The House of Flowers

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘Rough types,’ the flier said with a grin. ‘The name’s Mark, by the way. How do.’ He extended a hand that Poppy shook with a slightly quizzical look. This was not the sort of place and certainly not the sort of reception she had been expecting.

  ‘Mr Perkins doesn’t work in here?’ she wondered. ‘I couldn’t see what else might be occupied as offices or you know—’

  Mark nodded to the control tower.

  ‘That’s where Mr Perkins works, Ma’am,’ he replied. ‘We’re a bit short of proper working offices here and hereabouts. Thanks to the attentions of Jerry.’

  ‘It certainly looks as though you’ve taken a bit of a hammering.’

  ‘Too right. Hasn’t been much of a party of late, I can tell you. OK – in you go – all the way to the top.’ Mark opened the door at the foot of the control tower. ‘Top floor – you can’t miss it. And the best of British to you. But I wouldn’t go in for too much of the Mr business if I were you. You might get a clout.’

  With a wink and a grin, Mark turned and trotted away back to his friends, leaving Poppy to climb up the stone steps to the top of the tower.

  The heavy wood door was closed so Poppy knocked firmly and stood back, waiting to be asked in. She didn’t have to wait long.

  ‘Come!’ a voice hollered almost immediately. ‘Come!’

  Poppy pushed the door open and went in. Far from being confronted by the man in overalls whom she had been expecting to see, she found herself staring at a tall, elegant middle-aged woman in a spotless white motor racing suit, with a head of jet black hair and a full and beautifully painted red mouth, seated with her feet up on her desk fondling a small black pug dog that was sitting on her knee.

  ‘Good,’ the woman said, turning round in her swivel chair. ‘Young Poppy Meynell, I take it. Yes? Jolly good – come in then, come in. Survived the Antipodes, did you? They’re a good crowd of lads, don’t worry – in fact they’re a damn’ sight more than that. They’re an exceptional bunch of young men altogether, as you’ll see. This your dog? What a grand little fellow. Bring him over here at once so that he can meet Ron. This is Ron – he loves other dogs and I imagine from the way your chap is wagging his tail he likes a bit of company too. Why don’t you let him off his lead and I’ll put Ron here down and they can get to know each other while I put you in the picture. Have a good journey? Bet it was hell. Don’t go anywhere by train now if I can help it – best to fly where you can. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there, is it? Want a drink or something? Or still a bit early, is it? I’ve got some half decent whisky, or some totally decent French brandy – you choose. Tell you what – I’ll make us some coffee and we’ll lace it up a bit and get the old blood running, that’s the ticket. Now what have they told you about me? About this place? B—, knowing them. I’m Trafford Perkins, we know who you are, and you’re here to learn about budgering up engines and the like. Know anything about engines? From the look of you I should think you know not a thing. I certainly didn’t know a solitary thing about engines when I was a gel – all I knew was you turned a key, pressed a button and hoped it fired. Now I can strip a six cylinder in my sleep and put it back together. Nothing to it – you’ll see. Where’s the damn’ kettle gone? See? Told you they’d hit it off mmm? Told you.’

  She pointed to the two dogs who were now busy playing together as if they had known each other all their lives, the way dogs can do, with George allowing Ron to best him since he was the newcomer and Ron was the boss.

