The Face of Eve

by Betty Burton

  DB then produced a box she had been hiding under her seat. ‘Ta-raa!’ It contained an enormous cottage loaf and a basin of the most delicious-smelling beef dripping.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Geordie said. ‘If I got captured and an interrogator offered me this in return for my secret, I’d have to take the bread and dripping.’

  Johnny, dipping a chunk of bread into the brown jelly, said, ‘And, oh my black monkey god – I’d be just as weak.’

  ‘Where—’

  ‘Don’t ask, Jim.’

  ‘Eve stole it.’

  ‘Miss Butter-wouldn’t-melt et cetera stole it?’

  ‘Where—’

  ‘Shall I tell them, Eve?’

  ‘Let Paul. He’s less likely to be hauled over the coals.’

  ‘I don’t even know what it’s called – the big manor house…’

  ‘Where the Dowager lives?’

  ‘I’m impressed.’

  ‘Her guards have become complaisant. It was a doddle.’

  ‘So,’ DB said, ‘we girls are a success then – eh, Pecs?’

  ‘I never heard a word of that.’

  Inevitably somebody said, ‘Where do you think we’ll be tomorrow?’

  Cilia said, ‘On my way to cipher school. I’d like Liz to come too, but you haven’t the brains, have you?’

  Liz flicked a dough-ball at her friend, which started more let-out-of-school behaviour until Pecs called a halt.

  ‘I went to a half-ass school near Southampton Docks where we was taught better manners than you society ladies.’

  ‘Pecs darling,’ Anomie said, ‘I’d have put a skirt on if I thought we were going to be ladylike.’

  ‘I’ll tell you something – and if you repeats it I’ll put in a report on you. But when I heard that I was getting a bunch of wimmin to train up, I asked them what the hell they thought I could do to get a bunch of tulips as fit and hard as my men. But you have… By God, girls, you proved yourself as good as the blokes. I’m proud of you – honest to God, I’m proud of you – and I reckon I deserve a putty medal for doing it.’

  They joked and jeered, but his praise was sincere, which made them all feel good, so that when they reached Boscombe Down airfield, Jim’s friend who had organised the visit joked about them being the entertainment from ENSA.

  In ones and twos, they went up for short spins and came back full of enthusiasm. When Eve heard that a Tiger Moth would be coming in, she asked if she could go up in that. The Moth landed shortly before Paul and Tommy were taken up in the training aircraft in which they would soon be learning.

  The Tiger Moth pilot was willing to do a quick turn-around for somebody as enthusiastic about the plane as he was himself.

  ‘Why didn’t you want to go up in the trainer?’ he asked Eve.

  Helmeted and goggled, Eve smiled broadly.

  ‘Just because…’ indicating that her reason for wanting the Moth must be self-evident: flimsy-lookings double wings, open cockpits, with what looked like pram wheels on sticks.

  The pilot sat in the rear cockpit. The take-off was quick, the little aeroplane rocking a little from side to side until it was clear of the airfield, when it became as beautiful and well-behaved as any of the more stable-looking training craft. After five minutes of flying straight out over the sea, the pilot banked, turned and flew in the direction of Boscombe Down.

  Ahead, Eve saw something she couldn’t at first quite believe: a column of thick, black smoke.

  Turning to the pilot, she indicated what she was seeing and he put up a thumb, indicating that he understood. Even before they approached the runway, Eve felt a terrible feeling of dread.

  It could only be Paul and Tommy. They were the only ones in the air when the Tiger Moth took off.

  Lower and lower Eve and her pilot came in. First she saw an indistinct mess of smoke from which protruded an upended tail and one bent wing. The crash was encircled by little figures. Then she saw a green fire engine and a white ambulance with a red cross. And fire. The pilot landed the Tiger Moth on a runway well away from the accident.

  Eve tried to scramble out. In her hurry she managed to get herself caught in the safety harness. The pilot climbed out and helped. ‘Stay here.’

  ‘It’s my friends… my friend.’

  ‘You can’t do anything.’

  ‘Don’t be so bloody stupid, of course I can’t. They’ve crashed.’

