The Face of Eve

by Betty Burton

‘Are you wary of it?’

  ‘Not wary, but I can’t believe that I shall be able to do it.’

  ‘Intelligent women make very good subjects. How about if we make a start now? In the armchair, feet raised on the little stool, hands on the chair arms. The picture facing you is that of a gerbera. When we begin I want you to look at its centre as you listen to me, until I ask you to close your eyes. You will not fall asleep, you will always be aware that you are in this room and that it is me who is talking to you. You may open your eyes at any point, but I would prefer that you did so when I suggest it. Are you warm enough? Good. I will slip off your shoes and put a nice warm little blanket over your feet. Ready when you are… ’

  * * *

  And so began daily sessions with Janet McKenzie. After the first two Eve began to look forward to gazing at the flower and being lost in time until she heard Janet say, ‘Three, two, one. You may open your eyes.’

  Janet McKenzie was helping Eve to submerge her utopian ideals and the urge to talk politics. ‘Eve is bored, bored, bored by what might be happening in the world – except as it affects her directly.’

  ‘You mean I have to be a self-centred rich bitch then?’

  ‘Exactly so. For the period that you are there you have no opinions except the frivolous ones – whether the Paris style or the American style is the better, not even a comment about Paris fashion disappearing; nothing about the war. Your “Irish ancestry” helps there.’

  The transformation of Eve and the running of her as a Special Ops agent in the Madrid Ritz was going to cost taxpayers a pretty penny. She only hoped that The Bureau would think that it had got its money’s worth when it was over.

  They were out walking together along the shoreline when Eve mentioned this to Janet. Janet gave her a lecture about doing what she was best at and leaving the Treasury to worry about value for money.

  ‘They’ve been spending money for as long as anyone can remember, keeping men in comfortable hotels in the Far East, and paying out for dubious intelligence. You’ll be good value, Eve. Running this place alone would pay a soldier’s wage for a lifetime. So shut up and think like a woman who never thinks about the cost of anything.’

  There seemed to be a lot of hanging about, so, as she would be purporting to be a photographer of nature, Eve asked Phoebe for a camera and as they walked she took photographs. In the house she learned as much as she could about the technique from books and practising.

  ‘How d’you feel about your man now that you have had this space around you – this emotional space?’ Janet asked one day on one of their walks.

  ‘I miss the lovemaking.’ Eve smiled, crinkling her brow.

  Janet rolled her eyes upwards. ‘We all do, and it’s likely to get worse for the faithful types. Are you one?’

  ‘No, I don’t have anyone to be faithful to.’

  ‘This one’s a serious question. How do you cope?’

  ‘With not having a man?’

  ‘Yes. You’re not a lesbian, so what happens when you want it – sexual gratification – I mean really want it so that it’s like a thirst, but there’s nothing to quench it; worse, nothing likely to be around?’

  ‘I don’t know that I want to answer that.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Janet, it’s a bit personal, isn’t it?’

  ‘It isn’t curiosity. I really need to know as much as I can about you – what makes your clock tick, your pendulum swing, how likely you are to fall into bed with somebody. Y’know what I mean?’

  ‘The sort of people I come from don’t talk like this. It’s kind of embarrassing.’

  ‘But you are no longer the sort of people you come from. Men masturbate all the time – they know it, their friends know it, it’s accepted that they like to do it, so they do. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course I know it.’

  ‘But you think it’s kind of embarrassing for us women?’

  ‘For it to be a topic of conversation, yes. Maybe you’re used to it – I’m not.’

  ‘I’m your psychologist, Eve, and I know that it’s a bit unprofessional to talk to you away from the room – but I know you.’

  Eve felt niggled with herself. She hated to be thought prudish – she didn’t like prudes – but until now she had never expected to be questioned about how she conducted her private life.

  ‘Young Lu Wilmott, she is the embarrassed one. Am I right? Or am I right?’

  ‘Lu is me… is Eve.’

  ‘So who are you?’

