Authors: Laura Wilson
Stratton's War (5 page)
‘Dolphin Square, please.’
‘Yes, miss.’
Once settled in the taxi, Diana took a deep breath, then fished out her compact and powdered her nose. She felt a lightness, an odd sort of internal buzzing, that she’d never experienced before - extreme exhilaration coupled with relief. Staring out of the window at the passing crowd leaving their offices and scurrying along the pavement, she thought, none of you know. I’m in this war - right in it - and none of you have any idea.
Since she’d left her mother-in-law’s home in the country (she and Guy had shut up their house when his regiment had been sent abroad) she’d never had so much fun in her life. Staying with Guy’s mother had been ghastly. They’d never got on and, unrestrained by Guy’s presence, Evie had sniped continually about Diana failing to conceive and then, as she put it, ‘managing to lose the baby’. When the war broke out, Diana, feeling both useless and a failure, had been desperate to get a job - any job - but had no idea of how this might be achieved. Even her London friends had found their attempts frustrated, and she had almost resigned herself to the suffocating monotony of a war spent in Hampshire when the miracle happened: Lally Markham, who really was an old school friend and who had managed to get work at the War Office, had offered to recommend her for a job. Evie, of course, had objected, but Diana had jumped at the chance, even though she didn’t have a clue what Lally actually did. It wasn’t just to escape, but to feel that she might, for the first time in her life, actually be doing something useful. Her references (and her social standing) being excellent, the woman in charge of female staff had sent her to work in the transport section at MI5.
Diana applied a fresh layer of lipstick, then sat back and closed her eyes. Right from the first day, when she’d reported to the Security Service’s new offices in Wormwood Scrubs prison, she’d loved every minute, even though her work had only entailed sending out despatch riders and issuing petrol coupons.
The first time she’d met Colonel Forbes-James - with Lally, in the Scrubs canteen - she knew she’d made a good impression. ‘He likes blondes,’ Lally’d told her afterwards. ‘Especially well-connected ones.’ Diana knew that he was part of B Division - counter-espionage - but when she’d asked Lally about what it was that Forbes-James actually did, her friend had become vague and mysterious, hinting about special operations but refusing to provide any concrete information, other than that Forbes-James knew her father, Brigadier Markham, and had recruited her to work for him.
Diana had liked him immediately. His dark, round eyes, with their long lashes, and his button nose, gave him the slightly querulous charm of a pug. If she hadn’t been so much in awe of his reputation in the department, she’d have been tempted to pat him.
He must have made some enquiries about her, because he’d invited her to lunch the following week and asked her about herself. When she told him she’d had a French governess, and had spent nine months in Bavaria learning German from an elderly countess who was desperate for foreign currency, he’d been impressed. To her astonishment, she’d found herself telling him everything: how her parents had died within three months of each other when she was nineteen; how she’d married Guy six months afterwards in a whirlwind romance and discovered, on her honeymoon, from his letters to Evie (
Dearest Darling, You will always have first place in my heart
. . . and signed,
Your infatuated boy
) how much he was in thrall to his mother. Then she’d told him about how, five years later, knowing full well her marriage had been a mistake and consumed by a sort of miserable wonder at her misjudgement, she’d found herself at Evie’s house, lonely and unhappy, and how desperate she’d been to escape. When she got to know Forbes-James better, and understood more about his methods, she realised that her loquacity had been entirely due to his subtlety as an interrogator, but she never held it against him. She hadn’t told him about the miscarriage, of course, nor that, instead of being sad about it, she’d felt first relief, and then a sense of guilt so extreme and remorseless that she had ended up resenting Guy for being the cause of it. It wasn’t so much that she hadn’t wanted a baby, but that she hadn’t wanted Guy’s baby, which was something she found hard to admit to herself, and certainly couldn’t be mentioned to anyone else, ever.
Dearest Darling, You will always have first place in my heart
. . . and signed,
Your infatuated boy
) how much he was in thrall to his mother. Then she’d told him about how, five years later, knowing full well her marriage had been a mistake and consumed by a sort of miserable wonder at her misjudgement, she’d found herself at Evie’s house, lonely and unhappy, and how desperate she’d been to escape. When she got to know Forbes-James better, and understood more about his methods, she realised that her loquacity had been entirely due to his subtlety as an interrogator, but she never held it against him. She hadn’t told him about the miscarriage, of course, nor that, instead of being sad about it, she’d felt first relief, and then a sense of guilt so extreme and remorseless that she had ended up resenting Guy for being the cause of it. It wasn’t so much that she hadn’t wanted a baby, but that she hadn’t wanted Guy’s baby, which was something she found hard to admit to herself, and certainly couldn’t be mentioned to anyone else, ever.
