The Londoners

by Margaret Pemberton

  From behind her typewriter Kate stared at him in bemusement, wondering if the fat-heads were Hitler and his cronies or Mr Tutley and his colleagues.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said soothingly, keeping affectionate amusement out of her voice with difficulty, ‘but I haven’t a clue as to what you’re talking about Mr Muff.’

  ‘Really? You haven’t heard?’ Even though it was a hot sunny day he had still come to work wearing his trilby and he deposited it carefully on top of a convenient filing-cabinet. ‘From the way Tutley’s secretary was talking I thought the gossip had already reached you.’

  Kate wound a fresh piece of notepaper into her typewriter. ‘What gossip? Is it local or national?’

  ‘It’s personal,’ he said, sitting down at his desk and beginning to rifle through his in-tray. ‘And the best way of dealing with it is to ignore it.’

  ‘Personal?’ Kate’s amusement faded. With a slight frown she said, ‘About me? In what way?’

  Mr Muff gave an ungentlemanly snort of derision. ‘According to Tutley’s secretary you were on romantic terms with Toby Harvey. She’s telling everyone who will listen to her that she often saw the two of you in that dangerous-looking sports car he used to drive. I told her she was being extremely silly and that if Toby Harvey had had a girlfriend, and if news of such idiocy reached her, the young lady in question would be greatly distressed by it. Have you read this letter about the Dover contract? What German guns on the French coast pulverize, Harvey’s rebuild. By the time this war is over Joss Harvey will be rich as Croesus.’

  ‘It’s all over the building, my dear,’ Miss Pierce said to her unhappily when they met at lunchtime. Deep lines of concern etched her mouth. ‘When I first heard what was being said I was terribly afraid you would think I was the culprit and then that ghastly secretary of Mr Tutley’s announced quite unashamedly that she was the perpetrator. Perhaps the best thing for you to do would be to simply admit that the gossip is true and then it will soon die down.’

  Kate made no reply and her face was so set and pale that Miss Pierce thought it best to steer the conversation onto lighter matters. ‘I had a very nice letter from your father this morning. He and his fellow internees have begun providing their own entertainment by organizing concerts and recreations. It’s nice to know they’re not letting their situation get them down, isn’t it?’

  Kate agreed with her, wishing that her own situation was as uncomplicated. Whether she admitted that the gossip was true as Miss Pierce advised, or followed Mr Muff’s advice and ignored it, one thing was certain. It wouldn’t cease. Not when her pregnancy began to show.

  ‘So what are we going to do now the Phoney War is over and the Germans really mean business?’ Carrie asked, her shoulder-length hair bound in a flower-patterned headscarf worn turban fashion. ‘Do we use the Anderson shelters when the siren goes off or do we make for a tube station?’

  ‘It’s no use making for a tube station if the siren goes off when we’re at home,’ Kate said practically. ‘They’re all too far away. The raid would be over before we even got to one.’

  They were standing in front of Carrie’s market stall in Lewisham High Street and Mavis hove into view, gaudily splendid in a scarlet-trimmed, halter-neck sundress sporting a vivid design of playing-card faces.

  As the dizzying array of diamonds, hearts, clubs and spades, swam before her eyes Carrie said graphically, ‘Where the heck did you get that from? It’s enough to give half of Lewisham migraine!’

  ‘It is pretty eye-catching, ain’t it?’ Mavis agreed, twirling around on high wedge-heeled sandals so that they could appreciate her finery more fully. ‘You won’t see another like it.’

  ‘I don’t want to,’ Carrie responded tartly. ‘What did you make it out of? A tablecloth?’

  ‘Curtaining. It came from a club up West. Ever since they had to put black-out curtaining up it’s been laying around, doing nothing. So I had a little word, so to speak, and this is the result. There’s loads left. I’m going to make a dress for Beryl next. And a couple of shirts for Ted.’

  ‘There’s no mistake, Kate,’ Mr Muff said, his usually cheery face almost ashen. ‘Mr Harvey is in the building and he wants a word with you. Now.’ His voice broke so that it was almost a croak. ‘In the boardroom.’

  As Kate’s horrified eyes held his she felt as if the ground were shelving at her feet. There could be only one possible reason why Mr Harvey wished to speak to her. And both of them knew what it was. The rumours about her relationship with Toby had reached his ears and he wished to determine the truth of them.

