husband’s a spy, I’ve no home and I don’t know if my family are all right or whether I’ll ever see them again. So yes, I’m sorry, but I had a cry.’
‘You didn’t know your husband was working for us?’
‘He never told me.’
‘Well, that’s often best,’ the man said, his voice less hostile. ‘Your family are all right by the way, we know that. We’ve been watching their houses. Your sister and parents have had Special Branch visits, but that’s all. Your brother-in-law has a lot of Blackshirt friends –’ he looked at her sharply again for a moment – ‘that will have helped.’
Sarah closed her eyes and took a deep breath. ‘What about my husband?’
‘There are delays in London. It may be a few days before he gets here.’
‘Then what happens?’ Sarah asked. ‘No-one will tell me.’
‘The plan’s to get you out of England. You and your husband, and some friends.’
‘How? Where to?’
The woman said, ‘Somewhere safe, we can’t tell you any more for now. I’m sorry.’ She added, ‘I’m Jane by the way, and this is Bert.’
Bert handed back her identity card. ‘We’ve got you a room here. You can go for little walks round the town if you like but don’t stray too far. We don’t have many residents this time of year, just a few commercial travellers who come and go. Best if you keep yourself to yourself.’
‘I’ve been told to say I wanted to get out of London after my husband died. I can say I don’t like all the fuss about Christmas. It’s true, I hate it.’
‘Good,’ Jane said. ‘Don’t get into conversation with the other guests, some of them have a roaming eye.’
‘I won’t.’
‘Mealtimes are on a card in your room.’ Jane gave her a key. ‘There’s hot water on if you want a bath.’
‘Thank you,’ Sarah said. As she went through the door Bert said quietly, ‘Mrs Hardcastle?’
She turned. ‘Yes?’
He smiled. ‘Just making sure you remember your new name.’
The hotel was a strange little place, with narrow corridors, small rooms, threadbare carpets. The bed in Sarah’s room sagged from the hundreds of people who had slept there before. Channel View was probably full in summer, but now the only other guests were a few middle-aged men in shabby suits who nodded to her in the dining room. She nodded back, politely but distantly. The food was awful.
For the next few days Sarah barely spoke to anyone. Several times when Jane was on her own at reception, Sarah asked if there was any word of when her husband’s group was coming, and always she was told not yet. Jane was pleasant enough but Sarah sensed that Bert was uneasy about her. She wondered if it was because she wasn’t in the Resistance, she was just a spy’s wife, an encumbrance.
She avoided the communal lounge, only going in to see the news on the old TV. On her first night she wondered whether there might be something about the policeman Meg had killed, half expecting to see her house appear on the screen, but there was nothing. They would hush it up of course. There was only the usual news – there had been a big demonstration in Delhi, the Blackshirt mayor of Walsall had been shot and injured by Resistance terrorists, the Germans were making ‘temporary strategic withdrawals’ on sections of the Central Volga. When the news was on some of the commercial travellers muttered and grunted about Communists and uppity wogs.
Sarah spent long hours in her room, reading dog-eared romantic novels that guests had left behind in a little bookcase, or sitting looking out of her window, with its view of a yard choked with bins and the backs of neighbouring buildings. During the short December afternoons she went for walks around the almost-empty town, drinking tea in little cafes. Once or twice she saw small groups of Jive Boys on the corners in their long, colourful coats and drainpipe trousers; but they looked listless and pasty, smoking roll-ups. Probably just unemployed lads, she thought, as she steered away from them. Occasionally, on walls, she saw the Resistance logos ‘V’ and ‘R’ painted, just like in London. The weather was sunny but very cold; there was ice on the pond in a little park she walked round. She thought constantly about David, where he could be, what he was doing, when he would get here. She ached with worry and longing but she was also filled with fury about his lies to her, going over his absences in her head. She knew David had loved her once, but then Charlie had died and he had turned aside from their quiet home life together to become a spy. Without a thought of telling her, taking her into his confidence. Making her into what Bert thought she was, an encumbrance. She remembered her desperate jealous anxiety when she thought David was having an affair with Carol. She determined she would never put herself through anything like that again. If David didn’t love her any more they had to part. If they survived this, if they did go on to new lives, she would not cling onto something that was dead. Walking the cold streets, the seagulls making their sad cries above her, she could have cried out, too, with desperation and anger and sorrow at the thought of losing the only man she had ever loved.
On her sixth night at the boarding house, she saw a thin man in his forties with a big, untidy moustache at the next table, reading the London
‘Of course,’ he said. He nodded at the headline. He had friendly brown eyes, like a dog’s. Sarah noticed there was dandruff on his collar. ‘I’ve just come down from the city, it’s brought chaos up there. Worst ever, some say. Lot of people in hospital. Are you from London?’ he added.
‘Yes. Just – having a few days away.’ She heard the coolness in her voice.
The man smiled gently. ‘I’ll leave you the paper when I’m finished.’ He nodded and returned to his meal.
Later that evening Sarah sought out Bert and Jane in their little office. She said she was worried there was still no news and asked if the smog in London was part of the problem. Jane smiled nervously. ‘I’m sorry, dear. We don’t know any more than you’ve been told. It’s always a worry for us too, the waiting time.’ From the way Jane had spoken, this wasn’t the first time they had helped people get out of England.
On Sunday she went for another walk, down to the promenade. It was still sunny but very cold, the sea completely still and calm, the promenade deserted apart from a few elderly people walking dogs. The sea looked freezing cold. She walked towards the Palace Pier, past closed booths advertising their summer wares in faded paint.
She went onto the pier, her shoes clumping on the wooden boards. She passed the carousel and the shuttered freak show, and walked on towards the end of the pier. There was a little breeze out here, cold as a knife, the sound of the sea all around.
There was only one other person there, leaning over the rail, gazing towards the shore. She recognized the man whose paper she had borrowed at the hotel. There was a battered suitcase at his feet. Hearing her footsteps he looked up, tipping the brim of his bowler hat to her. ‘Out for some sea air?’ he asked.
She approached him. ‘Yes. Freezing, isn’t it?’
‘Bitter.’
‘I heard on the radio that the fog is as bad as ever in London.’
‘Yes. So they say.’
She was about to walk on, she knew she shouldn’t be talking to him, but there was something appealingly pathetic about the man huddled against the railing, and she was desperately lonely. So she said, ‘Not working today?’
He shook his head. ‘Just booked out of the hotel. Off back to London now. Not having much luck this trip. I travel in toys and novelties, you know. Going round the Sussex resorts. People normally buy in for next spring at this time of year, but times are hard.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I’m not going to be splashing out on Christmas this year, I don’t think.’
‘Toys and novelties?’ She remembered her committee, the toys for poor children in the North, Mrs Templeman.
‘Yes.’ He smiled. ‘I’m from Brighton originally, everyone knows me round here.’ He extended a gloved hand. ‘Danny Waterson.’
‘Sarah Hardcastle.’
They were silent for a moment. He said, ‘I heard the Coronation’s fixed for June.’
