The Face of Eve

by Betty Burton

  ‘Can you see it from both sides? You are no longer the factory girl you used to be. I have read Dr McKenzie’s report.’ Phoebe made a kind of beckoning motion as though to draw words from her mouth. ‘Can you?’

  ‘You know about the factory girl; she’s still here, ma’am. The factory girl made Eve Anders. The factory girl’s view of England was, is of its underside. I may have put this protective Anders shell around her, but when Anders looks at the world, it is through the eyes of a factory girl with the added experience of Anders.’

  ‘“To thine own self be true”?’ Phoebe gave Eve the gentlest of smiles, mostly with her eyes.

  ‘Yes, yes, that’s the Anders philosophy in a nutshell… even if it sounds like godalmighty clap-trap.’

  ‘You went to Spain on the side of the Republic – would you wish to see Britain go that way?’

  ‘Eventually, ma’am, yes, but we have a lot of obstacles before that day comes. To be quite honest, I object to being a “subject”. It’s demeaning.’

  ‘How would you feel about going back to Spain?’

  ‘You mean now?’

  ‘In a few weeks.’

  ‘A few weeks! Well… I’d feel apprehensive. I became quite well known in some areas.’

  ‘The Bureau needs a woman in Spain. Lieutenant Hatton thinks you’re the one for the job.’

  Spain! A dozen conflicting thoughts swept through her.

  ‘You think he’s wrong?’

  ‘No, ma’am, no. I was just surprised that it would be Spain.’

  ‘Fancy a walk along the seafront? We shall be working together for a while, so let’s get a bit better acquainted.’

  The front was just a short walk from Phoebe’s temporary office. As soon as they reached the open common a chill wind gusted, carrying sea-water smells. A gang of council workers were attaching coils of barbed wire to the handrails where Eve had often leaned over with the girls from school. Two blonde little girls, obviously sisters, dressed alike and holding buckets and spades, were peering through the web of barbs at the shingle and sea.

  ‘Look at them,’ Eve said. ‘How can you possibly explain that to a child?’

  ‘Maybe we can save them from worse.’

  ‘Maybe they will end up dead!’

  She didn’t trust herself even to apologise. The sun broke through the grey mass of cloud. The tide was surging out towards Chichester, the sea now flashing silver sparkles, moving as though fingers were dabbling the surface. It surged around the stanchions of the pier, the ebbing water sucking gently as it revealed bright green weed.

  ‘Oh, sunshine, just what I needed.’ Phoebe took off her tricorn hat and shook out her hair, very different now from the exotic tangle that went with her Griffon dress.

  ‘You appear quite a different person from when you took us into Griffon,’ Eve said.

  Phoebe laughed. ‘I was trying her on for size. I like to do that sometimes. I used to play characters on the stage.’

  ‘Is this the real you, then?’

  ‘Will the real Phoebe Moncke stand up?’ she laughed. ‘You see, nobody did.’

  They walked on. Phoebe pointed across the water. ‘Look, the sun has picked out that town just like a floodlight.’

  ‘That’s Ryde.’

  ‘Beautiful, isn’t it? I expect you know the Isle of Wight well?’

  ‘Only as part of the scenery, a hump on the horizon. I’ve never been.’

  ‘Yet you have been to Europe and Australia.’

  ‘Oh yes, Paris, and a few nights in Cape Town and Hong Kong and Singapore on the way back here.’

  ‘When were you in Paris?’

  ‘On my way in and out of Spain, but I had been there before… to do with my old job. It will be somewhere in my file. Lieutenant Hatton knows about it.’

  ‘You are just the cosmopolitan lady to live it up at the Madrid Ritz.’

  ‘Madrid?’

  ‘David Hatton says you can do it. Sophisticated lady.’

  ‘Hardly sophisticated.’

  ‘After we’ve finished with you over there,’ she pointed to the Isle ofWight, ‘you won’t say that. I shall be asking you, “Will the real Miss Anders stand up?”’

  * * *

  At last Eve Anders got to set foot on the Isle of Wight at Ryde, just opposite where she had been standing with Phoebe Moncke only two days previously. The weather was springlike – clear air, an azure bowl of sky and sunlight bright enough to penetrate the sea and turn it blue.

