On London’s King’s Road there was a queue to collect gas masks from Chelsea Town Hall. Whole families were waiting, the children jumping up and down, wriggling with excitement, the parents, anxiety etched on their faces, keeping up appearances because they were lining up alongside their cooks and housemaids. One little boy was singing, ‘There’s going to be a war!’ until he was abruptly hushed by his father. Those who were leaving, already issued with masks, were rather more subdued. Having had their first taste of the acrid rubber contraptions with their bleary glass panels at the front and straps fastened behind the head, perhaps the dangers of the future seemed suddenly more real.
Watching from the top deck of the number 11 bus, however, Clara was transported to the past. She had a vision of herself on this same bus with her mother, sitting in exactly the same spot – front row of the top deck – Helene Vine upright and proper, handbag balanced on her knee, and Clara herself, a small simulacrum, pressed warmly against her mother’s side. Angela, meanwhile, sat aloof across the aisle. Clara had always been her mother’s daughter – the only one of them named for a distant German ancestor rather than a resolutely English relation – and the only child who resembled her too. Angela, with her honey-blonde hair and long gangling legs, was already exhibiting the first coltish inklings of the glamorous model she would become.
Now Clara was alone, in a mac and a printed silk scarf and a copy of Picture Post unread on her knee. Miss Penelope Dudley-Ward, the English heroine of the London-Paris-New York hit, French Without Tears, wears a rose, turquoise and gold brocaded lamé jacket and a full satin skirt in a deep rosy red.
The bus halted before a group of men hauling sheets of corrugated iron for bomb shelters. Clara wondered if Angela had a shelter of her own, and if she did, whether she would ever need to use it. It was hard to imagine the elegant Angela shivering in a damp construction of earth and sheet metal that flooded when it rained, or cramped in a basement, with a torch and a book. Angela liked a pink gin and a rubber of bridge in the evenings. Listening to Cole Porter at the Café de Paris or visiting the cellar of the Embassy Club in Bond Street, where until recently the Prince of Wales and Wallis Simpson had danced the quickstep on the tiny dance floor.
Clara had a sudden, fervent desire to get off the bus and visit her sister, but she knew the prospect was impossible. How would she explain this flying visit to London? What cover could she credibly construct that Angela would not instantly penetrate? Despite her long practice in controlling impulsive urges, it still took an almost physical strength for Clara to stay in her seat and not dash down the winding stairs and jump off the back platform of the bus.
After six years away, she scanned London’s familiar surroundings as though hunting for changes in the face of a long lost friend. There were the same advertisements for Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum, Ovaltine and Eno’s Fruit Salts, and Peter Jones had changed its Victorian redbrick frontage to a sleekly modernized tower of glass and steel. But now its windows were pasted with criss-crossed strips of brown paper to protect against potential bomb blast, the kerbstones had been painted white and sandbags, exuding a smell of damp jute, were shored against the side of every building. A giant recruitment advertisement for the RAF, Salute to Adventure!, towered beside Sloane Square tube and a group of young men, subjects of the first wave of conscription, sailed past in a National Service truck. Other details, too, Clara could not help noticing. Women wore little hats tipped slightly forward and to one side. Jackets were more boxy and defined, coats had puffed shoulders, shoes were tightly laced and the whole female silhouette had become harder and more definite, as though Fashion itself was braced for what was to come.
Disembarking at Westminster she made her way across Parliament Square, past Methodist Central Hall and along the Georgian terraces of Queen Anne’s Gate. Bright, luminous bursts of laburnum and wisteria blossom hung over sun-warmed walls. Through the pellucid blue sky the bells of Westminster Abbey marked four o’clock. The Abbey’s bone-white frontage of pleated stone was draped with a veil of soot and placards along the railings announced that it was now open day and night as part of a ‘Vigil for Peace’. Passing a film poster for The Spy In Black, Clara was startled to see it starred Conrad Veidt. Just a few months ago she had passed the venerable German actor in the corridors of the Ufa studios. Now he was established in a new life and a new career in England.
It could happen to her too.
As she walked, she felt her body tense and her shoulders knot in the familiar brace. It was impossible to shake the tension which clenched her stomach. She thought for a moment it might be the dizzy rush of nostalgia, set off by everything from the pillar boxes and the plane trees to the pennies with the King’s head on them. Even the newspaper seller outside St James’s Park underground station, advertising the first sight of the new pandas at London Zoo, prompted a yearning for the city she had not realized she missed so much. In reality, though, she knew it was only nervous anticipation of what this meeting would bring.
