Unexploded

by Alison Macleod

  On the wireless, Lord Haw-Haw was still prophesying doom. The assault of his rhetoric seemed, like her father’s old rants, to be coming from everywhere at once: through the stillness of the sitting room, through the high walls of their home, up through the vents and floorboards, and into the marrow of her. ‘It is surely time for the English people to reflect that if it is Paris today, it will be London in the very near future. To any Englishman, who still follows these politicians who have led him to the tragedy in which he finds himself, I can only say, “Look thy last on all these lovely things, every hour.” ’

  12

  The Superintendent extended his hand across the steel desk of the Camp HQ, but Otto Gottlieb declined to shake it.

  ‘Take a seat, Mr Gottlieb. This shouldn’t take long.’

  So this, thought Otto, was the reason why his dressing had, after three days, been changed and why he’d been permitted a sponge bath. ‘I’d like you to recount for me the events of Friday morning.’

  Otto turned to the window. A view, an actual view … The sea, all glittering bright. He clapped his hands on his thighs. ‘You’re quite right, Superintendent. It shouldn’t take long at all. I made a full statement to your Head of Patrol on Saturday afternoon.’

  ‘Yes, it’s all here.’ The Superintendent tapped the file. ‘However, I’d be grateful if you could go through it with me again.’ He summoned a smile. ‘Strictly between us, my Head of Patrol has deplorable handwriting.’

  How little, Otto wondered, could he get away with saying?

  After the darkness of the van and the cramped drive, he and thirteen other men were released into the open air and had stood blinking at the sight of a beach. They were given a small bar of soap each and fifteen minutes. The sea light had washed over them like a gift.

  When the order came, they stripped. Most picked their way across the shingle, but he walked easily into the waves. The soles of his feet had lost most of their nerve endings two years before on the boot track, and now he felt oddly invulnerable. He was the first one in. The tide was strong, sucking at the pebbled shore like a baby’s mouth at a breast. Gulls swooped and sailed. The cliffs glowed white, pulsing with a radiance, with a wordless signal, aeons deep.

  Behind him, the five guards stood rigid in the surf up to their knees, their rifles pointed at the sky. He dived into the waves and swam, opening his eyes under water. No children’s faces. No Room 51. Not here. Finally, not here.

  On and on through the limpid sea. He felt as if he could swim for ever, as if, now, today, at last, he had energy to spare.

  It had been that simple, he informed the Superintendent. No, he knew nothing about any flashing lights along the coast. He had swum without aim or direction. There had certainly been no plan of any kind, except, eventually, and with the help of a strong current, to tire and let himself go under.

  The shot to his shoulder had been an unexpected source of assistance.

  No. He had not seen any dinghy on the beach. And no, it hadn’t occurred to him that his guards would attempt a rescue. After all, they had just shot him, hadn’t they?

  ‘But you heard the warning shot?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you swam on, unconcerned.’

  ‘There comes a point, Superintendent, when a man is no longer concerned.’

  ‘Your tribunal notes say you’re an artist.’

  ‘Then it must be so.’

  ‘Also – how curious – your passport bears the stamp “Degenerate”. Would you kindly explain?’

  ‘I am a debauched defiler. What more can I say?’

  Geoffrey looked up from the file. ‘Jewish?’

  ‘It has been said.’

  Geoffrey studied the man on the other side of his desk. ‘Simply answer the question, please.’

  ‘Secular.’

  ‘Homosexual?’

  ‘No, though at Sachsenhausen, the artists were barracked with the homosexuals, and those men were, on the whole, the best of men.’

  ‘Sachsenhausen? North of Berlin?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re Category A. You arrived with a sum of money …’

  ‘If you read on, you’ll see I have already given a full account of the counterfeiting operation – or as full an account as I myself was given.’

  ‘You’ll need to sign a statement saying you heard the warning shot and that you persisted in your escape. Your guard had no choice but to fire again.’

  ‘I hope he was commended for his marksmanship.’

  Something hot and dark flared in the Superintendent’s eyes. ‘You’re lucky he hit your shoulder.’

  Otto smiled. ‘I’ve had luckier days.’

  ‘The Home Department will require you to confirm a good standard of care.’