  As she jumped to the ground she was violently sick, the one time in weeks that the rejection of what she had eaten was spontaneous. The pilot, a burly, middle-aged man, held her tightly.

  ‘Hold on there, girl. We don’t know yet what happened.’

  The white ambulance moved away, its bell ringing. When Eve tried to run, the pilot still held on to her. ‘No!’

  With the foul taste of bile in her mouth, and her limbs weak, she was glad of his strength. ‘He was going to be a father at Christmas.’

  ‘You don’t know…’

  She nodded but she knew all right. It was just the kind of card Fate dealt. Think for a moment that you are happy. The ace of spades is flicked at you.

  An RAF driver took her back to the Priory alone. The others had been taken away to be treated for shock and to give evidence of what they had seen. There would be an inquiry. Two passengers together should not have been allowed to take off.

  Tommy and the pilot were badly burned. Paul had been killed.

  16

  WRNS Petty Officer Glasspool stood at the top of a flight of steps that led up to the front doors of Griffon House and watched as a dark blue Royal Navy lorry backed up to the building.

  As the driver drew up directly in front of the steps, two able seamen jumped down and let down the tailboard, from where three more seamen appeared. The driver, holding a bunch of papers attached to a clipboard, saluted Glasspool and mounted the steps.

  ‘Morning, ma’am. Delivery of crates.’ He consulted his clipboard. ‘Furniture and fittings in the name of First Lieutenant Prince Raffi something or other.’

  ‘That’s near enough. We’ve been expecting these things. Unload the large crates and carry them up to the first-floor front. Make sure you all wipe your feet. Get a move on. The carpenters and fitters have been here since 08.00 hours.’

  ‘Sorry, ma’am, unexploded bomb. All the streets leading to the seafront is closed off. Had to come a very circuitous route. Not making no excuses, that’s what made us late, ma’am.’

  The four carpenters and fitters were not navy men; they were obviously too old to be called up. They sat silently watching as the ABs toiled up the two flights of stairs leading to the first floor.

  ‘Are you Figs? Don’t know what’s in these but, I tell you, they’re a pretty solid weight.’

  ‘Fi-gees.’

  Mr Figes, a local craftsman running a small private company and employing only the best tradesmen, knew what was in them – at least he thought he knew: some sort of panelling and a grand sort of sideboard – ‘Mahogany fittings, with engraved glass lights and brass trim’, which, according to his work sheet, was to be re-erected with extreme skill and in the strictest of confidence. ‘Also furniture and furnishings – to be delivered in tandem with the panels and fittings.’ Mr Figes had been granted this contract because he was a member of the local grand lodge, where reliable businessmen with sealed lips and a liking for cash contracts were likely to be found.

  Mr Figes, who took the strict confidentiality seriously, would not allow his men to take nails out of the packing cases until the RN transport had left and the large gates were closed. PO Glasspool was below, unpacking a crate of the most beautiful drapes and hangings she had ever seen in her life, and Glasspool had attended art school.

  The removal of the sides of several wooden crates and much straw and hessian packing took the workmen until morning break, and when they had poured dark tea from Thermos flasks and unpacked the treat of a Ministry of Food recipe rock cake provided by Mr Figes’ joiner’s wife, the four of them – Figes h
imself, the joiner, French polisher and glazier – sat on upturned boxes and stared with confusion and English disbelief at what they had laid out on the floor of the large, sea-facing room.

  It wasn’t the place of any of the craftsmen to speak, so it behove Mr Figes to tackle the matter head on. ‘First thing we have to accept is that we’re all men of the world, and not schoolgirls.’ Gestures of bravado accepted this as read. ‘And while we might not see a deal of this kind of thing around here, it’s commonplace in some places – especially hot countries and the like.’

  ‘Didn’t you say it was some Mufti or Mogul who had it dismantled and sent down?’

  ‘Look, Bert Froggat, that was given to me as confidential information, and I told you in confidence. It isn’t something to be blabbed about. Specialised work – that’s only one reason why we were chosen. The other is my reputation. Over the years I’ve seen the insides of a lot of grand houses. People of that ilk don’t want all and sundry knowing that their new WC pan and hand-basin have got roses climbing up them. And that’s how it has to be in Griffon House.’

