The House of Flowers

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘I told you, sir,’ Billy continued, in a vaguely patronising voice, ‘the Ds? And the Vs – you replace them with Gs and Hs, then you replace them again with—’

  ‘I know, Billy, you’ve told me a dozen times, but it doesn’t really make the slightest difference because codes are not my subject, and really I don’t understand a blind word, so be a good chap and—’

  ‘You want it in German, sir?’ Billy interrupted. ‘Or do you want it in King’s English?’

  ‘You don’t speak German.’

  ‘I feel I nearly do. I’ve been working on so many of these now, I got quite a few words in German now, sir. Want to hear?’

  Anthony Folkestone stared at him, trying to conceal the astonishment he was feeling.

  ‘It’s not quite as good as my French, sir,’ Billy noted modestly. ‘But Mr Hackett says it’s coming on.’

  ‘Mr Hackett’s been coaching you?’

  ‘No, sir. Just criticising, if you like.’

  Anthony picked a pencil out of the holder on his desk and began to tap it rhythmically on his desktop.

  ‘To get back to the message, Billy. What does it say? And I don’t understand why it should be in German. It’s meant to be from one of ours.’

  ‘It is, sir. It’s just been sent in German probably as a decoy – since it’s from Popeye.’

  ‘Popeye?’ Now Anthony was genuinely surprised. ‘I see.’ He put his hand out to take the message. ‘We’d better have that sent to translation at once.’

  ‘Don’t need to really, sir. Says he’s landed OK – but one of his welcoming committee was a d.a.’

  ‘A d.a.?’ Anthony tried not to look surprised.

  ‘Double agent, sir,’ Billy stated, all innocence.

  ‘I know what d.a. stands for, thank you, Billy.’

  ‘He’s all right, sir. He killed the bloke and the other one’s genuine. Popeye’s in his safe house now, and starts work on the cars tomorrow.’

  Anthony resumed his pencil tapping feeling a little as if he was working for Billy rather than the other way round.

  ‘I have to remind you, young man, of your position here. You are not meant to work out the full message; you’re just meant to break the code, nothing more.’

  ‘It’s all right, sir. I know what would happen to me if I broke the Official Secrets Act. You really don’t ‘ave to worry. Not on my account. If I ever broke the Act I would be for the big drop, I know that.’

  Billy ran his finger expressively across his throat before getting to his feet, already restless and bored, and looking for something else to occupy him.

  ‘Thank you, Billy. You’ve been a great help, as usual.’

  ‘Maybe you’ll have a moment soon to have a dekko at that file Marge gave you? It’s over there, on the cabinet.’

  Anthony nodded, at the same time looking away.

  ‘Of course. Thank you, Billy. That will be all for now.’

  Billy realised that this was the moment to skedaddle, as he himself would put it, but he hated leaving Major Folkestone’s office, always liking to hang around, feeling that while he was there he was nearer to the centre of things at Eden Park. He stopped by Miss Budge’s desk.

  ‘What you doing, Miss Budge?’

  He found himself addressing her back as she was leaning forward, tidying one of her desk drawers.

  ‘I’m sorting through the kit for our people, Billy, that’s what I’m doing, passports, identity cards, cyanide pills, all that.’

  Billy stared into the now quite open drawer.

  ‘Blimey,’ he breathed. ‘I think I know what they are, all right, don’t I? One bite and you’re a gonna, yes?’

  Miss Budge too stared into the drawer at the cyanide pills which were routinely doled out to all agents. ‘Quite correct, Billy,’ she told him factually. ‘As a matter of fact, I consider these to be the kindest thing we do for our agents, quite the kindest.’

  She shut the drawer and locked it, putting the key into a box on her desk.

  Billy walked out of her office filled with excitement. He could not wait for the day when Miss Budge would dole him out a false passport, identity card and cyanide pill.

  ‘Of course I couldn’t go and fall in love with someone ordinary, like a soldier,’ Kate found herself moaning later that evening after she, Marjorie and Billy had finished dinner in the kitchen of the cottage. ‘Someone who might be posted to Catterick; someone to whom I could send knitted socks and mufflers. No, I couldn’t do that, could I? I had to fall in love with someone in H Section. Which means I will never ever know where he is – or how he is – or what he’s doing.’