The St Ermin’s Hotel was a shabby, late-Victorian redbrick mansion block in Caxton Street, set back from the road and only a few hundred yards from 54, Broadway, where the headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service was based. On a weekday afternoon it was the last place on earth one would associate with espionage. The lobby, all tartan-trimmed upholstery and dusty carpet, was hushed and gloomy. Watercolours of the Lake District hung alongside a painting of the King, and the smell of congealed vegetables and floor polish exuded a distilled essence of Englishness. A couple of ladies in hats and fur capes taking tea at a side table were the only sign of life.
Clara hesitated. It had not occurred to her until then how exactly she would make contact with the mysterious Captain Miles Fitzalan who had invited her to his fictitious ball. She approached a girl reading a copy of Woman’s Weekly behind the mahogany reception.
‘Is there a Captain Fitzalan staying here?’
The girl gave an insultingly perfunctory smile.
‘Can I ask who wants him?’
‘Miss Clara Vine.’
Putting down Woman’s Weekly the receptionist reached wearily for the telephone.
‘They’re fifth floor.’
‘Thank you.’
‘The lifts only go up to fourth, but if you press the button to the left, it’ll take you all the way up.’
Clara emerged from the lift to find a long, dingy office partitioned by panes of frosted glass and plywood, filled with men in pinstriped suits lounging and chatting at desks. A fug of cigarette smoke hung in the air, lit by broad shafts of sunlight penetrating the murky windows. Though she was dressed quietly enough, in a skirt of hounds-tooth check, a blouse with scalloped collar and a small pearl necklace, curious eyes swivelled immediately towards her. A louche man, with rumpled hair and tie at half mast, one ear pressed to the telephone, gave her a wink but Clara barely had time to look around her before an imposing figure with a scarlet carnation in his buttonhole approached.
‘Miss Vine. So pleased you could come. What do you think of our offices? None too decorative, but very handy for clubs and so on.’ Pumping her hand, he detected her incomprehension and added, ‘I’m sorry. You don’t know me from Adam. I’m Major Grand. Lawrence Grand.’
‘Clara Vine.’
‘Precisely. Please follow me.’
Anyone who did not know that Lawrence Grand had recently been seconded from the Army could have detected it instantly from the ramrod bearing, tanned complexion and the military exactitude of his pencil moustache. Clara recognized his type immediately. He wore his politeness like a uniform, buttoned up against the possibility of revealing the merest snippet of extraneous information.
Striding ahead, he led the way to a corner office with a view of budding plane trees and a line of pigeons shuffling along the soot-dappled rooftops of Westminster.
‘Do sit down. Smoke?’
‘Thank you.’ She took the proffered Senior Service, and he slid across his desk a cut-glass ashtray studded with ochre stains like pollen in a lily.
‘Who are all those people?’
‘Ah.’ Major Grand fired up her cigarette and assessed her, head on one side. ‘That, Miss Vine, is a question I can’t possibly answer. Not only would it endanger my people if I identified them to you, but it could put you at risk too. Let’s just say we have all sorts from all walks of life. Often the very last sort you would expect.’
‘Of course. I’m sorry.’
‘On the other hand, seeing as you’ve been so good as to come all the way here, you’re entitled to ask a few questions. You’ll probably want to know what we’re about.’
Clara guessed this was her cue.
‘Can I ask who you are, for a start?’
‘Certainly. The fact is, we’re a bit of a fledgling venture. We’re called Section D. Connected to the Secret Intelligence Service. Physically connected, in fact – there’s a tunnel that runs under this building all the way to Broadway, not that anyone I know has used it. We’ve been up and running for a few months – ever since SIS concluded in the wake of the Czech invasion that war is unavoidable – our intention being to establish agents in those countries which face being overrun by the Wehrmacht.’
For Clara it was still a shock to hear, uttered so casually, the idea that war was ‘unavoidable’. Every fibre of her hoped that wasn’t true. She dreaded what would happen to her friends, to Leo, and most of all to Erich, if it happened.
‘We’ve already placed officers in Sweden, Norway, Holland and Spain, not to mention Austria of course, but infiltrating people into Germany, let alone being able to do anything useful once they’re there, is a very different challenge. Which is why, Miss Vine, your name has come up.’
