The London Restoration

by Rachel McMillan

  When sleep finally came, it was without dreams or nightmare. When he woke, it was to Diana’s voice on the telephone telling Simon about the pamphlet he found in Rick’s office.

  He went to lecture for the morning, having promised to meet her at a church over his lunch break. Though London looked different, he could have navigated the distance from King’s to St. James Garlickhythe with his eyes closed.

  It had always been one of Diana’s favorites with its protruding chancel, something rare for a Wren church, and its abundance of light.

  “The tower clock was destroyed,” Diana said as she and Brent approached. “But the rest has stood up. Look! Even the Sunday hymns.” A wood-encased sign listed the numbers of the upcoming order.

  Thus, just as men in Savile Row suits rushed from Fleet Street offices under a sun-swathed and brilliant orange late-autumnal sky, they approached the church. The same temperate weather as when they first sat together in the yard at Great St. Bart’s. He had promised to fall in love with her again and again—through any season, even as autumn yawned out the last of its sojourn.

  Her reintroduction to the church after the loss of its beautiful inner architecture would hit her hard, the desecration a personal offense to her. A rector wandered nearby in a half alley where vintners and merchants used to barter their wares. Diana smiled. Brent tipped his hat. Soon sunlight streamed through the windows of Wren’s Lantern and they had the sanctuary to themselves.

  “Do you remember when I made you sneak in here before the Easter Sunday service?” Diana said.

  “At five thirty in the morning. We picked the lock to the side door with your hairpin.” Brent was amused. “You said you wanted to see if the sunrise lit up Wren’s Lantern. You took little account of where you could actually see the sunrise in London.”

  Diana grinned. “You kissed me. Right over there. You said the light made my hair blaze.”

  “I said a lot of romantic things. I was young and in love and incredibly daft.” Brent inspected a column.

  “And you aren’t now?”

  “Incredibly daft?” he said dryly.

  He strolled to the opposite side of the altar and peered up at the ceiling. With the exception of St. Paul’s, it was the highest in the city. The floor of the south aisle still bore the damage of the bomb that had dropped inside but remained unexploded. Brent had read it had been detonated in the Hackney Marshes. He slunk to a relatively clean space on the floor, pulled his knees to his chest as a bit of a makeshift desk, and reached into his satchel for paper and charcoal. He began sketching with a technique perfected by so many nights in bomb shelters, his torch balanced precariously, his eyes accustomed to the dark from his years at the Front.

  He focused on Diana, the curve of her cheek highlighted by her torchlight, the ruins of brick in disarray around her. His breath hitched. In the trenches or while tugging the end of a stretcher through the mud, he could sketch every feature in delicate lines in his mind’s eye. He had memorized her face, the feel of her, how she looked when she peered up at him, her expression while recalling an interesting fact about the churches she loved. Even though part of her was shaded in darkness, his mind could color in what his eyes couldn’t see.

  Brent remained still when a figure entered the doorway. Didn’t rise as he neared Diana, who clearly noticed his presence, speaking emphatically all of a sudden. “I think if we are to implement a system that ranks the buildings by their historical significance, we should consider those with potential as well as prior significance.”

  Brent slowly rose. “I agree.” He stepped to join her. Unlike the man at Walbrook, the stranger didn’t move toward them. Rather he kept silent and smoked. A rolled-up newspaper Brent could make out as The Times peeked out of his trench. He pushed the brim of his homburg back on his forehead and slowly unraveled the paper just as Brent and Diana’s torchlight swathed its path.

  Then he tucked the paper under his left arm and lit another cigarette, its orange ember at the tip like a small prying eye facing them a moment before he turned to the doorway and the double doors that led out to Garlick Hill.

  Brent was so intent on his study of the stranger that when he moved his gaze, it landed on Diana, who had shuffled close to him.

  “The matches. The mismatched cigarettes I found?” she whispered. “Did I tell you about those?” Her voice tickled his ear.

  “No.”

  “He’s got to be signaling someone. It’s too rehearsed.”

  Brent nodded. “Shall we go?” he said in a louder voice for the benefit of the stranger.

  “I think we’ve done all we’re going to do for now. You have your sketches?”

  Brent folded his sketch pad into his satchel beside the gun he had begun carrying on Diana’s behalf as she tucked her notebook in her handbag. She cast a surreptitious glance at Brent and motioned with her eyes behind her. He took the hint, gave a curt nod, and double-checked. He took her arm as they walked out of the church.

  Diana used the darkness and the construction barricades to her advantage and tugged Brent behind a pile of lumber. Together, they focused on the open doors of the church. Diana leaned into him as another figure appeared. A man of medium height who walked into the church as if he owned it.

  A moment later the first man had joined him in the open doorway. “There were two people here. They left.”

  The second man chuckled. “Let me guess. A woman consulting on churches? Never mind. You’re here now and all is in order. I want you to wait here for another half hour and someone will come to collect you.”

  “I thought you were to take me—”

  “Ah!” the second man interrupted. “Some people are planners and others execute. I am the former.”

  There was a long silence between the men but an evident change in Diana. Her posture had straightened and the fingers on his arm tightened.

  “Alright, Di?”