  ‘How do you like your coffee? This is the real stuff, you know. Smuggled all the way from Holland. One of the good things about having an airfield is what sometimes comes in. You won’t find yourself going short of much up here. Flown, have you? Ever been up? Left the ground at all? I don’t imagine so. What chance? Unless you did any flying before the war – but I doubt that. You’d have been in pigtails and white socks still. I started flying in the Twenties, when I imagine I was possibly even younger than you are – no, I’d have been quite a lot younger. Considerably so. What age was I, in fact? Yes – nineteen. I was nineteen, of course I was. Still – that’s not what you’re here for, mmm? You are here to learn about engines. And how to budger ’em up.’ She gave a huge but not unattractive laugh, banged the tin kettle on a small gas ring, lit it, then sat back down in her swivel chair, thumping the desk that was set in front of her. ‘That’s part of a de Havilland engine,’ she continued, indicating a selection of oily bits and pieces that littered her worktop. ‘When you’re ready – because you certainly can’t work in those clothes – I’ll show you what goes where and what don’t. I’ll fix you up with some sort of boiler suit or some such – unless you fancy a set of these? Like mine? This is my old motor racing suit – not that I don’t or won’t still race, because as soon as this fudging war is over, yours truly’ll be back behind the wheel of her ERA before you can say Adolf’s dead, and pray God that will be tomorrow, if not sooner. Yes, the sooner I can get back behind the wheel the happier I shall be – like motor racing, do you? Sport of the gods, I tell you. I was in Italy for two years before all this nonsense started – thought I could drive until I met Signor Fabio. There was a driver. I have never seen a man handle a car the way Paulo Fabio handled a car. He’s dead now, sadly – great loss, crying shame. Shunted off by guess what – a German in the Italian Grand Prix. Took his line and shunted him into the trees. Boom. End of one of the world’s great drivers. Taught me everything I know about driving – we even got married for a while. Didn’t last – how could it? We both wanted to drive. Divine man, quite the best driver I have ever met. Not a bad lover either. Terrible husband, not a bad lover. Coffee. Let’s have that coffee, and a lace of the old French – then we must have a good chat and get to know each other. Mmm?’

  That was Poppy’s introduction to a person she would come to consider to be the most astonishing character she had so far met. Previously she had put Cissie Lavington, Eugene Hackett and Jack Ward top of her list of People She Would Never Forget, but after meeting Mrs Trafford Perkins in an all but deserted aerodrome in the middle of the flatlands one misty September morning a new star was in the ascendancy. Even as she stood there for those first few breathtaking minutes of their newly formed acquaintance, Poppy knew she had just met someone who would have a profound influence on her life.

  More than that, Poppy felt a sense of personal liberation, as if she was about to discover something entirely new about herself that would drive her life forward in a totally new direction. She was also all at once aware that she didn’t have to go on worrying herself half to death about Scott because there was simply no point. By doing so she was denying herself any sort of life and therefore the chance to help fight for the country she had grown to love so much. It was not a question of losing her affection for her absent husband. She still loved Scott, in fact as a result of her rediscovered determination probably more than she had ever loved him before, but she also had a duty to herself. You might give your heart to a man, she thought as she looked into the clear blue skies through the control tower window, but your soul had always to remain your own.

  For a while Helen Maddox had some difficulty locating Jack, but then, as she thought to herself, working her way steadily through the crowded bar, when had it ever been otherwise? Jack Ward had the ability to disappear. As the chameleon blends with the greatest subtlety into its background, so too did Jack Ward have the knack of melting into whatever landscape he might be in. Like many before her and those yet to come, Helen had very soon appreciated this facet of Jack’s character, an ability he used to the full by never drawing attention to himself by his clothes, his mannerisms, or most of all his voice. Jack Ward never raised his voice. In one way he had no need to do so, since there was enough implicit authority in the way he spoke to bring anyone to heel. All he had to do to add some persuasion was to remove any trace of warmth from his famously melodic tones. Helen had seen him do it on occasion – a change of key very often accompanied by the slow removal of his s
pectacles and a subsequent steady gaze at the object of his attentions, and when she had seen the effect it had on the victim Helen had hoped and prayed that he would never turn such a power on to her.

  But just at that particular moment she found herself wishing her friend and mentor wouldn’t make himself quite so invisible since she couldn’t see his familiar stocky figure anywhere. The saloon bar was packed with office workers like herself who had clocked off, all dying for some sort of refreshment before making their various journeys home.

  ‘Hiya, kid,’ an unmistakable voice said from behind her. ‘Of all the gin joints in the world, you had to pick this one.’

  ‘Jack?’ Helen said, turning round to see a familiar moon face staring at her over the top of an equally familiar and now happily mended briar pipe. ‘What was that you said?’

  ‘From Casablanca,’ he said, steering her to the bar. ‘Great flick with Ingrid Bergman and what’s his name. Humphrey Bogart. Saw it last night – and I wouldn’t mind seeing it again, it’s so good. We could go tonight. The usual?’

