The Amber Shadows

by Lucy Ribchester

  Felix inched the car closer to the cliff edge. His door creaked in the wind and a draught shot through. He creased his brow, concentrating on the broken camber of the road. He had brought her two of those packages directly, himself; one of them had come through the hut pulley. The gusts were coming up thickly from the sea swell below, rattling the glass and iron of the truck’s structure. Then there were the remarks about Russia and her birthday. He had wanted to know, today, he had wanted her to tell him so badly what was happening. He had asked and asked. She could see white shards far away on the tops of the waves, moonlit, sharp as shark’s fins. She could do it, and maybe it would all be over, the suspicion.

  They rounded the bend and the car hit a loose stone. It threw her. She jolted into Felix and he caught her hand. And there was nothing but softness in the tops of his fingers, warmth in his grasp. She felt suddenly ashamed of her thoughts and was glad of the dusk that hid the blush blotching her neck. She reached up, placed her fingers round the back of his ear and this time she did kiss the line of his jaw.

  He slowed the car and veered off towards a patch of scrub.

  They sat in silence for a second.

  ‘Not a nice day.’

  ‘Not a bit.’

  He shifted in his seat, then half-turned so he could look at her in the dimness. With his fingertip – the damaged one -he brushed along the silk of her eyebrow. The dog whined between them. Outside the wind rustled dead brush.

  ‘Nijinsky, hop down.’ He shifted places awkwardly, the greyhound’s long legs and muscled haunches getting in the way of his arms as he strained to shift it into the driver’s seat. Nijinsky grumbled and groaned, and stepped his ungainly limbs one at a time down onto the floor of the cabin. He curled into a ball underneath the steering wheel. They sat next to each other now. Their hips were touching.

  ‘You taste like honey. Not like sugar, but a flavour that’s summery, almost wild.’

  Half a minute ago she had been thinking about killing him to save herself. Now she trembled with a different sensation. The gas mask box tipped down onto the floor. She heard something crack inside it. Her fingers slid softly up into the cream in his hair.

  The bench of the truck was wide and smooth; she slipped along it easily, crooking her knees. Briefly three images flashed across her mind: Moira; her mother; Joan Fontaine. But this was different. She would not be caught out. There would be no baby in a drawer, no children whose father was hidden in the shadows.

  The stitching of the leather scratched on her calf – she wasn’t wearing stockings. His wool coat gave off heat and scent as he untucked his arms, and despite the chill his fine-knit pullover was a little damp across his chest.

  Various phrases came crawling into her mind. ‘Is this right? Aren’t we in danger of being spotted by the Home Guard? Shall we not wait until tomorrow? Do you have a French letter?’ But she didn’t like to say any of them, for it was pleasurable, the kissing and his dry, hot palms and the comfort both of those brought. Sometimes he was clumsy, and she had to wriggle away from him until she was comfortable again. He wasn’t boorish, but he was persistent, and the curious ways he touched her sometimes, she couldn’t help but think – even in those slow moments, she couldn’t help the doubt coming into her mind – that perhaps he might have learned them that way from prostitutes or men he talked to at university or the Park; he was so oddly assured.

  When he’d had his climax, not long after they had begun, it was quiet with a low sigh. He was very clean. He leaned across to the driver’s window and tossed his handkerchief into a bush, and only at that did the dog look up.

  On the way back to Bletchley, she leaned her head on his shoulder, and although the bone made it uncomfortable she stayed there because the feel of the wool and his pulse were too comforting not to be right next to, and though he did nothing but watch the road, for the blackout gave the country lanes lined by trees a darkness that was thick as treacle, she felt the jaw muscles tighten, the smile on his face.

  He said he would be back for her before half past eleven. He’d call by the billet on foot to walk her to her shift. He wasn’t in fact on duty, he said, but he might be tempted to pop into the Park as there was a Christmas masquerade at the recreation club. She had forgotten it was happening.

  ‘I’ll come with you to drop the truck off,’ she said. But he waved his hand.

  ‘No need, why put yourself out of comfort.’

  She didn’t say, ‘So that I can be with you for half an hour longer.’