  With the sun on her face, the smell of engine oil wafting by, and the thrum of engines shuddering the soles of her shoes, Eve leaned on the rail and watched as the old steam-paddle ferry made its way across the short treacherous span of the Solent that flowed between the island and the mainland, directly across the busy shipping lanes. Filling her mind with moving pictures, she drew in the busy traffic slipping in and out of Portsmouth Harbour: grey top-heavy battleships low in the water; grey, nippy Royal Navy corvettes; grey warships, unmarked and with unfamiliar outlines that came up or disappeared over the horizon; vessels painted with zigzag patterns that could suddenly leap into view when eyes adjusted to the distraction of the camouflage.

  Eve Anders knew her local history and it was an awful history to contemplate. Portsmouth was a naval town, which thrived only in time of war. Time and again it had risen like a phoenix from the ashes of peace. She had been a young child throughout the last period of peace, and had grown up with unemployment and poverty blossoming all around her. Now, the phoenix of war was rising again and with it Portsmouth’s fortunes.

  As the ferry turned, its paddle thrashing the water, she felt a thrill, as she always had when starting out on something new. Unknown territory: the Isle of Wight, a tiny landmass cut off from the mainland when the sea broke through millennia ago; Ryde, until now a cluster of buildings in the midst of dense trees. This was still England, still Hampshire, her own county, yet the couple of miles of sea she had just crossed gave her a strange feeling of liberation. She held back from disembarking until the crowd had cleared, enjoying her light-hearted mood.

  I’m back to my old self, she thought.

  Her eyes sparkled with health, and the enthusiastic spirit of Lu as she had been on the day when she stepped off the train in London on the first day of her new life as Eve three years ago. Now she stepped onto the quayside at Ryde, looked at the endless stretch of pier, and was glad to have worn slacks and flat shoes.

  ‘Miss Anders… over here, Miss Anders.’ A voice that she had heard before.

  ‘Miss Sanderson! Electra! Fancy you being here.’ Eve shook her hand warmly. ‘Is this coincidence, or are you here to waylay me again?’

  ‘The latter. Not such lux transport this time.’

  ‘Never mind the transport, it’s good to see you. Are you well?’

  ‘Oh, absolutely! Never better. Give me one of your big bags – they’ll be picked up later today. Just bring your tote. Cup of tea? Ah, I know what you’d love. It’s absolutely special. Minghella’s, ice cream for the angels; can’t buy the stuff on the mainland.’

  They sat with little dishes. ‘Isn’t this the most heavenly stuff?’

  ‘Delicious, but how long can they continue to make it?’

  ‘The big factories are all closing down. I have an absolute passion for ice cream. I caught it in Italy as a child and its never gone. The real stuff is hard to find in England, but here it is. I’ve been coming here every day.’

  There was something so disarming and naive about Electra Sanderson’s chatter that Eve was reminded of her childhood friend and soulmate, Bar Barney. Bar’s enthusiasm had been so infectious that it was impossible not to be carried along with her.

  ‘What’s happened to your FANY uniform?’

  ‘I’m between jobs, as you might say. Not exactly between, but on a different tack. I’m not sorry – all that explaining to people… friends behaving like lewd schoolgirls. “I say,”’ she mimicked, ‘“what do you think, old Lee’s a FANY!” I mea
n, a joke’s only a joke if you’ve never heard it before, and I got fed up explaining that I was proud to be a member of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry – somebody was certain to say, “Show us your bow and arrows, Lee.” So, I’ve become a Bureau PA – that’s personal assistant to Commander Kiefor, “Keef”. You know, of course, that he’s Commander Kiefor now?’

  ‘Yes, it was he who gave me my orders. Said I should wear flat shoes.’

  ‘Did he ask if you could ride a bike?’

  ‘Ahh, so that’s it. No, no he didn’t.’

  ‘Can you?’

  ‘Well, yes, if I can remember.’

  ‘Nobody ever forgets how to ride a bike.’

  Two sit-up-and-beg cycles were propped against a wall at the pier exit. Each had bountiful baskets back and front, and old-fashioned lamps attached front and rear.

