by Eliza Graham
The perspiration still gleamed on his brow. Perhaps William was too ill to broadcast. But who else could I find to fill the slot at such short notice? Mentally I ran through a list of all the native German-speaking actors and broadcasters in the village. Nobody sounded close enough to William. His was a warm voice, young but curiously avuncular at the same time, perfect for the character he played. William was irreplaceable. If he left we’d have to pretend that he, like his predecessor, had been arrested. We’d have to create a new radio priest character. It was impossible to do all this within a few hours. And if we dropped the religious slot we’d have to fill the slot with something else, which would mean another emergency telephone call to Sefton Delmer.
No, William had to do his broadcast. My cup shook on the saucer. I placed it on the draining board. ‘Must get back to Clara.’
‘You haven’t drunk your tea.’
‘So I haven’t. I’ll take it with me.’ I picked up the cup.
His nostrils widened. I looked at him.
‘My sense of smell. It’s much stronger since the crash,’ he said. ‘I pick up scents I could barely notice before. This tea – it’s not even a scented one like Earl Grey, but I can pick out every note. The bluebell scent in the woods was so strong it almost felled me. And I notice which brand of soap people use, their toothpaste. It’s strange.’
He’d smelled my Vol de Nuit on Beattie that morning? That had been how he’d known Beattie and I had spent the previous night together?
The courier knocked on the door, wanting William’s script so it could be approved. I resisted the temptation to write a note and slip it between the sheets, asking for help. William followed me into our office. We sat opposite one another. I knew I had to finish my episode, but my brain wasn’t firing the necessary signals to my fingers. William would notice if I stopped typing. I had to carry on.
Clara was in the castle with her father. Food was running short. The enemy was inching closer. Her brother and lover were far away. I wanted Clara to jump onto her horse and gallop to the safety of the neighbouring state, a neutral power. But Beattie and I had agreed she had to stay in the fortress, looking after her dependants, right up until the last minute. Her attempt to defend them was to be shown as futile.
I closed my eyes for a moment. The wretched girl was supposed to be a personification of the enemy, but somehow she’d become someone I liked. I’d taken some traits from Micki: Clara was handy with a dagger and light on her feet. She was loyal but had a sharp sense of humour. She felt genuine. You’re probably the only honest thing I’ve written, I told her silently. I wish you were real so we could talk. What would Clara do in my position? How would she deal with this new revelation about William?
She’d feel what I felt now.
Confusion, doubt, nausea, shakiness. My fingers moved more rapidly as I wrote about a mysterious knight whom Clara had taken into the castle when he’d appeared wounded, claiming to know her fiancé. He was charming and helpful, but now this newcomer was arousing Clara’s suspicions, appearing on the stone staircases late at night when she climbed the steps to her chamber, telling her he was watching over her. Making her feel if not scared, then very close to it.
‘That’s the car outside,’ William said.
I jolted back into reality. My fingers clenched.
‘You were really wrapped up in that script, Anna. The typewriter looked as if it was about to jump off your desk.’
I forced myself to smile. ‘You know what it’s like when the words start flowing.’ I stood up and pulled the sheet of paper out of the typewriter.
The courier was reappearing in the drive with William’s script. She knocked on the door and Mrs Haddon brought in the envelope. When I opened it I could see it had been signed and approved. Not a word changed. I felt a small flush of pride for our depleted team.
‘Shall we check it ourselves one last time?’
William handed me one of the carbon copies. I spread it out on the desk and William did the same with his approved top copy.
‘Exactly the same,’ William said. ‘Nobody can tamper with them now.’ He placed his copy in his folio case. ‘You can rely on me, Anna.’
‘I know,’ I said.
I didn’t recognise the driver in the small car waiting outside. A pang of loss for Atkins and Beattie’s favourite black Austin swept me.