  In her bedroom she turned the wireless dial to the frequency for the BBC news, but instead it was a ballet, Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. She listened to it for a few minutes before it began to chill her and she switched it off. She felt as if it was Dickie, calling to her from the grave. It still played on her mind that the final piece of the puzzle – the music box, her mother had said – was missing. But she was fizzing too much in her limbs and her chest to think much about it. Felix’s touch had imprinted itself on so much of her skin; she felt him there like stakes in the ground, flagposts and waymarkers, the way Moira’s words had stuck on and claimed parts of Reuben’s body, that night.

  She was lying on her bed, on top of a cold pile of furs, when she heard a sharp rap on the front door directly beneath her. Mrs Steadman made a noise like a crow; Honey heard her muttering to herself, crossing the hall and winching open the ancient wood.

  ‘Oh. Are you for Rebecca or Deschamps?’ Mrs Steadman had never liked her first name – either the real or the diminutive – so used it as little as possible.

  Honey strained her ears but she couldn’t make out the reply. She sat up and threw the frayed fur from the amber round her shoulders. Slowly she crept towards the top of the stairs. At the bottom, floating on the hatstand where the shadows were darkest, Mrs Steadman’s luminous bird glowed like a beacon. It took Honey a few seconds to adjust her eyes. She saw turquoise wool cross the threshold; the clip of a brown polished shoe; a hat with pheasant feathers ruched in neat waves across it.

  ‘Yes, I’ll just wait here, shall I?’

  ‘Beatrix,’ she called from the top of the stairs. ‘How did you know where I lived?’

  Mrs Steadman looked as if the ghost of cottage owners past had just materialised. After waggling her arms in fright she tutted at Honey and went back into her parlour, muttering something about a glass of water and powdered egg.

  ‘I drove you home last night, have you forgotten already?’

  ‘Sorry, I’m a little tired. Will you come upstairs?’

  Beatrix hesitated, looking around the hall. Then, ‘Very quickly,’ she said. ‘I have to get home for Christmas. They let me go a bit early.’

  ‘You’re driving home in the blackout?’

  Beatrix shrugged. ‘I miss my family.’ She realised what she had said and her hand flew to her mouth. ‘I didn’t mean – I’m sorry.’

  Honey led the way to the bedroom and opened the door, silently hoping she had left it tidy enough – she never thought of these things until there were visitors. Beatrix looked about and seemed to approve of the austerity. Honey had no pictures on the wall; she hadn’t really bothered to settle in at all. There was only the crowded flower-patterned wallpaper of the Steadmans, her wardrobe, the chest of drawers, the bedside table with the electric lamp and a wire-less-cum-gramophone. Honey made space for them both on top of the furs. They scrabbled for small talk: ‘How nice to see boys home for Christmas, how awful the headlines, what memories of Christmases past were clutched in war and would it ever be the same again?’ Honey wondered whether to mention her visit to Moira but thought it best not.

  When Beatrix reached into her pocket and withdrew a tiny envelope – a memo envelope with the name crossed out – Honey couldn’t conceal her surprise.

  ‘It’s a gift.’ She pushed it forward. ‘Take it.’

  Wary of anything in packaging, Honey took the envelope tentatively. Beatrix was poised on the edge of delight as she watched Honey ease open the f
lap. Down at the bottom of the envelope’s crease were a few flecks of paper with the edges torn. It crossed Honey’s heart for a sudden second that Beatrix held the key to the amber, that this was it. But when she took the scraps out she saw they had the heads of men and women on them. One was riding a horse. ‘Stamps,’ she said.

  Beatrix shrugged and dipped her head. Rolling her eyes to the ceiling, in the gaslight she looked sheepish. ‘Merry Christmas,’ she said softly. ‘I know it’s not much but I wanted to give you something and . . .’

  There were too many feelings that came swooping down: gratitude, sorrow, the comfort of a small act of kindness. But above them all hung confusion. ‘Why stamps?’

  ‘You collect them, don’t you? These are from my own collection. I collect them too, you know. I couldn’t very well get you rouge or fragrance and sugar seems too shallow a gift. Why are you frowning?’

