When Eve returned to Portsmouth, it was not to Griffon House, but to WRNS quarters in a requisitioned building with high ceilings and hollow-sounding floors. There a surprise met her in the person of Phoebe Moncke, smart in a WRNS officer’s uniform that was the very opposite of her shawls and scarves at Griffon.
‘Sit down, Miss Anders.’ Phoebe smiled broadly and indicated her new look. ‘Surprising what a good scrub up will do, isn’t it?’
‘You look very good, Miss Moncke. I guess I should call you ma’am.’
‘Yep. For the present I am your senior officer. Poor Miss Anders, I dare say the place looks top heavy with brass. Some of us need rank to get on and off the Portsmouth shore bases – they’re like ships: civilians not allowed on board. This gold lace gives me clout. The same will go for you, although it isn’t likely that you will need to wear uniform. You will be kitted out, and given all sorts of passes.’
‘Right. So I am a WRNS officer too?’
‘Officially. I understand from Captain Faludi and Lieutenant Hatton,’ she tapped a manila file – different colour from the one David had had. How many files on her were there? – ‘that they agree you are right for The Bureau and that you have sworn allegiance.’ Eve didn’t show her amusement at the allegiance she had sworn before David with a G&T in her hand.
Eve nodded.
‘How does your conscience sit on the oath?’
‘I’m not sure exactly what you mean, but this is my country, I could never be anything other than loyal to it.’
‘Yet you would have stayed on in Spain?’
Phoebe Moncke’s manner was disarming. Eve had not yet sorted out her ideas and strong emotions for the two countries she loved. Phoebe’s velvet-glove questioning, her gentle manner and soft voice, forced Eve to put her thoughts into words.
‘Had things turned out differently, I would have stayed on,’ Eve said, ‘because I believe that I could have contributed – no, that’s not the right word…’
‘It’s not bad.’
‘No, “contributed” sounds pious. I’m certainly not pious. I could have done something worthwhile. As regards loyalty, I suppose that I’m just honest to my ideals… or something along those lines.’ Eve ventured a smile and shrugged her shoulders. ‘It’s no wonder politicians sound so false. It’s hard to put into words something you feel strongly about.’
Phoebe nodded, tilting her head to one side as people do when they are being noncommittal. Eve realised that it would be prudent to watch her words, but if Phoebe was to be her senior officer she should be straight-up with her.
‘You see, if the fascists hadn’t won the war, then I might have been of more use there than here.’
‘Why?’
‘I was working in a kind of refuge for women and orphans and I had managed to scrounge food, and we did bits of rough work for a fish or a few vegetables.’
‘Tell me about the children. I have one of my own.’ She smiled. ‘That’s classified information. I keep her well away from my own front line.’
Eve hadn’t envisaged Phoebe in the role of a mother. ‘I may well finish this with tears in my eyes. I hope that they won’t count against me.’
Phoebe leaned across and touched the tips of her fingers briefly on Eve’s wrist. ‘Tears may well count in favour.’
‘I used to write the occasional column, which some magazines published.’
‘Nothing much The Bureau doesn’t know about its people.’
‘In one item, I used a phrase said to me, I think, by a Scottish woman: “This is not just a soldiers’ war”, meaning that almost the entire adult population was involved. Women and girls went to the barricades after work to give a bit of respite to the soldiers. I used to see them; they wore these soft espadrilles, caps and bandoliers, walking arm in arm five abreast through the rubble. They were super… they knew what they were fighting for. But the children didn’t! The very little ones who were undernourished couldn’t fight off the ordinary infections, and bombs and shells aren’t selective about who gets it. Some kids just wandered around until somebody took them in. There was one instance that really got to me. What was left of the population of an entire village that had been razed to the ground started walking north… I’m sorry… once I get started…’
‘No, go on. You’re the first person I’ve met who saw it first-hand.’
‘This refuge… a woman I had known through the International Brigade helped some Spanish women start up shelters. I went to work in one. It was devastating. These kids were lost and scared out of their little minds. What could we give them? Damned all, except a drop of milk from our scrawny nanny goat, and what could be scrounged.’ She drew breath and took a long drink of water. ‘You see, I said there might be tears.’ Looking up, she saw tight lines around Phoebe’s mouth and wretchedness in her eyes, but Eve ploughed on because she wanted her to know that she wasn’t some young woman who merely liked the notion of becoming a Bureau agent, who thought it might be glamorous. ‘We had two good sources of food: people on the fish quay and a Russian officer – whom, of course, you now know. They kept us going right to the end.’
‘Thank you, Miss Anders. I quite see why you would have been on the horns of a dilemma if that war had gone the other way.’
‘Ma’am, I will be a damned good agent, given half a chance. I could be very useful. This is where I was born and brought up. I see England from the underside. Not many Bureau people I have met so far are working class.’ She paused. It seemed that whenever she needed to say what made her tick, she couldn’t do it without the old devil ‘class’ coming into it. But that was how it was now that she had pulled herself away from her roots.
‘Can you see it from both sides? You are no longer the factory girl you used to be. I have read Dr McKenzie’s report.’ Phoebe made a kind of beckoning motion as though to draw words from her mouth. ‘Can you?’
‘You know about the factory girl; she’s still here, ma’am. The factory girl made Eve Anders. The factory girl’s view of England was, is of its underside. I may have put this protective Anders shell around her, but when Anders looks at the world, it is through the eyes of a factory girl with the added experience of Anders.’
‘“To thine own self be true”?’ Phoebe gave Eve the gentlest of smiles, mostly with her eyes.
