Red Joan (16 page)

Not long after this, a letter arrives from the Metals Research Facility in Cambridge summoning Joan to report for an interview the following Monday. Leo has told her to expect this, having learnt something of the project from a fellow internee at the Canadian camp whom Leo has persuaded to recommend Joan for the post. Apparently, Joan is the perfect candidate, according to Leo, although he is not very forthcoming on the matter of what the job actually entails, and nor is the letter of summons. She knows only that it is essential to the war effort, that it is not a research post but still requires detailed scientific knowledge, and that even her Physics tutor has been approached by her future employers to enquire if she is up to the task.

On Monday morning she takes her time, unfurling the rollers from her hair with more care than usual and putting on her best woollen suit, navy blue and a little patched, but brightened up with peacock blue buttons which she hopes will draw attention away from the faded fabric. She looks for her smartest shoes, charcoal grey with a sharp heel, and then remembers that she lent them to Sonya last year and has not used them since. Sonya's room has been untouched since she went away, the war having left several college rooms empty, and she has to borrow a spare set of keys from the porter to retrieve them.

When she enters, the first thing she notices is that Sonya's bed still has the same sheets on it and the pillows are stacked up against the small wooden headboard as if she has just got up and gone out for the day. A glass stands next to the bed, its insides smudged where the water has evaporated. Joan goes to the wardrobe. Her shoes are exactly where she remembers seeing them last, tucked to the side of the bottom shelf. She reaches in to pull them out and, as she does, she is struck by the faint scent of a long-remembered smell. Lemony soap and tobacco. She sees a light blue shirt crumpled into the shelf above her shoes. She takes it out, the cotton soft against her fingers, and she holds it up to her nose and breathes in the scent of it. It is unmistakeable, that smell. She closes her eyes and for a moment she is somewhere else, and it takes a while for the question that is burning in the back of her mind to form itself into words.

How, she wonders, did one of Leo's worn shirts end up in Sonya's cupboard?

Joan holds the shirt away and frowns, puzzled. Leo is normally so careful with his things; everything folded and in its place, quite the opposite of Sonya. He would never bundle it up like that.

The answer comes to her in the form of a sudden sickness in her stomach. No, she thinks, not that, and for a moment she is disgusted with herself that she has even allowed such an unkind, sordid thought to enter her head. What is wrong with her? When did she become so—she cannot think of the right word—corrupted?

Quickly, she stuffs the shirt back into the cupboard, picks up the shoes and closes the door behind her. The lock slips back into the catch so that the room will be left undisturbed once more, either until Sonya returns or the college decide they cannot hold it for her any longer, and then she hurries down the corridor to her own room. Five minutes until she needs to leave. Her shoes still need to be polished, her hair brushed and clipped back. Why must she always be late for everything?

She has been to these laboratories before as an undergraduate, but never into the secure section where she goes now. She is told to report to reception where she is to wait for Professor Max Davis, the director of the Research Facility.

She sees him before he sees her, stopping at one desk and then another to ask questions and nodding his approval to whatever answers are given. She has heard his name mentioned in the science department before, always spoken with a degree of awe, as if his scientific precision is a near-beatific gift. But, in the flesh, he appears younger than she anticipated, perhaps thirty, and dressed in a slim-fitting suit with an eager expression on his face when he talks to the other scientists. He glances up at her and nods, indicating that he will be with her in a moment. He is good-looking, in a conventional sort of way, with dark brown hair that curls up from his head in tufts even though he has attempted to pomade it into place. He looks like the sort of man who used to enjoy a good game of chess during his schooldays, or perhaps ping-pong. When he meets her in the draughty reception room he seems to spring across the room at her, insisting as he shakes her hand that she call him Max rather than Professor or anything of that nature.

‘How was your journey?'

Joan smiles, thinking that the ten-minute walk from Newnham to the laboratories could hardly pass for a journey. ‘Uneventful.'

‘How very un-English of you. Most people would say that uneventful passed for good.'

Joan smiles.