  She took a deep steadying breath. She would have had to face him and tell him about the baby sooner or later. Though the present circumstances were far from perfect at least by seeing him now the ordeal would be over. She wouldn’t have to lay awake at night any more, fretting in dreaded anticipation of it.

  ‘You’d best be on your way,’ Mr Muff said unhappily. ‘Mr Harvey isn’t a man who takes kindly to being kept waiting. Onwards and upwards, Kate. Seize the nettle. Never say die.’

  Finding his exhortations more doomladen than cheering, she turned away from him and walked out of the office and into the corridor. What garbled account of her relationship with Toby had been told to his grandfather? Was the old man going to be puzzled or distressed by what he had been told, or just plain furious?

  The boardroom was on the far side of the building. It was a room she had previously never had any cause to enter and as she neared it she noted with a flicker of amusement the change in floor covering and decor. Instead of linoleum there was carpeting; instead of being painted cream and brown, the walls of the corridor leading to the boardroom were an almost springlike soft green.

  The brass-knobbed boardroom door was closed. She paused for a moment before knocking, reminding herself that the man she was about to face was her baby’s great-grandfather, not an ogre. She gave a business-like, unintimidated knock.

  ‘Enter.’

  The voice was a dark, deep growl.

  She smoothed her navy-blue skirt, checked that her pink and white cotton striped blouse was neatly imprisoned beneath her waistband, and opened the door.

  The room was vast. The largest mahogany table she had ever seen dominated it. At the far end of the table stood a white-haired, powerfully built figure.

  Shock eddied through her. She had lived so long with the knowledge of Mr Harvey’s near-fatal heart attack and Toby’s concern for him that she had constructed a mental image of a man dangerously frail. There was nothing frail about the figure confronting her. And he didn’t look a day over sixty.

  As their eyes held she saw something very like a spasm of distaste cross his face and then he rasped, ‘Miss Voigt? That’s a German name, isn’t it? Were you born in Germany?’

  ‘No.’ Despite the sick tightening of her stomach muscles her voice was coolly composed. ‘I was born in Blackheath.’

  ‘But your parents are German?’

  ‘My father is German.’

  He moved slightly, resting one hand on the high-backed chair that headed the table. His double-breasted suit was grey, as was his tie.

  ‘I don’t employ Germans,’ he said with such harsh brevity it robbed her of breath. ‘Not even half-Germans. I want you off my premises immediately. And for good.’

  For one uncertain moment she believed both she and Mr Muff had come to a wildly wrong assumption and that Mr Harvey was entirely ignorant of the office gossip and had only summoned her into his presence because her nationality had come to his notice.

  ‘Especially half-Germans who are lying trollops,’ he said succinctly.

  She sucked in her breath as if she had been slapped across the face, anger roaring through her. Only by remembering that she had no idea what kind of a story he had been told did she manage to curb it.

  ‘I am neither a liar nor a trollop!’ she said tightly. ‘And even if I were, your accusation would be grossly out of place and ill mannered.’

  He d
rew in his breath sharply, his nostrils whitening. ‘Get the hell out of here! I’m not indulging in a conversation with you! I’m giving you your marching orders!’

  Her eyes held his steadily. With a stab of gratification she saw disbelief flare through his eyes as, instead of fleeing from the room, she began to walk towards him.

  She halted a mere two chairs width away from him. ‘I don’t know what you’ve been told about me and my relationship with Toby,’ she said tautly, ‘but the least you can do is to have the courtesy of allowing me to tell you about it myself.’

  At the mention of Toby’s name he flinched. It was as if a rock had moved. ‘Out!’ he hissed again, high colour flooding his cheeks. ‘Don’t dare sully my grandson’s name by linking it with your own!’

  For a brief second she hesitated, despair flooding through her. How could Toby, so easy-going and kind and honourable, have been this man’s grandson? The temptation to spin on her heel and leave him fuming amidst his prejudices and presumptions was almost overpowering. With difficulty she resisted it. She had a moral obligation to tell him of the child she was carrying. How he reacted to the news was none of her responsibility.

