MI5 and Me

by Charlotte Bingham

  I looked at her, knowing exactly what she meant, and also knowing that she was right.

  ‘I mean, when was the last time anyone was trapped? We couldn’t even trap Sergei … remember him? Well, he is still hanging around my mother and still very trappable. That was a flop if ever there was one.’

  I nodded while at the same time wondering whether Arabella knew what her mother was, and how brave and invaluable she had been to the Service.

  ‘I told Rosalie about Sergei and so on, but she said he was too useful where he was, so that was that. You would have thought they would have wanted to put a trace on him, but no. And as for Mater, she wouldn’t hear of him being anything except a very nice young man who missed his mother in Moscow and liked taking Mater to concerts.’

  So that was my question answered. Arabella knew nothing about Mater being a double agent – unless she was even cleverer than I knew her to be.

  ‘We need to cheer the Section up,’ I said, in an effort to change the subject.

  Arabella shook her head.

  ‘No more of your posters. They lasted all of five minutes if you remember – before Head of Section had them taken down.’

  ‘No, I was thinking more like running a book. My brother is always running a book in his regiment. He gives odds and acts like a bookmaker and it turns out really well for him. The Grand National, Cheltenham, the Queen’s birthday parade.’

  ‘How on earth do you bet on the Queen’s birthday parade?’

  ‘Simple. You bet on, say, how many minutes until the first guardsman faints.’

  At that Arabella looked sphinx-like, which was always a sign.

  ‘That could be good,’ she conceded.

  There the matter rested, because I knew never to crowd her since it wasn’t her style. If the idea took she would come up with something, which she duly did over tea in the canteen.

  ‘You know how Rosalie smokes?’ she asked, stirring her tea with the personal spoon that for some reason she always carried.

  ‘I know she smokes, yes,’ I replied with caution.

  ‘Yes, but do you know how she smokes?’

  ‘Same as everyone else?’ I suggested. ‘She puts a cigarette in her mouth and lights up.’

  ‘Exactly so,’ Arabella agreed, and she slowly – very slowly and really very decorously – took a sip of her tea, holding the cup in her left hand. ‘She takes a cigarette from her cigarette case and she lights up. But that is not all. By no means. Rosalie being Rosalie, and let us face it that means a little vague, she seems to forget she has said cigarette in her mouth in spite of the fact she is smoking it, so the ash lasts and lasts until finally it falls – usually on a more than interesting SF.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘So she doesn’t believe in ashtrays?’

  I knew Arabella was fastidious, but this was verging on the boring.

  ‘So,’ she said, eyes glinting with excitement, ‘taking you up on your idea, my idea is to run a book on how long it takes for the ash to drop.’

  I was overcome with admiration. This was just the kind of thing to cheer up the Section.

  ‘But how will we entice her out of her office into the big room with a cigarette going so that we can see who wins?’

  ‘I’ve thought of that.’ Arabella wiped her personal silver spoon and popped it back into her handbag. ‘I will put one of the more important SFs in a tray outside her office and pretend it needs checking. I will have to do it the moment she lights up. She is such a sport she will follow me out and have a dekko at it, which is when the fun can start. It will have to be something long, but that’s not difficult.’

  ‘What size bets will you take?’

  ‘Any size, but nothing below two shillings.’

  ‘The odds?’ I asked.

  ‘I will announce them later,’ she said shortly.

  I couldn’t help feeling excited, but as we left the canteen I had to ask her something I had wanted to ask for some time.

  ‘Why do you always use your left hand when you’re drinking, when you’re really right-handed?’

  Arabella looked surprised.

  ‘Stands to reason,’ she said, sighing and giving me a patronising look. ‘Most people are right-handed, so there are more germs on that side of glasses and cups. If you drink left-handed you avoid most of them. Why did you think?’

  ‘Nothing, really. I just wondered.’

  I did not tell her that my father did the same thing but for rather different reasons. He used his left hand to hold his glass in order to leave his gun hand free.

