stomach he went back to the office in Broadway to deal with his de-briefer of the previous days.
‘I want to see your bastard of a boss.’
‘He’s busy. Will you wait?’ said Victoria. ‘His name is Major Pye, Peregrine Pye.’
‘I know his name, find out if he’ll see me, there’s a dear.’
Victoria went away, came back. ‘In about ten minutes,’ she said non-committally.
‘For a genetically trustworthy girl, you are rather nice.’
‘A what girl?’
‘Uncorruptible, bred full of patriotism, a colonel’s daughter.’
‘Brigadier, actually.’
‘Genetically safe.’
‘Oh.’ Victoria latched on. ‘I see.’ She smiled. ‘It does help with the Official Secrets Act. Did you go to Heppells?’
‘Yes.’
‘Feeling better?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
‘So glad.’ Victoria picked up a folder, opened it and began to read.
‘I got stinking drunk in the restaurant last night, then I sang and danced in the street.’
‘Do you get drunk often?’
‘It would be suicidal in my present occupation.’
‘I imagine it would,’ said Victoria.
‘That’s to say, I feel a bit foolish this morning.’
‘Reaction to the strain in France? I’d say that’s what it was—if I was asked.’ Victoria had beautiful hazel eyes in an otherwise unremarkable face.
‘What a sensible girl you are,’ said Mylo. ‘Do you ever get drunk? How do you know about pick-me-ups?’
‘I have a brother and a fiancé in submarines. People have to let off steam.’ Victoria stood up. ‘Major Pye will see you now.’
‘Hullo, Cooper. What’s the trouble? What can I do for you this morning?’ This morning Major Pye was genial. Mylo wondered why he had feared him during the previous days; he was ordinary, even nondescript in his blue pinstripe suit, gunner tie, horn-rimmed spectacles.
‘Can it be quite clear that I do not spy on the people I bring across? That I am not interested in politics? That I am simply and plainly a guide?’
‘My dear fellow …’
‘Can it …?’
‘Rather an odd request, but I suppose so, yes, can’t see why not if you insist.’
‘Thanks. That’s all I wanted to know, just to have it clear.’
‘Right, right. I’ll circulate the news. You extract the people or persons, and have no interest after delivery. Can do. Happy now?’
‘Thanks.’
‘You are on leave now and will report in during the week?’
‘Yes, I’ll telephone.’
‘Fine, fine. Goodbye.’
They shook hands. Mylo left Major Pye’s office, went down in the lift and out into the sunshine.
Major Pye looked down into the street from his office window and watched Mylo cross the street and dodge into St James’s Park Underground. ‘I wish we had more like him,’ he said to Victoria. ‘Bit of an oddball.’
‘Half French,’ said Victoria. ‘I’ve been reading his file. His mother was Jewish.’
‘Both parents dead. Do we know where he spends his leave? Did he tell you? Did you ask?’
‘No, sir.’
‘You think it’s not our business, do you? I wish you wouldn’t call me sir, Victoria.’
‘It distances me from the dirty tricks.’
‘We can’t all abjure politics like your friend.’
‘Just an acquaintance, sir.’
‘A good acquaintance?’ pried Major Pye.
‘You split hairs, sir.’ (If Peregrine didn’t pry so hard I would tell him Mylo Cooper tutored the Malone boys.)
‘I thought I detected a soupçon of protectiveness.’
‘I would imagine he’s well able to mind his own back, Peregrine,’ Victoria relented.
Jolting along in the Underground, Mylo gleefully counted the days of his leave, seven whole days with Rose, seven nights. Half a day wasted at Heppells and fixing Major Pye was no waste but a precautionary measure, and every minute now was bringing him closer to Rose. He would not, if he caught a train now, arrive to find her asleep as he had planned; no matter, arriving in daylight there would be the garden where they had strolled in scented twilight, the river, the woods, the fields; soon he would hear her voice, touch her, smell her, feel her.