  ‘Eve Anders née Lu Wilmott.’

  ‘Lu is a child… a girl, she ceased to exist three years ago. The team is giving you another face and figure to take with you to Spain; I must give you a new character. OK, it is a pseudo character, but you cannot take this child along.’

  ‘She is not a child. Lu is the absolute nucleus of Eve.’

  ‘How can she possibly be the nucleus of this intelligent woman?’ Janet McKenzie moved in front of Eve and spread her hands wide. ‘For God’s sake. Eve, let the child go. Give her to me if you don’t feel that you can ditch her.’

  Eve felt a terrible danger, as though a foothold she had been sure was secure had come loose. She turned away from the path and towards the shoreline, and sat on the strand just above where the tide had withdrawn.

  Janet McKenzie squatted beside her, touching her lightly on the shoulder. ‘Eve, you’re an intelligent woman. You have been amazing in what you have done. You’re brave, resourceful, and an ardent mature woman. You’re twenty-two – you have lived your life more fully than most young women I know. Give yourself a chance, Eve. Be yourself, be the woman you’ve chosen to be.’

  The threatening attack of panic began to subside. ‘If I give up Lu, I will have deserted my own class – my ideals, if you like.’

  ‘Isn’t it a bit arrogant to believe that somebody like me can’t share those ideals?’

  ‘I shall never forget what it felt like to be Lu and not get a grammar school place because she came from the wrong end of town.’

  ‘And I shall never forget what it felt like to be Janet and not be acceptable in any school because she is black. So I left and found a place where what counted was my mind and not my skin and hair. I shall never forget, but I have moved on down the road since then, though I am still Janet McKenzie, I am still black.’ She sat close to Eve and reached out for her hand. ‘This is the friend, not the psychologist.’

  Eve looked down at the fine, long brown fingers, fingertips painted fire-engine red, and ran her own fingers over Janet’s pale pink palm. ‘You are black, aren’t you… isn’t that strange? That’s never occurred to me. I don’t mean that I think about you as being white or anything like that, I mean that I just see Janet… Dr McKenzie.’

  ‘As it should be in a perfect world. And I see Eve Anders. Quite by chance – because of my professional relationship with you – I happen to know that you have this immature little person you keep lugging around with you.’ Janet put an arm lightly round Eve’s shoulder.

  Eve smiled and gave Janet a light kiss on the cheek. ‘Come on, let’s walk.’

  * * *

  DB’s delightful voice could be heard every morning as she did her exercises, but mostly she was preoccupied and serious. Paul was his usual likeable self, trying out a bit of cussing and learning how to get on in a Roman Catholic church, what working men ate and how they ate it. Most days he went off with an instructor to learn the techniques of handling a tiny fishing boat.

  DB and Paul left the island before Eve became suitably stick-thin.

  When Eve was thin enough, Electra drove Peter and Eve to London for a few days. There, Peter introduced Eve to some exclusive fashion houses, where they selected a stunning wardrobe down to the last comb and scent spray. A small amount of jewellery – paste but good – handmade shoes, and gloves and suitcases.

  Eve, letting the Treasury worry about the cost, revelled in the anticipation of wearing these beautiful clothes.
>
  She had anticipated that she would return to the island, but Phoebe Moncke appeared at the hotel in which Eve was staying and gave her everything she needed to fly to Shannon airport and from there to Lisbon.

  8

  David Hatton, who had found some reason to be going to Eire, travelled with Eve on the aeroplane from England. He felt it necessary to reinforce in a low voice what Janet McKenzie had impressed upon her many times. ‘You don’t know Spain; you don’t understand any of the languages, but you will pick up useful phrases as any visitor would, and you go about with a little English / Spanish dictionary in your pocket.’

  She gave him an arch expression, and said in the languid, amused tone she had adopted, ‘David, darling, I shouldn’t dream of mistreating any pocket of mine… you see?’ And slipping a hand into a fine leather pochette, she retrieved a slim volume, and a pair of fine gold-rimmed glasses, which she donned, turning to look directly at him.