  Back in the Section we started to put our plan into action. Everyone came in on the betting, and at once the mood in the place started to lighten. Now all that had to happen was for Arabella to leave the file in full view of the rest of us, so we could time Rosalie’s cigarette ash.

  Sure enough out came the magnificent sight of Rosalie complete with freshly lit smokey.

  ‘Arabella?’ she called. ‘Is this the file you are so worried about?’

  Arabella, unable to leave her position behind her Underwood typewriter, called back, ‘Yes, Miss Lovington!’ her eyes not moving from her watch.

  Seconds went by, then further seconds, while the ash lengthened and lengthened as Rosalie, with that particular expertise that confirmed smokers have, let it hang in place while she read through the important file.

  Oh, the agony of it. I had five shillings on its being twenty seconds, and thought I must be on to a winner, but no, on went the reading, and on grew the ash, until finally, as she closed the file, the ash fell.

  No sooner had it done so than an audible cheer went up from Files because they had pooled their resources and consequently won a great many shillings. Commander Steerforth dashed out of his office, Rosalie looked astonished, and Arabella flew up from behind her desk.

  ‘Have we caught someone?’ Commander Steerforth asked, hope rising in his voice.

  ‘No, no, it’s just Doreen,’ Arabella improvised, nodding at one of her friends in Files. ‘She’s finished her jumper at last.’

  Doreen waved her completed work obligingly, and everyone laughed.

  ‘Well done, Doreen,’ said Commander Steerforth, and putting his brave face back on, returned to his office.

  ‘Yes, well done, Doreen,’ said Rosalie, and rather affectingly she went over and patted her on the shoulder. ‘Good work. Knitting was the backbone of the country during the war. Can’t do without stalwarts like you.’

  So all told that was a great success, and Arabella was rightly pleased, but despite demand from everyone in the Section, it was not something that could be repeated because, as Arabella announced sadly a few days later, Rosalie had decided to give up smoking in favour of snuff.

  I thought for a minute.

  ‘You could run a book on how often she sneezes,’ I suggested.

  Arabella shook her head.

  ‘Not so easy. Besides, she said something about only doing it out of office hours, so that would be no good.’

  However, as can happen, sometimes one thing leads to another. After I confessed to my father that the work in our Section was very slow and very dull, he looked thoughtful.

  ‘I’ll think of something for you, if you like,’ he said, moving towards Melville, who was playing his favourite number from a recent musical.

  ‘Oh, dear, I do hope he doesn’t,’ my mother sighed above the sound of the music and the singing. ‘Life always gets so complicated when your father thinks of something.’

  I myself thought no more about it, until Arabella came into the Section looking less serene than usual.

  ‘My mother has been asked to go and stay with friends in America, and she’s in a bit of a fluff because Sergei has been recalled to Moscow to look after his mother. She thinks that’s going to be the end of the vodka and the caviar. Sergei’s having a nervous breakdown, and now I’ve seen a photo of his mother I’m not surprised.’

  We both started to type and for a few minutes there was nothing to be
heard in the Section except the sound of Underwoods being bashed.

  Arabella stopped bashing after a few minutes.

  ‘Look,’ she said, ‘since I’m going to be on my own in the flat for the summer months while Mater is away, why don’t you come and stay at the old place with me? Make a change from your parents and all those actors and so on, wouldn’t it? And I mean, it is so much nearer Harrods.’

  I thought about it for a few seconds, and then remembering that Mater was a double agent working for our side as well as for their side, and reckoning Sergei was probably the same, but not knowing what to say for the best, I trod water.

  ‘I’d better ask my father, and my mother, of course,’ I added quickly so as not to sound as if I had any suspicions at all. ‘I’m not needed at home except for Mr and Mrs Graham’s annual holiday and they haven’t taken one of those for years on account of the seaweed at Worthing smelling so dreadful.’