  ‘Don’t take against them because of their appearance. They’re absolutely well maintained (by yours truly) and very kind to the derrière. Put your bag in mine, just in case.’

  ‘In case of what?’

  ‘That you wobble when you get going.’

  ‘I’ll take a turn or two along here, if you don’t mind.’

  Eve hadn’t been on a bike since her elder brother had taught her on a borrowed errand-boy’s bike – all the kids in the street had learned on it. It was a wonderful feeling; the tyres were springy and the chain and cogs clean and oiled.

  ‘There! I told you. Not a single wobble. Come on, let’s get going.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘A couple of miles to the east of here. We follow the shoreline.’

  The lane was narrow and not well surfaced.

  Electra went ahead, calling back over her shoulder from time to time, pointing out across the water to where Portsmouth lay.

  ‘Here we are,’ Electra called back as she turned sharp right and then sharp left again. ‘How was it? Not far enough to make you stiff. Not even out of breath.’

  ‘But perspiring like mad.’

  The bikes were left propped against a brick outhouse, and, swinging Eve’s tote, Electra led the way round to the front of the house.

  Eve said, ‘Wow! What a smashing house!’

  ‘Absolutely genuine Lutyens.’

  Typical of Lutyens’ architecture, the house had tall fancy chimneys and broad stretches of narrow windows that looked out over a wide stretch of neglected lawn to the sea.

  ‘What’s the house called?’

  ‘Just The House by the Sea.’

  Eve laughed. ‘Oh, I like that.’

  ‘Come on in. I’ll show you where you’ll be putting up. Hardly anybody here at the moment; it’s just been opened up.’

  Although the downstairs rooms were almost empty, and the floors were bare polished strip-board, the house had a feeling of being lived in. If this were mine, I’d never want to move, Eve thought. Then, as she went to the upper rooms overlooking the Solent with its constant movement in the shipping lanes, and the distant natural chalk buttresses beyond which, as she well knew, was the exit from her home town, the road to London and beyond, she settled for: If this were mine, it would be the perfect place to come home to.

  It was reaching midday. ‘Something to eat – outside?’

  ‘Smashing, it’s warm enough. Can you tell me about the others who will be coming?’

  ‘Of course. Grab a tray. Rosehip wine? The Dad’s a whizz at country wines.’

  ‘They’re called hedgerow wines where I come from.’

  Electra looked for a moment as though she would ask, ‘Where’s that?’ but, like Eve, she had become part of a world where you didn’t ask those questions – unless it was your job to do so, and then you could call up one of the personal files.

  Eve covered for her. ‘Wines like this, if they’re made by an expert, are so good you wonder why you bother with vinos.’

  ‘Cheese roll… almost sans cheese?’

  ‘Sounds good to me.’

  They settled on the untended grass facing the sea.

  ‘What has Keef told you about this house?’ Electra asked.

  ‘Very little, only that it’s for specialist people who are going… ‘underground’ is it called?’

  ‘What it is really is a kind of rehearsal room for a big production. Not many parts, all those ones involved will be stars. Keef and Phoebe’s jobs are to see that you are word-perfect.’ Electra grinned. ‘WRNS Officer Moncke.’

  ‘I know, I know, what a turn-up for the book.’ ‘Out of the Scrubs people, there’s you and Wilhelmina de Beers, and a Paul Smyth.’

  Now it was Eve’s turn to grin. ‘Smyth-with- a-Y. He’s a really nice chap, so’s DB – Wilhelmina. I suppose we must have done something right at the Scrubs.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know about that, but I guess you’re all good Bureau material.’

  ‘You seem to have picked up quite a lot since I last saw you.’

  ‘The Dad’s in the know, which is why Keef got me out of the FANY and into The Bureau. Now, what else can I tell you? Well, Peter Follis – he will be here. He’s a magician. He can transform a person so that their own mother wouldn’t know them. Ever heard of him?’ Eve shook her head. ‘Brilliant. Worked back stage for years. Mostly simple stuff, like a chap with a bald head and limping on a walking stick can transform his appearance in a trice if he ditches the stick and dons a cap and a pair of spectacles and strides out. Phoebe explained it to me. That’s the simple stuff.’ She hunched her shoulders and smiled like a schoolgirl telling a secret. ‘Actually, that’s about all I know about him.’

