The Truth in Our Lies

by Eliza Graham

  He stood up. ‘I have work.’

  ‘I’ll try to find out more.’ I had no idea how I’d do this. Beattie must have contacts; it was worth asking him, risking his displeasure again.

  ‘You have no idea what they’re going through. They could be in some cellar, waiting to be shot. Or in a concentration camp. Grete is only a schoolgirl.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Our interview is over.’ He flung the kitchen door open. The cat shot out in front of him. I could have called Schulte back, reminded him I was the one who determined when an interview was finished. But as Beattie had pointed out, this was private business, not official work.

  Mary came into the kitchen. I wondered how much she’d overheard. There was an expression on her face I was too flustered to interpret. ‘He’s just found out that his family have been arrested,’ I told her.

  ‘That why you cycled out here, was it, to tell him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mary folded her arms. ‘Very kind of you.’

  I looked at my watch. Damn, time was tight. At least the wind would be in the right direction for me on my return. I’d have to map out the last bit of my script in my mind as I cycled. A little voice inside me whispered that I could use some of this afternoon’s events as material. Clara had had to tell one of the family retainers – make it an old man, not a young male prisoner – that a family member had been arrested because of something she’d let slip. Clara would feel like I did now, unworthy of what she liked to think she stood for.

  Mary still watched me with that curious, triumphant look on her face.

  ‘Will you be coming here again, Sergeant Hall?’

  ‘Not as often.’

  ‘Wrung him dry, have you?’

  Schulte’s hands had been calloused: he’d obviously been putting in hours of labour. And he’d got the tractor working again. This girl had no need to treat him so contemptuously.

  ‘Goodbye, Mary.’ I walked out into the farmyard, hoping I wouldn’t see her again. She followed me outside.

  Mrs Waites came to join her daughter, a small basket of eggs in her arms.

  ‘No car, sergeant?’ she asked.

  ‘Couldn’t be spared this afternoon.’

  ‘Oh.’ It was only one word. It implied that she thought my trips to the farm were no longer considered important work, that consequently I was less important to them. I might not return here. If I uncovered anything more about Schulte’s family I could visit him in the evening at the POW camp.

  ‘Be gentle with him,’ I told Mrs Waites.

  The two women watched as I swung myself into the bicycle saddle. I glanced back at them. The pair stood close to one another, shoulders almost touching, silent.

  I cycled off, feeling their gaze on the back of my neck. I needed to push this encounter with Schulte and the Waites women out of my mind. My attention needed to be on my script, on using the imparting of bad news storyline to finish it. I stopped at the junction with the lane, still feeling eyes on me. I looked over my shoulder. The women had gone indoors. Beside me the trees in the copse rustled. Something metallic caught the sunlight and flashed. ‘Hello?’ I called. ‘Who’s there?’

  Was Schulte watching me, armed perhaps with the scythe? His fury might have driven him to run out here to wait for me. I pushed down hard on my pedal, turning into the lane and accelerating away from the farm.

  When I’d put half a mile between myself and Waites Farm, I dropped my pace. The wind was now propelling me back to where I belonged: with the liars and deceivers. I was twenty-three, fully adult, but I felt an urge to cycle past Mulberry House and make for the railway station. Go to earth in the vicarage. Bury myself in some virtuous duties: knitting socks and jumpers, helping to rehome people, visiting elderly parishioners. Dad would be pleased to see me showing an interest in parish work.

  As the first houses met me I again had a sense of being watched, but the pavements were empty. Except for a horse and wagon there was no traffic on the lane to Mulberry House. I dismounted in the drive and threw the bicycle against the side wall, no time to put it away in the garage.

  When I walked through the office door Father Becker glanced up at me, his gaze keen. ‘Sergeant. Have some water.’ He poured me a glass from the jug kept on his desk and got up to hand it to me.

  ‘Where’re the others?’

  ‘The lieutenant went to the village shop. Micki is in the stationery office asking for typewriter ribbons.’ As Becker handed me the water I caught the scent of something on his breath. Whisky? He didn’t seem the worse for it, his hands were steady. Perhaps this clumsy man worked the better for a relaxing tot.

