Eve shook her head. ‘Why would she have? She was quite a bit older than I am. I had only just arrived in Spain, I could have been anybody, a gossip. We were complete strangers.’
‘It appears that when you came into the picture, she actually had taken an overdose of Aspirin, but vomited it up before any harm was done, then she collapsed during an operation. You know the rest. I really shouldn’t be telling you all this, but I trust you. And Vladim has already said enough to make you curious. So now you know why we came here, and why you were jumped on when you mentioned being a friend of Sister Wineapple.’ She felt in her briefcase and brought out a small phial with a red rubber stopper containing a red powder. ‘I was given this today. Powdered chilli, the little fierce ones – diablos. They say go for his eyes or his willy. I guess I’d go for the willy.’
A medic? Could a rapist be a man like that, a doctor or an orderly? That seemed difficult to believe. She had always supposed that rapists were drunks or mental cases, not educated men. She had only ever known one girl who had been raped – it had been by her brother and his friends. At the time, it had been an open secret whispered and shuddered at. Everyone agreed that the whole family were disgusting, and lived like animals.
It was that incident which had fixed the image of a rapist for Eve. A vicious boy of low intelligence, he grew up to be a depraved man. At the time she had wondered briefly about her own brothers, not in relation to rape but rather as men with sexual needs. The blame had settled on the girl who had been sent away for years.
‘Why you and the Russians? That seems an unlikely combination.’
Eve could tell even before Alex started to speak that she was not going to get a straight answer. And she was right. All that Alex would say was, ‘There’s a possibility that a Russian was involved and Wineapple worked in a British hospital.’
It was one thing to talk about the Wineapple affair which, if left unresolved, could quickly lead to nervousness among the women and a lowering of morale, but it was quite another to mention Vladim and the SIM, and herself and LOLO and the importance of secret intelligence. Alexander, mostly guided by her instinct and observations, had already suggested that Anders might prove to be a good LOLO candidate, and to that end had requested information about her. That was weeks ago, and so far London had reported nothing. Anders was certainly no gossip and, except for Ozz Lavender, she seemed to be a loner. Highly intelligent, friendly, personable, but still a loner. Alex had mentioned it to Vladim. Perhaps that was why he had got himself into her bed last night. If Carl Alexander had been able to persuade Helan Povey to left-wing politics in bed, then anything was possible when two heads shared one pillow. Sex was the most powerful weapon of all, but one must know how and when to employ it. Vladim would be good at that. He was the most virile and attractive man she had seen since Carl.
Still puzzled by Alex’s part in this affair, Eve asked, ‘Are you a political commissar?’
‘No.’ Alex smiled, making light of it. ‘Nor Scotland Yard. Well, I think I’ll go to my room and have ten minutes’ rest. Shall I leave you the jacket?’
‘If you don’t mind.’
Eve sat on, hugging the jacket and smoking, adding water to the dregs in the teapot until it poured almost clear. She tried to think back to that week at the villa, but so much had happened in the meantime. Had she been aware of what had brought Sophie to that state, then she would have been more attentive. Fatigue from overwork. Sophie Wineapple had fallen into her bed, buried her head in the pillows and slept.
Had she been sleeping or only turning her face to the wall, trying to ignore the mess she was in?
What would I do? I’d want to tell somebody, make a fuss.
* * *
That evening, after the four of them had eaten together, Dimitri asked if she would like to go for a walk again. The evening was cold. During the weeks and weeks of sunshine, she had never really believed that Spain would have a winter. There had been rain and mists; she had driven through roads that had turned to mush in minutes, but always the sun had come out.
Alexander insisted that Eve wear the motoring jacket. It was bulky and heavy but she was grateful for its protection. Dimitri was perceptive enough to recognize that the coat was more than protection from the cold.