‘Yes, yes, that’s the Anders philosophy in a nutshell… even if it sounds like godalmighty clap-trap.’
‘You went to Spain on the side of the Republic – would you wish to see Britain go that way?’
‘Eventually, ma’am, yes, but we have a lot of obstacles before that day comes. To be quite honest, I object to being a “subject”. It’s demeaning.’
‘How would you feel about going back to Spain?’
‘You mean now?’
‘In a few weeks.’
‘A few weeks! Well… I’d feel apprehensive. I became quite well known in some areas.’
‘The Bureau needs a woman in Spain. Lieutenant Hatton thinks you’re the one for the job.’
Spain! A dozen conflicting thoughts swept through her.
‘You think he’s wrong?’
‘No, ma’am, no. I was just surprised that it would be Spain.’
‘Fancy a walk along the seafront? We shall be working together for a while, so let’s get a bit better acquainted.’
The front was just a short walk from Phoebe’s temporary office. As soon as they reached the open common a chill wind gusted, carrying sea-water smells. A gang of council workers were attaching coils of barbed wire to the handrails where Eve had often leaned over with the girls from school. Two blonde little girls, obviously sisters, dressed alike and holding buckets and spades, were peering through the web of barbs at the shingle and sea.
‘Look at them,’ Eve said. ‘How can you possibly explain that to a child?’
‘Maybe we can save them from worse.’
‘Maybe they will end up dead!’
She didn’t trust herself even to apologise. The sun broke through the grey mass of cloud. The tide was surging out towards Chichester, the sea now flashing silver sparkles, moving as though fingers were dabbling the surface. It surged around the stanchions of the pier, the ebbing water sucking gently as it revealed bright green weed.
‘Oh, sunshine, just what I needed.’ Phoebe took off her tricorn hat and shook out her hair, very different now from the exotic tangle that went with her Griffon dress.
‘You appear quite a different person from when you took us into Griffon,’ Eve said.
Phoebe laughed. ‘I was trying her on for size. I like to do that sometimes. I used to play characters on the stage.’
‘Is this the real you, then?’
‘Will the real Phoebe Moncke stand up?’ she laughed. ‘You see, nobody did.’
They walked on. Phoebe pointed across the water. ‘Look, the sun has picked out that town just like a floodlight.’
‘That’s Ryde.’
‘Beautiful, isn’t it? I expect you know the Isle of Wight well?’
‘Only as part of the scenery, a hump on the horizon. I’ve never been.’
‘Yet you have been to Europe and Australia.’
‘Oh yes, Paris, and a few nights in Cape Town and Hong Kong and Singapore on the way back here.’
‘When were you in Paris?’
‘On my way in and out of Spain, but I had been there before… to do with my old job. It will be somewhere in my file. Lieutenant Hatton knows about it.’
‘You are just the cosmopolitan lady to live it up at the Madrid Ritz.’
‘Madrid?’
‘David Hatton says you can do it. Sophisticated lady.’
‘Hardly sophisticated.’
‘After we’ve finished with you over there,’ she pointed to the Isle ofWight, ‘you won’t say that. I shall be asking you, “Will the real Miss Anders stand up?”’
At last Eve Anders got to set foot on the Isle of Wight at Ryde, just opposite where she had been standing with Phoebe Moncke only two days previously. The weather was springlike – clear air, an azure bowl of sky and sunlight bright enough to penetrate the sea and turn it blue.
With the sun on her face, the smell of engine oil wafting by, and the thrum of engines shuddering the soles of her shoes, Eve leaned on the rail and watched as the old steam-paddle ferry made its way across the short treacherous span of the Solent that flowed between the island and the mainland, directly across the busy shipping lanes. Filling her mind with moving pictures, she drew in the busy traffic slipping in and out of Portsmouth Harbour: grey top-heavy battleships low in the water; grey, nippy Royal Navy corvettes; grey warships, unmarked and with unfamiliar outlines that came up or disappeared over the horizon; vessels painted with zigzag patterns that could suddenly leap into view when eyes adjusted to the distraction of the camouflage.
Eve Anders knew her local history and it was an awful history to contemplate. Portsmouth was a naval town, which thrived only in time of war. Time and again it had risen like a phoenix from the ashes of peace. She had been a young child throughout the last period of peace, and had grown up with unemployment and poverty blossoming all around her. Now, the phoenix of war was rising again and with it Portsmouth’s fortunes.
As the ferry turned, its paddle thrashing the water, she felt a thrill, as she always had when starting out on something new. Unknown territory: the Isle of Wight, a tiny landmass cut off from the mainland when the sea broke through millennia ago; Ryde, until now a cluster of buildings in the midst of dense trees. This was still England, still Hampshire, her own county, yet the couple of miles of sea she had just crossed gave her a strange feeling of liberation. She held back from disembarking until the crowd had cleared, enjoying her light-hearted mood.
I’m back to my old self, she thought.
Her eyes sparkled with health, and the enthusiastic spirit of Lu as she had been on the day when she stepped off the train in London on the first day of her new life as Eve three years ago. Now she stepped onto the quayside at Ryde, looked at the endless stretch of pier, and was glad to have worn slacks and flat shoes.
‘Miss Anders… over here, Miss Anders.’ A voice that she had heard before.
‘Miss Sanderson! Electra! Fancy you being here.’ Eve shook her hand warmly. ‘Is this coincidence, or are you here to waylay me again?’
‘The latter. Not such lux transport this time.’
