Perhaps it was the contrast with the beginning of the bombardment that meant Laura remembered the sounds of that summer in the city so clearly; the whistling screams of the swifts in the evenings, the broken melodies of the piano in the mornings – how poignant they seemed in retrospect.
The first night of the raids, Edward was at the Foreign Office, working late. Ivy, the landlady of the house, called up the stairs to Laura when the siren rang out and asked her to come with her to the public shelter in the nearby square. Laura wished that Edward had been with her – for sure, he would be safer in one of the Whitehall shelters, but she missed his certainty about the right thing to do. She went with Ivy, holding a pillow, a torch and a paperback book, but the thin-walled shelter seemed more fragile than the house she had left. It was not just the doom in the sky that made her so restless; she was desperate for the lavatory, but could not contemplate using the chemical toilet, which was hardly screened from the rest of the room by a cotton curtain.
That evening she told Edward she thought they should just brave out the raids in their flat, but he refused to contemplate it. And her irrational sense of invulnerability was challenged when they emerged from the shelter a few days later to see the end of the street sheared off, water spurting from broken mains and turning the rubble into a swamp. She and Edward stood looking at it, feeling a new recognition of what might be in store for them running through their bodies.
‘Why don’t you go to Sutton too?’ he said to her. Sybil had telephoned them the previous evening to say that she was going there now the bombing had started – not to the house, since it had finally been requisitioned as a nursing home, but to the lodge, with Mrs Last.
Laura turned to Edward, almost laughing. ‘You know I couldn’t,’ she said.
As they walked back to the flat in that grey dawn, Edward went on talking. ‘Toby suggested I should go and live with him in Chester Square – otherwise they will give it up, you know. Another chap from the Home Office has moved in, but still, it’s ridiculous to keep anywhere so big going now.’
Laura knew that Toby had created a shelter in the deep basement kitchen of the big house. When they went to see it later that day, she found it claustrophobic, despite its size. Toby had had the ceiling reinforced with railway sleepers and the windows were all thickly covered with sticky tape; while he had also included a Morrison shelter, like a kind of table under which they could all sleep on mattresses when the raids started. ‘As safe as St Peter’s, I should think,’ Toby said, referring to the church nearby where many of his neighbours went at night.
She did not want to move into this house. Walking through it with Toby and Edward felt intrusive; it was all wrong being in Sybil’s house without Sybil. True, it had changed so much since the first time she had entered it. With that tape over the windows and its railings gone, even the face it presented to the outside world was a downcast one, and inside it was almost empty, most of the rooms closed and shrouded in dust sheets, dark patches on the walls and light patches on the floors where the pictures and rugs were missing. Still, she felt out of place in its cold, grand spaces. But it would be graceless of her to tell Edward that she did not want to live there, especially as it would be so much easier for him to be nearer to Whitehall. So they took possession of one of the bedrooms that overlooked the square and, for the fourth time since she had arrived in England, Laura unpacked her trunk and laid her clothes into different patterns in different drawers.
The first few times that Laura came back into the house in the afternoons, opening the front door with her own key and walking into the hall whose parquet floor, bare of rugs, now showed scuffs from the many heels that walked up and down it, she could not help remembering the fear and expectation she had felt the first time she had entered it, and she averted her glance from the reflection in the hall mirror almost nervously. Sybil wrote occasional letters to Laura about local affairs in Sutton, and whenever Laura received them she felt a surge of guilt, as if Sybil were observing her and noting how poorly Laura was looking after her home.
Laura had not realised that Toby would assume that she, Laura, would take responsibility for running the house once she moved in. There was only one general maid now in the house, unlike the large staff they had had before the war, although another woman came in daily to do the heavy work, the scrubbing and the washing. The live-in maid, Ann, spent her days working slowly from top to bottom of the three floors they were using, and Laura came to realise, hearing her brush and pan on the stairs before breakfast and the plates clattering in the kitchen after supper, that her hours were excessive and that the work was beyond her ability and that of the daily. But rather than trying to give her any direction, or take on other staff, Laura instead allowed old standards to be left behind. Dust collected in the unused rooms, and the formal meals gave way to one course, left on the table by Ann for them to help themselves.
If the very absence of Sybil – the fear of what she might think if she could see Laura’s failures – made her uneasy, so did the presence of Toby. Like the rest of the group, he was apparently loquacious, even humorous, but it was always a humour that seemed to exclude, dedicated to highlighting anything that marked out somebody’s difference or failure. So, although he seemed to laugh at the scratch dinners that appeared, beneath his comments about the eternal mutton hash, Laura knew he was scornful of her failure to run the household more effectively. And although there was the constant appearance of politeness between the brothers, she was aware that in Toby’s presence, Edward’s defences were always up, and that the constraint of living in this way seemed to make it harder for Edward to slip into intimacy with her, even when they were alone.
What’s more, on the nights of bombardment, even the solitude of their bedroom was out of bounds. Instead, they had to seek the unquiet haven of the basement shelter, where it was not only Toby and Ann who shared the space with them. Between them, Toby and Edward seemed to know dozens of people who had not left London, or who had to visit London, but had been bombed out of their homes or whose houses had been shut up and let out for the war. Many nights, before the sirens sounded, there was someone extra drinking whisky in the ground-floor living room and, after the alarms went off, bedding down on a spare mattress in the basement.
