An Ordinary Life

by Amanda Prowse

  ‘People who can help you earn a living and get that good life.’ Marjorie smiled at her.

  Marjorie pushed open the door of an office on the third floor of the Ministry of War building in Whitehall and beckoned for her to enter. Molly shot her colleague a look, not sure she wanted to walk in to the dimly lit space.

  ‘I’ll be right here, waiting for you,’ Marjorie said softly.

  ‘Don’t be alarmed,’ a male voice offered in low tones. ‘Do come in.’

  The room was sparsely furnished, save for a large mahogany boardroom table with ten chairs evenly spaced around it. The walls were bare and the windows covered with blackout fabric. The voice belonged to one of two men now standing in front of her. Both wore unremarkable double-breasted, pinstripe navy suits and both had neat pencil moustaches and slicked-back hair. At first glance they looked eerily similar, but closer inspection revealed them to be quite different. One was heavier set and it was he who had spoken first, in crystal-cut English. In any other circumstance it would have been quite uncomfortable to find herself in a room with two male strangers, but with Marjorie posted outside the door Molly was both interested and curious as to what they had to say. Her heart beat a little too quickly. This was all rather odd and felt a little shady somehow.

  ‘Do sit down.’ The first man pulled out a chair for her, and she sat, noticing the exceptionally shiny black toes of the shoes worn by both men. They walked now to the opposite side of the table and seated themselves. It gave the meeting an air of formality and a distance between them, for which she was grateful. It helped ease her anxiety a little.

  ‘Miss Collway.’

  ‘Yes?’ She was pleased with the steadiness of her voice, giving no hint of the nerves that sparked in her veins. This was an unfamiliar situation and she had no idea what to expect.

  ‘Thank you for coming to see us. My name is Mr Malcolm.’ The slimmer man was speaking now. She saw his right hand twitch but he didn’t offer to shake her hand.

  ‘And I am Mr Greene.’ The first man inclined his head.

  ‘Well, this seems all very irregular,’ Molly breathed. ‘However, Marjorie may have mentioned to you that I am looking for work.’ Her eyes had begun to adjust to the low lighting and she could see these two were older than herself, although not that old – early thirties, maybe. Their white shirts were crisp and clean and their ties black. They looked sombre but well fed, without the hollow pockets at neck and cheek that many sported in these times of war.

  Lucky ones . . .

  ‘We’ve been in touch with Mr Jenkins.’ This fact gave her confidence – he had indeed said that if he could, he’d put a word in with other departments. Was that was this was all about?

  ‘I . . . I went to see him yesterday, fully prepared to come back to work,’ she said slowly, ‘but I was told there were no vacancies, and that my position had been filled. I was extremely disappointed. I’m good at my job and—’

  ‘Miss Collway,’ Mr Greene interrupted, ‘both Mr Malcolm and I are fully apprised of your situation.’ It was a relief not to have to elaborate, but also a concern – how and what did they know about her ‘situation’?

  ‘Is that right?’ She clasped her hands on the table in front of her, feeling more than a little exposed.

  The two men exchanged a glance and Mr Greene coughed.

  ‘We have something to ask you.’ He leaned forward and met her gaze, his expression earnest, searching.

  ‘What do you want to ask me?’ She was aware that she had been holding her breath.

  ‘We have a role for you, an assignment, if you will.’

  Her optimism soared. ‘What kind of assignment?’

  ‘Here’s the thing . . .’ Mr Malcolm leaned back in his seat and rubbed his chin.

  Mr Greene kept his eyes on her. It was unnerving. ‘This is a very different job to the one you’re used to’ – he paused – ‘and it’s a request that comes from the very heart of Whitehall. A courier role, you might say.’

  ‘A courier? I don’t quite understand.’

  ‘It’s very simple.’ Mr Greene now picked up the baton. ‘It sometimes happens that the country has a need, and it is a matter of civic duty to execute that deed. Never more so than in wartime, but I don’t need to tell you that, Miss Collway, do I? We were very sorry to hear about Johan de Fries.’