  I went home and waited for my father in my usual way – that is to say, I waited until he had handed out an inordinate amount of drinks to everyone and anyone and then I asked him if it was all right for me to go and stay at Mater’s flat.

  His eyes lit up in their own special way – that is he looked at me, and then looked away, and then he looked at me again.

  ‘Splendid idea,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t be better.’

  ‘Oh, good,’ I said, and then I moved nearer him, which I knew he wouldn’t like but it was necessary with so many other people in the room. ‘You know about ahem leaving for ahem, don’t you?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Yes, that was all arranged some time ago,’ he replied. ‘Seems his mother, you know – poor soul – needs looking after.’ He started to walk away. ‘Yes, you move in with Arabella while her mother is out of the country, and have a good time of it. I know you will.’

  He turned and winked at me.

  I should have known then that there was more to this than he was going to say because my father never, ever did anything such as wink. Looking back, it was probably the signal that he gave his agents when he wanted them to be on the alert, or to move forward a hundred paces and open fire. I really had no idea. All I was for the moment was astonished, when actually what I should have been was uneasy.

  My mother, of course, was pleased, because it meant she could have someone to stay in my room, so she even helped me pack up, and within a few days I found myself living in the unusual setting of total luxury.

  The difference between our house and Mater’s apartment – you couldn’t really call it a flat – was the difference between everyday jam-along living and moving into the Ritz. I had only been dimly aware that Arabella lived in such comfort, but now I was alive to it.

  It was not just the snowy carpets, the bedrooms filled with luxurious fabrics, the curtains so thick that not even the sound of a Harrods electric van could be heard – it was the sheer detail of it. I had never seen such large bottles of scent and bath toiletries, soap with French names, and sponges so big that bathtime invited dreams of South Sea Islands and expectations of turtles swimming towards the bath plug.

  There was only one luxury missing, and that was the foreign maid.

  ‘Maria Constanza – has she gone to the US of A with Mater?’

  Arabella shook her head.

  ‘I don’t suppose Maria Constanza would be allowed into America,’ she said succinctly. ‘No, she never stays here when Mater is on the hoof, because then she can’t make enough money at the back door out of selling the stuff she over-orders on Mater’s accounts, which means that she is out of pocket. It is a dreadful shame, because she is quite useful at making beds and dreadful coffee, but Mater has asked one of the agencies to send in someone in Maria Constanza’s stead, while she goes off to fill in as a temp in St James’s or somewhere like that. Whoever they send from the agency in her place, let’s hope they make better coffee.’ At half-past seven the next morning the front doorbell rang, and Arabella, who was in the adjoining bedroom, woke me up. I was rather annoyed to be woken so early as it was Saturday, my day for a sleep in and dressing-gown order at breakfast.

  ‘Who do you think that is? Not Sergei, I hope?’ I asked, sitting up.

  We both pulled on our dressing gowns and, for no reason at all, I grabbed an umbrella from the hall stand while Arabella cautiously opened the front door, with the chain still on.

  ‘Hallooo?’ our visitor cooed from the other side. ‘Halloo? I’m from the agency – Monty from the Agency? I expect they rang and told you?’

  We both looked at each other. Surely no Sergei-type person calling themself Monty would come calling at seven-thirty in the morning wearing a little white coat? Arabella closed the door and undid the chain.

  Monty – if it was indeed he, which it turned out it was – stood facing us, and slowly raised what was on his head, namely his hair, and then just as slowly replaced it.

  ‘Good morning, ladies, Monty at your service. I am here to take the place of Maria Unpronounceable, as we all call her.’ Since he had replaced his toupe a little crooked Arabella was forced to flee to the bathroom from which she did not emerge for some minutes, leaving me to show him to the kitchen, and his own lodgings.

  ‘Very nice, very nice, and quite what one is used to,’ he told me. ‘I always say it is worth waiting for the Upper Echelons to engage you because they know how to treat you – comfy beds and plenty of what have you when you want it, if you get my meaning.’