  ‘I loved Toby,’ she said, her voice thick with emotion. ‘And he loved me. He wanted to marry me . . .’

  ‘Out!’ Joss Harvey roared again, slamming his fist down so hard on the table that the entire room seemed to vibrate.

  ‘He was going to tell you as soon as he felt you had recovered sufficiently from your heart attack to be able to cope with the shock of the news.’

  Even as she said the words she wondered how Toby could possibly have thought his grandfather dangerously enfeebled. Hard on the heels of her reflection came the realization that it was over two months since Toby’s death; two months since he had declared to her that he would, on his very next leave, confront his grandfather with the news of their love for each other.

  ‘He knew it would be a shock to you because of my father’s nationality,’ she continued, fighting down the thundering wave of grief that threatened to submerge her. ‘He was on the verge of telling you when . . .’

  ‘Out!’ Joss Harvey hissed, again grasping the back of the leather-covered chair at the head of the table, this time quite obviously for support.

  For the first time she realized that his aura of vigour was largely veneer. It was the sheer force of his personality that exuded strength and authority, not physical well-being. Knowing that if she remained in the room any longer there was a risk he would work himself up into such a state that he would collapse, she said simply, ‘I’m going, Mr Harvey. But before I do, there is one last thing that I’m duty-bound to tell you . . .’

  ‘Out! Not another word! Only a Kraut would have your nerve and insolence!’

  Sick at heart, knowing beyond any shadow of doubt the impossibility of establishing even the slightest of civil relations with him, she said starkly, ‘I’m carrying Toby’s child.’

  He grasped hold of the back of the chair with his other hand, the gnarled knuckles white, his eyes blazing. ‘You’re a slut and a blackmailing liar! I’ll have you interned for this! You repeat your foul lie outside this room and I’ll sue you for slander in every court in the land!’

  Unwaveringly her eyes continued to hold his. She still didn’t feel a resurgence of the anger that had initially flared through her only seconds after entering the room. She was beyond anger. Beyond any emotion at all, apart from pity.

  ‘I feel sorry for you, Mr Harvey,’ she said quietly. ‘You’ve lost your grandson and you’re denying yourself the comfort of the legacy he has left behind him.’

  The colour in his face deepened to a choleric purple. She didn’t wait for him to draw breath and hurl a fresh torrent of abuse at her. With a tiredness that was bone-deep she turned on her heel and walked down the long room, opening the door and closing it behind her without a backward glance.

  Chapter Eleven

  As she walked back along the carpeted corridor and then the linoleum floored corridor that led to Mr Muff’s office, she felt emotionally and physically numbed. Joss Harvey’s reputation, amongst those of his senior employees who had dealings with him, was such that she had long realized he was a bully. And Toby himself had told her that where Germans were concerned, his grandfather was a deeply prejudiced bigot. Knowing such unpleasant facts was, however, far different from experiencing them at first hand.

  As she walked unseeingly past the Planning and Design offices, she tried for the twentieth time to come to terms with the fact that the rude, ignorant, tyrannical despot still, no doubt, fuming to himself in the boardroom, was not only Toby’s grandfather but her own baby’s great-grandfather. She pressed a hand instinctively against her still-flat stomach.

  ‘You’re not going to grow up like him!’ she whispered fiercely. ‘You’re going to grow up kind and courageous and honourable like your father!’

  Mr Muff leapt from his chair in agitation the minute she opened his office door.

  ‘Why on earth did he want to see you?’ he demanded, hurrying round his desk towards her. ‘Was it about those ridiculous rumours? I find it incredible that Mr Harvey would even listen to them, let alone pay attention to them . . .’

  Something very like pain squeezed Kate’s heart. She had enjoyed working for Mr Muff. Despite his old-maid fussiness he was both courteous and, where she was concerned, caring.

  ‘The rumours were true, Mr Muff,’ she said quietly. ‘And though Mr Harvey does not believe them to be true, he has ordered me to leave the building immediately.’

  ‘True?’ Mr Muff blinked at her uncomprehendingly. ‘Leave the building? You’re not making any sense, Kate. How could the rumours possibly be true? And what do you mean by saying you have to leave the building? Has there been a bomb alert? Has Mr Tutley been informed?’