  Tears gathered at the back of her throat at the very mention of him, but it was also nice to hear someone offering condolence, as if legitimising her loss.

  ‘How . . . how do you know about Johan?’

  ‘We have our sources,’ Mr Malcolm said evenly.

  ‘And we are also very sorry for all that has . . . befallen you,’ Mr Greene said softly.

  Her heart beat a little too quickly and she could feel the rise in her pulse. He had seen her letter, no doubt about it.

  ‘Who are you exactly?’ she asked again, suddenly a little fearful of these furtive men who seemed to know all about her when she knew absolutely nothing about them.

  ‘We are colleagues of yours, if you will.’ Mr Greene smiled at her.

  ‘How peculiar. I don’t seem to recall seeing you in my department.’

  The two men exchanged a look. ‘We have agents inside all of the ministries, keeping an eye out, briefing us. It’s prudent to do so and you have been brought to our attention.’

  The use of the word ‘agent’ alerted her – what kind of job were they offering, precisely?

  Mr Malcolm now turned to face her. ‘There’s something about those of us who have suffered loss, Miss Collway. We tend to fall into two camps: those who crumple, sink, wither and fade under the weight of the unimaginable pain; and those of us who take that hurt, ball it tightly, put it in the base of our gut and use it as fuel. And when that happens it is a very powerful thing, the most powerful. It is an unstoppable force and one that can do good, immeasurable good. So much so that it can change the course of this damned war. Maybe even help draw it to a close, thus ensuring that others, old and young, even the very young’ – he let this trail – ‘will never have to know the kind of hurt that lives in the gut for a lifetime.’

  ‘What is it you want me to do?’ She wasn’t agreeing, but Mr Malcolm had sparked her interest. She would do anything, anything at all, to stop her baby, her boy, knowing what this life felt like or, God forbid, having to step into the marching boots of his father and grandfather.

  ‘All in good time,’ Mr Greene said quietly. ‘We have faith that you are exactly the kind of person who can get a job done and who will do so for the greater good.’

  ‘What do you mean, “the kind of person”?’ she asked directly.

  ‘It’s a very rare skill set. People who speak a second and third language. People who are smart. People who have the potential to be brave,’ Mr Malcolm said resolutely, ‘and people who are already broken. People who know what it’s like to have to rise up over adversity and take back control.’

  ‘I am not broken.’ Molly tapped her fingers on the tabletop. ‘I’ve lost Johan, but I am not broken.’ She thought of Joe with a surge of joy at the thought of their blissful reunion and the life she would give him. It was a reason to hold on. ‘But I do want to triumph and I do want to take back control.’

  ‘Yes.’ Mr Malcolm let the one word ring out and she almost heard the word that followed, unspoken: exactly.

  When Molly left the room an hour later, having agreed to consider their proposal, Marjorie was nowhere to be seen.

  NINE

  Charente-Maritime, France

  October 1944

  Aged 19

  I am not Molly Collway, I am Claudette Menard, secretary. I am going to visit my cousin in Saintes. I’m married to Benoît. We have no children. I’m quiet, myopic, and très réligieuse . . . She pushed the heavy glasses further up the bridge of her nose, mimicking the habit she’d seen in Marjorie. I am travelling from my home in Amiens, where I tend my garden and grow vegetables. I’m a good citizen who has handed in her saving
s in exchange for war bonds with the Banque Nationale de France and I, like every other citizen, want the fighting to be over so my husband can come home from the front and we can start thinking about a family . . .

  ‘Where are you going?’ her mother had asked, surprised, watching from the bedroom doorway when Molly came home from her interview and packed a few clothes, the exercise book containing her father’s scribblings and his fountain pen in her suitcase, along with a hairbrush, her lavender-scented talc and the brass button from Johan’s naval uniform.

  ‘Away for work, Mum,’ she answered.

  ‘What work, exactly? And when will you be back?’ Mrs Collway had demanded.

  ‘You will be carrying items into France that would be difficult for us to get into the right hands without interception or with a risk of things going awry if we sent them by other means,’ the Major had explained.

  ‘What things?’