  ‘Nazi bunk-mates and enforced imprisonment aside.’

  ‘Are you being insolent, Mr Gottlieb?’

  ‘No, Mr Beaumont. Merely accurate.’

  Geoffrey stood and moved to the window, as if suddenly indifferent to the company he was required to keep. ‘Your English is excellent. We had no idea.’

  ‘I don’t believe I ever said my English wasn’t excellent.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. I have merely avoided conversation. Surely that right at least remains to me?’

  ‘Discretion is an enviable quality – particularly in a spy, for example.’

  ‘Yes, I imagine it’s highly desirable, though Jewishness isn’t, I understand.’

  ‘Still, it’s rare to meet a German, here at the coastal front, with so little trace of an accent …’

  Otto smiled at the floor. ‘I daresay it’s also rare to meet a Superintendent who takes so great an interest in his prisoners. My father was a linguist, Mr Beaumont, or was until Jews, including all secular Jews, were relieved of their posts at the universities. Alas, my dear old nanny is the person we must hold to account for my diction. English. And, coincidentally, Sussex born and bred. From a place called Petworth, I seem to recall.’

  Geoffrey turned to him, nodding as if amused. ‘A small world.’

  ‘Yes.’ Otto met his eyes. ‘Terribly small.’

  13

  Saturday, June the 22nd. It was to be the last Royal Pavilion Midsummer Ball until the peace.

  The atmosphere was one of rigid good cheer. If the windows of the Pavilion were necessarily blinded, the chandeliers were polished and bright, and if good alcohol was in short supply, there was always the big band to obliterate all thought.

  The two couples spilled out on to the north balcony, drinks in hand. ‘I can’t see a thing!’ Sylvia protested, and Tom had to steer her from behind, his hands on her waist, following the glow of Geoffrey’s white shirt and tie.

  Evelyn laughed, then sighed. Sylvia was always good spectacle. What a relief her and Tom’s company was.

  Geoffrey hitched up his trousers and let the balcony’s low stone balustrade take his weight. He for one was glad of the sudden dark-ness; glad to be, for a short while, an exile from society. There was no moon, but the night was generous. It seemed to grant them a reprieve from formality; to cloak them in an easy intimacy, as if they were young again and free of the weight of the persons they were yet to become.

  With a shy smile, Tom passed Geoffrey an uncharacteristically large flask of whisky. He took a grateful swig, admiring the white of his wife’s throat and her slim arms as she motioned across the dark sea of the gardens. The Theatre Royal was at that moment disgorging its crowd into the blackout. Evelyn was remarking on the sight to Sylvia. Dozens of beams from pocket-torches flickered to life, making a sieve of the night.

  He took another mouthful from the flask, nodded at Tom’s measured account of the latest rumours out of the Traveller’s Club, and let his mind idle to the sound of the women’s voices and the glimmer of their smiles. They chatted, happily it seemed, and Tom was on excellent form, quiet-spoken but as solid as ever.

  Had Evelyn told Sylvia about their difficulties? he wondered. Had Tom alread
y been enlisted to ‘have a word’, and was that the reason behind the flask? He hoped not. He wanted only the respite of the evening; the chance for him and Evvie to laugh and forget. Surely that was what she wanted too? Surely it wasn’t too late for life to return to what it had been just a month ago? Might she relax enough not to turn her back to him in bed later on? For even that he’d be grateful.

  Fourteen years ago, she had appeared beneath a Chinese lantern in these gardens, a girl in a thin white gown. She hadn’t accepted a cigarette or a seat on the bench beside him but she’d stayed, and her company that night had felt charmed, fleeting. Indeed it had been hard to believe she wouldn’t dissolve when they stepped beyond the light of the lantern, but instead, she’d taken form.

  He knew what it was to hold her in the night, adjusting himself in sleep to her. He knew the round of her bottom as she nestled against him. He knew the curve of her hip beneath his palm and the dip of her lower back. Her laugh, bigger than she was, still surprised him, if only, perhaps, because he heard it less these days.