At the guard post I once again felt a temptation to blurt everything out, tell them that something was wrong. I looked down at my knees so I couldn’t. We entered the studio as usual and I managed to exchange the normal pleasantries with the studio manager before William and I sat down. He took out his script. I looked at the studio clock: still time to fill before the announcer arrived. To distract myself I opened my satchel and took out the Clara script, careful not to open it past the second page so that William couldn’t see the bit about the mysterious knight.
I glanced at him. His face was clammy again. ‘Would you like some water?’ I leant forward to pour him some from the carafe on the desk. As I did, my sleeve caught on the Clara script. The sheets fluttered to the ground. I bent to pick them up.
‘Let me.’ William scooped them up and put them on the desk between us.
The last page lay on the top. I reached out a hand towards the sheets. As I did, the door opened and the announcer arrived, the usual middle-aged man from Saxony we’d worked with for months. He was an old hand at radio.
The clock’s minute hand approached seven. I stood up, opening my satchel to hide the script safely away.
‘I’d like you to stay, Anna,’ William said. ‘If you don’t mind. I know it’s not usual, but in case my back . . .’
‘Of course.’ I sat down again, legs shaking, the Clara script still on the desk between us. The announcer adjusted the microphones, pushing the sheets of paper just out of my reach. He groaned, placing a hand on his stomach.
‘The whale meat in the canteen last night . . .’
The light went on. The announcer introduced the programme and ran through the news items we’d given him, masking any sign of abdominal difficulty, but wincing from time to time.
Even now, feeling my heart flutter, I was proud of the item saying a temporary shortage of champagne following a warehouse fire had now been redressed, guaranteeing supplies for important Party events. The RAF had actually reported a raid over Occupied France resulting in a warehouse fire, but machine parts rather than champagne bottles had been pulverised. I imagined German families muttering about coping with meagre rations while those in power fretted about losing luxuries.
The announcer concluded and introduced Father Friedrich.
As he did every time, William seemed to transform himself into the part. I’d seen him, listened to him, so many times, but this evening, I once again became one of his audience, finding it hard not to fall for the trick, not to believe him a kindly man of the church rather than a wounded British airman. Perhaps I’d been wrong about him. He couldn’t have harmed Beattie.
William gave the final blessing. The announcer presented the live dance band in the music studio. We looked towards the control room. A thumbs-up from the technician as they switched over.
‘Another solid performance,’ the announcer told William. ‘Well done, my boy.’ He grasped his abdomen again. ‘Keep an eye on things here, I need to make a dash.’
I looked at the control room. The producer frowned at me. We were on air – if something went wrong with the live music broadcast, someone would need to announce a change in programme. William could do it at a push.
I went to pick up the Clara script. William’s hand reached it first. ‘Was that a new character I saw on the last page?’ He flicked through the script, as easily as we had always done in the office, passing pages to one another for comment. ‘A knight? I love the way you bring in the medieval aspects.’
He read the page without a word and replaced it on the desk. ‘So,’ he said. ‘The knight with the mysterious past who follows Clara around.
’ He gave me his gentle smile. I looked at the clock. How much longer until the announcer returned?
William reached inside his pocket for his cigarette lighter and case. ‘Like one?’
I shook my head. His hand trembled as he lit it. I looked again at the studio clock. Seconds before the news, I estimated. ‘If he’s not back before the swing band finishes, you’ll have to read the news and wind the programme up,’ I told William, trying to sound matter of fact. The news sheet was on the desk, in front of the microphone, with the shorter summary read at the schedule’s end.
William coughed on his cigarette. ‘But I haven’t rehearsed . . .’
‘It’s all here,’ I showed him. ‘You just have to read it.’
His hand trembled. Ash from the cigarette tip dropped onto the script. He moved his left hand to brush it off. As he did, he knocked the hand holding the cigarette, which dropped from his fingers. ‘Damn.’ Small flames creased the edges of the sheet. Their warmth glowed on the scarred part of my cheek. The paper was blazing, flames lapping other sheets, igniting them. Fire.
I made for the door. The alarm started to clang outside in the corridor.
‘I can’t . . . Sorry.’ I reached for the door handle. As the door opened the announcer ran in. ‘The sand bucket?’ He nodded at the aluminium bucket each room here contained in case of air raids.