‘You have not necessary be protected from me. This Wineapple is bad business, for men too. Men must keep woman from harm, is the work of men to do. I make castrati of such men.’ He turned to face her and drew her hand into his long military coat. ‘This must be for pleasure, not for violate. For nice, good pleasures.’ ‘This’ was an erection. She flinched, but he held on to her hand. ‘Do not let the bad thing that happened to Wineapple make a bad thing for us. I never would hurt you. I never would hurt any women. I like you very much. We like good sex together last night, yes? You like to do it some more? I like you very much to do sex with, very much.’
Darkness had fallen, but they had kept to the streets, away from the overgrown public garden, away from alleyways and bomb-sites. She was confused. As soon as she had felt the warm, hard prospect of good sex, she had wanted it, yet all that had happened today made her hold back. She hardly knew him, but that had been half the thrill of taking him into her room. Love with a stranger. Last night she had found the idea stimulating.
Their steps led them back to the Paradiso, which they entered through the front doors. The place was almost empty. The botones appeared, smiled broadly and asked Eve if she wanted tea.
‘Tea, Major Vladim?’
He smiled broadly. ‘This is only thing you offer. Please, tea. Sit here?’ He pointed to the courtyard with its badly tended pots of climbing plants and groups of English-style wicker chairs.
Settled in one of the courtyard’s pretty alcoves, she poured tea as he unbuttoned his great winter coat and skimmed his hat on to an empty chair. ‘I think,’ she said, wanting to get things settled between them without hurting his feelings, ‘I think perhaps last night was a mistake, Dimitri. We really have no business getting involved – a commissar and an aid-worker.’
‘I am not fool, Eve. Last night you were not involve with commissar, you involve with Dimitri. Is fear because of Wineapple?’
‘No! Yes. It is not because I don’t trust, well, I don’t know you. You don’t know me. I expect you think that I have been with… had, what you called games with fun, with a lot of men. It’s not true. Last night was special, was new. I have never done such a thing before. You think I am… you understand “easy woman”?’
‘Unmoral? Go with all the men?’
She nodded.
He shrugged as though he hadn’t thought about it, or if he had then it was not important. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘I know words. Not so good to put words together. I am good student of language when child. Speak French fine and German good, Spanish perfect good. Now I get better speak English. I like to speak words for bed for you to understand. I do not think that you are easy woman. No. Not go with all men.’
Suddenly it seemed important that he should understand that last night had been unusual. ‘Only one.’ She held up an emphatic forefinger. ‘One man.’
‘One man. I have four women, maybe five, six… Not one now. They marry… not marry Dimitri.’
‘I want you to understand, I have only been with one man. One time, with one man. Only one.’ To her ears it sounded as though her voice echoed in the deserted courtyard. How stupid! Why should it matter that he understand?
‘One, two, four, is not problem. You beautiful, desirable. Men want much to sleep with beautiful women. I stay away tonight. I understand. We drink tea. You return Albacete two days. I not come to your room?’ Narrowing his eyes and frowning, leaning close and lowering his voice, he asked, ‘Is right this what I understand you say? Only one time you have man for love? You are virgin then you have one man, and then Dimitri? Is correct?’
She found his directness embarrassing. ‘Yes.’
They sat silently together. She did feel at ease with the big R
ussian. What was the good of having instinct if you ignored it? Because of what happened to Sophie Wineapple, did Eve Anders have to suspect every man she met? Did she have to keep a phial of burning pepper powder to hand when she was alone with a man?
He was still in her bed when the sun came up.
She looked down at him and thought of the way he made love and how easy it would be to fall for a man with that kind of understanding.
Ten
By the time winter had settled in, Eve Anders was a heavy-vehicle driver stationed in Madrid. General Franco’s forces were now occupying more than fifty per cent of what had been the Democratic Republic of Spain. They also now had the Canary and most of the Balearic Islands and Spanish Morocco.
One by one, during 1937, foreign governments recognized the occupied territories as a Francoist state.
The League of Nations was at long last forced to recognize that the policy of non-intervention had failed the Republic of Spain, one of its democratically elected members.