At Paddington he jostled through the crowds to the ticket office, enquired the time of the trains, kicked his heels for an impatient hour before at last the crowded train pulled away from the platform and, gathering speed, carried him away from bombed London through undamaged suburbs into the Thames Valley. From the corridor he watched the ploughed fields, the copper and sulphur woods of autumn. The train stopped at every station, passengers crowded on and off, soldiers en route to Salisbury Plain, sailors to Plymouth, airmen to widely scattered airfields. Mylo watched, comparing them to the population of France with its expression of the watched and the watching; none of these Englishmen gave the impression of watching anything further than their noses, and why should they, Mylo thought in admiration, they had no need to. As the flat valley country changed to rolling chalk downland and again to brown plough and steeper hills Mylo’s spirits soared. He arrived at his destination, left the train and boarded a country bus which carried him along familiar lanes to Rose’s village; here, shouldering his pack, he set off to cover the last mile on foot.
As he walked he pictured Rose unaware of his imminent arrival, yet waiting for him. Comrade (until this moment he had forgotten Comrade) would recognise his step, bark with joy and alert Rose, who would hurl herself into his arms and then the hugs and kisses, cries of joy. Mylo walked faster, hurrying through the late autumn afternoon; it was clouding up, going to rain, he had left his mackintosh in London. Approaching the house from the back he felt uneasy, he was watched from a window by a woman with iron grey hair and suspicious eyes; he had forgotten the Ministry of Information. He waved a casual hand; the woman stood up to stare, a man came to stand beside her; Mylo could see their lips move. He waved again. They followed him with their eyes. Slightly disconcerted, wishing he had not taken a short cut but come the longer way up the drive, Mylo skirted the kitchen garden and arrived at the side door usually used by Rose. He opened the door, stepped into the stone-flagged passage, listened. Hearing voices in the kitchen he tiptoed forward, stopped in shadow to peer in unseen. There was a
loud burst of feminine laughter.
With her back to him Rose sat at the kitchen table, at her feet Comrade in a basket suckling two puppies, across the table Emily Thornby laughing loudly at something Rose had just said, her head thrown back, eyes half closed, in her hand a cigarette. As she laughed she ejected little jets of smoke from her nose.
Rose was laughing, too. She did not see Mylo, spring into his arms with cries of joy, nor did Comrade like Argus recognise him with glad barks.
Since Emily was about the last person Mylo had hoped to see, he sidled quickly past the kitchen door across the hall to the library where he sat down on a sofa in a fury of disappointed rage.
It was forty minutes before a car drove up to the front door and Nicholas came running up the steps calling, ‘Emily, I’m here, sorry I’m late. Rose, are you there? I’ve come to collect Em. Rose?’
‘Here, we’re in the kitchen; d’you want some tea?’
Mylo ground his teeth.
‘No, no.’ Mylo hated Nicholas’s blithe voice. ‘We must go. Come on, Emily, buck up.’ Another ten minutes and a lot of laughter before Rose waved Nicholas and Emily goodbye and turning saw in the gloom of the hall a man. She sucked in her breath. ‘Oh!’
‘Rose?’
Rose stepped backwards. ‘Who?’
‘It’s me, you idiot, Mylo.’
‘How long have you been here?’
‘Nearly an hour, I didn’t think you’d like the Thornbys to see us together.’
‘Mylo,’ Rose whispered. ‘Mylo.’
‘You don’t seem very pleased to see me,’ said Mylo disagreeably. ‘Perhaps you are not. Perhaps I’d better go. I seem to be labouring under a delusion.’ His disappointment was whipping him into a childish rage. ‘I thought, I … I thought we … What the bloody hell was all that laughter about?’
They were standing yards apart, both white-faced, now staring, shocked.
‘We were laughing about the father of Emily’s baby, a sort of guessing game, she’s pregnant, she pretends not to know the father.’
‘…’
‘And so am I.’
‘You? Pregnant? Who is the father?’
‘Ned, of course.’