‘Never mind the transport, it’s good to see you. Are you well?’
‘Oh, absolutely! Never better. Give me one of your big bags – they’ll be picked up later today. Just bring your tote. Cup of tea? Ah, I know what you’d love. It’s absolutely special. Minghella’s, ice cream for the angels; can’t buy the stuff on the mainland.’
They sat with little dishes. ‘Isn’t this the most heavenly stuff?’
‘Delicious, but how long can they continue to make it?’
‘The big factories are all closing down. I have an absolute passion for ice cream. I caught it in Italy as a child and its never gone. The real stuff is hard to find in England, but here it is. I’ve been coming here every day.’
There was something so disarming and naive about Electra Sanderson’s chatter that Eve was reminded of her childhood friend and soulmate, Bar Barney. Bar’s enthusiasm had been so infectious that it was impossible not to be carried along with her.
‘What’s happened to your FANY uniform?’
‘I’m between jobs, as you might say. Not exactly between, but on a different tack. I’m not sorry – all that explaining to people… friends behaving like lewd schoolgirls. “I say,”’ she mimicked, ‘“what do you think, old Lee’s a FANY!” I mean, a joke’s only a joke if you’ve never heard it before, and I got fed up explaining that I was proud to be a member of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry – somebody was certain to say, “Show us your bow and arrows, Lee.” So, I’ve become a Bureau PA – that’s personal assistant to Commander Kiefor, “Keef”. You know, of course, that he’s Commander Kiefor now?’
‘Yes, it was he who gave me my orders. Said I should wear flat shoes.’
‘Did he ask if you could ride a bike?’
‘Ahh, so that’s it. No, no he didn’t.’
‘Can you?’
‘Well, yes, if I can remember.’
‘Nobody ever forgets how to ride a bike.’
Two sit-up-and-beg cycles were propped against a wall at the pier exit. Each had bountiful baskets back and front, and old-fashioned lamps attached front and rear.
‘Don’t take against them because of their appearance. They’re absolutely well maintained (by yours truly) and very kind to the derrière. Put your bag in mine, just in case.’
‘In case of what?’
‘That you wobble when you get going.’
‘I’ll take a turn or two along here, if you don’t mind.’
Eve hadn’t been on a bike since her elder brother had taught her on a borrowed errand-boy’s bike – all the kids in the street had learned on it. It was a wonderful feeling; the tyres were springy and the chain and cogs clean and oiled.
‘There! I told you. Not a single wobble. Come on, let’s get going.’
‘Where?’
‘A couple of miles to the east of here. We follow the shoreline.’
The lane was narrow and not well surfaced.
Electra went ahead, calling back over her shoulder from time to time, pointing out across the water to where Portsmouth lay.
‘Here we are,’ Electra called back as she turned sharp right and then sharp left again. ‘How was it? Not far enough to make you stiff. Not even out of breath.’
‘But perspiring like mad.’
The bikes were left propped against a brick outhouse, and, swinging Eve’s tote, Electra led the way round to the front of the house.
Eve said, ‘Wow! What a smashing house!’
‘Absolutely genuine Lutyens.’
Typical of Lutyens’ architecture, the house had tall fancy chimneys and broad stretches of narrow windows that looked out over a wide stretch of neglected lawn to the sea.
‘What’s the house called?’
‘Just The House by the Sea.’
Eve laughed. ‘Oh, I like that.’
‘Come on in. I’ll show you where you’ll be putting up. Hardly anybody here at the moment; it’s just been opened up.’
Although the downstairs rooms were almost empty, and the floors were bare polished strip-board, the house had a feeling of being lived in. If this were mine, I’d never want to move, Eve thought. Then, as she went to the upper rooms overlooking the Solent with its constant movement in the shipping lanes, and the distant natural chalk buttresses beyond which, as she well knew, was the exit from her home town, the road to London and beyond, she settled for: If this were mine, it would be the perfect place to come home to.
It was reaching midday. ‘Something to eat – outside?’
‘Smashing, it’s warm enough. Can you tell me about the others who will be coming?’
‘Of course. Grab a tray. Rosehip wine? The Dad’s a whizz at country wines.’
‘They’re called hedgerow wines where I come from.’
Electra looked for a moment as though she would ask, ‘Where’s that?’ but, like Eve, she had become part of a world where you didn’t ask those questions – unless it was your job to do so, and then you could call up one of the personal files.
Eve covered for her. ‘Wines like this, if they’re made by an expert, are so good you wonder why you bother with vinos.’
‘Cheese roll… almost sans cheese?’
‘Sounds good to me.’
They settled on the untended grass facing the sea.
‘What has Keef told you about this house?’ Electra asked.
‘Very little, only that it’s for specialist people who are going… ‘underground’ is it called?’
‘What it is really is a kind of rehearsal room for a big production. Not many parts, all those ones involved will be stars. Keef and Phoebe’s jobs are to see that you are word-perfect.’ Electra grinned. ‘WRNS Officer Moncke.’
‘I know, I know, what a turn-up for the book.’ ‘Out of the Scrubs people, there’s you and Wilhelmina de Beers, and a Paul Smyth.’
Now it was Eve’s turn to grin. ‘Smyth-with- a-Y. He’s a really nice chap, so’s DB – Wilhelmina. I suppose we must have done something right at the Scrubs.’
‘I wouldn’t know about that, but I guess you’re all good Bureau material.’
‘You seem to have picked up quite a lot since I last saw you.’