  Honey straightened her brow. ‘I just don’t know what made you think I collect—’

  ‘The other day in the hut, you dropped one. A rare one. In fact, it was only a couple of days ago now I think of it, but it seems like a lifetime. You had an old heritage Russian stamp.’

  Honey felt very cold in the tips of her toes. She opened her mouth slowly. ‘What do you mean, heritage?’

  ‘You know, one from before the revolution. A collectors’ item. It’s the Tsar’s Cavalcade, that one. Do you still . . .’ She cast her eye around the room. Honey paused for a moment, then reached across to the bottom drawer of her chest and dragged it open. She rummaged at the back. The parcel wrappers were screwed into a ball but all still there, as intact as they had been after she first tore into them.

  She pulled them out. In the shadow of the lamp she tugged away the piece that had wrapped the firebird. ‘That’s it,’ Beatrix said. ‘Worth a fortune, I’d say. Can I touch it? Actually, hold on a second.’ She peered more closely at the image. ‘No, that’s not right. The original has black horses and these are white. Hold on. Where did you get this? Did you buy it from a collector?’

  ‘Someone posted it to me. The London 222 box.’

  ‘Who?’

  Honey closed her eyes for slightly longer than a blink. Her muscles were beginning to feel strained after being stretched out and pulled, after the positions she had cramped herself into in the truck. ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. When she opened her eyes Beatrix was staring at her.

  ‘Honey, this stamp is a fake; a forgery. It’s a very good one, but see, it’s been hand-drawn, not printed. There are little blobs.’ She pulled it over to the gaslight. ‘It’s absolutely minute, the detail is astonishing. Now who would do such a thing?’

  The whole saga ebbed at Honey’s mouth like the tide but it made her feel weary; she sent it spinning back.

  ‘You have to be careful with the boys at Bletchley. And the girls, for that matter. Eccentric doesn’t even cut it sometimes. Mooden says she saw you with one of the coffin makers who does the fit-ups.’

  ‘I don’t know any coffin makers,’ Honey said, and though she laughed, she shivered. She stood up from the bed and moved to the window, checking for a draught. In her mind came the image of that extraordinarily large and shabby truck, the religious icons, dirty and piled in a corner; and the face of a man whose clothes were covered in sawdust, staring, staring at her across the quadrangle from Hut 3.

  Beatrix was still talking. ‘They’ve been doing an extensive one in Hut 3. Look, you mustn’t say anything because Mooden’s not spying on you, but . . .’ She sighed. ‘Everyone’s a little jumpy because of Moira and no one’s saying you’re a fifth columnist, or that you’re stupid enough to talk to people who might be. It’s just that she asked me to check in on you since someone had seen you hanging around with him and someone else had seen you . . .’ she dropped her voice as if the walls might judge ‘. . . kissing him. On a train of all places. And I said Honey Deschamps is not the sort of girl who goes around kissing men on trains, least of all coffin makers, but there it is. I know it’s been a rough ride the past few days.’

  ‘Where would I meet a coffin maker?’

  ‘I told you, they hire them to do the fit-outs in the huts. When they want walls shifted and suchlike. There were some working in ours too. You know when you come in one shift and the rooms have all changed sizes and partitions have been thrown up and the pulley system no longer works or needs a good shove.’

  ‘But why coffin makers?’ She heard her voice very echoey in her head.

  ‘I don’t know. I suppose there’s a surplus of them while the carpenters have been sent away with the troops. Apparently one of them’s a real genius – some stage designer who can’t find work right now because of the rationing and can’t be sent away as he has some nerve problems up top. Don’t we all? Anyway, about this forgery. It really is very curious.’

  Honey was rubbing her head.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  All she could see was the wagon, the leather seats, Felix’s hard, bright ultramarine eyes. A trailer that transported wood to the dead.

  ‘Do you want me to fetch you a brandy, or some aspirin? You look positively green. It isn’t me warning you, is it? It’s not a warning, no one’s told Tiver or anything. It’s just you know what they are like about us and the local boys. Local boys are far less mad than any of the Cambridge boys inside the huts, I should say. But there it is.’