  Her blue eyes pierced the shadows. “That voice. The man who joined him. It sounded familiar somehow.” She shivered. “Too familiar.”

  * * *

  That night Diana told Brent he should take the bed. She’d sleep on the sofa. Her mind was turning and there was no point in his being uncomfortable when she was just going to stay awake and listen to the wireless anyway.

  “It’s not that comfortable.”

  “Then why are you sleeping on it?”

  “Look at your wrists.”

  “Look at the shadows under your eyes.” She blew a strand of hair that had fallen across her face. “Sometimes I think it has little to do with your hurting me and all to do with your wanting every last part of our relationship to be perfect. Even our making love. I don’t look for perfection in things. And I don’t care a hang about your scars.”

  “You know that—”

  “I don’t know.” Diana wasn’t angry. She was frustrated. He would keep dying on this hill and she would find herself being pulled further and further from him as he insisted that their sharing a bed would hurt her, would keep them from ever truly finding themselves. She wasn’t sure how long she had to keep living for the little moments that mirrored their affinity before the war.

  “I don’t know, Brent. I lived without you for long enough. But what I do know is that bringing all of this up again tonight won’t make anyone happy. I am going to call Simon. Please take the bed.”

  She rang Simon, and at the end of the conversation he said, “Listen. If it was Fisher, then I’m as distraught as you. He was my friend too.”

  “You’re truly as surprised as I am?”

  “I thought I had found my double agent. What I was hired for.” Simon stopped a moment. “Maybe I was too close. Too involved? I don’t know. It’s not like I’m faring any better now.”

  “Simon, there are things here that are suspect. That could involve Fisher.”

  “Like what?”

  “Mozart. I met Langer at a Mozart concert.”

  “Fisher could not have been in Vienna. You’re jus
t throwing out theories.”

  “How do you know that? Just because you didn’t see him? That’s what we do! We throw out theories! That’s all you’ve done since this started. He knows everything about these churches, Simon, because he sat at a desk opposite mine for four blasted years. You keep speaking of this former SOE agent in Vienna. What have they found?”

  “I can’t discuss that with you.”

  “Listen, I might be tired or theorizing, but Fisher could work for him. He was bored.”

  “And he left Bletchley before all of us. On V-E Day. We were all out and drinking and toasting those large bonfires, burning everything on Churchill’s orders so the Soviets would be left with zilch, and Fisher?”

  “Wasn’t there.” Diana thought it best not to add that Simon seemed too preoccupied with Villiers that night. “And the very next day you told me you had the first whiff of this Eternity business in a while. You say this is a war of intelligence and ideology. This Cold War as George Orwell termed it in that newspaper article. Well, Fisher might just be a profile. Oh, Simon, the man’s gait, his manner . . . you know him. He had that something that was so familiar.”

  “Did you see him clearly?”

  “No, I couldn’t flash my torch and give away our hiding spot. And the streetlights there are next to pitch.”

  Perhaps all of her friends were traitors. Fisher Carne. Rick Mariner.

  Diana hung up the receiver and settled on the sofa, pulling a quilt to her chin. Perhaps the newspaper the stranger had in his pocket was the key to this Eternity puzzle.

  Puzzles were all around her if she blurred her focus just a little. They were in Simon’s cryptic messages and his requirements of her. They were in the Wren churches she visited under the guise of consultation, and her inability to find a succinct pattern in what she gleaned for Simon.

  They were in the relic Brent gave back to Rick.

  Fisher Carne would be a rather unsuspecting spy. None of the cloak-and-dagger stuff she saw in the cinema. He was so unassuming and a little awkward. About as primed for this sort of work as what she was doing for Simon. But he did have a mind like honey—everything stuck to it. He loved hearing about the little hunts her father sent her on. But if Fisher was a traitor, then it would make sense. Hadn’t he mentioned that he knew Mariner? Way back all of those years ago.

  The next morning Diana, asleep on the sofa, heard the shrill telephone while it was still dark outside.

  “What now, Simon?”

  “A man identified as Petrov was found at Magnus the Martyr last night strangled with wire.”

  Diana blinked, barely awake. “Pardon me?”

  “Wire, Diana. Piano wire.”

  “Simon . . .”

  “There was a message in his pocket. I can’t crack it. But there was also a business card with the name Mariner. I’ll bring it round when I have a chance. Petrov was supposed to be guest lecturing at King’s. So maybe tell Somerville to keep his eyes open. Suck up to Rick Mariner? I don’t know. And we need that key. I have two people on this and even tried to get Langer on it.”

  Brent appeared a moment later, tying his robe. “Who was that?” He blinked to adjust to the light she had just turned on.

  “Simon. A man was murdered at Magnus the Martyr last night.”

  “That’s horrible.” He settled on the sofa.

  Diana shivered and sat beside him, pulling the quilt she had used the night before around her. “Very. I think I might know who Eternity is.”

  “You know the man who killed someone with wire?”

  She nodded. “He was so familiar to me, the man we saw last night.”

  Brent stared at her. “We were a few feet away from a murderer?”

  “Yes.” She yawned and shuddered under the blanket still wrapped around her shoulders. “He worked with Simon and me during the war.”