‘You want me to apply?’
Grand bent his head to the complex task of extracting another Senior Service from his jacket pocket and fitting it into an ebony cigarette holder, then rose and strode over to the window.
‘People don’t apply for us, because we don’t officially exist. We approach those we think might be valuable. You’ve been in Berlin now, what, five years?’
‘Six.’
‘Quite so. They’ve just been celebrating the Führer’s birthday, I hear. What was that like?’
‘Not exactly understated.’
He laughed drily.
‘So I understand. As a matter of fact, Noel Mason-MacFarlane, our military attaché in Berlin, offered to shoot Herr Hitler during the parade. He has a sixth-floor flat on the Charlottenburger Chaussee with a clear line of sight to the saluting podium and he said it would be easier than bagging a stag at a hundred yards to pick the beggar off. This chap’s an excellent shot so we put the plan forward to the Prime Minister.’
He stared down at the street below as though Hitler was saluting right there on the pavement below him.
‘If you can believe, the PM overruled it as unsportsmanlike.’
Clara could barely contain her astonishment. So she had not been the only person to contemplate the idea. Hitler might have been assassinated, while the eyes of the world were on him. What would the Ufa newsreel have made of that?
‘Unsportsmanlike?’ she echoed incredulously.
Grand tucked his hands in his waistcoat pocket.
‘That was his precise word.’
‘I’m surprised.’
‘Good.’
He wheeled round, all jocularity replaced by an expression of intense seriousness.
‘Our feeling here is that even at this late hour Mr Chamberlain badly underestimates the danger of Herr Hitler. I hope if you were ever in the same room as him, you would have no qualms. If the opportunity arose, we would not want you, Miss Vine, to be hindered by fears of “unsportsmanlike” behaviour.’
Her heart bucked with fear, but she replied calmly.
‘I can’t imagine the opportunity would arise.’
‘Perhaps not.’
He sat and crossed one leg over the other, stroking his trousered calf and scrutinizing her, as if trying to decide something.
‘I’m aware that life in Berlin is not a bed of roses. But it’s going to get much worse now that war is on the horizon. We all have decisions to make, but yours is especially acute.’
Clara bent her head and smoothed the skirt on her knees, as though the mere action would help straighten out the questions in her mind. She had guessed that this summons would be a request from the British Intelligence Service – those shadowy men in Whitehall who had over the years been the ultimate recipients of all the gossip and information she relayed. She knew too that, just like Conrad Veidt and a host of other actors, if she chose to return to England she could make a fresh start in the British film industry. Yet mentally she had shied away from the question facing her. That same question which, beneath the penetrating gaze of Major Lawrence Grand, she knew she must now face.
‘We need to know, when hostilities arise, whether you intend to stay in Germany. It’s going to get a lot more dangerous.’
Something about Grand’s bland assurance suddenly rankled. Who was this man in his smart suit and comfortable office to talk of danger? What could he know of what she went through on a daily basis?
‘You forget I’ve already been arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo, Major Grand. I’ve had plenty of opportunity to understand how dangerous Berlin can be. I’m not even living in my own apartment because I think I’m being watched.’
An apologetic smile transformed his face and she could see a glimpse of the kindly man beneath the gruff exterior.
‘Forgive me. So I take it you have decided to stay?’
Clara quailed at the direct question. The twists and turns that had determined her life had always been impulsive ones. The decision to leave England for Berlin in 1933 had come after a chance meeting at a party. The agreement to spy for British Intelligence came about because of an episode of Nazi brutality she had witnessed in the street. None of the decisive events in her life had ever been premeditated. Ultimatums made her nervous. She remembered how she had shied away from Leo Quinn’s proposal of marriage because he insisted that she leave Germany. Perhaps avoiding decisions was her own personal form of cowardice.
‘Actually, I haven’t quite made up my mind.’
‘I see.’ Grand was plainly taken aback. ‘Your prerogative, of course. But there was a specific task I had in mind . . .’
‘Which is?’
Suddenly Major Grand sprang to his feet, eyes on the door. Clara registered the clatter of china and the next moment, with a perfunctory rap, a large woman in a floral apron backed in, pulling a tea trolley behind her containing a large steel urn and a stack of pale green civil service crockery, as well as a plate of Rich Tea biscuits.
‘Milk and two, Major Grand?’