  Helen nodded, thoughtfully chewing her bottom lip. There was nothing she’d love more than to go to the pictures with Jack that evening, but she had another appointment, one she couldn’t and mustn’t break. She didn’t know how to put it to Jack because even though he wouldn’t show any emotion at all she knew how disappointed he would be, yet she had to refuse.

  ‘One ever so luvverly gin and lime,’ he said, handing Helen her glass. ‘We could just catch the last house, if we hurry.’ He checked his wristwatch to make sure. ‘It really is one heck of a good flick. You’ll enjoy it.’

  ‘Could we make it another night, Jack? It’s a bit short notice.’

  ‘Short notice never did no one no harm, didn’t you know that?’ Jack mused, looking at her over his spectacles as he relit his pipe. ‘Carpe diem.’

  ‘I never know what that means.’

  ‘Seize the moment. Live the day. Something like that. How’s life in Baker Street?’

  ‘Much as I thought it might be,’ Helen replied. ‘Dull. All filing.’

  ‘Things have to take their course,’ Jack murmured. ‘Good things come to those who wait. Shallow end first and all that. So. What about the flick? Are you on?’

  ‘I have to get home Jack. As I said, it’s a bit short notice.’

  ‘You don’t have anyone to get home to,’ Jack said bluntly but with a slight smile. ‘Unless there’s something you’re not telling me.’

  ‘You’ll only laugh,’ Helen replied a little sadly. ‘It’s my cat. She hasn’t been at all well.’

  ‘Why should I laugh? You know I like cats. What’s wrong with her?’

  ‘She’s not eating. And she was sick all last night.’

  ‘Then you must get home at once, Helen. You shouldn’t even have bothered meeting me for a drink.’

  ‘I couldn’t get hold of you.’

  ‘When people don’t show, in this job, it’s my job to understand.’

  ‘But I’m not active, Jack,’ she laughed, but keeping her voice down. ‘I’m desk-bound.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Jack mused. ‘I might have some news for you on that front. You might have to go visiting some of your relations.’

  Helen looked at him, widening her eyes slightly, a thrill of pleasure running through her at the thought of the possible chance of another mission.

  ‘So go on,’ Jack urged her. ‘Finish your drink and off you go to your cat. Hope she’s OK – and I’ll be in touch.’

  He was gone by the time Helen finished her drink and put her glass down. She gave a long, slow look round but he had vanished as expertly as he had arrived. Helen pulled the belt on her raincoat tight, picked up her bag and went out into the fogbound evening.

  She had not been walking very long before she became certain that she could hear a regular footfall behind her, as if someone was close on her tail, so she quickened her pace, crossing the road backwards and forwards in the ever thickening fog, so that by the time she had crossed the Marylebone road and was heading north to Swiss Cottage the streets directly behind her had fallen oddly silent.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘Billy?’ Marjorie called over the sound of the siren. ‘Billy?’

  The door under the cottage stairs opened and Billy’s face peered out.

  ‘I might have known it,’ Marjorie sighed. ‘You spend all your time in there.’

  ‘I have to have somewhere quiet to think, sis.’

  ‘It’s not going to be very quiet for a while now – in case you haven’t heard it, there’s the siren.’

  Billy listened, head cocked, just managing to hear the distant wail from the air raid siren positioned on top of the fire station in the village.

  ‘You’d best come in here then, sis, as usual,’ Billy said, opening the cupboard door a little wider.

  ‘Ta muchly I don’t think,’ Marjorie said, squeezing herself in. ‘Oh, Lord – it’s even more cluttered than usual. What have you been up to now?’

  Marjorie pretended to be irritated by Billy’s mess and jumble but secretly she was pleased that he had become so preoccupied with what he called his notions, since his disappointment over his enlistment. He seemed to spend every free moment in the place he had now made his den, the tiny little cupboard tucked away under the stairs that he had rigged up like a miniature workshop, with a worktop fitted across under the lower part of the stairs and a board fixed to the wall on which were pinned lists of tasks done and various agendas for things yet to be invented. He had even rigged himself a working light that could be turned on and off at a neck switch.