  Behind the shutters and blackout curtains, the Midsummer Ball was in motion, a decorous secret the building kept to itself. Was it only he who felt that the collective cheer of the night was strained, that the band was too emphatically carefree? Even there, in the fullness of the evening, with the music seducing everyone beyond thought, the laughter, the bare shoulders and the toasts seemed to him a kind of mime they all performed without heart for one another. It was meant to be a final, heady indulgence, a last hurrah, and if it was not quite that, it was at least a relief to see Evvie relaxing in Sylvia and Tom’s company, to see her swaying to the music and laughing at Sylvia’s round-up of London gossip.

  That night years ago, Evelyn had simply asked him the time. She had lost her cousin. She’d been lovely, awkward. He’d never seen such delicate wrists and ankles, and she had so much life, such spark and brightness in her eyes that the honesty of her gaze made their polite conversation seem a nonsense. Then she’d done that outlandish, most undebutante-like of things, poking him in the armpit, sweetly mocking the state of his tailcoat, and in doing so, she’d somehow transformed them both into their real selves. In the pulse of that moment, she’d felt like a familiar, a loved one.

  Her unexpected arrival in his evening had also made the earlier ruckus with Leo’s friend seem inconsequential … As those particular tensions had mounted, it was Tom who had taken him aside to suggest he step outside to clear his head. It was true, he had started it, in the gentlemen’s smoking room, by asking Leo what he’d been thinking, bringing to the ball that night so contemptible a character. Of course Leo’s friend overheard. He had meant him to overhear.

  Freddie and Art had pretended to be deep in another conversation, though Geoffrey knew they were of the same mind as he. Fitz had grabbed a drink off a passing tray and downed it before returning to the two debs, and their chaperones, who had been shadowing him all evening. Things got heated. Geoffrey spoke his mind. Perhaps he’d used some regrettable language. A bit of name-calling. He couldn’t remember. It had not been his finest hour. He’d had too much to drink.

  He probably threw the first punch. He’d never asked Tom to con-firm. They didn’t remove their jackets. Hence the split seam. He remembered that much. A card table had tipped. A few glasses had crashed. Tom had taken charge of the situation – no wonder he’d ended up in the Diplomatic Service. He’d taken Geoffrey by the arm and led him to the door: ‘Of course it’s not on. Leo was a fool to bring him. But what’s to be done about it? Let’s just get through the night, shall we? Go on. Go clear your head.’

  Geoffrey had come down from town to Hove the day before the ball to spend time with his father. Fitz, Freddie Vere, Art Stubbs, Tom and, of course, Leo, all of them friends at Oxford, had arrived for dinner on Saturday. No one had expected the chap from Hamp-stead. No one knew him or his family, though Leo had claimed great things on their behalf. At dinner, conversation had been strained. Freddie had thought it amusing to bring up the subject of a newly translated essay by Marx, ‘On the Jewish Question’. But they’d all managed to remain civil for Geoffrey’s father’s sake, who had been bewildered, thankfully, by the speed of the repartee.

  By the time they’d piled into the motors at the end of the ball, the stain of the brawl in the smoking room had almost faded, and everyone, with the exception of Leo and his friend, had driven to London – to Mayfair and the 43 Club. It was past one when they’d arrived, but Mrs Merrick and her deep cleavage still presided over the door. As usual, she welcomed Fitz to the club without charge because he was heir to a peerage, a logic that had always seemed strangely flawed to Geoffrey and the others. But if the cover charge was steep, the girls had poise. A few had been debs. One was the ex-wife of a colonel. He danced that night with a girl called Constance, whose pale silk gown fluttered under the ceiling fans. She was slight and very pretty, in spite of a lazy eye, and her hair was black and lustrous, though shorter than Evelyn’s. It was costly – five pounds – to take her back to one of Mrs M’s flats. He gave her more than that when he remembered that she would have to pay a pound for the use of the flat. She asked him if he’d brought a French letter, and he’d reached for his wallet again. Then he’d closed his eyes and tried to feel Evelyn in his arms.

  In the gardens below, lilac, the last of the season, seemed to haunt the night, and she allowed herself to close her eyes, to store away, for harsher times perhaps, the surfeit of its fragrance. Then she turned again for a view of the ball through the balcony’s French doors. At centre stage, a singer sang low into the microphone, her hands imploring, her lips as bright as blood.