The memory of what she’d told Forbes-James about Guy and Evie reminded Diana that her wedding ring was still in her handbag. She glanced down at her gloved hands and thought that, for the time being at least, it could stay there. She wasn’t entirely sure what had prompted this decision, and she didn’t want to examine it, either. Instead, she let her mind drift back to Forbes-James. A few days after that first conversation, he’d taken her out to dinner at the Savoy and asked her if she wanted to work for him. When he’d explained that his division, B5(b), was chiefly engaged in monitoring political subversion in Britain, she’d had to bite her lip to keep back a yelp of excitement. She’d imagined an immediate entrée to a world of intrigue and invisible ink, but, three days later, when she’d been transferred to his office, he’d merely handed her a stack of books and pamphlets and told her to learn as much as possible about fascism. Only when he was thoroughly satisfied with her knowledge did he explain that he wanted her to pass herself off as a sympathiser so that she could, with an introduction from Lally, infiltrate the Right Club. By that time she knew all about the organisation, but she’d been vaguely surprised that, after the arrest of Mosley, such things could still exist. ‘Hydra’s heads,’ he’d told her. ‘There are still a lot of very influential people who don’t like the way things are going. Our job is to make sure they don’t do any damage.’
Now, she’d established contact. The meeting seemed to have gone pretty well, although she needed to hear Lally’s verdict in order to be certain. Surely Forbes-James would be pleased? That was the most important thing . . . The taxi pulled up outside Dolphin Square. Diana stepped out, paid the driver, and, just managing to restrain herself from breaking into a run, passed through the gateway and across the gardens towards Forbes-James’s flat in Nelson House.
SIX
The air was hot and oppressive. Joe Vincent sat on the top step of the Tivoli Cinema’s fire escape behind the Strand, lit a cigarette and glanced sideways through the iron railings at the alleyway below. A man in a long apron was prodding a broom at the debris on the cobblestones, and Italian waiters from the Villiers Street restaurants lounged, shirt-sleeved and smoking, at kitchen doors. A youth among them looked up and waved, then ducked as an older man - his father, perhaps, or an uncle - aimed a blow at his head. Joe couldn’t hear the words that justified this action, but he could guess what they were.
He’d spent the morning as he spent every Monday morning, making up the week’s programme, joining together reels of film with acetone cement that reeked of pear drops and made his head ache. When he’d started in the cinema as a re-wind boy Joe had been amazed that it took over 8,000 feet of film to show a 90-minute picture, and that was without the second feature, newsreel, adverts or trailers: now, nine years later and a chief projectionist, he could have completed the job in his sleep - which he might as well have done this morning. He felt numbed by grief. Without Mabel, his flat seemed miserably empty, more so as the hours of Sunday had stretched endlessly, and he’d drifted about her room, touching her possessions, not knowing what to do with himself. He didn’t want to see anyone, to talk, to eat, even to get drunk, and the memories - everywhere he looked - were unbearable. In the end, he’d given himself up to misery, lain on Mabel’s bed and sobbed until he fell asleep.
He saw the boy who’d waved being hustled inside by the other waiters, and half-heartedly flapped a hand at their retreating backs. What did it matter if they stormed up the fire escape and punched him in the face? Before, he would have re-created the incident for Mabel, embellishing the youth’s handsomeness, and perhaps adding a kiss, blown from the palm of his hand. They would have savoured it together, given the boy a name and a history, and amused themselves devising a romance, but now . . . The memory wasn’t worth saving, because Mabel wasn’t there to share it.
‘Mr Vincent?’
Joe twisted his head and saw the laced-up shoes of Jim Wilson, who was standing by the metal-clad fire door. Wilson, chubby, round-faced and twenty-two, had replaced Joe’s previous assistant, who’d been called up in April. Projectionists were reserved until the age of twenty-five: Wilson had a dicky heart, which made him ineligible for the forces, but Joe, who had registered a month previously, was expecting his call-up any day now.
‘It’s getting on,’ said Wilson.
‘OK.’ Joe got to his feet and flicked his fag end over the side of the steps. ‘Start the non-sync. I’ll be there in a minute.’
‘Righty-o. There’s a cup of tea waiting inside.’
Joe lingered for a couple of minutes on the fire escape, thinking of Mabel, before following Wilson into the stifling projection box. A faint whirring noise from the non-synchronised sound machine’s motor preceded an orchestral swell that flowed from speakers to the auditorium below. As a second-run cinema, showing films at least a month after the Odeons and Gaumonts had done with them, the Tivoli didn’t have an organ and had to make do with records instead.