‘The Dad’s in the know, which is why Keef got me out of the FANY and into The Bureau. Now, what else can I tell you? Well, Peter Follis – he will be here. He’s a magician. He can transform a person so that their own mother wouldn’t know them. Ever heard of him?’ Eve shook her head. ‘Brilliant. Worked back stage for years. Mostly simple stuff, like a chap with a bald head and limping on a walking stick can transform his appearance in a trice if he ditches the stick and dons a cap and a pair of spectacles and strides out. Phoebe explained it to me. That’s the simple stuff.’ She hunched her shoulders and smiled like a schoolgirl telling a secret. ‘Actually, that’s about all I know about him.’
‘According to Keef, that is what he is going to do to me – transform me.’
‘Peter and Phoebe Moncke, according to Keef, have worked together for years. They have – or used to have – their own theatre?’
‘Oh, is that what she was talking about?’
‘A small place. I think they call it “experimentational” or something… ad-lib… Dada theatre, the sort of place The Dad wouldn’t approve of as “intellectual and foreign”. Strange though, The Dad knows Keef and doesn’t mind him at all. It’s my opinion that Keef went to The Dad’s college – most of the men he approves of came from there. Of course, Keef’s a different generation, but an old boy’s an old boy for ever.’
‘What about Commander Kiefor and WRNS Officer Moncke? Are they colleagues or what?’
‘Oh, colleagues, I’m certain.’
Eve waited for her to go on, as she was bound to. Electra was a superb gossip, like a gently babbling warm stream. The thing was, Electra’s stream wasn’t as shallow as it appeared. Like the previously ‘potty’ Phoebe, there was a lot more depth to her than first appeared – had to be, or she would hardly have been taken onto the Bureau staff.
‘I believe that Keef was the money behind “Solo” – Peter Follis and Phoebe’s theatre. You might not believe it, but he’s the younger of the two.’
‘Keef?’
‘Yes. Quite smitten by her – but in a purely platonic way, even though they are quite prepared to share a room. Very queer set-up. But that’s theatre people for you. Look, I have to go down to the town to pick up supplies, and meet the ferry. Ration books complicate things for us. We have to register with local shops, otherwise there would be too much curiosity. We couldn’t be registering everybody who comes and goes here, so we put in some permanent cards and the rest is sent over by ferry from the RN stores. Lieutenant Hatton has left all this to me, and he’s really pleased with me. He’s nice, isn’t he?’
‘Really charming.’
‘Some of the girls who saw him at a local hop – local as at Griffon – well, they called him my lover boy because he kept dancing with me until I had taught him to jitterbug. I’ll have to take the brake down, pick up our supplies, your luggage plus Miss de Beers and Mr Smyth.
‘You hang around here, open kitchen cupboards, find out where stuff is. Somebody might drop in with a tray of eggs – just leave them on the dresser. Lovely bit of sun, have a walk along the shore if you like. By the way, how is your delicious Russian – or shouldn’t I ask?’
Eve gave her a wry expression. ‘I think I just might take that walk along the shore.’
Electra winked. ‘Good idea.’
Eve sat as close to the lapping waves as she could. Much of the time she had spent strolling along the shoreline path she spent thinking of Dimitri. Where was he? Their new situation disturbed her. She hadn’t bargained for missing him quite so much. The Bureau had whisked him away at speed, leaving no trace. The only thing she had to prove that he had ever existed was the short note. She shouldn’t complain, because it was the way she had left her family. Once before a man had been chopped out of her life – Ozz Lavender. Even after all these months, she still missed him. Now that Dimitri was gone – true, with a cleaner cut – she was hurting. He was a great comforter. If he was here now he would draw her onto his generous lap and wrap his arms around her, making soft comfort in Russian. Watching the ever-increasing circles from a stone thrown into the sea, she tried yet again to analyse her feelings for him. Why couldn’t he just—
‘Loo-loo-loo-loo!’ The high-pitched ululating call carried along the coastline from the left. Eve’s mood lightened. She had heard that Zulu call before, carrying clearly across the River Thames. DB. What sport!
Eve ran towards the sound and arrived at The House by the Sea to see DB and Paul coming towards her.
Paul wasn’t a man who found it unmanly to give hugs and kisses. He threw his tweedy arms around Eve’s shoulders. ‘Come here, you thing, and be warmly greeted.’ Their pleasure at meeting again was obvious. ‘Miss Sanderson said we would know our third colleague.’
‘Evie Anders, hey man, it is good to see you! The old firm… only Fran missing.’
‘I saw her again, just for a minute…’
DB linked arms with both of them and they set out towards the sea. ‘Who’d have thought it? We must have done something right at the Scrubs.’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘Played a pretty good game of darts.’
‘Nothing else I can think of.’
‘Oh, there’s modest.’
‘You saw Fran, and…?’
‘It was just for a minute. I don’t think she wanted me to see her.’
‘Fran?’
‘Well, she wouldn’t, would she, if she had got her posting? She was boarding the Aberdeen train, and I happen to know that The Bureau is starting a cipher department in Scotland.’
Dimitri! That was the likeliest place for him to be sent.
‘A cipher set-up there – Fran’s just the woman to be part of it. It’s where I hope to go after… um, after this operation.’
‘What else do you know about it? I’m not just fishing, I really need to know… It’s personal. Would there be a… I don’t know… a Balkans… Eastern Europe… Soviet section?’
‘Maybe a Polish section. I’m just guessing. I was waiting for interview, and met a Pole,’ Paul chuckled. ‘He was doing the “Ximinies” crossword faster than me, so maybe there will be all kinds of ciphering and decoding going on there.’