  He raised his eyebrows and gave her a pleased look. ‘Is this another of Phoebe’s ideas?’

  ‘Actually, no. I do have a minor defect, so these are perfectly genuine.’

  ‘Whoever said “Men seldom make passes / At girls who wear glasses” was an idiot. You look stunning.’ He put his hand over hers and squeezed it in a friendly way, so that she didn’t retreat from it immediately.

  ‘David, please tell me what happened about Dunkirk.’ Even as she had been leaving for Eire, she had seen in the newspaper the first of Portsmouth’s “little boats” returning from France with troops who had retreated as far as possible so that there was only sea left behind them. ‘How will I know…?’

  ‘Pick up what you can. You are too much of a spoiled society lady to care much about some little battle that’s hundreds of kilometres away. You’ll be asked whether you would like morning papers with your breakfast. If you just say OK, you’ll get something, but days late because the English papers have to be flown in. Just don’t read them avidly.’

  ‘I’m well aware that “the devil is in the detail” – Peter Follis hammered that into me.’

  ‘Madrid will be buzzing with regular SIS agents. If you think you spot any of them, report to Electra.’

  Electra would be stationed in Eire for the duration of the Windsor surveillance operation. She would be Eve, DB and Paul’s ‘Aunt Maureen’, to whom Eve would book regular calls.

  ‘I have a wager with a chap in MI6 that we could run one of ours right under their noses and they would never know who it was. So I’m relying on you.’

  ‘You really are all just a bunch of schoolboys.’

  ‘I wish I were coming with you. I’d love to see the place now. Take me a lot of photographs.’

  He walked with her to the steps of the Lisbon plane. ‘I wouldn’t dream of wishing you good luck. You’ll be too good to need it.’

  She kissed him lightly on both cheeks in the French style, then ran the tips of her calf-clad fingers lightly from his ear to his chin. ‘Thank you, David darling.’ And then in a whisper, ‘Just you get Electra to tell me about Dunkirk – not the full story, just about how it went for us.’

  As she boarded the aircraft, she could have staked anything that his eyes would be following her silk-stockinged ankles, high-heeled court shoes and peach-coloured barathea skirt as she mounted the steps. She gave him the whole film-star departure, and loved it. Just as she reached the top of the steps, she turned and waved a fingertip kiss at him. He touched the peak of his uniform cap and left.

  He was more handsome now than when they’d first met five years ago. On the flight, she allowed herself to think a little about him. It was weeks since she had made love. She still wondered what it would be like with him.

  * * *

  Waiting for her at Lisbon was a highly polished motor, an enormous Buick convertible, cream with green trim and crimson upholstery, huge chrome headlamps and foglights. A real motor – but with a false chauffeur: Mendoza. He was Portuguese, and one of Colonel Faludi’s ‘people’ who had had experience in some other branch of the service. He was Eve’s senior, and she supposed that he would also be advising the Chief on how she performed.

  She felt nervous. Her hands were cold and shaking; she stilled them by holding tightly to her clutch bag tucked under her arm.

  Keef and Phoebe had kept saying that it would be a pretty safe operation. Spain was a neutral country where warring countries could mix and watch one another.

  Of course, if the new right-wing government were to enter the war, it would be on Germany’s side. But it wasn’t likely, as the last thing this country needed after its own devastating civil conflict was another drain on its resources. And the people? Franco’s government might support the fascist side, but what sort of army could Spain recruit? Concentration camps were full of men and women who had fought to hang on to their republic. Many had fled the country or been killed in a bloodbath of cleansing the new state of opposition. Thousands just kept their heads down but would be loose cannon in this war between Britain and Germany.

  Spain wasn’t going to war with anybody.