Even Winifred came, one or two nights when she was working late at the Ministry of Food, while for a time Alistair was quite a regular visitor. He had joined a searchlight battery in west London, but most of his energy was still taken up by writing for various periodicals and a novel that didn’t seem to be going very well. Once Laura read one of his articles in a weekly magazine, in which he had described the work of the air wardens over a few nights, and was surprised by his ability to turn the horrors of the blighted city into a narrative that ran like a surreally comic film. In the spring, Giles started coming down to London for meetings at the Air Ministry, and he too tended to stay in Chester Square on those nights.
One evening around nine o’clock, Laura had gone upstairs, about to change for bed before the sirens’ expected call.
‘Giles is here.’ It was Edward, calling up the stairs, and on the last word the familiar wail began. Laura came down in her pyjamas and bathrobe and greeted Giles – unembarrassed, since they had seen one another en déshabillé pretty frequently on these broken nights.
‘Nothing coming over yet,’ said Edward. ‘Shall we have a drink?’
‘I think I’ll go down,’ said Laura. It wasn’t so much that she was tired, but conversations with Giles never seemed to go well for her. Giles made as if to do the same, but Edward was reluctant.
‘It’s further east, still – it usually is,’ he said. ‘Come on, have a whisky before we turn in.’
Laura went down into the basement. Edward had left the door to the living room ajar – it opened into the ground-floor hall, so that his and Giles’s voices travelled quite clearly down the basement stairs. She could hear them as if they had been in the kitchen with her. At first their convers
ation drifted. They were talking about Aldous Huxley’s new novel, which Giles liked and Edward thought was tosh, and about the levelling effect that the war seemed to be having on accents in London, which Edward thought was rather a good thing and Giles thought a pity. Laura realised again as she heard them talk that it was a while since she and Edward had had a serious conversation of any kind. She thought of getting up and closing the door, but there was an odd pleasure in lying there, hearing them talk when they thought nobody was listening.
‘I’ll be back again in two weeks, if that’s all right,’ Giles was saying. ‘We’re getting everything ready …’ He paused, and then, oddly, told Edward not to talk about what he was saying to Alistair. ‘If he writes about it or mentions it in the wrong place there will be hell to pay.’
‘Is that fair to Alistair? Is he untrustworthy?’
‘It’s still all about himself, and how he wants to be in the know. Don’t you remember when he blabbed to Rogers Minor about us smoking by the Lower Pond? Just because he wanted to show off. But that’s how it all got back to the Head.’
Laura could hear Edward’s half-laugh, as he told Giles that it was absurd to hold that fifteen-year-old schoolboy contretemps against Alistair now.
‘I don’t know that he’s grown up as much as all that. Whereas you – you are a changed character, aren’t you? I used to think you were on a mission to change the world. Well, maybe you’re right – maybe we all have to turn our idealism into pragmatism. I never thought I’d be working all hours trying to find someone to manufacture these new magnetrons. Things should move faster than this in wartime. You know what it’s like working with bureaucrats. But the Foreign Office’s still keeping you happy?’
Footsteps, as Edward presumably crossed to the sideboard to refill their drinks. ‘Laura keeps me happy.’
‘Well, that must be love … an American girl with nothing in her head except movie plots and fashion tips … sorry, Edward, I know she’s my cousin.’
‘Come on, Giles, that was beneath you.’
‘I’ve said I’m sorry.’ A pause. ‘Forget it, can’t you?’
‘I’ll try.’
‘Anyway, I’ll be back in a fortnight.’
‘Anything in particular?’
‘It’s pretty exciting.’ Giles’s tone was conciliatory now. He began to tell Edward about his work, explaining that he was going to America to join the mission that was taking the latest research findings ‘right to the top. Even this magnetron. If the Americans can throw their research energy into this new stuff we’ve got going, we could start driving ahead. I’m not going alone, of course, but it’s pretty good – I’m putting together the package, even if old Penrose will take over a lot of the talking once we’re there.’
‘Good God, is it safe to cross?’
Giles said that if they got attacked, they would dump the black box at sea. Laura, who was lying with her eyes shut, saw a sudden image, like a scene in a movie, of a boat plunging on a foam-patterned ocean, Giles heaving a great box overboard, a hero of science. Was that how he saw himself? Giles was still talking about how that was one of the big fears, Germany getting at their new work through captured equipment. ‘Every time we lose a plane, we wonder if they are going to have the wits to work it out. But we have to go – if there’s even half a chance it will help. It’s the dream, cracking the night-fighting – the new stuff gives us a hope of being able to do that. But I don’t think we can do it alone.’
Edward then said something rather muffled, about whether the Americans would give anything in return. Giles’s clearer voice resumed, saying that they could only hope, that they had to try to break the stalemate or the war could go on for years. ‘Doing some more research with us won’t put them in danger. Even those cowardly sods should be up to that. It’s sickening isn’t it, them and the Russians, sitting it out while we get the brunt.’