‘He’s the guy for the gossip, Eve,’ said DB. ‘Hey, will you just look at that view. Is that where we’ve just come from – Portsmouth? I don’t remember all those tall houses. It’s pretty.’
Eve looked across. ‘Technically, that’s Southsea. People there don’t like to be included in Portsmouth.’
‘It’s the same all over,’ Paul agreed.
‘Tell me something I don’t know. In my country, it’s not only the whites knowing they’re better than the blacks – the blacks often have shades of black: yellow blacks, with light skins, who think they’re better than the real darks, but not to the Cape coloureds. They’re real class, almost white, but not to the whites they’re not. To the whites, they’re all niggers, and it’s only that my nigra blood goes back so many generations that I’m not a problem. I’m all washed out. Except for my hair. The girl used to keep it oiled down and in tight pigtails so that no one would ask about Great-great-grandpa.’
Eve said, ‘I love your hair.’
DB laughed. ‘After I was transported to Italy, I set it free.’
‘Do you suppose we’ll be working together?’ Eve asked.
‘I’d feel OK about that,’ Paul said.
‘Me too.’
‘Either of you speak Spanish?’ Eve asked.
The other two looked sideways at her.
‘Like a native,’ Paul said, ‘about the one thing I can do. French, Portuguese, Greek – Ancient and Modern, German – High and Low, Swedish, Italian, a lot of Low Country dialects, and I can get along in Icelandic and Inuit. Got me a Masters and a PhD, said he, showing off. I don’t know how I came to be able to do it. I just can – a gift like some people can do maths at six years old.’ He squeezed Eve affectionately. ‘So, to answer your question, yes I speak Spanish.’
‘What’s Inuit?’
‘Eskimo. So, I guess you speak Spanish too, which is the link, and you wouldn’t have asked if you didn’t already know something about your operation. DB?’
‘I speak it pretty good, but I’m better at Portuguese. My mom was my auntie’s Portuguese maid, and my pa married her. Is Paul right? You speeka da language?’
‘Not like a native, but I have a good ear for picking up speech, and I picked up my colloquial Spanish on the hoof.’
They stopped and squatted on the stony beach beside a clump of scrub, which sheltered them from the late-afternoon breeze.
‘Nothing personal, Eve, but how old are you?’
DB said, ‘That’s personal, Paul, but, hey, man, who cares, you’re a sweet mate. I’m twenty-six and I’m a lesbian. I like black girls, which doesn’t go down that good if your community is Dutch Reform. Minds as closed as a bull’s ass in autumn, which is why I was packed off to Italy to have my voice trained professionally. Not many Cape coloured girls in Milano.’
The other two didn’t immediately respond. ‘Hey, man, have I shocked you?’
Paul laughed. ‘No, but I was only asking Eve her age because of what she said about learning colloquial Spanish on the hoof. I guessed you meant actually in Spain, Eve?’
Eve nodded.
‘You look too young to have been there.’
‘And you look like a jolly chap in your tweed jacket and bad haircut, except that it’s a disguise for a razor brain. First time you spoke to us you picked an anagram out of the air.’
DB said, ‘Will somebody tell me what you two are talking about?’
Paul said, ‘On the hoof means that Eve was in Spain long enough to learn the language. Colloquial means she learned it from people and not in classrooms. There’s been a civil war going on there. From my guess at her age, it means that she must have been only twenty or younger when she went there.’ He looked at her questioningly. ‘I assume you were helping the right side.’
‘You mean the left side?’ When Paul nodded, Eve added, ‘Do you solve murders in your spare time?’
DB said, in oddly accented Spanish, ‘So we’re the chosen.’
‘But for what?’ Paul asked.
‘I say, man, what sport if we are sent undercover together.’
‘You must be joking. Can you imagine the three of us together being unnoticed?’
‘What about separately?’
‘In Spain? If you went as a volunteer, Eve, and you weren’t a nurse or doctor, then you must have carried The Card.’
‘Paul!’
Communists ever only referred to the Communist Party as ‘The Party’ and the membership card as ‘The Card’.
Ever since Phoebe Moncke had talked about the undercover operation in Spain, worry had been gnawing at Eve. If her cover was blown it would be bad enough, but to be discovered as a card-carrying Communist would mean, at best, incarceration in one of the terrible traitors’ prisons; at worse elimination. If she were to be recognised as the woman who used to drive a truck carrying supplies, it would hardly matter that she held a UK passport… no, a forged Irish one probably.
If she let her thoughts go in that direction, she would become jittery.
‘Sorry, Eve. Don’t worry, I’ve carried The Card since I was a student. No longer actually in my pocket, of course.’
‘That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to tell all and sundry.’
‘DB’s not all and sundry, are you?’
‘I’ll tell you something, you wouldn’t be welcome in my country. God’s Own Country.’ DB cupped her hands round her mouth and shouted across the water, ‘Neit roi. *Swartz verbotten! Lesbians don’t come home!’ For a moment a crack appeared in her ‘What sport! What a lark!’ casing, allowing Eve and Paul to see the sores. ‘Hey, man, I’m starving. Is there a kitchen we can raid?’
Paul said, ‘Electra said we can help ourselves.’
DB nudged him. ‘Oo it’s “Electra” now. He was really keen on her straightaway, Eve. She’d be just right for you, Paul.’
‘I know. D’you think I have a chance there?’
‘There’s no one else,’ Eve offered. ‘Go get her, Paul.’