  William himself came in as I was working on Clara. He looked brighter this afternoon, colour in his cheeks, but his pupils were red, I noticed, a little bloodshot. ‘Went to look for peppermints in the shop,’ he said. ‘Then back to my lodgings to take my medicine.’ He straightened his tie and sat down, opening his folio case. ‘I think I’m getting there.’

  I took another gulp of water; my mouth still dry from the long cycle. ‘We’re going to be very tight for tonight’s broadcast,’ I said. ‘I’ll make the last changes to the Clara script and then I’ll look at your pieces.’

  Clara. I needed to pin down what I’d created in my head as I cycled back here. I closed my eyes briefly and heard the story playing out again in my imagination.

  Clara tells the old man about his son’s arrest by the King’s guard . . . ‘But my son did nothing wrong. It was me, wasn’t it, my lady? I told you what my son said about the King and the King found out.’ The blood leaves his face. She’s stabbing him with a deadly poison dart that can never be removed.

  ‘It was my fault.’

  The old man’s daughter comes out of the cottage. ‘Got what you wanted? Wrung us dry, have you?’

  It still needed formatting as a play, of course. I could do that almost automatically, now the episode was complete in my imagination. Not much time for rehearsing, but the Jewish actress from Vienna reading Clara’s part was well used to the character now, and would pick up tonight’s storyline easily.

  ‘That was quick,’ Father Becker said as I pulled the sheets out of my typewriter.

  ‘Just as well.’ I glanced at my watch.

  ‘Must be a good episode, Anna,’ William said, ‘if the words are flowing so smoothly.’ Much as it sickened me to admit it, the script was probably one of my stronger episodes. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ I met his concerned blue-eyed gaze and longed to confide in him. ‘I had to tell Schulte . . .’ Father Becker was typing away. He knew about our use of Schulte, of course, but hadn’t been privy to the discussions about how we deployed the information Schulte gave us. ‘I had to go out to the farm unexpectedly,’ I said.

  The door to the room burst open. Beattie. God, I hated the man so much I could have thrown my typewriter at him. He came to my desk and picked up the script, scanning it quickly, pretending to wince. ‘Do I see real life percolating into the play?’

  ‘Guilt is a powerful emotion.’ I gave him a frosty smile. ‘If people empathise with Clara’s feelings of remorse, they may examine their own behaviour more objectively.’

  ‘Sins of omission and commission.’ Father Becker bent his head. He’d never said much about his work in Germany or about what he’d done for refugees in Switzerland. I’d assumed there were lives at risk. He too might have personal regrets for a past failure.

  Beattie nodded. ‘You’re certainly our expert on how to examine our consciences, padre.’

  Father Becker lifted his head, something indecipherable written on his features. ‘I have done my best for my country.’

  He felt a responsibility for Germany itself, I thought, for its lost soul; that was why he was here, working among its enemies.

  William stood up and straightened his back, grimacing. ‘We all have to look out for one another, don’t we?’

  My mind floated back in time, to my previous job
plotting aircraft. A wave of longing to be working on calculations again swept me. Trigonometry. The purity and certainty of numbers. That was how you could look after people. William must have felt the same when he’d been a navigator. You took bearings, found positions. Charted a course. I’d failed to look after people.

  Schulte.

  Grace. The sister I’d been told to look after as a child, even though she was older than me. I’d failed Grace.

  I can’t leave it all to burn.

  ‘Dad said to go down to the cellar, Anna,’ Grace said.

  ‘I have to try to save some of it.’

  ‘It’s too dangerous.’

  I looked at Grace, cheeks rosy. She was stronger now, fit from digging in her vegetable garden. ‘If we both went we’d bring out the important things in no time at all.’ I was pulling a scarf off the hook on the kitchen door, wetting it under the tap, winding it round my mouth. This was Grace’s chance to show herself she was as fit and strong as anyone. ‘Come on,’ I urged her.

  ‘Hall?’ Beattie was staring at me.