  Bert Froggat, like the others, had no need to be told yet again. They had worked for ‘Figes, Established 1896’ for most of their lives. They knew as much about WC pans with roses under the glaze as he did. But he owned the business, got the contracts and paid the wages, so if he wanted to talk, then let him. Even so, the glazier Bert could not resist saying, ‘This lot isn’t exactly roses, boss.’

  Mr Figes smiled and wagged his head. ‘Well, no, not your average roses.’ They enjoyed a few minutes of quiet amusement of a kind that not every morning break brought. The boss was right, such things were commonplace in hot countries, but here on the South Coast of England, with its clear light that rebounded from the cold sea, the images and carvings lost something of their mystery and eroticism. Surely, breasts like those on the figures carved into the uprights had never seen the light of day outside India, and for sure, no English woman would hold them out and push them at you as though she was selling melons.

  The French polisher ran his professional hand over a few buttocks and breasts. ‘A classy bit of workmanship.’

  ‘Think it will ever take on, George?’ The glazier held up one of the smaller panes of bevel-edged frosted glass on which was a finely etched image. ‘What do you think she’s supposed to be doing? Looks like she’s being got at fore and aft.’

  ‘That’s what she is.’

  ‘Don’t look comfortable.’

  ‘It isn’t supposed to be comfortable, it’s supposed to be…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, fair dos all round for the blokes, I’d say. They can have two husbands in some of these countries, so I suppose if both wants it at the same time, she has to do the best she can.’

  * * *

  ‘May I say something, ma’am?’ Glasspool was fortunate in having such an approachable senior, otherwise she might not have mentioned the work at Griffon House. She herself appreciated any bit of information that came to her by way of shore-base gossip; it sometimes kept you one step ahead of the field. She had already achieved her first move towards her ambition to wear a tricorn hat and gold lace. She was a firm believer in the maxim about the way to the top being as much about who you know as what you know.

  ‘Of course, Glasspool, speak away.’

  ‘Well, ma’am, that assignment at Griffon House – I wondered whether you were aware of its actual… well, nature.’

  ‘Straightforward. Covered by the paperwork. Delivered to Griffon House by the men’s navee… fixtures and fittings. Local businessman contracted to install. Something wrong?’

  ‘No, ma’am, I think I coped very well in the circumstances, and I must say that the workmen were very proper. They hung dustsheets over the offending pieces.’

  ‘Glasspool, I haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about.’

  ‘I imagined you might not. The fittings turn out to be a cocktail bar, plus easy chairs and occasional tables and drapes. Must have cost a bomb, all hand-carved and etched glass. But, to be frank, ma’am, it’s a whole lot of dirty pictures and carvings.’

  PO Glasspool observed as queries raced through her senior officer’s mind.

  ‘I see. There was no way that anyone here could have known that, of course. I supposed the cloak-and-dagger stuff with the C&E was that Customs didn’t want any hassle with the top brass whose furniture and fittings these are. The carpenters – just the local men, you say; no service types there?’

  ‘Only the RN transport – driver and three. I oversaw the off-loading and then completed the paperwork.’

  ‘Good. From here on, Griffon House receives top security on all counts. For that reason you have been hand-picked to liaise and oversee as I was.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘The workmen must be briefed appropriately. Leave that to me. These things have a way of escaping into rumour, which is the last thing Griffon House needs.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘You replaced the dustsheets?’

  ‘And locked the door. There are still workmen in the house. The air-raid shelter work is still going on in the basement.’

  ‘Two days more and that will be completed. Three days to make the basement comfortable, and then we can get in and complete the furnishing.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. I must say, I’m rather keen to get going on that.’

  ‘I’m not surprised, opportunity of a lifetime.’

  ‘Absolutely, ma’am. My father said that taking a course in fabrics at art school would always come in useful to a girl, but I rather think he meant running up curtains in suburbia.’