‘What, with you two watching?’
‘She taught Lieutenant Hatton to jitterbug. You could try that tack.’
‘The fair Adonis in a naval uniform. Oh dear, the competition is strong.’
Eve said, ‘He’s too old for her, Paul. You’re just right.’
‘Not too old for jitterbugging.’
DB said, ‘It’s probably just his bait. I mean, how much closer can you get to a stranger than dancing?’
That was the way she and David had started: two strangers in a tango embrace. ‘It would do for a start, don’t you think?’
The two young women linked arms with him. He was such a super man.
Phoebe Moncke arrived during the evening with Keef and Peter Follis in tow. Including Electra, seven of them sat round a table to a meal that was a plain but delicious vegetable stew followed by a batter pudding, plenty of eggs and milk, but unsweetened. Electra apologetically said, ‘I could have used saccharin, but I think that’s worse than unsweetened. When you get used to no sugar, many things taste much better.’
Paul said, ‘I think that’s about the best batter pudding I’ve ever tasted.’
‘Oh, Mr Smyth, how nice of you to say that.’
‘I’d rather be called Paul… is that all right?’ His eyes swivelled between Keef and Phoebe Moncke.
Keef answered, ‘I don’t see why not. Everybody refers to me as Keef.’
Phoebe leaned across and patted his hand, ‘That’s because you are and always will be Keef, darling.’
Over cups of Camp coffee substitute, Phoebe said, ‘The three of you will be on the same operation – namely to be in place should there be a sudden exodus from France of the Duke of Windsor and Wallis, both of whom I know quite well, but whom, I’m afraid, have become bothersome. Whitehall no longer has time for their childish pique. At the moment they are comfortably ensconced in the South of France, but it can only be a matter of time before they decide to leave. The Germans, as you will know, have been wooing them. It would be a great coup for Hitler if he could persuade them to line up with him. He has made them such promises.’
Paul asked, ‘Are the rumours true that they are pro-Nazi?’
‘They have been feted and shown the new face of Germany, the roads in particular. The Prince of Wales – as he was then – was impressed. When he said his famous “Something must be done” to Welsh miners, he had roads in mind. He saw himself putting all those unemployed men to work making a British autobahn network. But it is probable that he hadn’t realised that the famous German autobahns have been laid out so that the great army of the Third Reich, with its convoys of heavy guns and tanks, can move fast.’ Phoebe Moncke, with her fluffy pose dropped, was a formidable woman. Eve liked her better like this. ‘Any questions?’
‘You said I will have two roles here…’
‘Right! Let’s talk about Mr Smyth. Miss De Beers’ agent, Mr Smyth of London, will travel with her to Lisbon, where she will give recitals. You will be carrying messages – the sheet music. Messages will be secreted within the notes.’
‘Brilliant!’ Paul said. ‘But if the notes are encrypted, won’t that produce some pretty weird sounds? Also, there are only seven letters.’
‘You’ve probably heard of dots…’
‘Microdots – messages on miniature film?’
Keef nodded.
Paul went on, ‘But that’s incredible. I hadn’t realised that things were so advanced. Messages on music notes? Wow!’
Phoebe said, ‘Wow, yes. You and Keef will be working on that, as well as you working with Miss Anders’ Spanish – she’s supposed not to speak the language and refers to a traveller’s guide. It’s mostly a question of getting her to answer questions in the phonetic Spanish a non-speaker would get from the guide.’
DB asked what Peter Follis’ role was.
‘You and Mr Smyth will not need much of his attention; you are who you are. You spend your time here singing away to your heart’s content and learning to be a bit of a prima donna who leaves everything to her agent.
‘Miss Anders needs Peter. If she were to return to Spain looking as she now does, she would be in jeopardy – in fact, we would not send her. You may or may not know that Miss Anders was in Spain right up to the end of the war there. She knows the country well, and there may be people who will know her. So, she is about to be transformed by Peter into a wealthy socialite who is indulging her fancy that she can produce a book of photographs of the flora of the area. She doesn’t have to justify what she is doing – she’s rich.’
‘How will we get in?’
‘Miss de Beers and yourself from Shannon to Lisbon. Miss Anders same air route, then from Lisbon into Spain by road. One of our people will drive you across the border.’
‘Aren’t border crossings difficult?’
‘Not to any extent between Portugal and Spain. It is at airports that the new government is a bit edgy about who comes and goes – mostly who goes. There are still a lot of people who were involved in the war trying to escape. Many have prices on their heads. Remember, it is always the detail that makes for a successful operation.’
It occurred to Eve that Phoebe might be new to The Bureau, but not the work of agents.
‘Dr Janet McKenzie, whom Miss Anders already knows, will be joining the team here at The House by the Sea. You three are the first of many who will pass through here on short but intensive courses, on their way to a career with The Bureau’s Special Operations. Miss de Beers and Mr Smyth will leave here ahead of Miss Anders.’
Next morning Eve went into her first session with Peter Follis. Peter, who had said very little the previous evening but had made copious notes, now had the floor to himself.
He began by asking her to stand up. ‘Walk to the door… right! Now walk back without purpose. You have all the time in the world. You drift aimlessly, languidly, wiggling your fingers to dry nail-varnish… Not bad, not bad. It’s a beginning. Now, Eve – OK to call you Eve? — let us consider this hugely wealthy butterfly who believes that she has great talent as a photographer. Can you think who would take the part in a Hollywood production?’
‘Myrna Loy?’