My legs trembled. It would be like last time. The flames would consume the desk, the studio, the whole building, all of us. Timbers would crash to the ground, knocking people down, setting them alight, burning them. I had to get out.
Smoke was billowing out of the door, people were running towards the studio. The broadcast was at risk.
Get a grip, Hall.
This was my responsibility. I stepped back into the studio and grabbed the bucket of sand. By now the fire had consumed all the script. The announcer was moving microphones out of its way. The bucket handle was in my hand. Images filled my mind: the church, Grace falling, the smoke. I threw the contents of the bucket over the burning script.
And the fire was gone. I blinked. The smoke dispersed. The alarm stopped.
‘I’m so sorry,’ William said. ‘I was careless.’
The announcer glanced at the clock. ‘We’re just in time.’ He gave the producer a thumbs-up, pulled the microphone towards himself and sat down.
I grabbed my satchel from my chair, opened the door again and left the studio, vaguely aware of William behind me. I needed to carry out the usual sign-off, but first I needed air. After that I had to tell the police or Grey-suit Man, Sefton Delmer or someone about William. I had to rewrite my Clara script before I forgot what I’d written today. I couldn’t let the fire shake all thoughts of action from my head, returning me to the traumatised person I’d been two years ago. I couldn’t be that woman again.
William was still following me, but then he had been for weeks now. I opened the main door and walked onto the grassed compound outside. ‘Why did you do that to Beattie?’ I asked, the fire having unleashed my fears and suspicions.
He flinched and started to say something. I cut him off. ‘Did you think he was somehow standing in Patrick’s way?’
‘Beattie corrupted people.’
‘He did not corrupt me.’
William turned white. ‘But I saw him pestering you.’
‘What?’
‘He was in your bedroom that night. Pulling at your clothes.’ He blushed.
William had been in the garden watching us in my room before I’d pulled down the blackout.
‘I wasn’t playing peeping Tom, Anna. I saw Beattie go with you into the house. I was worried.’ He grasped for the word. ‘Shocked. Couldn’t believe it.’ He touched my hand. ‘Don’t worry, I knew it couldn’t be what you wanted.’
I stared at him. ‘How could you possibly know that?’
The guards had noticed our raised voices. They were interested, watching us, but not alarmed enough to do anything about it. Not yet.
William stared at me. ‘I owed it to Mat.’
‘Owed what to him?’
‘I felt I should help get him back with you.’
‘You thought Beattie deserved to die for the sake of your personal debt to Patrick? That it didn’t matter about him? About me?’
‘I thought he was forcing himself on you, Anna.’ Again he rubbed his temple. ‘But . . . I didn’t touch Beattie.’
His voice was quieter now. He trembled. I wondered whether it was pain or the drugs.
‘Then how did it happen? You were there, weren’t you?’
I hadn’t thought it possible that William could turn any whiter, but he did. ‘I just wanted to talk to him. He went to the edge of the pond.’
‘Beattie hated water, he wouldn’t do that.’
William dropped his head. ‘That was my fault. I was angry.’
‘You had no right to be angry if it was about me.’
One of the dogs standing with its handler by the gate looked at me, ears pricked.
‘He was holding something of yours.’
I frowned. ‘My fountain pen?’ Was Beattie remembering he’d promised to put a nib on the pen for me? ‘I don’t understand.’
‘I grabbed it from him, told him he couldn’t have it. He came towards me. I threw it away from him, thought it would land in the bushes and I could pick it up for you after. But I didn’t seem to know my own strength and the pen landed in the water.’ He shook his head. ‘He ran to the pond, perhaps he thought it would float. I went after him and shouted at him to leave you alone.’ He stared down at the grass. ‘I must have startled him. It was muddy. He lost his balance.’
‘You didn’t help him out? You left him to drown?’
‘I thought he’d get out by himself. I didn’t know the pond was so deep. His clothes must have dragged him down.’
