Stratton's War (17 page)

Authors: Laura Wilson

BOOK: Stratton's War

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Lady Apse, who was at the flat when Diana arrived, proved something of a surprise. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but it wasn’t the slender woman with the shy, almost girlish manner who greeted her. The slim figure, pale blue kitten eyes and soft, light brown hair belied her age, which must have been at least forty, and Diana’s overriding impression was of someone unworldly, whose idea of the best lark in the world would be a midnight feast in the dorm.

After about five minutes’ chit-chat, during which Apse smiled at his wife with the slightly superior air of one who finds a mild enjoyment in the sound, if not the substance, of feminine prattle, Lady Apse said that she really must go or she’d miss her train. ‘I’ll leave you to Miss Calthrop, darling,’ she added, and then gave a sort of terrified giggle as if she’d uttered something outrageously risqué.

‘Of course,’ said Apse. ‘You mustn’t miss your train. I’ll ring for the driver.’ Turning to Diana, he said, ‘I’ve managed to get my hands on a FANY.’

‘Fanny, dear?’ Lady Apse looked puzzled.

Diana, who had a mouthful of sherry, just managed to avoid choking.

‘First Aid Nursing Yeomenary. They’re mostly drivers nowadays. We’ll be sharing her with F-J,’ Apse added, to Diana. ‘Had to pull a few strings, of course.’

‘Perhaps you should change your brand, Miss Calthrop,’ said Lady Apse solicitously, proffering her cigarette case. ‘Try one of these.’

‘Thank you,’ said Diana, just as the driver announced herself.

‘Victoria Station,’ Apse told the young woman, who looked as if she were about to burst with excitement. She saluted smartly, and withdrew. Apse kissed his wife, and said, ‘Give my love to Pammy and Pimmy, won’t you?’ Turning away to give them some privacy, Diana just caught a glimpse of Apse’s hand touching Lady Apse’s cheek. ‘It’s been lovely seeing you, darling. I hope the journey isn’t too awful.’

Diana was struck by the softness in his voice as he said his children’s names - unless Pammy and Pimmy were dogs, of course . . .

‘Good day?’ said Apse, when his wife had departed.

‘Rather odd. In fact, I narrowly avoided bringing you back a dead canary. The owner thought it had been killed by rays from an enemy transmitter.’

‘Dear God,’ said Apse faintly, sitting down behind his desk. ‘Pour some more sherry, will you?’

As Diana refilled their glasses, he said, ‘I’m afraid I’ve got another crank for you tomorrow - a man in Epsom who thinks the racecourse is going to be used as a landing ground for enemy aircraft. I’ve got the letter here somewhere.’ He sifted through a pile of documents and handed her a letter written on flimsy paper in small, spidery writing, with several words heavily underlined. ‘I’m sure you can sort it out. There’s another beauty here. Listen:

Dear Sir, I am writing because I have been very worried for some time about the effect of the water on my husband. Over the last year I have noticed a decline in his manly nature which I believe is caused by chemical contamination from enemy agents. The trouble started last year after the supply was interrupted and the pipes dug up and tampered with by foreign workmen. I am careful always to boil water drunk by myself and my husband but we have noticed a change in the taste and it is my considered opinion that the men in this area are looking seedy and not as they should. I would not write of such an intimate matter but it seems to me that the good of the country is at stake if this continues, because women will not have children and as a consequence will become selfish and spend money on cosmetics and in frivolous pursuits, which will weaken the fabric of the nation so there will be no chance of holding firm against the enemy . . .

‘There’s a lot more in the same vein. She says they’ve been married for thirty years, so she must be fifty if she’s a day.’

Diana, controlling her laughter with an effort, asked, ‘Where does she live?’

Apse consulted the letter. ‘Fulham. You could go tomorrow, after Epsom. Transport willing, of course.’ He sniffed the paper and grimaced. ‘Devonshire violets. Perhaps she should change her perfume. Here, take it with you.’

Three hours later, Diana, seated with Jock and Lally at La Coquille, finished her sabayon and, taking advantage of a lull in the conversation, turned the stem of her glass in her hand as if considering something and said, ‘Do you know, I feel awfully futile.’