Laura turned in her bed. She was used to the scorn that everyone in London expressed about America. ‘Cowardly sods’ was one of the milder phrases they used. She knew that it should mean nothing to her; Toby had once told her, meaning to be kind, that she could consider herself English now she was married, while Edward had once commented that it was good their secret commitment to an international cause meant they had left the pettiness of nationalism behind. Yet the criticism of America still seemed to have a personal thrust, and made her quail a little before she gathered herself to reject it. There was a longer pause, and then Edward said he might turn in. There seemed to be no bombs falling, however, and Giles asked him if he fancied a game of chess first. Quiet fell, punctuated only by their comments on the moves.
The next morning, everyone woke before dawn with the all-clear, bleary after a short night’s sleep. Laura was planning to go back to bed for a while, but once they were in their room, Edward suddenly said that he had some papers he had forgotten about and wondered if she could photograph them immediately, as they had to be back in their place that day. Laura agreed without thinking. She knew that her work was necessary now; Edward was working such long hours that he could never have managed to cross this chaotic city to meet Stefan frequently enough to deliver papers. So she used the thin dawn light to photograph as Edward fell back to sleep for one more hour. Click, click: she heard Toby come into the house after his night with the Home Guard, and she put down the camera as he came up the stairs so that he wouldn’t hear her and wonder why someone was taking pictures at dawn.
Usually when Laura met Stefan the focus was simply on handing over the films. They had evolved a process that had become almost nonchalant: both holding a copy of The Times, they would exchange newspapers by leaving them apparently casually on a café table or a park bench between them; the films were taped inside her newspaper, and there was no need, very often, for them to speak at all. But that day the meeting place had been fixed in a square near to City Road. It was entirely empty at that morning hour, and they were unseen, so for once Stefan didn’t get up from the bench once the newspapers had been laid between them. He said he had been asked to pass on thanks for her hard work. Was she happy?
Laura did not answer at once. She had no problems doing the work, but the first few months of aerial bombardment had affected her in a more visceral way than she had expected. Sometimes in the middle of the night one felt that there was no end in sight, that the pounding and the fear would go on forever, and then when morning came it was only the breath between one night and another. She remembered the great certainties of the pamphlets she had read before the war, their airy summoning of war and victory, but it all felt so different now, in the muddle and mess of a city under attack, in a conflict in which the Soviet Union was not even involved. But she did not feel she could speak of her fear and uncertainty to Stefan, so in an effort to lay those thoughts aside she remembered what Giles had said the previous night, and she started telling Stefan about how perhaps the war might enter a new phase soon, how a friend of Edward’s was taking new research over to the States, in the hope that together the Americans and British could crack the night-fighting.
Laura caught the importance of what she had just said at the same time that Stefan did, and she was not surprised when Stefan began to grill her on everything she knew about Giles and his work. She had little enough to pass on, but when she mentioned the improved magnetron that Giles said was their precious new development, she saw how Stefan’s hands gripped The Times that he had picked up. He spoke to her for a while about what might be possible, what was needed. ‘If Edward …’ he said, but she responded quickly. No, it was not Edward who should be asked to do this to his friend. She was the one who had brought the secret to Stefan, she would see what was possible. As soon as she had spoken, she felt unsure that this was right, but then it was too late to go back, Stefan was already getting up and walking away down the grey London street.
It was a dark winter morning a couple of weeks later that Edward mentioned as he was shaving that Giles would be coming over that evening, passing
through London on his journey to America.
‘Shall we meet him at a restaurant?’ Laura asked, standing at the bathroom door and brushing her hair, trying to ignore the apprehension in her stomach at his words. ‘Or will he eat at the Ministry?’
‘I’m sure they’ll feed him. If not, we can go over to the restaurant by the station after he gets here.’ Was Edward avoiding her gaze? No, he was always like that now in the mornings, a little tired and anxious. He rinsed his face and went back into the bedroom to dress, saying nothing more. Laura got dressed more slowly once he had left. Even though the conversation with Stefan had been beating in her head for the last fortnight, she still had no idea how she was to fulfil her allotted task, and all day at the bookshop the evening loomed in front of her.
For once Edward was home at a normal time, and the three of them were drinking in the living room when the doorbell rang. The cab driver brought in Giles’s suitcase, while Giles laid down a large black box with an almost tender gesture, and then took off his overcoat.
‘Have you eaten?’
‘They fed us after a fashion at the Ministry, but I could do with something more. Do you have a sandwich?’
‘I’ll go and ask Ann,’ Laura said, going downstairs. When she came back up, the black box was still in the hall. She ran her hand over it. It was large, heavy, locked. As she heard the rise and fall of voices in the living room, she quickly slid a hand into one pocket and then another of Giles’s overcoat, standing so that if someone came out of the living room they would see only her back. Her fingers touched some scrumpled paper in one pocket, a box of matches in another, but no keys. But she already knew that would be the case. Of course the key would be in the breast pocket of his jacket – where else would you keep something so precious? Footsteps behind her made her turn, but it was only Toby, who showed no surprise at seeing her in the hall apparently rehanging the coats.
A Quiet Life Page 19