‘You know me so well, Mrs Fairclough,’ said Grand, helping himself to a biscuit, snapping it mathematically in half and dabbing up the crumbs with a forefinger. ‘And for my guest?’
‘Just milk please.’
The sight of the malty, copper stream of British tea splashing into the cups prompted another jolt of nostalgia. Although Clara’s time in Germany had introduced her to the pleasure of coffee, no one else in Europe made tea the English way, well brewed, refreshing in all weathers and the answer to all crises.
After Mrs Fairclough had dispensed the tea, plunked in the sugar lumps and manoeuvred the trolley out of the door, Grand perched on the desk in front of Clara and fixed her more intently.
‘To answer your question, this is a task of the utmost delicacy. One that goes to the heart of the future peace of Europe. I don’t mind saying it will determine whether those gas masks we’ve all been given will ever get used. There are rumours going round Intelligence circles that a Nazi-Soviet pact is in the offing.’
Clara looked up from her tea with a frown. ‘A pact with the Bolsheviks? Surely not?’
‘A marriage of convenience is I think what they call it.’
‘But the Nazis and the Bolsheviks are ideological enemies. It could never happen.’
‘My feelings precisely,’ said Grand. ‘I would have thought hell would freeze over first. However. If the rumours are true, there would be very grave repercussions for the rest of us. From what we hear the idea of a pact is being propelled by von Ribbentrop. He has a pathological loathing for the British so he’s presumably working on the basis that “My enemy’s enemy is my friend”.’
‘Even so, it’s so unlikely.’
‘Personally I agree. It’s arrant nonsense. Besides, our own people are negotiating with Comrade Stalin right now. But we need more solid intelligence. Something concrete. We need an inside track to the Foreign Ministry and that’s where you come in.’
Into Clara’s mind came the impatient, chiselled face of Conrad Adler. I’m on loan from the Foreign Ministry. Like a painting in a museum.
‘Von Ribbentrop is a stupid man,’ said Grand. ‘Vain and foolish. His wife however is another matter. And I think you know her.’
Grand pulled a newspaper photograph out of a manila file on his desk and, craning across, Clara saw with astonishment that it was a yellowing page from the BZ am Mittag showing herself talking to Annelies von Ribbentrop at the launch of the Reich Fashion Bureau in 1933. The passage of six years had done nothing to soften the rigid composure of the Foreign Minister’s wife, the iron set of her jaw, nor the dyspeptic smile that could so easily be mistaken for a grimace.
‘What do you make of her?’
Clara thought back to the first time she met Frau von Ribbentrop, just after the regime came to power. Then she was an arriviste, desperate to impress with dinner parties at her Dahlem home, and now she was half of one of the most powerful couples in Europe. Kings, presidents and prime ministers came to her parties. She was a far more ardent Nazi than her husband, yet their marriage could not be more different from the marital catfight the Goebbels waged. The Von Ribbentrops were said to share everything, especially political plans.
‘She’s a formidable woman.’
‘Indeed. A couple of chaps here met her when von Ribbentrop was ambassador to Great Britain, and they were frankly terrified. She was always cornering them to complain about the weather – as though they could do anything about it – and insanely jealous about her husband’s behaviour with the ladies. He was said to send a daily bunch of red carnations to Wallis Simpson and she couldn’t tolerate it. She was a bit of a laughing stock actually. She brought a marching squad of SS guards over who created the most frightful atmosphere and above all she had the most dreadful nouveau riche taste. Decked out the whole of Carlton House Terrace in marble cladding. It looks like a public lavatory. It’s going to take years to unpick.’
Clara finished her tea and returned the saucer to the table.
‘I take it it’s not her artistic tastes you’re concerned about here.’
‘Precisely. More her knowledge of diplomatic manoeuvres. To what extent she influences the husband’s decisions.’
‘Goebbels always says von Ribbentrop bought his title, married his money and got all his political views from his wife. They say even Hitler is wary of her.’
A flicker of a smile. ‘I suppose that’s the thing about marriage – one can never tell what goes on inside. Do you see much of her?’
‘Hardly. Last year she tried to have me arrested as a spy.’
Clara hesitated. Something Mary Harker had mentioned came to mind.
‘But she is holding a press reception to show off the refurbishment of the new Foreign Ministry building. The Reich Chamber of Culture always likes actresses to attend these events if possible.’