Jock put down his spoon. ‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, I know we have to follow things up, letters about spies and so on, and of course, it’s important to reassure the public, but what about the real subversives?’

‘Real?’ Lally raised an elegant eyebrow.

‘I mean the high up people,’ said Diana ‘Well, not Mosley and co, obviously, but those sympathisers who haven’t come out of the woodwork yet, who’d be in a position to help the Germans if there were an invasion.’

‘But that’s what we are doing,’ said Lally. ‘Or trying to.’

‘Most of them are behind bars,’ said Jock, easily. ‘And the others, well . . .’ he shrugged. ‘Everyone knows everyone, so it shouldn’t be too difficult, at least in theory.’

‘You mean because one was at school with them, or university?’

‘Of course. Or with their brothers or uncles or cousins.’

‘But that doesn’t mean you know them, does it?’

‘It means you know their background, and their . . . pedigree, if you like. It’s dangerous to get into the state of mind where one sees enemy agents around every corner. One knows that people are respectable - of course, that respectability may be a camouflage for absolutely anything, but most of it will be harmless.’

‘Hitler isn’t harmless,’ said Diana.

‘No, darling,’ said Lally. ‘But he isn’t respectable, either.’

‘But, just because somebody isn’t . . . well bred, it doesn’t mean they’re no good.’

‘Of course not,’ said Jock. ‘For heaven’s sake, Diana, there are procedures for that sort of thing, checking on people, and so forth.’

‘Yes,’ said Diana, ‘but a lot of it does seem to depend on the old school tie.’

‘That’s true,’ said Jock. ‘It does. And it doesn’t take account of the hidden self.’

‘Hidden?’

‘The secret self, the innermost being.’ He stared at her, thoughtfully. ‘The part we do not - in some cases, dare not - reveal.’

Diana thought of Ventriss and felt uncomfortable: this wasn’t the way she’d intended the conversation to go at all. Jock’s eyes were boring into her like a pair of gimlets. She forced a laugh. ‘That can’t be true. It would mean that everyone was harbouring some frightfully interesting secret or a scandal or something.’

‘I didn’t say it was interesting. Except to the people themselves, of course. But then, some people enjoy playing detective. Supposition, conjecture, hypothesis . . . or prying, to call it by another name. It’s in their nature. You’ll find it’s common amongst agents. Claude Ventriss, for example.’

Diana, aware that Jock and Lally were exchanging meaningful glances, lowered her eyes and toyed with her glass. After a moment’s uncomfortable silence, Jock continued, ‘It’s a certain cast of mind. Digging about, looking behind the mask, and so forth. Of course, the safest thing is to be exactly what one seems to be, and I daresay most people are exactly that, so really it isn’t a mask at all.’

‘But Claude Ventriss isn’t what he appears to be, is he?’ said Lally. ‘He’s a double agent. Or so rumour has it.’

‘Claude?’ Diana blurted, astonished. ‘Is that right?’ she asked Jock.

‘I have absolutely no idea,’ he said, blandly. ‘And it’s best not to speculate. The less one knows . . .’

‘You don’t allow for female curiosity,’ said Lally.

‘Curiosity,’ said Jock, solemnly, ‘can be a very bad thing.’

‘Even for an agent?’ asked Diana, desperate to hear more. ‘You’ve just told us it’s common to play detective.’

‘It may sound contradictory, but yes: especially for an agent. There are times when one must close one’s eyes. It’s a question of self-preservation. What you don’t know is just as important as what you do know. You might,’ he continued, ‘think that knowledge is power, but if you know something about somebody that they don’t want you to know, it can make you very vulnerable. And,’ he added, turning to look straight at Diana, ‘you should also remember that some people enjoy danger. They don’t feel alive without it. Claude lived in Germany before the war, and France. As far as I can gather, he was a playboy. He’s not doing it for the money, because he doesn’t need to - which, by the way, is fairly unusual - but because he enjoys walking on a tightrope.’

‘So he is a double agent,’ said Lally, triumphantly.