  Sylvia slipped an arm around her shoulders. ‘I don’t know about you, but I can’t bear to be upstaged.’

  Evelyn squeezed her hand. ‘You? Never.’

  When Geoffrey had suggested they invite Tom and Sylvia down from London for the night, she’d felt herself brighten for the first time in weeks. Sylvia was the reminder she needed that the entire world hadn’t lost its sense of humour; that it hadn’t given in to dread. Sylvia wasn’t afraid of anything, not of Hitler or war or of any unsteadiness in herself. Tall, willowy, a natural blonde, she never failed to be noticed, but for all her glamour, she was plain-speaking and soft-hearted with it. She treated Tom’s ancient, demented mother with a kindness the old woman had never known, and, in the last year, she had turned their house into a veritable orphanage for five East End children who had lost their parents. As Tom once said, she’d give anyone the faux fur off her back. And relentless tease though Sylvia was, she adored him. Tonight Evelyn had seen her friend’s eyes fill up when, after a waltz, Tom had taken her palm and pressed it to his lips.

  Admittedly, when Sylvia and Tom had announced their engagement four years before, it had seemed incredible to Evelyn that this was the woman Tom, the discreet diplomat, had finally chosen to be his wife. Even in wartime Sylvia didn’t know how not to be showy. While Evelyn, Geoffrey and Tom sipped the rough Algerian wine that all guests were doing their best to drink, Sylvia had persuaded the bartender to produce her trademark cocktail, a Sidecar, and as she danced, glass in hand, she jingled with a riot of African bangles and beads. Her lips were plump with maroon lipstick. Her plunging velvet gown clung to her – midnight blue, backless, slinky. It was unlikely she was wearing a single under-garment.

  Evelyn’s own gown was also backless, though cut high across her collarbones. She’d chosen a mauve silk taffeta but tonight, as she caught a glimpse of herself in a ballroom looking glass, she wondered if the colour did her complexion any favours. She looked sallow, she thought. Middle-aged. Geoffrey had told her she looked lovely – in blue. His colour-blindness always disheartened her somehow; he would never know the full spectrum of colour and he didn’t give a jot.

  ‘Turn around! Turn around, Evvie! No, this way …’ Sylvia had seized her hand. Together, they peeped over their shoulders at their bemused husbands. ‘Now, Evvie. Tell the truth. Has Geoffrey had the presence of
mind to compliment you on your thrift?’ She waved a hand, for Geoffrey’s information, across his wife’s naked back.

  Geoffrey lowered his face and laughed.

  ‘I thought not. Nor has mine.’

  Tom cleared his throat. ‘The nation thanks you, and I believe I speak for my old friend when I say that we are, of course, helpless with admiration.’ Geoffrey raised Tom’s flask in solidarity, and they returned to their conversation.

  But Sylvia wasn’t finished. ‘Tom, tell me that you are not still talking about that old Etonian lover – oops, I mean, trouser-press – forgive me, I mean fag – of yours, James Roedale-Bugger-the-Double-Barrel. Now there’s an attention-seeker if ever there was one. For heaven’s sake, they’d might as well have let me into the Diplomatic Service.’ Her cocktail glass was empty again. She winked at Evelyn, stole a sip of her wine, and, tasting it, grimaced.

  Tom leaned towards Geoffrey and mumbled into his chest, ‘I believe I mentioned him to you once. We only just managed to keep it out of the papers. Apparently, he greatly exceeded his instructions.’

  ‘Apparently! The man was on his way to Germany to tell Hitler we’d be happy to let him do whatever he liked with Europe as long as he left the Empire alone. The man was hopeless even at games at school, yet Lord Halifax lets him loose on an international crisis! Tom, darling, has Geoffrey told you he’s the Head of the Invasion Committee for this area and Superintendent of the local Camp? He’s keeping everyone in Sussex safe from all those alien enemies. Why can’t you be a man of action like Geoffrey?’

  Tom rolled his eyes for comic effect. ‘As a matter of fact, he has mentioned it, my sweet. They’re lucky to have him.’

  ‘No doubt, Geoffrey, you’ll be glad to hear that I’ve weighed up the Government’s advice and I, too, have taken key decisions.’ She smiled, her eyes a-glitter.