  As Switzerland had proved in the last war, neutrality had value which Spain needed for its restoration. This was how it was possible for Eve to be able to enter the country and travel in it – provided she had good credentials. She had Southern Irish papers; Eire was no friend of the British. Her documents were false – but perfectly false. Who would question that she was not Eve Anders, the young woman who had been born in Eire and brought up in England but had returned home at the start of the war? Eire was in much the same state as Spain: its own civil war had left it spinning. Eve Anders, whose photograph was fixed and certified on her passport, would bring welcome currency to Spain. Pounds, punts, dollars – she could pay in any of them. Even so, she was apprehensive.

  True, her appearance was changed, but Janet had advised keeping her name.

  True, she would be moving in high society, mixing with those who had been in exile during the war.

  True, most of the Spanish people she had met on a regular basis never knew her name – often she’d been called the American Girl – but throughout the war there had been what General Franco had named his ‘fifth column’, meaning those who were loyally awaiting the overturning of the Republic. If they were discovered, they ‘disappeared’. In the new Spain, tables were turned, old scores were being settled.

  There was always the chance that some small thing might give her away. It was the risk she must take. Peter Follis had said that the better the actor the worse were the butterflies in their stomach, sometimes retching right up to the time when they stepped into the spotlight. She hoped he was right, but it didn’t feel like it at the moment.

  ‘You are comfortable, Miss Anders?’

  ‘Thank you, Mendoza, yes. But I would like to have the top down.’

  ‘It will be windy.’

  ‘I know.’

  It was windy, but with a scarf round her head, Eve luxuriated in the extravagant motorcar.

  ‘It is a long drive. I will stop at suitable places for you to have refreshment and walk a little.’

  This he did. From the way he was greeted, Eve guessed that he knew the inns very well. Always polite, always the servant, he left her at small tables to be attended by the owner, and conducted to the primitive ‘facilities’ by the wife or daughter.

  It was a long journey but Mendoza was adamant that he was not fatigued. ‘You must not concern yourself, madam.’ The only time that either of them relaxed role was when he said, ‘When we reach the border, I will deal with the guards.’

  Eve was following their route on a map and knew that they were nearing the border with Spain. She began to feel almost sick with apprehension. Perhaps he sensed that.

  He pulled into the side of the road and got out. ‘I have café au lait in a vacuum flask. I think you would like some?’

  It was here for a few minutes that their roles reversed. Removing his peaked cap, Mendoza poured two beakers of coffee. If he had looked
forty in his cap, now, with very black hair receding on both sides of his head, he appeared to be nearer fifty. ‘The border is no more than three kilometres ahead, Miss Anders. There should be no problems, but this is how we will do it. I shall open your door for you, you do not get out. The guards ask for the papers, I shall interpret for you. You do not get out, you hand me your papers and I shall give them to the guards.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Border guards have boring work, and they sometimes like to make their work appear important. However, they will find a beautiful woman more interesting than her papers; these are perfectly good, but if they ask too many questions, you may get out of the motor to walk around a little. Their eyes will follow you. You understand?’

  ‘A bit of silk stocking?’ she smiled. He did not. It had worked for Mata Hari, the famous seductress / spy of the last war, but she had gone a great deal further than a bit of silk stocking; in bed with the enemy, she was supposed to have beguiled secrets from them.

  ‘Never address your chauffeur as “mister” or “señor”. We are a little at ease here for a few minutes, but we are not social equals, ever. Assistance from a chauffeur is taken for granted, at the most a nod of acceptance, no more than that.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘If you wish, maybe you should call me by my given name. It will serve the purpose in all circumstances. My name is—’ The pronunciation he gave was ‘Heysoos’.

  Eve repeated it. ‘Isn’t that Jesus?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘I have never known anyone with that name, except in the Bible. Isn’t it a responsibility… I mean a kind of burden?’

  ‘No, Miss Anders, it isn’t so unusual in my culture. The Christchild wasn’t the first Jesus, and there are many, many Marias.’

  ‘Actually, I like the name as you say it – Heysoos.’

  He stood up, replaced his cap and his seniority dropped away.

  They entered Spain without incident.

  * * *