  He was already hastily reaching for his trilby-hat and Kate said gently, knowing how much he would miss both her efficiency as a secretary and her companionship, ‘There hasn’t been a bomb alert, Mr Muff. Mr Harvey has dismissed me.’

  Mr Muff stared at her, still not understanding, his bewilderment pathetic.

  ‘I’ve been fired,’ she said starkly. ‘Sacked.’

  ‘But that’s . . . that’s preposterous!’ He put his hat on his head as if he, too, intended walking from the building. ‘It’s unthinkable! Outrageous!’

  Kate walked across to her desk and began opening drawers, taking out personal possessions. ‘Mr Harvey now knows that I’m half-German,’ she said, putting a small mirror, a nail file and a packet of headache tablets in a neat pile on the desk top. ‘And now that he does, even if it hadn’t been for my relationship with Toby, he would be insistent that I leave his employment.’

  ‘But you’re my secretary!’ he protested, too nonplussed by the revelation that the rumours about Kate and Toby Harvey were true to even begin coming to terms with it, seizing instead on a fact that was indisputable. ‘And I want you to remain my secretary! I shall speak to Mr Harvey myself, this very minute!’ He strode purposefully towards the door, his trilby at a rakish angle.

  It wasn’t an empty gesture, he was in deadly earnest. Kate, knowing how very nervous he was of Joss Harvey and of how he would go to any lengths to avoid even the slightest contact with him, was deeply moved by the extent of his indignation and the lengths he was prepared to go to in order to preserve their happy working relationship.

  ‘It’s no use, Mr Muff,’ she said, scooping her possessions into her shoulder bag. ‘Mr Harvey won’t change his mind. Even if he did, I couldn’t possibly remain working here.’

  Halted by her words, Mr Muff stood at the open doorway, his expression one of abject distress. ‘But what am I going to do? I don’t want another secretary. What if they assign Mr Tutley’s secretary to me? Who am I going to chat to about the progress of the war? Who am I going to share my little jokes with?’

  Kate put the cover on her typewriter for the last time. ‘Miss Pierce will make sure that whoever tak
es my place is pleasant and friendly,’ she said, keeping her voice steady with difficulty. ‘I’ve enjoyed working with you, Mr Muff.’

  ‘And I’ve enjoyed working with you, Kate. I can’t quite believe it’s ending like this. So suddenly . . . so utterly without warning . . .’

  He looked so lost and forlorn that Kate felt a suspicious pricking sensation behind her eyelids. Knowing that it would be utter foolishness to prolong her leave-taking a moment longer, she swung her bag and her gas mask canister on to her shoulder and walked towards the door.

  ‘Goodbye,’ she said, knowing that she should also stop by Miss Pierce’s office and say goodbye to her.

  ‘Goodbye, Kate.’ He clasped her hand warmly, his eyes suspiciously bright. ‘Take care of yourself. Always look on the bright side. Never say die. Onwards and upwards!’

  Too choked to make any response, she merely squeezed his hand tight and turned on her heel, walking down the familiar corridor and out of the building, not even pausing to knock on the door of the Personnel Office. One goodbye had been enough to cope with. She would write to Miss Pierce and would, no doubt, see her to talk to when Miss Pierce next visited Miss Godfrey. As always when deeply distressed she needed to be alone; only when she was alone could she get her thoughts into order and see things in perspective.

  It was the end of August now and the midday sun was hot. She looked up at the cloudless sky wondering if, somewhere over the fields of Kent or the English Channel, a pitched battle was taking place between the RAF’s Spitfires and Hurricanes and the Luftwaffe’s Junkers and Messerschmitts. For the last two weeks or so such engagements had been everyday occurrences.

  ‘Hitler’s trying to destroy the RAF both on the ground and in the air,’ Mr Muff had said to her grimly when the first all-out attack on an RAF airfield had taken place. ‘It’s an essential part of his invasion strategy. He won’t succeed of course. Our pilots will see to that.’

  Many Londoners had travelled out by train to the fringes of the city, to Biggin Hill and Caterham and Croydon where the RAF airfields protecting London were sited, in order to have a grandstand view of the life-and-death battles taking place above their heads. Kate knew that Mavis had done so, taking Billy and Beryl and a thermos flask and sandwiches with her.