‘Ah-ha, but of course. Must be your scientific outlook. Step one of the interview passed with flying colours.' He grins. ‘Let me take you to my office, and we can have a look in at the lab on the way.'

There is a long red-tiled corridor of swing doors with square, white-washed rooms to either side which are visible from the corridor through large screens. The building smells of disinfectant and polished glass. It is a clean, light smell, accentuated by the sense of industry present in each of the rooms.

Max is reading from a wad of papers as they walk. ‘It says here,' he says suddenly, ‘that you liked to attend communist marches, talks, that sort of thing while you were a student.'

Joan does not break her stride as she looks up at him. ‘Oh yes,' she says, answering directly as she has planned. It was Leo's advice, of course, to think about how she would tackle this question if it should ever arise. She had guessed that this job would require security clearance given that it is classed as a war job, and had decided in advance that she would admit some interest in the cause if asked, hoping to explain it away as youthful optimism mixed with academic interest. She knows that any attempt to evade or deny would only make her blush and look guilty. ‘Yes, I was rather interested in that sort of thing,' she says. ‘Intellectually.'

‘And now?'

‘Now? Well, times have changed since then.' She will not look away. Not yet.

He nods, and for a moment Joan wonders if he is going to confess to a similar leaning. ‘Well, I suppose the Nazi–Soviet pact saw to a lot of that.' He pauses. ‘Bad idea, in my opinion, but I suppose Russia came out of the first war terribly hard, poor buggers.'

Not a confession then. But Max is seemingly unfazed by what has just passed, and his reaction is considered, almost sympathetic, Joan thinks. They turn a corner and he bounces ahead of her to push open a wooden door, holding it with his arm outstretched along the width of the door so that she can pass through.

‘Here we are,' he says, leading her into a smaller office and gesturing towards a chair on one side of the desk while he sits down on the other side, looking directly at her now. ‘But still,' he continues, ‘try everything once, eh?'

He is testing her now. His eyes are deep blue, sea-blue. She feels a faint burn in her cheeks but she knows she must continue. She must pretend to herself that she is a normal young woman who has never met Leo or Sonya, who was interested in peace marches for a brief while but has no interest in political movements. She must convince herself that she is not sympathetic to the cause, that she thinks communists are brutal and vicious and in need of a good haircut rather than hopeful idealists, and she hears the required note of outrage slip into her voice. It is, she realises as she speaks, her mother's voice, firm yet reprimanding. ‘I wouldn't say I went that far.'

‘No, no. Of course not. I didn't mean to imply . . . ' He coughs, looking down at his papers and swiftly reordering them. ‘Now, I see you have a Certificate from Cambridge. Natural Sciences, Upper Second in Part I, First Class in Part II.' He nods, as if this is the first time he has seen her results. ‘Not bad.'

Joan nods. ‘Yes, Professor. Specialising in theoretical physics.'

‘Max,' he corrects her. ‘We're going to be working with the Yanks here, so you must call me Max.' He pauses. ‘I have it on good authority from your tutor at Cambridge that you'll be interested in our work here.' He looks at her and lowers the papers onto the desk. ‘Do you know what that work is?'

Joan shakes her head. ‘I wasn't told anything. I just got a letter . . . ' She goes to take it from her bag but Max waves his hand to indicate that this is unnecessary.

‘No need, no need,' he says. ‘We recruit on a recommendation-only basis. You'll see why.' He pauses. ‘Have you heard of Tube Alloys?'

Joan frowns. Has she? She shakes her head, trying to hide her disappointment that the science will be materials-based. ‘I could probably take a guess though.'

‘Go ahead.'

‘Well, I would assume it was a project aimed at developing non-corrosive metals for oil drills, gas pipes, or something like that. But I don't really know how it fits in with the war. Armaments? Aerial equipment?'

Max nods. ‘Nearly. It's a bit more complicated than that, but it's a good start. Sounds fascinating, doesn't it?'

Not really, Joan thinks, and there is a brief, awkward moment before she realises that he is joking. ‘I don't understand. Is that not what it is?'

‘It's a code name. Nobody is allowed to know what we are doing in Tube Alloys. Even some members of the War Cabinet don't know.'