‘To supply a touch of glamour.’
‘That’s the idea. But even if I went, I can’t imagine she would give me the time of day, let alone confide any military secrets.’
‘I’m sure she’ll come round,’ continued Grand, as though Clara’s objections were negligible. ‘Find a way to get closer to her. From what we’ve heard, Frau von Ribbentrop frequently formulates political policy, which is later passed off as her husband’s.’
‘She’s not like him though. Not the kind to be easily taken in.’
‘Then you’ll need to find another way in. If the German Foreign Ministry is contemplating a marriage of convenience with the Soviet Union it’s vital we know as soon as possible.’
Grand paced across the room, thumbs tucked into his waistcoat pocket.
‘The Soviet Union is the key to everything. It’s a complicated dance. If Germany attacked Poland and the Red Army joined in on Poland’s side, and Britain and France came to her aid, then Germany would be in a parlous position. They would never choose to fight on two fronts. But if the Nazis are making advances to the Russians, it’s essential that we uncover every piece of information that we can. And we only have a matter of months to do it.’
‘Months? How can you be so sure?’
‘If Hitler’s set on war, he won’t attack before harvest time. But he’ll want to make a move before winter. It’s a tight window.’
He slid his cuffs and checked his watch, as though setting a deadline.
‘If you decide to stay in Germany we’ll need to brief you. We’ll set up another meeting. Shall we say a fortnight’s time? In Paris?’
Clara laughed.
‘That’s impossible. I already had to plead a family emergency to come to London. I couldn’t make a trip to Paris without Goebbels finding out.’
‘Tell him then.’
‘I don’t think you understand,’ she said, as patiently as she could. ‘Travel is severely restricted for members of the Reich Chamber of Culture. You need permission to go abroad and nowadays it’s not often given. Certainly not without a plausible explanation.’
For a second, Grand steepled his fingers in thought, then he aimed them towards her in the shape of a gun.
‘How about if you were to feature in French Vogue?’
‘Vogue?’
‘You know, the fashion magazine.’
‘I know what Vogue is, Major Grand. But why would they want to feature me?’
‘Well, it’s not a magazine I’m intensely familiar with, Horse and Hound is about my limit where periodicals are concerned, but we have a friend who works as a photographer there and I daresay a spread on European cinema might be the kind of thing he does. My sources tell me you’ve done some modelling in the past.’
Clara nodded, realizing precisely how much detail about her lay in that manila file in front of him. In 1933, shortly after her arrival in Berlin, she had been invited to model outfits for the Reich Fashion Bureau, an establishment set up by Hitler. That was how she had come into contact with Magda Goebbels, Emmy Goering and the other senior Nazi wives.
‘Excellent then. Our friend’s name is Thomas Epstein. He occupies apartment four, number eleven Rue Léopold-Robert in the fourteenth arrondissement of Paris. Can you remember that?’
‘Of course.’
‘I’ll tell him to expect you. Shall we say two weeks today? And we’ll need to have whatever information you can obtain by July.’
‘July! But, you see, I don’t actually think . . .’
‘I hope I did impress on you, Miss Vine, that time is very much of the essence.’
Grand walked briskly to the door, as though Clara’s objections, let alone any further pleasantries, were a dangerous waste of time. Suddenly she sensed her chance slipping away. She couldn’t leave without asking the question that was tearing her apart.
‘Major Grand, do you know Leo Quinn?’
Outwardly, his genial expression remained intact, but minute study of his face revealed that her question had disturbed him. A muscle flickered in his jaw and he gave the barest nod of assent.
‘Would you have any idea where I could contact him?’
‘Contact Mr Quinn? Now why would you want to do that?’
Clara hesitated, wondering if Grand knew the truth. He knew so much else about her, there was every reason he would. Every reason except Leo’s careful, meticulous attempts to keep their love affair secret.
‘He’s an old friend of mine. He’s the one who got me into all this in the first place when he was a passport control officer in Berlin.’
Grand paused with his hand on the doorknob.
‘If I were you, my dear, I should forget Mr Quinn.’
It took everything Clara had to prevent the alarm that rose in her showing on her face. Blindly she trained her eyes Major Grand’s moustache and gripped the cotton handkerchief inside her pocket.
‘Forget him? What do you mean by that?’
‘Just what I say.’
‘Is it bad news?’
‘Need-to-know basis, I’m afraid.’
