‘To do what?’
‘Perhaps in time – help us.’ Geoff smiled his quick, anxious smile. ‘But it’s up to you, David. The decision would have to come from you.’
From the kitchen, David could hear Sarah doing the washing-up, banging plates angrily on the draining board. He turned away from the staircase. Right from the beginning, from that first meeting with Jackson on Hampstead Heath, her safety had been his biggest worry. A wife, his handlers had told him later, could be told what her husband was doing only if she were totally committed as well. And although Sarah detested the government, her pacifism meant she couldn’t support the Resistance, not after the bombings and shooting of policemen started. And ever since then David had felt resentment towards her, blamed her for the intolerable burden of yet another secret.
THE FOLLOWING SUNDAY Sarah went into town to meet Irene and go to the pictures. They had spoken on the telephone during the week, and discussed what had happened on Remembrance Sunday. There had still been nothing about it on the news; it was as though the attack on Rommel and the arrests had never happened.
They went to the Gaumont in Leicester Square to see the new Marilyn Monroe comedy from America. Before the big feature the B film was the usual frothy German musical, and between the films they had to sit through one of the government-commissioned Pathe newsreels. The lights always came up then, to discourage Resistance supporters from booing if any Nazi leaders came on. First came a report of a European eugenics conference in Berlin: Marie Stopes talking with German doctors in a pillared hall. The next item was a vision of hell: a snow- covered landscape, an old woman swathed in ragged clothes weeping and shouting in Russian outside the smoking ruins of a hut, a German soldier in helmet and greatcoat trying to comfort her. Bob Danvers-Walker’s voice turned stern: ‘In Russia, the war against communism continues. Soviet terrorists continue to commit fearful atrocities not just against Germans but against their own people. Outside Kazan a cowardly group of so-called partisans, skulking safely in the forests, fire a Katyusha rocket into a village whose inhabitants had dared to sell German soldiers some food.’ The camera panned outwards, from the ruined hut to the smashed and broken village. ‘Some Russians have chosen to forget what Germany rescued them from: the secret police and forced labour of Stalin’s regime; the millions dumped in Arctic concentration camps.’ There followed familiar grainy footage of one of the camps discovered by the Germans in 1942, skeletal figures lying in deep snow, barbed wire and watchtowers. Sarah looked away from the horrible scenes. The newsreader’s voice deepened: ‘Never doubt Europe’s eventual victory over this evil Asian doctrine. Germany beat Stalin and it will beat his successors.’ As a reminder, there followed the famous shots of Stalin after his capture when Moscow was taken in October 1941: a little man with a thick moustache, pockmarked, grey hair dishevelled, scowling at the ground while his arms were held by laughing German soldiers. Later he had been hanged publicly in Red Square. Next there was footage of the new, giant German Tiger 4 tanks with their eighteen-foot guns smashing through a birch forest on a hunt for partisans, knocking over young trees like match-sticks while helicopters clattered overhead. Then came the launch of a V3 rocket, the camera following the huge pointed cylinder with its tail of fire as it rose into the sky on its way to the far side of the Urals. Optimistic martial music played. Then the newsreel switched to an item on Beaverbrook opening a shiny new television factory in the Midlands, before the lights finally dimmed again and the main feature opened with a clash of music and a bright wash of Technicolor.
When they came out of the cinema the short winter day was ending; lights were coming on in shops and restaurants, a faint yellow haze at their edges. ‘It’s starting to get foggy,’ Sarah said. ‘The forecast said it might.’
‘We’ll be all right on the tube,’ Irene replied. ‘We’ve time for a coffee.’ She led the way across the road, pausing for a tram to jingle past. A couple of young men jostled them, wearing long drape jackets and drainpipe trousers, their hair in high, greased quiffs. A little way off a policeman frowned at them from the open door of a police box.
‘Don’t they look ridiculous?’ Irene said, ‘Jive Boys,’ her tone disgusted.
‘They’re just youngsters trying to look different.’
‘Those jackets—’
‘Zoot suits.’ Sarah laughed. ‘They’re American.’
‘What about that fight they had with the Young Fascists in Wandsworth last month?’ Irene asked indignantly. ‘The knives and knuckledusters? People got badly hurt. I don’t like boys getting the birch but they deserved it.’
Sarah smiled to herself. Irene was always so indignant, so outraged. Yet Sarah knew it was all words; underneath her sister had a warm heart. The news item on the eugenics conference had reminded Sarah of the time, a few months before, when they had left another cinema to find a group of boys tormenting a Mongol child, telling him how he would be sterilized when the new laws came in. It was Irene, supporter of eugenics, who had waded in, shouting at the bullies and pushing them away.
‘I don’t know where we’re going with all this terrorism,’ Irene said. ‘Did you hear about that army barracks the Resistance have blown up in Liverpool? That soldier killed?’
‘I know. I suppose the Resistance would say they were fighting a war.’
‘Wars just kill people.’
‘You can’t believe everything you’re told about what the Resistance do. Look at how they hid what happened last Sunday.’
They headed for a British Corner House, as all the Lyons Corner Houses were now known since the expropriation from their Jewish owners. The tearoom, all mirrors and bright chrome, was crowded with women shoppers, but they found an empty table for two and sat down. As the nippy, neat in white apron and cap, took their order Irene looked around her. ‘I’ll have to start thinking about Christmas shopping soon. I can’t decide what to give the boys. Steve’s talking about getting them a big Hornby train set, but I know he just wants to play with it himself. Nanny says they want a whole army of toy soldiers.’
‘How is Nanny?’
‘Still got that cough. I don’t think the panel doctor she’s with is any good, you know what they’re like. I’ve made an appointment with our man. I worry about the children getting it, and you can see the poor girl’s in discomfort.’
‘I’m dreading Christmas,’ Sarah said with sudden bleakness. ‘I have since Charlie died.’
Irene reached over and put a hand on her sister’s, her pretty face contrite. ‘I’m sorry, dear, I do go on so —’
‘I can’t expect people never to mention children in front of me.’
Irene’s blue eyes were full of concern. ‘I know it’s hard. For you and David—’
Sarah took her cigarettes from her bag and offered one to her sister. She said, with sudden anger, ‘After more than two years you’d think it would get easier.’
‘No sign of another?’ Irene asked.
Sarah shook her head. ‘No.’ She blinked away a tear. ‘I’m sorry David got into that argument with Steve on Sunday. He gets – moody.’
‘It doesn’t matter. We were all upset.’
‘He said he was sorry afterwards. Not that he really meant it,’ she added heavily.
‘You and David,’ Irene said hesitantly, ‘you find it hard to share the grief, don’t you?’
‘We used to be so close. But David’s become – unreachable. When I think – when I think how we were when Charlie was alive.’ She looked her sister in the face. ‘I think he’s having an affair.’
‘Oh, my dear,’ Irene said softly. ‘Are you sure?’
Sarah shook her head. ‘No. But I think so.’
The nippy came with her silver-plated tray, set out the tea and biscuits. Irene poured and handed Sarah a cup. ‘Why do you think that?’ she asked quietly.
‘There’s a woman at work he’s friendly with. Carol. She’s a clerk in the Dominions Office Registry. I’ve met her a couple of times at functions, she’s quite plain but very smart, went to university. She’s got a bright personality.’ Sarah gave a brittle laugh. ‘Good God, they used to say that about me.’ She hesitated. ‘David goes into work at weekends sometimes, he has for over a year. That’s where he is today. He claims they’re very busy, which I suppose they are, with relations with the Dominions being so tricky. But sometimes he goes out in the evening,