  “You have to let me return to sleeping on the sofa. I may have nightmares, but you’re not sleeping at all.” He rubbed her arm. “You’re half freezing. You’re out here . . .” He swallowed, spoke lowly. “Did I wake you last night?”

  Diana blew a strand of hair from her forehead. “I am not sure, in those moments, if I should try to wake you up or if it’s best not to startle you. I wish the army sent out pamphlets about this sort of thing. I’m sure many men are in your situation.”

  Brent ran his hand over his face. “I don’t know what to do. I could seriously injure you.”

  “You can tell me what happened to you during the war.”

  “Would that really help or just make it worse?”

  Diana lowered the quilt and played with the sleeve of her nightgown. She stretched out her arm and pushed back the fabric of her nightgown; her wrist still encircled by a faint band.

  “I could break your hand and not even know I’m doing it.”

  “And yet you know that’s not why we sleep in different beds.”

  “Di . . .”

  But she wasn’t going to press it. She stretched, wriggled out of the blanket, and met the rusty stubble at the curve of Brent’s jaw with her lips.

  A half hour later she cleared the breakfast plates and scraped toast crumbs into the rubbish bin. She helped Brent into his coat. She straightened the collar of his trench coat.

  He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Don’t burn down the flat before dinner.”

  * * *

  Late April 1945

  Bletchley Park

  The frantic pace of the previous months and the constant jitter of nerves were replaced by rampant expectation. The headlines reported Hitler’s suicide on the last day of the month and anticipation rippled throughout the Park.

  Simon appeared at her workstation with a smile. “Almost time for a break?”

  Diana glanced at the clock over the now-vehement radiator. Nodded. “I’ve fifteen minutes.”

  “Care for a cup of tea?”

  She nodded. “Swear there’s a ghost trapped in there,” she remarked as they passed the radiator and took their mugs to an empty office in the corner. “You look tired.” She studied him in the window light. “Simon, you’re not half as bad as you think you are. You play all tough, but I know that deep down you are gelatin.”

  “You might change your mind. Diana, I need you to do something very important for me.”

  “How important?”

  “It might mean not going home immediately after the war ends.”

  Diana shifted. “What do you mean?”

  “I need your help, and I believe you’ll want to help me.”

  “This is a serious tone.”

  “You might not thank me right away, but you will. You’ll see that—”

  “Oh, hang it, Simon! If you’re going to be cryptic with me . . . There’s nothing you can do to convince me to stay in this wretched place after the war.”

  “When’s the last time you heard from your husband?” Simon paused. “I have something that is of interest to you.” The intensity in his gaze startled her so that she dared not blink.

  Simon studied her, his eyes calculating.

  “You’re not Diana Foyle, are you?”

  She straightened. “Pardon me?”

  “You’re Diana Somerville.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  Simon reached under his tweed jacket and removed a file. His eyes locked with hers.

  Her heart and constantly engaged brain imagined a thousand and one scenarios—none of which favored her husband being alive and well.

  Simon casually set his tea on the table and adjusted his glasses. “I work for MI6. I was placed here to find a traitor.”

  “Why are you telling me this? Are you allowed to tell me this?” Simon had a propensity for being serious, but she had rarely seen such a grave expression on his face.

  “I have access to any information I need. Including the welfare of some of our finest on the front lines.”

  Diana felt faint. “I don’t know why I’m here.”

  “I promise you, Diana, tha
t I would never lie to you about your husband’s welfare. I swear it on my life. Do you trust me?”

  “Do I have a choice?” She eyed the folder hungrily.

  “Take a deep breath.”

  “H-he’s dead, isn’t he?” Her heart stopped. Her eyes welled with tears. “He’s dead and you know. Some message. Some . . .” Where would she start? Her heart had already spelled out the beats of every finite syllable of his being dead before her brain could logically conclude a world without him.

  He acknowledged the folder. “What would you do for this?”

  “A-anything.”

  “I know that. And I want to help you.”

  Diana took a breath. She had spent so many nights awake, wondering as she studied the cracks in the ceiling what the worst would be. It was unimaginable. The worst would be learning that Brent was injured. Or scared or captured. Or just a shell of the man who pressed his lips to her palm amidst the crumbled brick of All Hallows. The worst would be finding that his voice was seized by terror, that he wouldn’t offer her tea. That his eyes were vacant and his heart stale. That those seven words of love, not nearly enough in any language, had been extinguished.

  Diana took a deep breath and peeled back the cover of the file.

  There was a picture of Brent: a face in black and white whose color she could paint in, eyes bright and intelligent, shoulders broad in his uniform. A smile began in her toes and warmed through her.

  She moved the photograph to the side and read the terse telegram of information that sank her heart to the bottom and drew her hand to her mouth.

  Everything hurt. The overhead light, the tips of her fingers, the shrill sound of the radiator in the corner, the typewriter keys clacking in the next room, a telephone.

  Her world shut down. “Two men from your husband’s unit were wounded. One is dead and one is injured. And the paperwork is so shoddy that no one knows which is which. I have a contact in the war office who is close to sorting this out and I can help you. I can find out where they are. And who survived.”