‘I didn’t say that,’ said Jock.

‘But,’ Diana said, trying not to sound too eager, ‘if he is, then—’

‘You should remember,’ Jock interrupted, wagging a finger at her, ‘what happened when Pandora opened the box. And I think,’ he added, ‘that it’s high time we changed the subject.’

As she walked home, Diana thought, miserably: I’m no good at this. She’d thought herself so clever, chatting to Mrs Montague and her cronies from the Right Club, but Apse was a different thing altogether, and as for Claude, if he was a double agent . . . I ought to resign, she told herself. I should go to F-J and tell him I can’t split my brain into two parts. After a few minutes imagining the scene, it occurred to her that she might not be allowed to resign - that the little she knew might be deemed too much for security - and that she might have to spend the rest of the war, even the rest of her life, in some dingy MI5 basement, filing papers. She imagined herself as an old woman, bent double over a filing cabinet . . .

Diana shook her head, baffled. Both my conspicuous self and my secret one are thoroughly confused, she thought, then smiled as she remembered the letter from the woman in Fulham about the water supply. A decline in his manly nature . . . What must her secret self be like? It didn’t bear thinking about. She grinned to herself, rolled her eyes, and increased her pace towards Tite Street.

NINETEEN

‘“Hitler’s 100-minute speech to the Reichstag, in which he talked vaguely of wanting peace, and at the same time admitted that if the war goes on either Britain or Germany will be annihilated, was received with cold scepticism throughout the world last night . . .”’

Stratton paused in his reading aloud of the
Daily Express
, and looked across at Jenny, who was sitting in the armchair opposite, knitting energetically. The light from the table lamp beside her fell across her cheek and lit up her bright brown hair. Stratton had a comfortable, after-supper feeling; Jenny had cleared away their evening meal of ham and salad, followed by rice pudding with a blob of jam in the middle, and, at his request, had brought him a cup of tea in the sitting room. She had smoked her customary cigarette (he knew she didn’t really like them but she’d read somewhere else that it was the smart thing to do after meals), and was now click-clacking her way through a ball of grey wool. Stratton, who found her small affectations endearing, gazed at her and thought how lovely she looked.

Jenny glanced up, enquiringly. ‘Why have you stopped?’

‘I was just admiring you.’

‘Oh . . .’ She looked faintly embarrassed. ‘Get on with you.’

‘What are you knitting?’

‘A balaclava for Pete.’

‘In the middle of summer?’

‘He’ll need it in the winter. And I won’t have Mrs Chetwynd say I don’t look after them.’

Stratton thought that last remark was rather more to the point as Pete had already got a perfectly good balaclava, but he refused to be drawn. ‘Shall I carry on?’ he asked.

Jenny gave him a mutinous look, but conceded temporary defeat and said, meekly, ‘Yes, dear.’

‘Hitler says, “Mr Churchill thinks Germany will be annihilated. I know it will be Britain.”’

‘Oh, he does, does he?’

‘He does. “I am not the vanquished begging for mercy. I speak as a victor. I see no reason why this war must go on.”’

‘He makes me tired. What else is there?’

‘The RAF’s still doing well. And we’ve bombed Krupps.’

‘Perhaps that’s why Hitler wants peace.’

‘Or he’s running out of supplies. There’s a headline here: “Hitler boasts: We can face blockade for ever - even in food.” Sounds like hot air to me - and Harry Comber says there’s going to be famine in Europe. Mind you, I don’t know how he knows.’

‘I worry about how we’re going to manage.’

Stratton raised his eyebrows. ‘You’ve got the place stocked like a grocer’s shop. I’ve never seen so much food.’

‘Yes, well . . .’ Jenny looked uncomfortable.

‘You haven’t been buying under the counter, have you?’

‘No! Well, not much. Everyone’s doing it, Ted.’

‘You mustn’t. I know it’s tempting, but—’

‘Tempting! It’s not new gloves, it’s food!’

‘I know, love. But all the same . . .’ He shook his head. ‘How can we expect the kids to grow up honest if we’re breaking the rules?’