  ‘A few small objects and information. That’s strictly hush-hush – it’s better you don’t know, then you can’t tell,’ he had said sternly. ‘But I will tell you that a sophisticated operation by the French Resistance is at risk because a mole is feeding information to the occupying German army. We’re getting close to identifying him and have a photograph of the back of his head, but we need to let the powers that be know his identity so they can root him out. A bigger operation depends on it. That’s all I am prepared to say.’

  ‘How do I carry these things?’

  ‘Hidden – cleverly hidden.’

  ‘Will I be in danger?’ She thought of Joe’s sweet face and felt the familiar fold of longing in her gut to hold her boy, aching for the day . . .

  ‘Only if you’re caught,’ he said honestly.

  ‘What are my chances of success?’

  ‘Well,’ he said, taking a cigarette from the pack, ‘if you listen and learn and practise your dialect, I would say your chances are good.’

  ‘What should I say if anyone at home asks where I’m going or what I’m doing?’

  ‘Say you have a translation job. The more we can hinge a story on the truth, the easier it will be believed and the easier for you to say it with conviction.’

  ‘It’s a translation job. And as to when will I be back’ – Molly paused from her packing to look her mother in the eye – ‘I won’t ever be back, not properly. I’ve secured digs in St Pancras. I’ll visit you in due course, but I don’t think I can forgive the position you’ve put me in. I needed help. Help and understanding, and I got neither and it’s shocked and disappointed me, but strengthened me too. In time I hope I’ll stop feeling so angry with you, but even then I suspect I will always feel sorry for you. I will always, always, do what is best for my child’ – she could still barely say his name without a lump of emotion rising in her throat – ‘but I wonder, Mum, will you be able to say the same?’

  ‘I . . .’ Her mother reached for her handkerchief and dabbed her reddened eyes. ‘Mary Florence, I . . .’

  Molly snapped shut the catches on the suitcase and walked past her. She trotted down the stairs and out of the front door of the house on Old Gloucester Street, Bloomsbury, without so much as a backward glance.

  She had moved her meagre belongings into the damp lodgings near St Pancras Station and spent a couple of nights in the small room on the middle floor of the slightly dilapidated house. It had a comfortable enough bed, a hot plate and sink, which were hers, and she was grateful. Her home for the next six weeks, however, would be a little further afield.

  Mr Malcolm had met her off the train in a shiny black car. As he placed her suitcase in the boot, she noted that he was wearing the same clothes as when she had seen him before. ‘There’s always a small possibility that a candidate might have a change of heart and not get on the train,’ he had told her. ‘We call it the Waterloo wobble.’

  ‘That didn’t even occur to me,’ she told him honestly. She’d boarded the train at Waterloo with nothing but determination in her gut – both to do a good job and to earn enough money to provide Joe with a good life.

  West Court was an impressive red-brick house with a large duck pond at the front and an imposing tree.

  ‘This is nice,’ she said aloud.

  ‘Let’s hope you still think so at the end of your training.’ Mr Malcolm drew breath through his teeth, which made her smile.

  At the end of her course, she had still found the place nice and the skills she had learned more than useful, not to mention her new level of fitness. She wondered what Johan would have made of it all, thinking of him as she learned to zero a pistol in the long corridor down in the wine cellar, firing bullets that hit the backstop on the far wall, the recoil making her wrist flick up. She also spent hours and hours in conversation with a native from Amiens, chatting to the lady, who gave her name only as Belle, as they strolled inconspicuously around the grounds, practising the nuances that would place her firmly as a local. Her daily classroom instruction had been taught her by rote by an army man known as Major P.

  ‘Sleep is your best friend when on public transport. No one wants to wake a tired person – there isn’t a man, woman or child alive who can’t relate to that kind of fatigue. Don’t overly engage, keep things formal, just sleep. Don’t evade or stumble or snub, simply respond calmly . . . and then sleep.’

  The words of her instruction issued in the makeshift classroom came readily to mind now on the last leg of her train journey to France – into enemy territory. She heard them in Major P’s clear voice and they were a comfort.