Arms now flowed in: from Portugal, Germany and Italy for the invading army; and from the Soviet Union for the Republic.
By the time Eve had been to the Auto-Parc to collect her big truck, the invading armies were surging across the country.
The Nationalists had set up headquarters in Burgos, and it was from there that the conquered part of Spain was governed.
The Vatican had blessed the fascist crusade.
Britain had diplomats and businessmen in Burgos.
The Texas Oil Company was supplying petroleum openly against the policy of non-intervention in the civil war.
Outside the frontiers of Republican Spain, the world was sure that the end was near. The people within the Republic would not accept that.
The Republic’s problem was that there were weevil grubs gnawing at its roots. As General Franco had boasted when asked if four columns were sufficient to take Madrid: ‘It is the fifth column within that will bring victory to the crusade.’
* * *
David Hatton sat at the desk of a journalist friend who worked on the Daily Herald, a Labour newspaper. He was looking closely at a series of pictures: a group of young men and women, looking for the most part ill-at-ease, receiving some sort of official send-off. He compared them with a passport photograph of Eve Anders. The friend, Archibald Archer, had provided the pictures from the photo archives of his paper. David had provided the passport photo.
Spreading the photos around again, David Hatton said, ‘Do you believe in the Fates, Archie?’
‘Coincidence and luck are more my line. Is that her?’
‘Yes, without doubt. Look.’ He ran a magnifying glass over the pictures of the group, holding it so that his old school-friend could see.
‘I say, a real looker, Hatton. Not surprising you want to trace her.’
‘Not me, Archie, LOLO wants her. You know LOLO, of course?’
‘Yes, I do, but what, for God’s sake, does it stand for?’
‘Los orejas los ojos. Ears and eyes.’
‘Oh, yes, a very subtle title for an information-gathering set-up.’
‘You’re not supposed to be privy to that information, so button up, Archie.’
The Hattons and Archibald Archer had been boarders at the same public school. It espoused, but did not necessarily adhere to, a gentlemanly code, but Archie was as good a man as they came, and David knew that tit-for-tat was a good way of trading in the information business.
‘Looks as though she’s traced, then. Trouble?’
‘No. Somebody in LOLO wants her credentials checked.’
‘For LOLO?’
‘I imagine so.’
‘And…?’
‘Can’t tell you that. But I did know her once. I first met her quite by chance. I was covering a TUC meeting in Bournemouth, went into a dance-hall for a bit of a break to get away from you lot…’
‘What do you mean “we lot”?’
‘You know what I mean – reporters and journalists as a bunch can only be taken in small doses, and Malou French was there all over me like a bag of fleas.’
‘You have a turn of phrase, Hatton. Ever think of taking up this branch of journalism?’
‘I can produce the equivalent of a novel in a single picture or a few yards of movie film.’
‘Still as modest as ever.’
‘About my work, of course. Anyway, to tell you what I know of her, I had most of what I wanted in the can, so I went for a drive along Bournemouth sea-front and I heard the siren call of a dance-hall. And there she was. Totally beautiful, hardly more than a girl, sitting at a table alone, itching to dance. As I now know, she was used to going dancing alone, but that place really wasn’t the cream. If I hadn’t have asked her to dance, some chancer would have.’
‘Lucky girl, Dave. How long ago was that?’
‘A couple of years, I suppose.’
‘And you recognize this woman as the girl?’
‘Damned sure I do, Archie. I’ve met her since but…’
‘But what?’
David Hatton leaned over and took a cigarette from an open box of a hundred on his friend’s desk. ‘I knew her as Louise, not Eve Anders. She would never tell me her surname, nor where she lived, or anything about herself at all. Honestly, Archie, she was so wonderful I couldn’t get her out of my mind. Twice, until now, she turned up in my life. The second time I couldn’t chance losing touch again so, although she wouldn’t agree to me getting in touch with her – maybe I frightened her off being too eager – I did squeeze out of her a promise that she would telephone me.’