Joe checked the projector fan, and then, peering through the porthole at the arriving audience, spotted a few regulars: the pretty redhead who reminded him of his sister Beryl, the limping, respectable-looking elderly man who, sure enough, was joined a couple of minutes later in their usual seats by an equally respectable-looking elderly woman and, judging by what the pair of them got up to when they thought no-one could see, she was not his wife. This, supported by the fact that none of the usherettes had ever seen them arrive or leave together, had been the foundation for one of Mabel’s favourite fictions: according to her, the woman had been a missionary in Africa who succumbed to the brutish blandishments of a tribal chief before being returned to England in disgrace, and the man had a wooden foot and a possessive wife. Joe made an automatic mental note to report their presence to her, then remembered. It’s going to keep happening, he thought, dully. Things Mabel did, things she said, things she liked to hear about . . . He stared down at the auditorium, and wished he’d told her about his one and only sexual encounter in a cinema, three days after his fifteenth birthday, when he’d gone, alone, to watch Garbo in
Anna Christie
, and a stranger had touched him. Hot with shame and hard as a rock, wanting it to stop but desperate for it to continue, he’d been horrified and thrilled at the same time. That had been his first time, and for days afterwards, he’d thought of nothing else. Even when, later on, he’d met other men that he knew - without knowing how he knew - were the same as him, he’d never discussed it. Normal people, of course, would consider it repulsive, but not Mabel. She would have understood. Why hadn’t he confided in her?
Anna Christie
, and a stranger had touched him. Hot with shame and hard as a rock, wanting it to stop but desperate for it to continue, he’d been horrified and thrilled at the same time. That had been his first time, and for days afterwards, he’d thought of nothing else. Even when, later on, he’d met other men that he knew - without knowing how he knew - were the same as him, he’d never discussed it. Normal people, of course, would consider it repulsive, but not Mabel. She would have understood. Why hadn’t he confided in her?
‘Good house, Mr Vincent?’
Wilson’s question cut across his train of thought. ‘Not really. About the same as last week.’
‘Mr Jackson says it’s the same everywhere,’ said Wilson. Mr Jackson, seedy grandeur and sly fumbles (usherettes only, thank God), was the manager. ‘He says it’s the war.’
‘Must be. We’d better get going.’ As the auditorium lights went down, Joe walked round to the back of the first projector and started the motor, which spluttered, then whined into life. This week’s offering was a British picture,
Contraband
, with Conrad Veidt and Valerie Hobson. Normally, Joe would have been eager to see it, but today he was indifferent. ‘Tabs, please.’
Contraband
, with Conrad Veidt and Valerie Hobson. Normally, Joe would have been eager to see it, but today he was indifferent. ‘Tabs, please.’
The music was silenced, the curtains parted, and the programme began. Joe remained behind the projector for a moment, staring into space, only recalled to himself when Wilson asked for the second - or possibly even third - time, judging by his tone, ‘You all right, Mr Vincent?’
All right? Of course he wasn’t bloody all right. How could he be? But neither Wilson, nor anyone else at the Tivoli, knew anything about Mabel. Cinema enthusiasts to a man - and woman - they’d have been fascinated to learn that he’d shared his home with a star from the silent era, but he’d never told them. His sister Beryl knew about her, of course - they had got on well - and she’d have to be told. Yesterday, he couldn’t face it, which meant he’d have to telephone her at work. They wouldn’t like that - Beryl was a dressmaker for a snooty Bond Street designer - but it couldn’t be helped.
‘I’m fine,’ he said.
Wilson looked unconvinced. ‘You look as if you could do with some air,’ he said. ‘I can do the changeovers.’ He patted the second projector. ‘She’s all threaded up.’
Joe remembered that he hadn’t thought to check. Best, he thought, to leave the change-over to Wilson, who in any case was perfectly competent. In Joe’s current frame of mind the unforgivable might happen and the audience be left staring at a white screen. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I’ll be right outside.’
Back on the fire escape, Joe contemplated another cigarette, but with only four left to last the day decided to wait. Instead, he sat with his elbows on his knees and his chin on his fists, wondering why he’d never told Mabel about the man in the cinema.
Mabel, as good a listener as she was a talker, had invited confidences, and he’d told her a great deal about himself, but not about that first initiation in the smoky, anonymous darkness. Mabel wouldn’t have judged him for it. The idea of judgement made him wonder whether she, herself, wasn’t now being weighed against some heavenly ideal. What would she say? Some things about her he knew: marriage to Cecil Duke, who’d directed her in
The Dancing Duchess
and
Let’s All Be Gay!
, her dramatic escape from the house fire that had killed him, and the operations she’d had to try and re-build the lids on her ruined left eye. But there were other things that remained mysterious: the way she always looked out of the window before leaving the house, the sleepless nights when she got up and walked about the flat, the way she’d shut herself in her room for hours at a time (‘thinking, dear, that’s all’). He hadn’t pried, just accepted. But her death? He couldn’t accept that. No warning, no note, just, well, just that. Death. Gone. Finished. Not there anymore. And with no explanation. It didn’t make sense.
The Dancing Duchess
and
Let’s All Be Gay!
, her dramatic escape from the house fire that had killed him, and the operations she’d had to try and re-build the lids on her ruined left eye. But there were other things that remained mysterious: the way she always looked out of the window before leaving the house, the sleepless nights when she got up and walked about the flat, the way she’d shut herself in her room for hours at a time (‘thinking, dear, that’s all’). He hadn’t pried, just accepted. But her death? He couldn’t accept that. No warning, no note, just, well, just that. Death. Gone. Finished. Not there anymore. And with no explanation. It didn’t make sense.
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