  ‘Oh là là, qu’il fait chaud . . .’ said the old woman sitting opposite. Looking hot and weary, she drew a paper fan from her hessian bag and started wafting herself. On her lap lay a parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied up with string.

  ‘Oui, c’est bien ça.’ Molly kept her voice low, quiet and slow, as instructed: better able to control the quaver of nerves and to concentrate on each vowel sound. She tilted her head to one side against the once plush headrest, fraying through now to the webbing beneath, and closed her eyes. War, she thought, made everything once beautiful tatty. No one had time to think about aesthetics when their very survival was in doubt. It was universal: the damage, the wear and tear and the spoiled. In London, like anywhere else, flowerbeds had been given over to grow food, even in and around Buckingham Palace and the Royal Parks. Buildings that had been shaken by bombs but managed to resist the urge to topple had windows missing, while stucco rendering had fallen away to reveal the brickwork beneath. A number of frontages were supported by giant wooden props set at an angle, and on the upper floors, where the wind whistled through, wallpaper clung in thin strips to what was left of walls, and bathroom tiles could be seen where there was no longer a bathroom. People took short cuts through gaps piled high with rubble and dust where until recently a building had stood. It was just another element of life made ugly by the turmoil of war.

  ‘Dormez, ma petite,’ whispered the old lady on the train, words offered so sweetly to a stranger . . . It took all of Molly’s resolve not to leap up and hug her as she feigned sleep.

  ‘Remember, there is no time for sentiment. Sentimentality is a distraction you can ill afford. No time to overthink. Even the slightest deviation in terms of agreed timing or route or behaviour can be like pulling a thread that just might unravel an entire garment, or worse, might reveal an entire plan. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sentimentality. Going off plan. Letting your guard down. Overfamiliarity. It’s in these small details where danger lurks, and remember the danger is not only to yourself but also to others who are relying on you. We are relying on you – do you understand that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Molly kept her ears alert and listened to the announcement of the guard at each stop, as well as the general hum of conversation as the train trundled on. She was relieved when the lady left the carriage, once the train pulled into Cognac. Rough hessian brushed against her shins.

  Two more stops. Two more
stops.

  Opening her eyes, Molly sat up in the chair, trying to hide the start to her limbs and the flip in her gut as she avoided eye contact with the two German soldiers who had taken the seats opposite her and who now sat with legs spread, their MP 40 sub-machine guns resting on the floor between their feet, barrels down, hands gripping the butt, as if it were any old stick. She swallowed at the sight of their weapons, trying to ignore the chatter in their native tongue about some football match, played apparently on an airstrip, and the narrow victory they had stolen in the face of defeat. Again she closed her eyes and let her head fall forward, trying to still her racing heart and wishing the small beads of nervous sweat on her upper lip would disappear. Thank goodness it was a warm day.

  ‘Walk slowly, decisively, with your ticket and, if necessary, your papers in your hand. Always be a model citizen to avoid drawing attention to yourself and any unnecessary interactions with the police. The fewer people you interact with, the better. Remember, you have nothing to fear. You are Claudette Menard, coming to see your cousin. Leave the station and walk directly along Rue St-Martin and make your way to the Café Hubert. Take a table outside and wait. You will be approached by your cousin Violet, who will make contact. She will tell you what to do next.’

  ‘What does Violet look like?’

  ‘We don’t know, but she’ll be wearing a headscarf and will call you her sweet cousin.’

  Molly left the railway station, her ears filled with the sound of her heart clattering in her ribs. Staring down at the cobbles beneath her feet on the winding road alongside the river, she waited for the tap on her shoulder that would blow her cover. A group of prisoners – local men and boys, she imagined – came marching along in the other direction, with one German soldier at the front of the line, one at the rear and two on either side. Their expressions imperious, each walked with his chin up and his nose in the air, weapon raised and readied. Molly felt a sudden intense flash of hatred towards these men, whose armies had decimated her own city, forced her country to its knees, fractured the whole of Europe and taken away her lover . . . They were the reason she was separated from her beloved son.