  I didn’t quite, but I thought I knew what he meant.

  ‘If you move further down the Echelons, it’s just Marmite sandwiches for supper and endless fish forks to polish. Now take me to the kitchen and the cleaning cupboards and I shall be in heaven.’

  Happily for me, Arabella had recovered herself and was able to show Monty where everything was kept.

  ‘Oh, Jemima, there’s more vodka and caviar here than in Stalin’s old dachau,’ he crooned, opening the doors of the huge Bendix refrigerator.

  ‘It was for my mother’s old secretary. He liked vodka and caviar.’

  ‘All right if you can get it, ducks,’ Monty said, tugging at something under his white jacket. ‘Now you both shoo while I assemble breakfast. Shoo, shoo, off you go, and no argufying.’

  As we retired to our bedrooms to dress, Arabella nodded back to the now closed kitchen door.

  ‘I don’t like it, Lottie. He’s too odd. If you ask me he could easily be working for the other side.’ She added with cool professionalism, ‘Have you seen his shape?’

  I had noticed Monty’s shape, of course, and it was decidedly odd, but then quite a lot of people were oddly shaped, and I never like to dwell on something unpleasant for too long.

  ‘He could have anything you could name under that white jacket of his, given that shape. He could be concealing things we wouldn’t like.’

  This made me feel nervous.

  ‘He showed me his agency card.’

  ‘Anyone could get hold of one of those, especially if they’re foreign. You just have to hang about Knightsbridge looking dubious. I’m sure he’s a plant – and as for all that business about Stalin, that was a bit spooky, wasn’t it?’

  I knew I had spies on the brain, but I hadn’t realised that Arabella was in the same condition.

  ‘Best if we do as he says, and we should also get dressed before breakfast,’ I said to change the subject, remembering how upset Mrs Graham became whenever she found Hal still in his pyjamas answering the telephone to his agent.

  Arabella agreed that it was the best plan and some minutes later I found myself following her as she pushed open the green baize door that led to the kitchen. We both stopped short when we saw the kitchen table. It was laid with breakfast china, and everything on it was perfection. The marmalade even had a spoon, and Monty was at the kitchen range cooking what smelled like the perfect fried breakfast.

  I looked across at him adoringly. There was no other word for it. The fact was that I never felt hungry on a weekday, but come
Saturday morning and I could eat as hearty as a man who had galloped ten miles without a saddle or a bridle.

  ‘Tell Monty what you would like, petal.’ He turned and gave my chair a quick polish before I sat down.

  ‘I would like eggs, bacon, sausage and fried bread,’ I said in a dreamy voice.

  ‘Eggs sunny side up?’

  ‘Any side up,’ I said, happily.

  I had never been asked that before, and had only ever heard anyone saying it in a film.

  ‘I would like scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, and fingers on the side, thank you.’

  I knew that Arabella prided herself on her ability not to get excited about anything but I could see that even she was feeling that genuine excitement that being looked after properly always brings.

  The breakfast seemed to appear effortlessly, and beautifully. I was astonished by how good it tasted, it made me feel as if I had been taken into a different world – and what with Monty occasionally flapping the napkin he kept over his shoulder as well as constantly humming a Noël Coward song, I just wanted breakfast to continue for the rest of my life.

  ‘Do you think he’s a friend of Sergei’s?’ Arabella wondered later, when we had repaired to Harrods to look at very expensive luggage, which we both preferred to do rather than at dresses, because as Arabella always said they never asked you if you wanted to try on luggage.

  ‘He could be a friend of anyone’s,’ I said with some feeling. ‘I mean someone who cooks a breakfast as good as that must have more friends than the Queen.’

  ‘I do like those, don’t you?’

  I pointed at an open suitcase; half of which was designed as a wardrobe and the other half for folded garments.

  ‘They are the best.’

  I could see Arabella wasn’t as enthused as she normally was in the luggage department, so we drifted on to picnic cases, but again she was not really concentrating.