‘And…?’
‘She did, but I didn’t take the call and I didn’t know about it until too late. She left a terribly brief note that eventually got to me at the H + H office. I’ve been trying to find her ever since but it’s difficult these days, Spain takes up most of my time. Yet here she is. And her name is Eve Anders.’
‘Evelyn, do you suppose?’
‘That’s what I am hoping that you will be able to discover. It shouldn’t be difficult for you, Archie. Your archives will show when this medical team went out. All that you need to do is to follow up on where she went, and which unit she is attached to, and where she is now.’
‘And her background, her antecedents, her family, friends, what she was doing before she went out to Spain, etcetera. I know the drill, old man.’
‘Well, yes, everything LOLO asks for. But once you have the first bit of information, the rest will be easy.’
‘I’d have thought you would have wanted to do this one yourself, Hatton.’
‘Can’t be done, Archie. Plane leaves this afternoon. The loyalists are on the offensive for once. Teruel. Know it?’
‘Yeah, read it on the tapes this morning. It’d be a shot in the arm for the Republican army, it’s been too long on the defensive.’
‘I know. I came across my brother recently. You remember Rich?’
‘Of course, the great Hatton Senior by fifteen minutes.’
‘Right. Well, later I got to thinking about his way of opposing the blackshirts, compared with mine… ours. My brother’s way is uncomplicated, he knows who the enemy is and goes out to kill them.’
‘Uncomplicated, except that he’ll never get at the real enemy.’
‘Off your soapbox, Archie. We agreed to differ and I told him that I’ll fight my own way. You’ll do it, Archie?’
‘Leave it to me. You be off and catch your plane.’
‘Good lad.’ David Hatton gave his colleague a friendly slap on the back. ‘Not too long, eh, Archie? It’s going to be worse than ever now I know who she is.’
‘Don’t count your chickens, Hatton, she probably wrote you off the day you didn’t take her telephone call.’
‘I know, I know, and she might not prove to be either Louise or Eve Anders.’
‘Funny thing, Hatton, the name seems familiar.’
David Hatton frowned. ‘In what connection?’
‘I can’t think.
Recent, though. Hold on.’ He pressed a button on an internal telephone. ‘Phil, name of Anders ring a bell? Of course. Of course! I knew I’d seen something. Real name? OK, Phil, if you can find it, I’d be grateful. Yes, now. Within a few minutes if you’re able. Bye.’ David Hatton waited expectantly. ‘Well now, Hatton old man. E. V. Anders is some sort of a writer, been sending over a few pieces on Spain. Not the usual stuff but, you know, “A Day in the Life Of” kind of style. Daily Worker published two short pieces, a bit light for them, but good. They were sent on to me suggesting we might consider taking them. Not Herald stuff really. Ah, Phil, that was quick, thanks. Your dad going to sign him up?’
Phil had brought in a couple of sheets of paper.
‘She’s a her, Archie. E.V. stands for Eve, I think. Let’s have the copy back when you’ve done,’ he said and went back to his own desk.
Archie Archer skimmed one of the hand-written sheets, then handed it to David who read it quickly. ‘That’s not half bad, Archie.’
‘Fresh at any rate.’
‘Fresh be damned. E. V. Anders has the makings of a good journalist. Look to your laurels, old man.’
‘On the strength of that piece alone I’d say your LOLO person shouldn’t have any doubts about the loyalty of her protegee. That’s always supposing that your woman and this one are the same.’
‘I’m off, Archie. Do what you can to find out.’
* * *
The news coming into London that December indicated that the Popular Front of the Republic, although now united and disciplined, was constantly being undermined by hostility between its own factions – anarchists, communists and socialists – as they jostled for position and power. Persecution and assassination were commonplace. Subversives were, as General Franco had said, his secret army, his fifth column serving fascism within the city of Madrid. The communists, due to their greater discipline and rigid chain of authority, were in the ascendancy that winter.
Not Just a Soldier’s War Page 17