London, England
January, 1917
Now I’ve gone and done it, she thought. What if that beady-eyed super, McMasterson, spotted me with me arm up to the elbow in the typing pool wastebasket? What if the other cleaning woman, Mrs Childes, saw me pocket those crumpled bits of paper?
What if? What if? To hell with them all, she thought as she got off the number nine omnibus. It’s worth the risk.
Nothing much in Bess Todd’s forty years had gone right. She suffered from lumbago and fallen arches. Her only child had died of diphtheria at four, and her husband had left her not long after.
She always told people that he’d died, leaving her a widow.
‘Poor Mr Todd,’ she would say after a gin or two, her drooping eyes filling with tears. ‘Fell down an elevator shaft, he did. Left me with nothing. No insurance. Nothing but a pair of dirty britches in the laundry basket.’
Even in her lies she painted herself as a victim. Until last month.
Then Michael had come into her life.
God, how I love that man, she thought as she hurried as fast as her pudgy short legs would carry her down Whitechapel from the omnibus halt and toward her block of flats on Kentish Road.
He’s my man. I love the smell of him; the touch of his smooth hands on my naked flesh.
She was hurrying because she wanted to catch her Michael still in bed; because she wanted him on top of her, inside her, covering her like a big old stallion would his mare.
She’d never known that sex could actually be pleasurable until Michael.
The early morning was so cold that white frozen plugs shot out of the tops of milk bottles on doorsteps. Gas lamps were still on; there’d be no sun today with the sky low and menacing.
She clutched her felt bag tightly to her chest; that was where she’d shoved the ball of paper she’d retrieved from the trash. But she’d been so nervous and excited after stealing it that she’d had to leave work early.
I hope Michael’s newspaper will like this little bit, she thought. Maybe he’ll get a rise on account of it and we can take a trip to the seashore this summer. How grand it would be to see the pier at Brighton. Maybe I’ll get a new frock for the trip.
Yes, it was damn well worth the risk.
She smiled at this thought and Mr Pearson, the tobacconist, who was just opening his shop, tipped his black bowler at her, thinking the smile had been meant for him.
Bess bustled past him, giving him only a curt nod, saving all her best stuff for Michael.
But what if they do catch you?
Ah now, it was just a crumpled ball of paper I nicked from the Foreign Ministry trash. Not the bleeding crown jewels. Little enough to do for Michael after all he’s done for me.
She tingled all over just thinking of his hands on her breasts, massaging them like fresh bread dough.
How lucky you are, Bess. The luck has finally found you.
They’d met in a little gin house just off Earl’s Court, him a fine looking chap in his early forties with a bad ticker, he’d said, so they would not take him for a soldier. No white feathers about him. He worked for the papers, a reporter, like. And he’d sat next to her in the only available seat in the whole smoky inn and had chatted her up, actually finding her interesting.
He bought a round of gins and the next thing, you know, Bob’s your uncle, they’d ended up at her bed-sit together, her moaning into her pillow while he serviced her like a man with absolutely no ticker problems at all. He’d moved in with her that very day. In between lodgings, he’d said all sheepish. She figured reporters made even less than charwomen.
Little enough to do for him, she thought, as she arrived at her soot-blackened building and unlocked the street door with the big Chambers key that weighted the bottom of her bag like a revolver. Just nick a few papers now and again from the bucket what should go to the incinerator.
‘A charwoman at the Foreign Ministry?’ he’d said that first night, all surprised at learning her occupation. ‘Well, you’re a princess in my eyes, you are.’
He had the romantic way of talking that made Bess melt inside; actually made her wet and hot down there.
You’re a sinful old girl, Bess Todd, she thought, doing a half-skip up the stairs to her third-floor bed-sit. Randy as a mare in heat.
From the landing she could see that her door was ajar. The door to the communal bath and toilet at the end of the hall was closed and a light was showing under it. She went into her cramped lodgings. Some of Michael’s things were spread out on the chipped deal table, and she felt a rush of affection just seeing that he was making himself at home.
Pencil and paper; a small book open; a letter sticking half out of a torn envelope. Working. Probably writing one of his articles for the papers. She was curious about her Michael, for he would not talk of his work, would not tell her about his past or his family. Like he was hiding something from her. She dropped her bag on the table next to his papers, opened the clasp and took out her prize for him, carefully smoothing out the discarded ball of paper with the edge of her right hand like she was ironing handkerchiefs until the two pages lay flat, the lion rampant clearly visible on the letterhead of the first.
A momentary sense of guilt and shame tugged at her: when taking the job at the ministry she’d vowed never to do exactly this. Hand on Bible and all. But there wasn’t really anything wrong with it, Michael had explained. The people had a right to know what their government was up to, even in time of war. And the newspaper he worked for would never print anything that would actually harm Britain, he’d said.
‘We aren’t traitors, just watchdogs,’ he would tell her when they lay in bed together after making love, and then he’d describe what sorts of papers she should look for: heavy rag paper with the ministry letterhead; blue flimsies of cables sent or received.
She took off her hat and coat and dropped them onto a straight back chair, and then her eyes trailed to his writing on the table.
‘… SS Edgerton leaving Falmouth, 0400 hours, Feb. 2, bound for New York; SS Essex departs Dover, 2200 hours, Feb. 3 …’
Strange sort of article, she thought. Like a shipping list.
Next to this was a book of tide charts. The letter half-peaking out of the envelope intrigued her. There was a Dublin postmark on it.
Is that the funny lilt I hear in his voice? she suddenly wondered. Is he a Paddy then? Is that what he’s hiding from me?
She pulled the letter out of its envelope and opened it, then felt her heart skip a beat when she read the opening line:
‘Lieber Freund …’
Her eye went quickly down the page. The whole bleeding thing was in German!
Bess felt a sudden shiver pass over her, like a goose crossing her grave.
‘You’re home early.’
She swung around at the sound of Michael’s voice. He was standing barefoot in the doorway in his undershirt, pants and braces, holding a shaving mug and brush in one hand, a cut-throat razor in the other. His eyes went immediately to her hands, which still held the letter from Dublin.
‘What is all this?’ she said.
He shrugged, grinning. ‘Nothing.’
‘I was anxious to be with you. To show you my new find.’
She suddenly felt all the joy leave her, realizing she was about to become a victim once again, and this angered her.
He closed the door, walked slowly toward her, and set the shaving mug on the table. ‘I can explain.’
His eyes were sorrowful looking, sincere. But she suddenly did not trust her Michael; suddenly realized she knew nothing about him whatever.
‘It’s from an old school chum of mine in Dublin,’ he said. ‘Takes himself for a marvelous linguist.’
‘Is that so?’ She felt the anger rising, turning red-hot in her chest. ‘And these shipping lists?’
A muscle flexed in his jaw. ‘Why did you have to come home early?’
‘It’s my bleeding home. I’ll come when I want.’
‘Sorry,’ he said, shaking his head.
A half hour later he had dressed, cleared all traces of himself from the bed-sit and was locking the door. He looked one last time at Bess: the blood around her head had turned a dirty rust color now and was already thickening like gelatin.
He felt nothing; neither remorse nor shame at what he had done.
The pages of the purloined telegram copy were folded in his pocket, his heart still racing at its contents. Berthold will be a happy man tonight in Berlin, he thought.
Happy? Shite. Berthold’s going to mess his pants over these papers.