  ‘A soldier’s not that much better,’ Marjorie remarked, standing in front of the fireplace to check her appearance before leaving to meet Anthony Folkestone for the dreaded promised drink at the pub. ‘Soldiers don’t remain at Catterick, and when they’re posted abroad you don’t know where they are either – specially not if they’re taken prisoner.’

  ‘I know,’ Kate interrupted. ‘I know, but at least they’re taken prisoner. If I just knew how Eugene was. It’s not where so much, just how, really.’

  She fished a cigarette out of her bag, lighting it with a spill she ignited from the wood fire burning in the grate. Billy, who was busy as usual drawing in one of his exercise books at the table, glanced at the girls, wondering if there was any way of cheering Kate up by telling her that he knew that Popeye, otherwise known as Eugene Hackett, had landed safely. Then, recalling the image he was careful to keep in his head for such times – himself lined up against the wall at the back of the stable yard being executed by a firing squad under the command of Major Folkestone – he merely sighed and went on drawing.

  ‘At least someone is in love with you, Kate,’ Marjorie said, pursing her lips and wishing she had some lipstick, more for her own vanity’s sake than for any effect she wished to have on that evening’s date.

  ‘You got Major Folkestone.’ Billy grinned up from his place at the table. ‘He’s got a fantastic pash on you, Marge, you know that?’

  ‘That’s quite enough out of you, Billy,’ Marjorie returned. ‘I’m having a drink with him simply because he’s my boss.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ Billy teased.

  ‘Yeah,’ Marjorie replied, doing up her headscarf and coat and disappearing out into the night.

  As she crossed the parkland by the light of the all too bright moon, Marjorie wondered as always whether, just as she was about to escape for the evening, the air raid siren would sound and she would have to take shelter. It wasn’t so bad when she was in a party of people, and they were well out of the grounds, because then they could hide themselves away in the nearest dugout, but if they were in the house and the word was they could be either targeted or simply in line for enemy bombs being jettisoned on their return journey, they very often had to go into the elaborate procedure known as Operation GOHQ, which entailed everyone’s grabbing as many of the latest Top Secret files as they could manage – chaos in other words. From that moment, all such information was their own personal responsibility while they made their way to a warren of well-equipped caves. These hiding places ran to everything from bedrooms with bunks and knitted blankets, and living rooms fitted out with the latest radio equipment, to offices with full sets of secure filing cabinets, a small chapel, and even a makeshift emergency operating room complete with side ward.

  The caves were a good mile from the main house and camouflaged from the sight of anyone approaching at land level, or spying from overhead, access being obtained by way of a series of tunnels whose entrances were again brilliantly concealed behind trapdoors hidden deep in the woodlands. Possibly an invading force would find them sooner or later, but only, so the Nosy Parkers joked, if they had a strong nose for drink and cigarettes, as well as a prior knowledge of the small underground village.

  On top of that, escape tunnels had been fashioned from the complex so that if the dread day ever dawned when England was invaded and the inhabitants
of Eden Park were apparently cornered below ground, some if not most of them would be given the chance to run towards the sea, where the underground caves finally finished.

  Happily, the evening of Marjorie’s rendezvous with Major Anthony Folkestone was uninterrupted by any air raid warnings, which made it even more strange that as Marjorie made her way to the bicycle sheds she actually found herself praying for one, just so that it would get her out of her date.

  ‘Ah, there you be, Miss Hendry.’ Anthony Folkestone was certain his voice had risen a good octave as he stood staring at the pretty girl now standing in front of him.

  Although they had been out drinking in a group before, Marjorie had never previously really bothered to dress herself up, since she had considered that having a few weak drinks in the pub hardly merited putting on her glad rags, particularly since she now only had one pair of decent stockings left to her name.

  But this evening, partly out of boredom and a feeling of inner greyness induced by the notion of having to go out on a date with her boss, and partly out of a devil-may-care let’s-see-what-happens attitude, she had decided to make herself look as glamorous as possible. Besides, as she had reasoned to herself while she set her hair carefully and applied the very last drop of scent out of the little blue Evening in Paris bottle she had been given the Christmas before by Billy, nowadays she had so little chance to dress up glamorously, she might as well dress up for Anthony Folkestone as for anyone else, even if she did have to arrive on a bicycle.