‘Not quite, too dizzy, not young enough… Don’t worry, we’ll have a bit of a think about the right model later. Then you must pull her over your head like a second skin, step into her body and soul as you take her over.’
‘Vivien Leigh?’
‘A blonde Leigh? That would be good. You have that same snooty look… don’t bridle; in all real beauty there’s an element of snootiness. If not, they are brought down to the level of the rest of we mortals. She’s about to receive an Academy Award for her snootiness. “Mammeh, oh, Mammeh”.’ Peter Follis’ mimicking of the Scarlett O’Hara voice and the big dramatic gestures, made Eve almost fall around laughing.
‘Why can’t I be myself but,’ she smiled, ‘adjusted to suit?’
‘You sound confident – d’you think you can do it?’
‘It won’t be the first time.’
‘Really? Good. So let’s do it! Dr McKenzie will be here to help you, but I believe that when we have made the physical change, much of the rest will fall into place.’
‘Physical change?’
‘We start right away with banting.’
‘What’s banting?’
‘A particularly effective regime for the loss of weight. You didn’t suppose all Hollywood stars’ svelte bodies are God-given?’
‘I never gave it a lot of thought.’
‘Banting is nothing strange like eating only cucumbers and swallowing tape-worm capsules. You may smile, but actresses – actors too, the vain bunch – can become desperate. Anyway dear Mr Banting has been very effective with his theory of food – plus a little good red wine. When you are undercover, you may dine sensibly and remain stick-thin.’
Eve looked down at her generous breasts. ‘Stick-thin?’
‘Yes, Eve, those are a minor problem. Don’t concern yourself, they will spring back when you return from your sojourn in the sun. Banting only disperses adipose.’
‘I have been stick-thin before, and it wasn’t attractive.’
‘There is a great difference between starvation and scientific nourishment.’
Electra went to the pierhead with the brake and returned with a smart middle-aged man with jet-black hair and a scarred but handsome face – Ronalde, a hairdresser and make-up artist who had worked with Peter, making ageing actors and actresses appear thirty years younger. He was extremely courteous, asking Eve if it would be convenient for him to start with her hair directly he had changed his ‘attire’.
DB and Phoebe couldn’t keep away from Ronalde, who, as he worked, asked Eve questions which she answered as well as she was able in her new identity.
‘Your new style must be very different from the previous time when you were wherever it is that you are going. How did you wear it?’
‘Haystack. Then close crop because of the head-lice. God, how I hated that.’
The other women made gruesome expressions. Ronalde said, ‘Not many actresses keep clear of them. It’s not very hygienic back stage you know.’ He applied sulphurous-smelling bleach, which was kept steaming beneath a towel, then massages of sweet-smelling creams, finishing with a foamy shampoo that smelled of rosemary.
When Eve emerged from the bathroom, her hair was platinum blonde and almost straight. Ronalde had strained it back away from her face. ‘There, madam, sleek as a seal, no electric driers, let the air do it. You must always find the best professional to do the recolouring. Go to the most exclusive and expensive man, and be very positive.’
Janet McKenzie arrived at The House by the Sea three days after Eve’s hair was bleached blonde, bordering on white, by which time Eve was used to her new reflection. Her eyebrows had been narrowed to a fine line, but there was no apparent change to her figure, although Phoebe Moncke insisted that the scales showed a twenty-ounce reduction.
‘I don’t think I shall reach stick-thin.’
‘Be patient. By the end of the month there will be a difference.’
Janet greeted Eve with obvious pleasure. ‘So, my dear, how have things been since we last met?’
‘I’ve been really well. A Special Operations agent is exactly me. I’m loving every minute of it so far.’
Janet opened one of the bunch of string-fastened files that lay on the table where they sat one on either side. ‘I thought things went well at our session together at Griffon House, and you did well at the Scrubs induction.’
‘I guess I must have. They haven’t thrown me out.’
‘Let’s talk for a bit about how you feel about these sessions? I guess you don’t have any experience of hypnotism?’
‘No.’
‘Are you wary of it?’
‘Not wary, but I can’t believe that I shall be able to do it.’
‘Intelligent women make very good subjects. How about if we make a start now? In the armchair, feet raised on the little stool, hands on the chair arms. The picture facing you is that of a gerbera. When we begin I want you to look at its centre as you listen to me, until I ask you to close your eyes. You will not fall asleep, you will always be aware that you are in this room and that it is me who is talking to you. You may open your eyes at any point, but I would prefer that you did so when I suggest it. Are you warm enough? Good. I will slip off your shoes and put a nice warm little blanket over your feet. Ready when you are… ’
And so began daily sessions with Janet McKenzie. After the first two Eve began to look forward to gazing at the flower and being lost in time until she heard Janet say, ‘Three, two, one. You may open your eyes.’
Janet McKenzie was helping Eve to submerge her utopian ideals and the urge to talk politics. ‘Eve is bored, bored, bored by what might be happening in the world – except as it affects her directly.’
‘You mean I have to be a self-centred rich bitch then?’
‘Exactly so. For the period that you are there you have no opinions except the frivolous ones – whether the Paris style or the American style is the better, not even a comment about Paris fashion disappearing; nothing about the war. Your “Irish ancestry” helps there.’
The transformation of Eve and the running of her as a Special Ops agent in the Madrid Ritz was going to cost taxpayers a pretty penny. She only hoped that The Bureau would think that it had got its money’s worth when it was over.
They were out walking together along the shoreline when Eve mentioned this to Janet. Janet gave her a lecture about doing what she was best at and leaving the Treasury to worry about value for money.