  ‘According to Keef, that is what he is going to do to me – transform me.’

  ‘Peter and Phoebe Moncke, according to Keef, have worked together for years. They have – or used to have – their own theatre?’

  ‘Oh, is that what she was talking about?’

  ‘A small place. I think they call it “experimentational” or something… ad-lib… Dada theatre, the sort of place The Dad wouldn’t approve of as “intellectual and foreign”. Strange though, The Dad knows Keef and doesn’t mind him at all. It’s my opinion that Keef went to The Dad’s college – most of the men he approves of came from there. Of course, Keef’s a different generation, but an old boy’s an old boy for ever.’

  ‘What about Commander Kiefor and WRNS Officer Moncke? Are they colleagues or what?’

  ‘Oh, colleagues, I’m certain.’

  Eve waited for her to go on, as she was bound to. Electra was a superb gossip, like a gently babbling warm stream. The thing was, Electra’s stream wasn’t as shallow as it appeared. Like the previously ‘potty’ Phoebe, there was a lot more depth to her than first appeared – had to be, or she would hardly have been taken onto the Bureau staff.

  ‘I believe that Keef was the money behind “Solo” – Peter Follis and Phoebe’s theatre. You might not believe it, but he’s the younger of the two.’

  ‘Keef?’

  ‘Yes. Quite smitten by her – but in a purely platonic way, even though they are quite prepared to share a room. Very queer set-up. But that’s theatre people for you. Look, I have to go down to the town to pick up supplies, and meet the ferry. Ration books complicate things for us. We have to register with local shops, otherwise there would be too much curiosity. We couldn’t be registering everybody who comes and goes here, so we put in some permanent cards and the rest is sent over by ferry from the RN stores. Lieutenant Hatton has left all this to me, and he’s really pleased with me. He’s nice, isn’t he?’

  ‘Really charming.’

  ‘Some of the girls who saw him at a local hop – local as at Griffon – well, they called him my lover boy because he kept dancing with me until I had taught him to jitterbug. I’ll have to take the brake down, pick up our supplies, your luggage plus Miss de Beers and Mr Smyth.

  ‘You hang around here, open kitchen cupboards, find out where stuff is. Somebody might drop in with a tray of eggs – just leave them on the dresser. Lovely bit of sun, have a walk along the shore if you
like. By the way, how is your delicious Russian – or shouldn’t I ask?’

  Eve gave her a wry expression. ‘I think I just might take that walk along the shore.’

  Electra winked. ‘Good idea.’

  * * *

  Eve sat as close to the lapping waves as she could. Much of the time she had spent strolling along the shoreline path she spent thinking of Dimitri. Where was he? Their new situation disturbed her. She hadn’t bargained for missing him quite so much. The Bureau had whisked him away at speed, leaving no trace. The only thing she had to prove that he had ever existed was the short note. She shouldn’t complain, because it was the way she had left her family. Once before a man had been chopped out of her life – Ozz Lavender. Even after all these months, she still missed him. Now that Dimitri was gone – true, with a cleaner cut – she was hurting. He was a great comforter. If he was here now he would draw her onto his generous lap and wrap his arms around her, making soft comfort in Russian. Watching the ever-increasing circles from a stone thrown into the sea, she tried yet again to analyse her feelings for him. Why couldn’t he just—

  ‘Loo-loo-loo-loo!’ The high-pitched ululating call carried along the coastline from the left. Eve’s mood lightened. She had heard that Zulu call before, carrying clearly across the River Thames. DB. What sport!

  Eve ran towards the sound and arrived at The House by the Sea to see DB and Paul coming towards her.

  Paul wasn’t a man who found it unmanly to give hugs and kisses. He threw his tweedy arms around Eve’s shoulders. ‘Come here, you thing, and be warmly greeted.’ Their pleasure at meeting again was obvious. ‘Miss Sanderson said we would know our third colleague.’

  ‘Evie Anders, hey man, it is good to see you! The old firm… only Fran missing.’

  ‘I saw her again, just for a minute…’