‘But I do need to know.’ She clenched her teeth. ‘Has something happened to him?’
Grand gave another businesslike smile but his voice was softer.
‘I don’t like telling you this, my dear. I shouldn’t be telling you this, frankly. But our networks in Europe have taken a bad hit. We lost a couple of agents in Austria and Mr Quinn was involved. Our network there was blown.’
‘In Austria? I thought . . .’ What did she think? She had no idea what Leo did, where he went or what his job really was.
Grand stared beyond her, a pained expression on his face, his mouth grim as though fighting to contain emotion.
‘There’s a break in the chain somewhere. An informer on the continent. I can’t be any more precise than that but it behoves all our people to be doubly, triply cautious about who they trust.’
‘But Leo. You don’t know what’s happened to him? Not for sure?’
Grand touched a hand to her shoulder.
‘I’m sorry. Your friend was a brave man, my dear. You should be proud of him.’
‘He was?’
He imprisoned her hand momentarily in a tight clasp.
‘Thanks once again for coming. Can I take it you remember the way to the lift?’
Numbly, Clara retraced her steps along the corridor. Tears welled in her eyes, blurring the partitioned offices and the men on telephones. She was barely aware of the clack of typewriters and the chatter of secretaries carrying files clipping alongside her. A tall, tawny-haired man with a narrow, toothbrush moustache glanced at her quizzically, as though about to enquire if she was all right. As their eyes met she noticed that he had irises of two different colours, one blue and one brown, and the irrelevant thought went through her head that such a distinguishing feature would make undercover work impossible; this agent must be office based. Ducking her head, she walked swiftly to the lift.
She did not look back. If she had, she would have seen Major Grand poised at the entrance to his office, an unusually sympathetic look replacing his rigid military demeanour.
In Caxton Street a brisk wind had got up, rustling the leaves on the plane trees and causing women at the bus stop opposite to clutch onto their hats. In a breeze like that, it was unsurprising that anyone should have tears in their eyes and no one gave Clara the slightest attention apart from a grinning bus conductor, sailing past on the platform of his bus, who called, ‘Penny for your thoughts, darling!’
She walked like someone dazed by an explosion, the exterior world locked off behind an invisible wall. The bomb that had gone off inside her had caused everything around to resettle in unrecognizable disarray.
She progressed blindly, wondering what to do in the hours before making for Liverpool Street station and the boat train. Suddenly, the shock she had received overcame her instincts and, turning on her heel, she caught up with the bus that had just passed and jumped aboard, heading for Elizabeth Street.
She sat numbly on the lurching bus. If I were you, my dear, I should forget Mr Quinn. It was as though all the ballast was knocked out of her and she might simply collapse without the coarse red and blue backing of the seat beneath her. All she could think of was knocking on Angela’s door and feeling her elder sister’s sinewy arms enfolding her in a stiff but heartfelt embrace. She was aching to breathe in Angela’s trademark perfume and bury her face in soft, sensible cashmere. She had not seen her sister for two years. They might disagree politically; they might have avoided any intimate exchanges for a decade, but Angela was, after all, her only sister. And at a time when she felt desolately alone, Clara yearned for the visceral comfort of flesh and blood.
She had never visited Angela’s home in Belgravia but it was exactly as she expected. Wedding-cake white stucco, window boxes trimmed with box and ivy, expensive cars parked outside and a black door so polished you could see your face in it. It was hard to believe her sister had come so far. In her mind’s eye Clara still saw her in an Aertex shirt, cotton skirt and white leather T-bar shoes, standing in the garden of their Surrey home, arguing over a tennis racquet.
Her heart was thumping as she waited on the step and raised the lion’s-head knocker, but it was a while before the door opened, and then it was only an indifferent maid who peered out and did not invite her in. Her cap was askew, as if she had only hurriedly fixed it on, and her hair badly pinned beneath.
‘Mrs Mortimer is out. Mr Mortimer is at the House of Commons.’
‘It’s Angela I want. When will she be back?’
‘I can’t say, I’m sure. The mistress left instructions that she’s away.’
‘Away? Away where?’ Emotion made Clara abrupt but she didn’t care.
The maid hesitated, as if deciding whether she needed to elaborate for the sake of this insistent stranger, then resolving that to be on the safe side, she did. She poked a strand of hair defensively beneath her cap.
‘She’s visiting her sister. She’s been gone for days. Would you like to leave a message?’