‘They’ve been spending money for as long as anyone can remember, keeping men in comfortable hotels in the Far East, and paying out for dubious intelligence. You’ll be good value, Eve. Running this place alone would pay a soldier’s wage for a lifetime. So shut up and think like a woman who never thinks about the cost of anything.’
There seemed to be a lot of hanging about, so, as she would be purporting to be a photographer of nature, Eve asked Phoebe for a camera and as they walked she took photographs. In the house she learned as much as she could about the technique from books and practising.
‘How d’you feel about your man now that you have had this space around you – this emotional space?’ Janet asked one day on one of their walks.
‘I miss the lovemaking.’ Eve smiled, crinkling her brow.
Janet rolled her eyes upwards. ‘We all do, and it’s likely to get worse for the faithful types. Are you one?’
‘No, I don’t have anyone to be faithful to.’
‘This one’s a serious question. How do you cope?’
‘With not having a man?’
‘Yes. You’re not a lesbian, so what happens when you want it – sexual gratification – I mean really want it so that it’s like a thirst, but there’s nothing to quench it; worse, nothing likely to be around?’
‘I don’t know that I want to answer that.’
‘Why?’
‘Oh, come on, Janet, it’s a bit personal, isn’t it?’
‘It isn’t curiosity. I really need to know as much as I can about you – what makes your clock tick, your pendulum swing, how likely you are to fall into bed with somebody. Y’know what I mean?’
‘The sort of people I come from don’t talk like this. It’s kind of embarrassing.’
‘But you are no longer the sort of people you come from. Men masturbate all the time – they know it, their friends know it, it’s accepted that they like to do it, so they do. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Of course I know it.’
‘But you think it’s kind of embarrassing for us women?’
‘For it to be a topic of conversation, yes. Maybe you’re used to it – I’m not.’
‘I’m your psychologist, Eve, and I know that it’s a bit unprofessional to talk to you away from the room – but I know you.’
Eve felt niggled with herself. She hated to be thought prudish – she didn’t like prudes – but until now she had never expected to be questioned about how she conducted her private life.
‘Young Lu Wilmott, she is the embarrassed one. Am I right? Or am I right?’
‘Lu is me… is Eve.’
‘So who are you?’
‘Eve Anders née Lu Wilmott.’
‘Lu is a child… a girl, she ceased to exist three years ago. The team is giving you another face and figure to take with you to Spain; I must give you a new character. OK, it is a pseudo character, but you cannot take this child along.’
‘She is not a child. Lu is the absolute nucleus of Eve.’
‘How can she possibly be the nucleus of this intelligent woman?’ Janet McKenzie moved in front of Eve and spread her hands wide. ‘For God’s sake. Eve, let the child go. Give her to me if you don’t feel that you can ditch her.’
Eve felt a terrible danger, as though a foothold she had been sure was secure had come loose. She turned away from the path and towards the shoreline, and sat on the strand just above where the tide had withdrawn.
Janet McKenzie squatted beside her, touching her lightly on the shoulder. ‘Eve, you’re an intelligent woman. You have been amazing in what you have done. You’re brave, resourceful, and an ardent mature woman. You’re twenty-two – you have lived your life more fully than most young women I know. Give yourself a chance, Eve. Be yourself, be the woman you’ve chosen to be.’
The threatening attack of panic began to subside. ‘If I give up Lu, I will have deserted my own class – my ideals, if you like.’
‘Isn’t it a bit arrogant to believe that somebody like me can’t share those ideals?’
‘I shall never forget what it felt like to be Lu and not get a grammar school place because she came from the wrong end of town.’
‘And I shall never forget what it felt like to be Janet and not be acceptable in any school because she is black. So I left and found a place where what counted was my mind and not my skin and hair. I shall never forget, but I have moved on down the road since then, though I am still Janet McKenzie, I am still black.’ She sat close to Eve and reached out for her hand. ‘This is the friend, not the psychologist.’
Eve looked down at the fine, long brown fingers, fingertips painted fire-engine red, and ran her own fingers over Janet’s pale pink palm. ‘You are black, aren’t you… isn’t that strange? That’s never occurred to me. I don’t mean that I think about you as being white or anything like that, I mean that I just see Janet… Dr McKenzie.’
‘As it should be in a perfect world. And I see Eve Anders. Quite by chance – because of my professional relationship with you – I happen to know that you have this immature little person you keep lugging around with you.’ Janet put an arm lightly round Eve’s shoulder.
Eve smiled and gave Janet a light kiss on the cheek. ‘Come on, let’s walk.’
DB’s delightful voice could be heard every morning as she did her exercises, but mostly she was preoccupied and serious. Paul was his usual likeable self, trying out a bit of cussing and learning how to get on in a Roman Catholic church, what working men ate and how they ate it. Most days he went off with an instructor to learn the techniques of handling a tiny fishing boat.
DB and Paul left the island before Eve became suitably stick-thin.
When Eve was thin enough, Electra drove Peter and Eve to London for a few days. There, Peter introduced Eve to some exclusive fashion houses, where they selected a stunning wardrobe down to the last comb and scent spray. A small amount of jewellery – paste but good – handmade shoes, and gloves and suitcases.
Eve, letting the Treasury worry about the cost, revelled in the anticipation of wearing these beautiful clothes.
She had anticipated that she would return to the island, but Phoebe Moncke appeared at the hotel in which Eve was staying and gave her everything she needed to fly to Shannon airport and from there to Lisbon.