  ‘If you pull that blackout curtain a bit tighter, Marge, we could have the light on. We’ll be perfectly all right. I double-checked the security.’

  With another exaggerated sigh Marjorie made sure the dark velveteen drape was covering the cracks in the door while Billy reached up and turned on his light.

  ‘Right,’ Marjorie whispered. ‘So what have you got for us tonight?’

  ‘There’s no need to whisper, Marge,’ Billy replied, clicking his tongue at her apparent stupidity. ‘Jerry’s hardly going to hear us hid away under the stairs, is he? And you wait till you see this.’

  ‘I don’t think I can,’ Marjorie replied facetiously. ‘The excitement is overcoming me fast.’

  ‘I got the idea the other day in Major F’s office. I was helping Miss Budge sort out the envelopes – all the TS ones that had come in by bike—’

  ‘You shouldn’t be doing that,’ Marjorie interrupted. ‘You’re not meant to go near anything Top Secret.’

  ‘I was only sorting ’em out, Marge. I weren’t reading the bloomin’ things.’

  ‘I should think not. Not that you could anyway – but even so, if any of them had come open . . .’

  ‘I don’t need ’em to be open,’ Billy said slyly. ‘Not with this.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Marjorie stared closely at the hyper-thin length of what looked like silvered wire inserted in the wooden handle of a small screwdriver instead of the usual blade. ‘What on earth is it?’

  ‘Just you wait,’ Billy replied with relish. ‘You just wait and see. ’Cos what I was thinking about, up in Major F’s office, was there’s always a space at the sides of every envelope you care to think of, right?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Marjorie shrugged. ‘You tell me.’

  ‘Yeah. Well, there is. Envelopes seal in the middle, or as far as they can go cross the back like, but there’s always a gap. You think about it. Better still, have a butcher’s.’

  Billy handed her a large brown foolscap envelope, officially sealed.

  ‘Where did you get this? It’s Top Secret!’

  ‘Where d’you think? ’Ere – give it back.’ Billy took the envelope and held it up in front of him.

  ‘They’ll send you to the Tower if you’re not careful, Billy.’

  ‘It’s a fake, sis.’ Billy grinned. ‘You don’t think I’m daft enough to steal a real TS, do you? This is
an old envelope I rescued, and resealed with a phoney letter in it. For demonstration porpoises only. Right.’

  Biting his lip hard with his upper teeth, Billy inserted the end of the long needle-like probe in the gap between the unsealed end of the flap and the envelope itself.

  ‘Right,’ Billy said quietly. ‘Now if I twist this round and round – ever so carefully, and ever so slowly – I can remove the contents without disturbing the seal on the envelope, read ’em, and then – if I’m really clever – put ’em back again.’

  As he spoke Billy was doing exactly what he was describing, until he had produced a letter from inside the envelope, wrapped around his invention.

  ‘Good heavens above,’ Marjorie murmured, genuinely astonished. ‘Well I never did.’

  ‘There are all sorts of ways you can use this – as I’m sure Major F will be the first to appreciate.’

  ‘I wonder about you sometimes, Billy, you know. Where it all came from. I wonder who your parents were, and whether or not one of them was some sort of wizard like you. You must have got it from somewhere.’

  Billy grinned at her and tapped the front of his head, to indicate that in his estimation that’s where everything sprang from, before proceeding to re-insert the letter by way of a reverse of his procedure.

  ‘Suppose I learned a lot of stuff from when I was doing conjuring,’ he observed. ‘A lot of sleight of hand and that sort of dexterity comes in dead useful later on, you know. As you just seen.’

  In the distance there was a thump and a crumping noise as a bomb landed somewhere within their vicinity. Suddenly frightened, Marjorie hugged Billy to her, only for Billy to adjust the position so that he was protecting her. With a private smile Marjorie appreciated the readjustment, realising that even though Billy had failed to be enlisted, there was no doubt that he was no longer her adopted baby brother.

  ‘Are you going to tell the major about your invention?’ she wondered, after a silence while they both waited hopefully for the All Clear to sound. ‘I think you should.’