Bursar. But you could not, under any circumstances, tread on the trim green of the college lawn. Yet here that hallowed turf had been transformed into a parade ground and there, standing at the head of it, was none other than Grey himself.
He had heard about this but scarcely believed it could be true: that the Oxford South Company of the newly- created Local Defence Volunteers, made up chiefly of Royal Mail employees, had been put under Grey’s command. But here they were, row after row of middle-aged postmen taking orders issued not by a bullying sergeant major but by a white-haired philosopher, one whose voice was known to millions through his regular talks on the BBC Home Service. Heaven preserve them all if, come the invasion, these men represented the first line of defence.
Invasion. The word triggered a memory of yesterday’s ill-tempered exchange with Rosemary. She had been talking about invasion just before he climbed back on his bicycle and returned home, once he had switched off and stopped listening properly to what she was saying. Something about the countries that had fallen in just the last few weeks — France, Holland and Belgium in just a single day last month. Saying that Florence was convinced Britain would be next. Mr Churchill was doing a manful job of stiffening the nation’s resolve, but that was how most people felt: that there was a very good chance that, before long, there would be German boats landing on England’s beaches and German troops walking on England’s streets. Was that why she had not gone to her parents’ house, because she feared Hitler’s men might come across the North Sea and march right into Norfolk? He began to wish he had listened to what the damned Rosemary woman had been saying.
James turned on his heel, avoiding the embarrassment of explaining why he was not among those on parade, and walked back to the porter’s lodge, this time going inside.
Another raised eyebrow semi-smile to the man on duty and straight to the pigeon-holes. Much less for him these days, now that term had finished. There was a letter inviting him to a lecture on birth control by Marie Stopes: Population Science and the Path to Radiant Motherhood. No, thank you. He wouldn’t go within a hundred yards of that woman, not since hearing that she had attended some conference in Berlin a couple of years after Hitler had become Chancellor. Completely unacceptable to lend aid and succour to the Nazis like that. The only exception: if you were going in order to poke a finger in the Germans’ eye, as Florence had done. But there were not many like Florence, not many at all.
A circular urging donations of books for prisoners of war via the Red Cross; a notice about new rules aimed at reducing coal consumption in college; a letter asking for revisions on an article he had written on group behaviour for the Journal of Experimental Psychology and, finally, at the bottom of the pile, a postcard from Florence.
There was no doubt it was from her. The handwriting was unmistakable; just glimpsing it was enough to make his heart squeeze. The same three words again: I love you.
He flipped it over to see the image, a photograph showing the construction of the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi’s magnificent, unfinished church: they had visited it together during one of their long, meandering walks through Barcelona, the week they had met.
He turned it over to check the postmark. It had been posted last night. Thank God for the Royal Mail, carrying on as if there were no war on: with a first class stamp, it seemed they could get a letter to anywhere by the next morning. And this had not come from some village in the Oxfordshire countryside. This has been posted from Liverpool.
Liverpool? It made no sense. If she was worried about bombs, the last place to go was Liverpool — an industrial port so strategically indispensable it was surely close to the top of Berlin’s target list. She might as well have fled Oxford for London. It made no sense at all.
Then he spotted a detail that he had initially assumed was a mistake. Registering it now revived the shiver he had felt first thing this morning. The address Florence had written on the card was their home in Norham Gardens, not the college. Yet here it was in his pigeon-hole. It had been sent from Liverpool only last night; there would have been no time for the Post Office to have redirected it.
There could only be one explanation. Someone had moved it.
But who? And why?
Chapter Eight
He was halfway to the station before he realized he would have to make a detour back home to pick up some essentials, starting with money. Adrenalin pumped through his system. He passed the old stone buildings, with their gothic arches and medieval chapels, in a blur, his brain moving faster even than his body. There could be only one possible reason why Florence had gone to Liverpool: in order to leave it. It was no place to hide from the bombs; on the contrary, she had placed herself more directly in harm’s way by going there. Which meant she would be there for the shortest time possible before heading somewhere else. The obvious, closest destination was Dublin. Was Florence thinking it would be safer in neutral Ireland than in occupied Britain? Was this, then, her great fear — not bombs, but life under Nazi occupation?
The postcard had been sent last night. It was conceivable that she and Harry were still there, that with a bit of luck on the trains, he might just make it in time, catching them before they left. He would have a chance to persuade her to stay. The fact that he had chased her all the way to Liverpool would surely demonstrate how much he cared: what, after all, was the purpose of that postcard, except as a summons, urging him to follow her if he truly loved her? Of course she could have simply telephoned and told him where they could meet. But James preferred to see the card like a challenge set for a medieval knight, imagining that Florence had chosen to test him, to make him prove his devotion. He pictured their reunion: they would meet at the docks, Harry would hug him tight and she would instantly realize the folly of separating a boy from his father. Everything would be all right. Just so long as he could catch a train.
At the station, all was chaos and noise. Ever since they had removed the signs from the railways, the staff had to march up and down the platform barking, ‘Oxford, this is Oxford! Oxford, this is Oxford!’ (Was it really likely that German pilots would be able to read station signs from the air, especially in the dark?) The platform was crowded, with piles of baggage everywhere, doubtless belonging to soldiers on the move. Everyone seemed confused, especially by the special troop trains, which looked like the others and ran on the same lines but which were barred to the civilian population.
Eventually James found a clerk who told him that he needed to cross the bridge and wait for the next LMS train to Bletchley, due in twenty-five minutes. From there, the man — elderly, probably brought out of retirement so that the permanent holder of the position could do his bit for the war, a thought which triggered in James the usual spasm of shame — explained that he could catch the main line to Crewe, which should take two-and-a-half hours, and then change for Liverpool Lime Street. It would be a long, circuitous journey but James could see no alternative. He had considered asking to borrow the Greys’ car, but petrol was so scarce and the trek northward might not be any faster. To say nothing of all the explanations and gushing thanks he would have to produce.
Once on board, standing wedged between two young conscripts and their kitbags, the man apparently heading back to war after a spell of leave, he turned over the riddle of the postcard — addressed to one place, his home, and delivered to another, his college. Did that explain the sudden movement he had glimpsed this morning? Had someone intercepted his post, collaring the postman just as he was about to put the card through the door? But he was sure he had not seen two people, and there had been no sign of a postman when he had looked outside, let alone any lurking stranger.
But now he wondered. Perhaps there had been a stack of mail lodged in the letterbox and someone had taken it. Maybe that was the faint rattling noise he had heard, not the sound of letters being posted through the slot, but being pulled out. But who would do such a thing? It had achieved nothing except a delay, given that he had seen the postcard from his wife little more than an hour or two later. If someone had wanted to steal his post, then why not simply steal it: why go to the trouble of delivering it to an alternative address that very morning? Whoever had done it had clearly known plenty about him, including his college affiliation.
Or was this exactly what Rosemary Hyde — that was it, Hyde — had in mind when she accused him of going off the rails yesterday? Was he imagining things, constructing a menace that wasn’t there out of a simple mix-up with the morning post? He remembered the book: Others reported a heightened state of awareness, as if in constant expectation of danger. Was this an example of the very hyper-vigilance he had read about, little more than mindless paranoia?