  I gave a start. ‘Sorry. I was, um . . .’

  ‘Reflecting on something?’ Father Becker said gently.

  ‘I suppose I was,’ I said. ‘Something that happened a while ago.’ I blinked. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Hmmmn.’ Beattie stood. ‘We’ll need a couch like Dr Freud’s in here soon. Back to the job in hand.’ He looked at me. ‘Come with me to the studio?’ He didn’t always invite me to go over to Milton Bryan in the evening. Micki had only been a few times. Father Becker was forbidden access as on his only outing to the studio he’d tripped over almost every cable in the place. Eventually, Beattie said, all the research units would operate from Milton Bryan. He knew I was looking forward to the move, that I loved visits to the studio.

  ‘I have a headache,’ I said, picking up my satchel. ‘I need an early night. I can go through tomorrow’s scripts at home.’

  ‘Hope you’re not catching Micki’s lurgy.’ He might have been a kindly old uncle. My loathing of him was so strong I was surprised he could stand there talking to me without flinching from the waves I emitted. William bent over the writing pad in front of him and Father Becker frowned at his typewriter. On this occasion I didn’t think it was a problem with jammed keys that was causing his concern.

  I longed to talk to someone about what had taken place today with Schulte. William was the only person I could confide in but I wouldn’t see him alone before he left for the studio. Micki would ask me what was up when we were together in Lily Cottage this evening; she’d see something in my eyes. I’d have to find a way of avoiding her.

  As I picked up my satchel and made for the front door, someone rang the bell. I stood back to let Mrs Haddon answer it. She thanked the caller and came in with a neatly pressed men’s handkerchief. ‘That was the postmistress’s girl,’ she said. ‘Lieutenant Nathanson dropped his hanky in the post office when he was filling out a form.’

  ‘I’ll give it to him.’

  Mrs Haddon rolled her eyes. ‘He’s got a bit of a following among girls in the village. Maisy was very disgruntled that I wouldn’t bring him to the door.’

  I laughed, feeling a little better, and took the handkerchief into William. He thanked me and replaced it in his pocket. ‘My mother told me never to go out without one. Imagine if I started sniffing in the studio. Must have lost it when I bought my peppermints.’

  I was about to tell him he’d actually been filling in a form, but stopped myself. What kind of form would he complete at the village post office? One for a telegram? We weren’t allowed to send telegrams from the local post office for the same reason as our letters were taken to London for mailing: so that nothing could link us to the village. Had William forgotten this? On the other hand, he might have been filling in a postal order form or something else completely innocent.

  I thought of asking him, but my rage at Beattie was still like hot paraffin inside my veins. William was Beattie’s responsibility, not mine.

  17

  Micki came back to Lily Cottage at the usual time that evening. She ate her supper and announced she was having an early night to throw off the remnants of her sore throat once and for all. I gave her an hour and went up to check on her, finding her already asleep. I touched her brow gently. It was warm underneath my fingers. She’d thrown off her sheet and blanket, but I pulled them up over her chest and checked that the window was open an inch. In repose she looked younger, more like her little brother. I shivered, remembering Maxi lying on that pallet. I looked at the photograph on the bedside table, the group of six. Micki and Maxi, as the smallest of the four children, sat on the laps of their father and mother respectively, their older brothers framing the group, leaning in, eyes crinkled. It wasn’t impossible, was it, that one of the older brothers at least might be able to survive whatever it was the family was enduring? If the boys were as tough as their younger sister, there had to be some hope for them. Did Micki still feel any optimism about their prospects?

  Uncertain what to do with myself now, I washed a few pieces of underwear and a silk blouse that wouldn’t survive the local laundry and hung them on a clothes horse by the open bathroom window. From the garden came the scent of new grass and leaves. I could take my writing pad and pen outside and make notes on the bench. I walked quietly through the empty kitchen and out of the back door. A last blackbird was singing. Dusk hung around, scented with hyacinths. I sat down, placing pad and pen beside me on the bench, pulled my cigarettes out of my pocket and lit one, careful to hold the lighter flame away from me. On an impulse I moved the flame towards myself. Was my fear of fire growing just a little less powerful? Out in the lane a car slowed, idled and then drove on. I drew once on my cigarette, placed it on the arm of the bench and started to write. It was really growing too dark to work. The pen’s nib made uneven strokes on the paper. I peered at it. Damn. It really did need replacing now. I didn’t have much free time for finding a stationer’s that might sell me a spare.