  She had chosen to wear an old-fashioned frock that she had recut and resewn, adding to it a lace collar and cuffs she had found at the Clothes Exchange. Over it she put on a tight little crossover angora cardigan that her late Aunt Hester’s next door neighbour had knitted for her while she and Billy were still living with Marjorie’s aunt. Anthony Folkestone, who was used to seeing her dressed mostly in wool – including very often an old army forage hat pulled well down over her hair to try to prevent excessive heat loss in the freezing building, not to mention mittens and thick home-knitted stockings – could now hardly believe his eyes.

  Not that Marjorie did not always look pretty in her customary office outfit of layers of woolly jumpers and lisle stockings. As a matter of fact, in his opinion, she always looked quite adorable, but she never looked remotely glamorous. Now she looked exactly that, which was probably why he found himself becoming tongue-tied.

  ‘Is something the matter, Major?’ Marjorie asked, feeling suddenly disconcerted, as she observed her boss staring at her as if he couldn’t believe his luck.

  ‘No, Miss Hendry,’ Anthony replied slowly. ‘No, nothing at all. Nothing at all is the matter. No. At least I don’t think so. No.’

  There was a short silence, which Marjorie judged really should be broken.

  ‘You’re looking very smart, sir, if I may say so.’

  She smiled at him. She herself felt surprised at how different he too looked out of uniform in a sports coat, checked shirt and regimental tie, and dark trousers. She could still do without his carefully manicured moustache, which she realised must make him look much older than he possibly was, but even so, the first impression she had of her escort for the evening was altogether more favourable than she could have previously guessed.

  Anthony Folkestone stood staring down at Marjorie in fascinated silence for a few seconds more before he managed to ask her what she would like to drink.

  ‘What do you think they have, sir? Do you think they have any gin? Last week they were very short of gin, and I don’t really fancy sherry. Which is all they usually have.’

  ‘Let me see, Miss Hendry,’ Anthony replied, turning to the bar.

  ‘Perhaps you could call me Marjorie, sir. After all, we’re not in the office now.’

  ‘Of course not. In that case, please call me Anthony. Although of course when we do get back to work—’

  ‘I quite understand, sir.’ Marjorie laughed. ‘Sorry. Anthony. It’s just – it’s just I’ve never been out for a drink with my employer before. Which is not all that surprising seeing that really you’re my first employer. Anthony. It is with an H, isn’t it? Your name? I’m never quite sure whether all Anthony’s have H’s or not.’ She stopped.

  ‘Mine does, Marjorie. But you don’t have to try to pronounce it,’ Anthony joked. ‘I think normally it’s only Americans, like Poppy Tetherington – she’s American – she wouldn’t have an H if she was called Anthony.’

  He stopped as he saw Marjorie staring at him.

  ‘Not that she would have ever been called Anthony, or Antony, come to think of it, would she? Seeing she’s a girl, but none the less I know what I mean.’ Ravaged with embarrassment, he turned quickly to the bar. ‘Excuse me?’ he called to the landlord and started to enquire as to the situation regarding the supply of spirits, which was much safer ground, particularly since the barman immediately drew Anthony further along the bar, which meant Anthony found himself feeling almost faint with gratitude, as it gave him time to recover a small portion of his self-esteem.

  ‘He says if we go into the inner saloon,’ he explained to Marjorie on his return, ‘he’ll see what he can do.’

  Anthony took Marjorie through to the tiny back bar, a private room that was generally reserved for ladies or members of the gentry. Tonight it was all but empty except for one portly gentleman who had fallen asleep in the corner by the fireplace, with a newspaper folded over his face as if he was sunbathing on a beach instead of trying to find warmth and comfort on an evening in what was to turn out to be one of the coldest winters in living memory.

  In the end Marjorie drank gin and orange, while Anthony preferred his gin pink. After the landlord had revived the fire with a handful of fresh logs, and the portly gentleman had suddenly woken to finish his port and stagger off half asleep and half drunk into the night, they found themselves alone, and at once fell into a dreadful silence.