Joan feels a small shiver of fear creep along her spine. ‘And what about me? Am I allowed to know?'

‘That depends.' Max reaches down and opens a drawer in the bottom of his desk. He takes out a brown envelope which he slides to her across the desk. ‘Before we go any further, I need you to sign this.'

‘What is it?'

‘It's an undertaking that binds you, if you sign it, to keep quiet. You won't be able to tell your family or friends anything about what you're doing here.' He looks directly at her. ‘You understand what that means. It means you can't even tell your boyfriend what you've been doing all day.'

Joan returns the look, refusing to flinch. She remembers Leo's insistence in his letters that she must deny any relationship with him, if asked. It is for her own good, he tells her. She steels herself against the memory of him. ‘I don't have a boyfriend.'

Max shifts slightly in his chair. ‘Ah, well. It was just a figure of speech . . . ' He tails off. The morning sun floods the room, catching the edge of the mirror and sending a sliver of rainbow-coloured light along the side of his face and down onto his collar as if he has been dipped in a delicate shimmer of oil. ‘Anyway,' he continues, ‘the point is that you don't have to decide immediately. I want you to think about it. Take it away, read it, spend some time mulling it over. I want you to understand all the implications of signing it before you do anything.'

Joan takes the envelope and slits it open. She pulls out the sheaf of papers and looks at them. There is a covering note clipped to a carbon paper copy of the Official Secrets Act.

‘You can't tell me anything more about it?'

‘I'm afraid I've told you all I can.'

Joan nods. Evidently whatever work is done by this sub-division of the laboratory is hugely significant or, at least, is thought to be. She wonders if Leo already knows what it is. No, of course not. How could he possibly know? But still, she worries about herself, about her capacity for discretion. Can she keep her job a secret? What would she tell her parents if they asked what she did?

But then she remembers her earlier visit to the woman's house, the feel of Sonya's hand in her own, and how she had kept the trauma of it a secret from Leo, from everybody, just as Sonya told her to, speaking only of her ‘illness' while she pushed the memory of that day down, down, burying it deep inside her until she could feel it crumpling and weakening like a ball of bright blue silk.

‘Take a day or two,' Max says, ‘there's no rush. It can be hard to carry a burden like this around. Believe me. If you don't think you can do it, it doesn't matter. We can find another post for you somewhere else.'

She knows why she kept that day a secret. She did it for Leo, so that he would not be disappointed in her, tied to her. And now she imagines Leo's disappointment if she refuses this job he has arranged for her, and in this moment she knows what she must do. After all, it is what she has always expected of herself: that she is loyal, trustworthy, that she would make sacrifices for her country if called upon to do so. It is just that she had not anticipated that it would ever really be required.

She takes a deep breath. ‘Do you have a pen?'

Section 1(1) Official Secrets Act 1911 and 1920:

 

1(1) If any person for any purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State:

 

(a) approaches, inspects, passes over or is in the neighbourhood of, or enters any prohibited place within the meaning of this Act; or

(b) makes any sketch, plan, model, or note which is calculated to be or might be or is intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy; or

(c) obtains, collects, records, or publishes, or communicates to any other person any secret official code word, or pass word, or any sketch, plan, model, article, or note, or other document or information which is calculated to be or might be or is intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy;

 

he shall be guilty of felony . . .

 

Mr. Adams holds the file up to the camera so that the document can be recorded, and then readjusts the lens to focus it once more on Joan. The day has brightened into a cold, yellow afternoon, and Joan feels a stirring of hunger. She wishes she had been able to eat the sandwich Nick made for her when they stopped for lunch, but he insisted on spreading avocado across the bread instead of butter. She had asked him not to but he insisted that she'd like it, even though she told him that she'd really much prefer butter. Avocado doesn't agree with her. It never has, although she doesn't expect Nick to remember that, but she doesn't remind him of this fact as she knows it will only prompt another lecture on vitamins and carbohydrates—vits and carbs, he calls them—and she is too tired for that. Why can he not just eat normally, as she does? What's wrong with piccalilli?