  ‘It’s worn out,’ a voice behind me said.

  I jumped.

  Beattie.

  ‘Did everything go all right with the evening broadcast?’ I wanted to ask him what he was doing here but something made me hold my tongue.

  ‘Splendidly. Father Becker’s script for William benefited from your edits. And tonight’s Clara episode was a cracker.’

  I hoped he couldn’t see me blushing. But I was still angry with him. He held out a hand.

  ‘Give me that poor pen. I might have a spare nib that’ll fit until you have time to buy a replacement.’

  I gave him my pen and he put it in his inside pocket.

  ‘Our work sometimes seems like shovelling dung but it’s worthwhile, Anna.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I understand how you feel about Schulte. He’s not a bad man.’

  ‘So you don’t think he might have shot those British soldiers?’

  ‘I wanted him to think I doubted his innocence so he felt vulnerable with us, keen to cooperate. I don’t actually think he was involved. Unless he’s a very convincing liar.’

  ‘Like us.’

  He winced. ‘You’ve done so well with Schulte, got him to open up. It wasn’t an easy task. He was suspicious at first.’

  Rightly so.

  ‘And you manage the team well. Micki, Father Becker, Nathanson: they’d do anything for you. I pulled off a bit of a coup getting you to work here with me.’

  I frowned.

  ‘Anna Hall,’ he said musingly. ‘Most beautiful girl at Somerville, possibly in the whole of Oxford. Clever and talented.’

  ‘Not so beautiful these days.’

  Mistake. You should never throw a self-denigrating comment at Beattie; he’d always use it against you. But tonight he seemed more mellow.

  ‘When I first knew you at Oxford I assumed you’d be the kind of girl who’d be swooped up by someone wealthy. Perhaps you’d work for a few months, but he wouldn’t like it. All
your drive would go into organising charity bazaars.’

  ‘That’s what happens to a lot of women.’

  ‘You’re not like a lot of women. Bringing you here has proved that.’

  ‘Most women don’t get the chance to show what they can do.’

  ‘You like flux, Anna. Change. Problems to solve. If you’d stayed on in Suffolk you’d have ended up married to some dull chap.’

  I scowled at him. ‘Perhaps I would have liked that.’

  He shrugged. ‘I just hope I haven’t spoilt you for peacetime in some semi-detached house in Surrey, with whist and tennis as your only diversions as you fret over meat rations.’

  ‘You think I won’t make a decent housewife?’ I didn’t know if I felt flattered or the opposite.

  He was lighting a cigar. ‘You will if you just lie to yourself.’

  ‘Lie?’

  ‘Tell yourself you only ever wanted to fuss over your husband’s suits.’

  I’d never had the chance to find myself bored with married life. Nor would I ever have to persuade myself that food shopping and housework was completely satisfying. The incendiary bomb had taken it all away from me. No, I’d taken it away from myself.

  After Grace’s funeral I’d returned to hospital for a few more days so they could check my burn for infection and bathe it with saline. The same nurse I’d had last time intervened again on Patrick’s behalf at visiting time. ‘He says he has to go back tomorrow, his leave’s up. This is your last chance to see him, Anna.’

  ‘I don’t want to see him.’

  ‘Or you don’t want him to see you?’ She put a hand gently on mine. ‘You haven’t given him a chance.’

  ‘Haven’t you got anything better to do than act Cupid?’ I closed my eyes. ‘I want to sleep.’

  ‘You can’t sleep through the rest of your life, Anna. You’re young.’

  ‘You’re right, I don’t want him to see me. He’s nothing to me.’

  Beattie puffed out smoke, the aroma breaking into the train of memories. ‘I make up stories about my life, too. The early parts in particular.’