  ‘It’s odd, don’t you think?’ Anthony said after what seemed to him to be half an hour, but was actually only about a minute. He leaned forward to throw a cinder of burning wood that the fire had spat out on to the thin carpet back into the fire. ‘We work together every day. As my secretary you know everything about me. Work is very personal, particularly in our field, and yet quite impersonal in that I think we all feel we can’t really get to know each other without perhaps endangering what we do.’

  ‘I’d hate to think I was doing anything that might jeopardise someone’s safety by having a drink with you.’

  They both smiled briefly, knowing what the word someone meant. Someone meant an agent, someone in the field, someone risking torture and death.

  ‘No,’ Anthony replied slowly. ‘No, I don’t think we’re going to put anyone’s life in jeopardy. Most especially not you. You are the model of diligence.’

  ‘Me?’ Marjorie looked at him in surprise. ‘I’m nothing more than a glorified assistant.’

  ‘You’re a great deal more than that, Marjorie. A great deal more. Now, how about another drink? I think I can persuade mine host to part with a little more of his precious gin.’

  Marjorie hesitated before accepting. Normally she would never have given such an offer a second thought, since nowadays treats and luxuries were few and far between, and alcohol was not something the rest of the country was able to enjoy in any great quantities. Yet a feeling of caution overtook her. Anthony was after all her boss. She certainly could not imagine Miss Budge, his new typist, swilling gin in the pub with the major.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ Anthony urged her with polite good humour. ‘I have no wicked intentions of trying to get you tipsy or anything.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just—’

  ‘I know. You can’t help thinking of me as your boss. It must be very hard – and if you’d rather just have one drink and go home, I’ll quite understand.’

  Marjorie looked at the anxious face that was looking back at her, all of a sudden aware of the kindness in Anthony Folkestone’s eyes. S
he had always thought of his demeanour as a study in seriousness and efficiency, but looking at him now – and it might well be owing to alcohol – she realised that he had a really very sweet expression.

  ‘Thank you,’ she finally told him, with a smile. ‘I’d love another drink.’

  The talk stayed small for the next drink, centred safely round the subject of whether or not they enjoyed working at Eden Park, and what a wonderful house it was, and how unimaginable it must be to live as a family in such a place.

  ‘We used to stay here before the war,’ Anthony said, resuming the conversation after he had lit them both a cigarette. ‘The odd thing about it is that you don’t feel as if you’re staying in a great house. You’d see what I mean if it was furnished the way it was before it was requisitioned. It had that indefinable English country house style. What the French call le désordre britannique. You know, rugs on the floor, dogs at the fire, chintz covers, old paintings.’

  ‘You say you used to stay here,’ Marjorie asked carefully, having picked up on the we. ‘You and – what? Your family? Your parents?’

  Anthony looked at her as he smoked his cigarette, as if deciding whether or not to tell her.

  ‘My wife and I,’ he finally replied. ‘Jane and I.’

  ‘I didn’t – I mean I didn’t realise . . .’ Marjorie stumbled, wondering why she suddenly felt let down. ‘I didn’t know . . .’

  ‘No, no, Marjorie. I’m not married. Not any more. Jane died three years ago, from peritonitis. Just over, actually – three years and two months.’

  Unsurprisingly, Marjorie didn’t know what to say. Why should she? Outside office hours, despite the fact that they sometimes worked an eighteen-hour day, she barely knew the Anthony Folkestone at whom she was now looking.

  ‘What a terrible thing.’

  ‘We’d only been married six months.’

  ‘Six months?’

  ‘Six months.’ Anthony nodded and threw his spent cigarette into the fire. ‘But really that’s quite enough of that. I didn’t mean to mention it. It just sort of came up, because we were talking about Eden. That’s what we always used to call it, you know, just “Eden”. Well, still do really, at least those few of us who knew it before. I was at school with the son – with David. He and I used to spend long idyllic summers here, so when it was requisitioned by the War Office for security work it seemed the family thought of me. They knew the sort of thing I was doing, in outline anyway, so they used their influence. Which is how I found myself back here. So it’s not coincidence – it was the family’s wishes, which kind of doubles my responsibility. Besides looking out for foreign bogies, got to keep an eye on the place for them. Some sort of thank you, if you like, for everything they did for me before the war, parents in India and so on, quite lonely in the hols, you know the sort of thing.’