  ‘These carvings… how crude are they?’

  ‘Actually, not crude at all – in fact, very beautiful works of art, Eastern erotic style, sexually explicit, but not as one sees clumsily done in some of the plain-brown-wrapper type of manual. Not that I am an art expert. Maybe you should give the room the once-over yourself, ma’am.’

  The only response was a pursing of the senior officer’s lips and a smile invading her eyes.

  * * *

  A lawyer, a naval officer and Mr Figes met in the lawyer’s chambers. Mr Figes – being the only one to have seen the artistry, as well as having installed it in a first-floor room in Griffon House – had every reason to be indignant that it was thought necessary to, in the words of the naval officer, ensure that he and his men ‘zip your lips’, and then went on to dangle promises of contracts for work on other buildings in the vicinity of Griffon House to the ‘right sort of discreet and reliable local businessman.’

  ‘I, sir,’ said Mr Figes with dignity, ‘have never been otherwise. Even when working on the most menial of establishments. My reputation has been built upon skill and sensitivity.’

  But he couldn’t take on the navy alone so he signed an agreement to keep quiet none the less.

  17

  As ordered the day before yesterday – that appalling last day of the Finishing School course, when Paul had been killed – Eve was heading for London, due to report to Colonel Linder in the morning. David Hatton had telephoned the Priory to ask if she would accept accommodation for the night with a friend of his who had been a volunteer with the Abraham Lincolns. ‘He just wants to hear how things are now from someone who’s seen the aftermath.’

  The train on which she was travelling was delayed. It had dragged itself very slowly along the last three miles of track. Although there was a bit of desultory grumbling and bored sighs among the passengers, Eve, in her withdrawn state of grief over Paul, and concern for Electra and DB, did not notice.

  By the time Eve had left the Priory, DB had not returned from Boscombe. None of them had. It had been dreadful. She’d gone to see the Duty Admin Officer, hoping to get some news of them, but all that he’d said was that they were still making reports and that Eve should leave at once.

  ‘It should have been me, sir, in that trainer. Paul Smyth was expecting to be married soon.’

&nb
sp; ‘It’s like that – a roll of the dice – so don’t have any sense of guilt because you are alive and others are not. What have you been doing here these past weeks if you haven’t learned that?’

  She had learned that. Bureau people needed to be able to walk away from death in a way others could not. That was the theory.

  Now somebody on the train said quietly, almost like a moan, ‘Oh! Oh!’ and suddenly, all Eve’s self-centred thoughts were dispelled. Everyone in that compartment seemed to draw breath simultaneously. The train was moving sufficiently to reveal a panorama that was shocking.

  Only weeks ago, in Spain, Eve had walked amongst some of the blitzed buildings that time was beginning to make into historical ruins as they gradually acquired a covering of weed and regrowth. The rubble that had been in the streets had been cleared, and repair and rebuilding had started. Madrid’s wounds had acquired healing scars.

  But this was the raw wound.

  Here she was on a high embankment, an audience for last night’s blitz. It was chilling. She had been able to cope with the blitzing of Spanish cities and towns because she was engaged in helping, doing something, carrying the injured, bringing in supplies.

  To be stuck up here, looking down, was appalling. She had eaten very little since she left the Priory, yet she felt sick. Sweat formed around her mouth and her heart beat fast. She closed her eyes. Deep breaths, deep breaths.

  Under collapsed buildings there could be people still bleeding and dying. There could be mothers down there, shielding babies with their own dead bodies; fathers tearing at rubble with bare hands, being pulled off by rescuers who knew that the rest of the building could fall any second. There were trails of smoke where timbers, deeply buried, were smouldering now, but any draw of oxygen could make them flare again.

  The worst time for Eve in the civil war had been when, out of a clear blue sky, the centre of a small village had been blown apart. Children waiting at the bus stop, women out marketing, men doing fieldwork – there had been so much raw flesh, so much burning. She had been so absorbed in the mayhem that she hadn’t noticed the utter silence because the blast had deafened her. But the screams and cries were there, if anything worse, in her imagination and nightmares.