  That was it, a Cambridge boy. Tiver had told her. Felix Plaidstow from Hut 3 went to Cambridge. There had been a mistake.

  ‘Do you know . . .?’ She could hardly get the words out. ‘Do you know a boy called Felix Plaidstow in Hut 3? Went to Cambridge?’

  ‘I know a Plaidstow at the Park. There can’t be more than one with that name. Small, plump little boy. Yes, I think he did go to Cambridge.’

  They said it together. ‘Magdalene.’

  ‘He plays in the chess club,’ Beatrix went on. ‘He knew—’ She was about to say the name of her sweetheart, her RAF man, but she couldn’t get the word together. ‘He’s quite fat. Black hair, round glasses. Honey, where are you going?’

  She was throwing on her coat.

  ‘What have I said?’

  Honey grabbed the gas mask box and pushed the amber pieces back into it.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Drive me somewhere.’ Beatrix looked startled at the instruction. She glanced over at the clock. ‘But you start shift in a couple of hours.’

  ‘Now. Please.’

  Outside the Rectory Cottages it was dark as hell. Shadows cast by the clouded moon moved like oil slicks; murky, impossible to pin down. Honey carried her torch but dared not switch it on.

  She had insisted Beatrix leave to begin her drive home, for if they were both caught in whatever trap was lying there, it would be plain Honey had spoken to her. She implored Beatrix and told her to telephone Mooden the next morning to see if she had made her shift and to alert Tiver if not.

  She breathed deeply. Fear slid its tentacles around her ankles and throat but she fought it back with anger. She had made love to him in the seat of a truck, that afternoon. And maybe his lies were innocent lies or maybe they were as poisonous as the embalmer’s touch.

  She had the gas mask box across her shoulder and a stone in her hand. She pushed the box so it balanced against the small of her back while she clutched the delicate wood fence, and placed one foot on the first slat. The wood squeaked but bore her weight. Beyond it, in the dark of the vegetable patch, whatever creatures were confined in that little hut chirped and cried.

  She had both legs wedged over the top and was balanced on the middle slat when something furry brushed her foot. She looked down, but it was too dark to see. Then out of the quiet came a hollow meow. Two clawed paws and a butting head breached into view.

  ‘Shh, puss.’ Honey waited for her heart to stop thumping.

  She dropped down into the garden. She could feel the proximity of stone a few feet away; the ancient cold white walls pressing towards her with t
heir thick harl. Up above, hot sweet chimney smoke danced into the night.

  The cat brushed her ankle again, this time more slowly, softer. Trembling, she reached down to pet its tiny skull, working backwards from the twitching nose to the thick, hard brow bone, plush with a dry fluffy pelt. She reached her fingers behind the kitten hair at its ears, and tickled them, feeling her breath calm a little, and that was when the leathered fingers clasped her throat.

  A chemical smell came from nowhere, surgical and burning, toxic on her lips. The inside of her nose seared. An arm wrapped tightly around her waist.

  And she fell into an even darker pitch than the blackout.

  She was on her back when she woke.

  Her shoulderblades came to first, pressed into something slowly smashing a pattern into her skin. She saw white wire from the corner of her eye, shifted, and felt new cold on the fresh patch. She wriggled back and there was the warmth she had left.

  Metal, she must be on top of metal; nothing else absorbed or gave back heat so quickly. She was lying on her back and she felt very peaceful, like the first moments coming round after a faint. Perhaps she was in the sick bay, that would account for the white and the bars. Honey had fainted the night the Empire fell and when she came to then, there had been a moment of blank peace and delirious exhaustion, the feeling of having been asleep for a very long time. Then she had opened her eyes to blood and chaos.

  She felt now that first awareness, emerging slowly and beautifully from some hidden place out of reach. First her fingers tingled, then her ears sang, then a slow horror and confusion replaced awareness as the sleep faded, and she realised in a blinding shot of panic that she had been captured and stuffed inside a Morrison shelter, with the door banged shut and locked.

  The room the shelter was in seemed small but ahead of her a door was pinched ajar, and while the open side was away from her, the crack it left at the back gave just enough space for her to see the thing that had terrified her the first time she passed the Rectory Cottages.