Visiting her sister? What was that supposed to mean? Angela only had one sister, and she, Clara, was standing right there on the doorstep. She knew for a fact that Gerald had no sisters. Yet it was inconceivable that Angela could have embarked on a trip to Berlin unannounced; her normal travelling requirements made the Queen of Sheba look casual. Angela was the last person to turn up in a foreign country without the most complicated advance arrangements about luggage and hotels, which usually changed several times. She liked to be met at the airport and lunched in the appropriate restaurants, which in Berlin meant the Esplanade and the Kaiserhof, before attending both the theatre and the opera. Unlike Clara, Angela never did anything on impulse, so it was unthinkable that she should have packed a suitcase and slipped away to Berlin without a word, as Clara had done all those years ago.
Yet a second before she opened her mouth to protest, some deep, acquired caution prevented Clara from blurting out these objections and she divined a possible explanation. Angela’s excuse must have been dreamed up to cover some less innocent activity. The only explanation was that she was indulging in an illicit affair. Yet further questions would only give this maid something to gossip about.
‘Shall I tell her who called, miss?’ enquired the maid, offhandedly.
‘No. Thank you. It doesn’t matter.’
Clara turned and made her way along Elizabeth Street, skirting around the workmen who were removing a set of wrought-iron railings, presumably for aeroplane manufacture. As she went, she tried to see her sister from this new, surprising perspective. Glamorous Angela, modelling Jean Patou in her brief dalliance as a fashion mannequin, had always been elegant and unflappable. She was a Vine to the ends of her racehorse-long legs and when their mother died, Angela was seamlessly co-opted into the circle of their father’s sister, Lady Laura Vine, and an endless round of society parties, tennis matches and charity events. She enthusiastically participated in their father’s Anglo-German Fellowship, and from everything Clara knew, was still fundraising for closer ties between Germany and England.
In every respect Angela’s life could not be more different from Clara’s own, except one. Neither of them had got around to having children. Perhaps that was the reason. Maybe Angela was engaged in an affair because her marriage to Gerald Mortimer MP was already crumbling. If so it was sad, but given her brick-faced brother-in-law’s manner, not entirely surprising.
Clara progressed up to Knightsbridge, past Harrods and along Piccadilly until, eventually, her steps took her to a Lyons Corner House on the Strand, where she drank two cups of tea and ate a bun pocked with currants and smeared with a dab of oily margarine. Then she retraced her route, skirted the soot-stained lions of Trafalgar Square and found herself outside the National Gallery.
It was only when she was sitting on one of the leather benches, surrounded by glimmering gilt frames and blankly studying a painting in front of her, that she gave into her feelings. Major Grand believed that Leo had died and that Clara should consign his memory to the past. I should forget Mr Quinn. But how did anyone forget? In one way, it was treacherously easy. She thought of Leo’s face fading, like a photograph left out in the sun, until no image remained. If it blanked out entirely, she would have nothing but his words to resurrect him; just the letters he had written to her and the book of Rilke’s poetry that he gave her. Yet how could Leo be dead when her body still held the memory of him, pressed into every muscle and tendon? A wave of stubborn denial engulfed her. Why should she believe it? Just because someone told you something, didn’t mean it was true.
When at last her focus cleared, she saw the painting she had been staring at was Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Marriage. The Bruges merchant in wide-brimmed hat and sable-lined robes clasping hands with his young bride in her sage-green gown. Crystalline daylight streamed through the window and glanced off the oranges on the window ledge. The bride, with her little dog at her feet, seemed frozen in reflection, poised at the threshold between concentration and distraction. What was she thinking? Was she happy to be betrothed to this older, wealthy merchant, or was the ornately opulent room merely a gilded cage? Was the marriage a love match, or an aristocratic contract, so appropriate to the times? That’s the thing about marriage – one can never tell what goes on inside.
Major Grand’s request rose in her mind. Might von Ribbentrop really be attempting a pact with the Soviets? A marriage of convenience, Grand called it. It seemed unthinkable, yet so much of what seemed unthinkable had come to pass in Germany in the last six years.
Suddenly, Clara’s focus was razor sharp and she was no longer looking at the tranquil Belgian interior with its subdued and pensive bride, but through it, to a garishly refurbished German Foreign Ministry and the steely, square-jawed grimace of Frau Annelies von Ribbentrop.