‘Beattie couldn’t swim,’ I said. ‘He had a fear of water. That pond’s so deep locals warn their children to keep away.’
‘Oh God, I didn’t know that.’ William’s voice shook. ‘I walked away . . .’ He put a hand to his brow, covering his eyes. ‘It just felt like a kind of waking dream. A nightmare. I came back to Mulberry House and Mrs Haddon let me in with Father Becker. Just like the start of any other work day. And I thought I must have imagined what had happened in the woods.’
William stood, arms wrapped around himself, rocking slightly.
I pictured Beattie’s muscles tensing as he fell into the water, the panicked breath he’d taken, his feet scrabbling to find a hold on the muddy bottom, his clothes heavy. Perhaps he’d slipped again as he struggled, inhaling the brackish water into his lungs. Or banged his head on some hidden rock, stunning himself. It only took a few inches of liquid to drown. ‘I thought Beattie’d be sitting in his office,’ William whispered. ‘At his desk. But he wasn’t. Then I thought he might have gone out to buy something from the shop, or perhaps gone over to see Sefton Delmer. But he didn’t come back. And I couldn’t remember what I’d really done and what was just my mind tricking me.’ He patted his jacket pocket. ‘I have my notepad. I write down important things because I know I get confused. But I hadn’t written anything in it about Beattie that morning.’
I turned my back on William. ‘I don’t want to talk about this any more,’ I said, shivering, too, as though I was also floundering in dark, cold water. ‘Go back to your lodgings. I’m going to report this. I think you need help.’
‘I just wanted to clear the path for Mat.’ He was talking softly, almost to himself. ‘I was the navigator, I made sure we reached our target, then got us home the safest way I could. That’s all I wanted to do for Mat, make sure he found his way to you.’
I became aware of a commotion the other side of the gate. A small female figure was arguing with the guards, hands lifting in exasperation. Micki. A man stood behind her.
25
William was still talking, but I wasn’t paying attention because I was running towards the guard post.
‘T
hey won’t let me in.’ Micki sounded breathless. ‘I haven’t got the right pass, but you need to talk to this man, Anna. He says he knows you.’
The man stepped forward. His right arm was missing from the elbow down, the jacket sleeve folded up and pinned. He was young, though the lines around his eyes – perhaps caused by the pain of his injury – gave what had once been a carefree face a more serious expression than I had known before.
‘Patrick,’ I said. He was looking at me, at the burnt side of my face that I’d kept away from him two years ago. Now he knew.
But there wasn’t time for this. ‘William,’ I said. ‘He needs help. He’s not . . . right in his mind.’
Patrick and Micki looked at one another. ‘It’s just as you said,’ he told her.
‘I have to finish up here,’ I said. ‘I’m going to bring William out to you now. Can you look after him? He needs to see a doctor.’
‘Non-authorised personnel are not allowed to hang around the gates.’ The guard sergeant roared the words at us.
‘We’re going,’ Micki said. ‘Just let Lieutenant Nathanson out.’
The gate opened, I took William’s arm. ‘Don’t let them call the special constables or the police or even Atkins,’ I whispered to Micki as she pulled him through the gate. ‘Make sure he goes somewhere safe.’
‘It was to get you two back together,’ he said. He looked from me to Patrick. ‘Everything I did: keeping Anna safe, writing to tell you to come, that was why.’
I felt the crimson blush spread across my face, even the damaged part.
I turned my back on them as the gate closed again, returning to the studio, my workplace, where I could just be a person doing a job, fulfilling responsibilities, spared from all the emotional burden expected of a woman. I walked through the door back into my haven, feeling the weight fall off my shoulders.
But of course I couldn’t stay in the studio all night. Eventually, when I’d found the actors and explained that I’d have to give them the Clara script the next morning, and when I’d received sign-off from Sefton Delmer’s secretary, I had to walk out of the entrance. The Liverpudlian driver had been waiting for me, a paperback and torch in her hands. Guilt washed through me. ‘I had a good book,’ she said, brushing aside my apology. ‘Straight home, sergeant?’