police.’
‘I shouldn’t have told you. That it was about the Bomb. I’m sorry, but it’s a – it’s a big thing to bear.’ He looked at David with sudden sharpness. ‘You haven’t told anybody?’
‘I promised you I wouldn’t.’
‘In the field, you see – I thought if you knew how important it was, you’d realize I had to die.’
‘You don’t. We’ll get you out. And you made a promise too, remember. To stay alive.’
‘I know.’ There was silence for a few moments, then Frank said, ‘What will it be like, in America? I’ve met a few Americans, they always seem so noisy. Then there’s all the gangsters in the films. But it’s a big country, isn’t it; maybe I could find somewhere quiet. Do you think I could, David?’
‘I hope so.’
‘Where would you go? You and your wife?’
‘I don’t know about Sarah, but I’d like to go to New Zealand. It’s a good place. They’re decent people, they hate this Fascist shit.’
Frank looked puzzled. ‘You’d go together, surely?’
‘I don’t know.’
Frank said quietly, ‘We’re not going to get there, you know, David. It’s only a dream. They’ll get me still.’
‘No, they won’t. Come on, Frank, we’ve got this far. We have to be positive.’
Frank picked at a loose thread on his mattress. ‘You said you had cyanide pills, if the Germans came. That Natalia would shoot me to stop them taking me. But what if you didn’t get the chance? David, I want a cyanide pill as well. I won’t take it unless they come, I promise, but I – I want the same chance as the rest of you.’
David looked at him. Natalia and Ben would never take the risk of Frank trying to kill himself again. The Americans wanted him alive; though Ben and Natalia had also become protective of him, wanted him to live. ‘I’ll talk to them,’ he said.
Frank nodded. But from his expression he knew it wasn’t going to happen, David saw. That uncanny sensitivity of his, he thought, the sensitivity of an endangered animal.
After breakfast Ben persuaded Frank to come downstairs. Eileen had gone out to the shops, and to meet her Resistance contact. They sat in the lounge: Geoff still looked ill; he coughed frequently, a dry, hacking sound. Ben suggested a board game; Eileen had said there were some to be found next door. David went to fetch them. He switched on the light – the fog made everything so dim. The room had the faintly damp smell of a little-used ‘best parlour’. There was a cardboard box of games under the table, chess and draughts and Monopoly.
For a couple of hours they sat round playing Monopoly, like some strange family party. Frank turned out to be an easy winner, piling up a heap of paper money beside him. Ben said jokingly, ‘You’re a Monopoly capitalist, Frank, that’s what you are. Ye’ve taken all my money, I’ve nothin’ left.’
Frank looked pleased. ‘I just try to think ahead, that’s all.’
Ben shook his head. ‘I played a bit when I was inside, I wisnae bad but you’re a bloody genius, mate.’
‘Why were you in prison?’ Geoff asked. ‘Was it for political reasons?’
Ben looked at him intently. ‘No, I wis a naughty boy at school, did some bad things. The Glasgow magistrates thought they were bad anyway. Got two years in a Borstal when I was seventeen, and a good dose of the birch.’ David remembered the scars he had seen on Ben last night. ‘Put an end tae a promising career, that did. Parents disowned me, the auld bastards. Though it was being inside taught me about politics, people in there gave me a proper education about the class system. So I don’t regret it.’
David smiled ruefully. ‘Everything’s class with you, isn’t it?’
‘Aye, it is. I’ve seen you once or twice, ye don’t always follow what I’m sayin’, do ye, with ma accent?’
‘You put it on sometimes.’
‘Where ah wis brought up, ye’d no’ve understood a word.’
‘That’s because you’ve a Scottish accent.’
‘No.’ Ben looked at him intently. ‘It’s because I’m
Frank said, ‘He’s right. My school was in Scotland, but I understood the accents all right.’
‘Because they spoke middle-class Scots, that’s why.
‘It’s class that’s the real divide, not nationality,’ Ben said finally. He nudged Frank. ‘Come on, Rockefeller, David’s still got a few houses left.’
They moved on to chess. David played Frank as he had promised, the others watching while Geoff went upstairs to lie down. Frank had just won his second game when, in the middle of the afternoon, Sean returned. ‘They’ve sent me home,’ he said. ‘There’s problems all round London, freight’s not moving. Drivers can’t see the bloody signals. Everything all right here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Eileen back?’
‘Not yet,’ Natalia said. Sean bit his lip.
‘It’ll be the fog, don’t worry,’ she reassured him.
Sean turned to Frank with a smile. ‘How are you, feller? Listen, I’m sorry I was a bit rude last night. It’s the strain, y’see?’
Frank smiled uncertainly. ‘It’s all right.’
‘Mates, eh?’ Sean stretched out a hand, and Frank took it. David wondered if Eileen had told him off. Sean looked round the table. ‘Where’s the fair-haired feller?’
‘He went upstairs for a rest,’ David said. ‘He’s feeling poorly. I think it’s the fog.’
‘It’s a bugger. One of my workmates is asthmatic, they had to take him to hospital this afternoon. Hope they manage to get him there, traffic’s hardly moving. If they were planning to move the Jews today, that’s definitely off.’ He sighed. ‘I’m going to make a sandwich.’ He went out to the kitchen. David cleared the table and took everything back to the front room. He switched on the light and put the box back under the table. As he stood up he saw someone standing outside the window, a little white face looking in at him. He stood stock still for a second, then stepped forward. He glimpsed a cap and child’s raincoat as the figure darted away into the murk. He went quickly back to the living room.
‘What’s the matter?’ Natalia asked sharply.
‘There was a little boy, standing in the front garden, looking in. It might have been the one from two doors down.’
‘Shit,’ Ben said, half rising. Sean came out of the kitchen and ran to the front door, throwing it open. A minute later he came back, breathing hard.
‘I heard the door slam at Number 38. That little fucker, he’s always nosing round, he watches the TV programmes telling people to keep an eye out for terrorists.’
Natalia said, ‘He has only seen David, and he saw him yesterday.’
Sean frowned. ‘He’ll tell his dad the man with a posh accent is staying here now.’ He sat down, chewing anxiously on his knuckles. ‘I don’t bloody know. We’ll have to see what Eileen says.’
She returned half an hour later, weighed down with shopping bags. ‘What weather,’ she said. ‘The bus was so slow. The smog’s leaving black grease on everything, you should see the steps.’ Eileen looked round them, her face suddenly tense. ‘Has something happened?’
Sean told her about David seeing the little boy. ‘Ah, that’s bad luck. And I didn’t see his mother at the shops, I thought she’d be there. But young Philip’s always peeping into people’s houses, playing at spies and terrorists like all the little boys.’ She looked at Natalia. ‘What do you think?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know these people.’
‘We’ve had him looking in the window before when we’ve had visitors. He’s a lonely wee lad. Used to play with our two till his parents stopped him last year. I think it’s all right. He hasn’t seen any of the rest of you?’
‘No.’
‘I’ll have to try and get an excuse to speak to his mother, tell her you’re some sort of relation.’
‘With that accent?’ Sean said.
David reddened. ‘I only said a few words.’
‘Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now,’ Eileen said.
‘Go and see her,’ Sean urged.
