They went back to his car, which was parked by the walled garden. ‘This was the scene of your trespass.’
‘Have you forgiven me?’
She touched her plait. ‘No.’
‘Quite right.’ He dug his hands into his pockets. ‘Agnes… I want to…’ But he could sense her retreat.
‘Did you know that walls can be read like documents?’ she said, in a conversational manner. ‘I’m planning a programme on it’
Julian cut her off and grasped her by the shoulders. Puzzled and lusting, he searched her face for a clue as to why he was baffled by his responses to Agnes. His was normally such a clear-cut world. In his ears rang Kitty’s cry of sexual possession and pleasure of the previous night.
‘We are not talking about the one thing we should be,’ he said angrily. ‘Look at me, Agnes.’
Her eyes were clouded with distress. ‘There is nothing to discuss, Julian. I’ve seen the situation. I
He felt her sadness. He felt Kitty’s sadness. He felt his own confusion, and a sense of impending disaster.
‘What you have with Kitty should not be broken,’ she was saying. ‘Some things have to go on. There is too much destruction everywhere.’
‘So, no more meetings?’
She searched his face. ‘No,’ she said, desperately. ‘Go away. Please go away and leave me in peace.’
He pulled her to him. She smelt as he remembered. Soft, clean, flowery, but this time with a just a hint of salt. As he pulled her closer, Julian felt that he was taking possession of centuries: of brick aged into rose, of wood fretted by time, of stone wearing a mantel of lichen.
Agnes pulled herself free as Maud rounded the corner in the drive, dressed in her church hat and full regalia of paste ring and a huge brooch brooding on her chest. She was on top form. ‘Has Agnes offered you any coffee before you go? No biscuits, I’m afraid, but that’s how we are. Frugality is very democratic, don’t you think? Here we all are in this historic house practising self-denial as merrily as Mrs Cadogan in her council flat.’
13
Agnes drove the aunts to Heathrow airport, kissed them, and handed them over to the tour operator, who was dressed in a flowered dirndl and holding a placard with ‘16 May, Captains and Marias Assembly Point’ written on it.
Bea’s cheek smelt of fabric-conditioner. Maud’s exuded a soft, powdery decadence and she jabbed a finger into the soft part of Agnes’s arm. ‘Good riddance. That’s what you’re thinking, aren’t you? Tell the truth.’
Agnes tucked a magazine into their hand luggage. ‘Don’t forget to send me a postcard.’
‘
Agnes arrived back at Flagge House in the late evening. It seemed too much effort to cook supper so she opted instead for a glass of wine and settled down on Maud’s sofa in the butler’s pantry with a copy of the Jack and Mary letters.
She read till quite late. A harvest sun warmed her neck, the taste of cold, sweet cider was on her tongue, and the weight of a lover’s arm was around her body. Jack to Mary. Wartime lovers, and a man and a woman who had chosen to pursue a life together.
At the end, she let the file slide on to the cushion beside her. Nothing really had happened between her and Julian, only a bat-squeak of promise. No hearts had been broken, not like last time.
What was an affair? A grand roar of passion and tempest, followed either by regret and sadness or by the clutter of saucepans, laundry and the peculiar smell of a fridge that was never cleaned by either party.
Anorexics argued that power came from starvation and that it was possible to thrive on an emotional monasticism. Certainly, it was safer and left her free to work. A man or a woman was mentally leaner, fitter and more active without with the fat of emotion.
Sometimes Agnes pictured herself as others might see her. There goes Agnes. Successful. Ambitious. Her arena, the world; her subjects ranging loftily through politics, social problems, ecology and the vastness of war, the lost spirituality of the century and the cry of the endangered dormouse. No ropes, thank goodness, bind her to a stove, a cradle, an occupied double bed. There was no need for her to be unselfish or to pull in the focus of her vision. Work ensured that you were whole: a thinking, acting, creative person.
‘Agnes,’ those observers would say, ‘
She closed the letters file and the phone rang.
‘It’s me,’ said Julian. ‘I need to see you.’
‘But I don’t wish to see you.’
There was a pause. ‘I’m ringing from the pub in the village.’
Julian must have heard the hammer of her racing heart down the phone.
He arrived within five minutes with a carrier-bag full of champagne, smoked salmon and home-made brown bread. He was tanned from sailing but pale and exhausted-looking under it. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’ He watched her unpack the picnic and set it out on the kitchen table. ‘I’ve tried very hard to stay away, but I’ve had a hell of week at work.’
‘Does Kitty know?’ she asked quietly, fetching a couple of glasses and cutting the bread into slices.
‘No.’
‘Will you tell her?’
‘Probably’
How clever he was. Sneaking past her defences, telling her she was needed. Agnes arranged the smoked salmon on the plate and said desperately, ‘It won’t do.’
‘No, it won’t, but I’m here. Look at me, Agnes.’
Eventually she raised her eyes and looked at him.
‘Oh, Christ,’ he said.
She accepted the glass of champagne, drank and looked up at the ceiling. The spiders were in residence and, in the dim light, the walls were deeply shadowed. She drank another mouthful. Fatal on an empty stomach. After a minute or so it did not seem such a terrible thing that Julian Knox was there in her kitchen. In fact, it felt right. ‘What is happening at Portcullis?’ she asked recklessly, feeling the champagne work its way up to the outer reaches of her brain synapses. ‘Laying waste the fields of England?’
He frowned, and offered her a sandwich. ‘Perhaps you should eat this,’ he said. ‘You looked starved. Since you ask so nicely, things are not brilliant. The share price is going down and I have probably over-extended the two northern projects. There is no lack of demand in the south for houses, but the north is lagging behind and what profits there are from the north are not sufficient to fund the extra-expensive south. But let’s not talk about it. I’ve got something for you.’ Julian picked up his jacket, extracted an envelope and held it out. ‘Don’t look so suspicious. Take it.’
She obeyed. Inside were a couple of closely hand-written photocopied pages.
‘Go on, read it,’ he urged.
‘Number 20. Virginia Marie Lacey. Code name: Claude. Subject responding well. Physically slight, but very fit. Reflects hard on the tasks allotted her and succeeds in maintaining objectivity. N. B. Not good with drink. She must be cautioned to avoid it. She is very young and we question her maturity.’ The report was initialled and dated 21 May 1942.
The second page was written in a different hand. ‘Number 20. Code name: Claude. French excellent. Any slight irregularities in accent put down to childhood in Canada. Exceptional grasp of Morse code. Sometimes obstinate and does not get on with her immediate superior. Disobeyed orders on night operation. Not happy with explosives…’
‘I thought it would interest you.’
Mary? A slight, too-young, determined figure launching herself into moonlit operations without the comfort of a whisky. Agnes stroked the pages and felt a glow of affection for these daring women. ‘How did you get hold of these?’
‘Imperial War Museum. They’re very helpful. According to my source, most of the SOE records were destroyed
