MI5 and Me

by Charlotte Bingham

  I stared.

  ‘All what?’

  ‘You know – all – everything to do with his work in the Section.’

  ‘How did she manage to get it out of him?’

  ‘Simple, she gave him a couple of whiskies and was nice to him. Apparently it was what—’

  ‘They did in the war,’ I said, finishing for her. ‘I told you that.’

  I thought what with my undoubted courage as regards the coconut and the excitement of the interrogation of Files that the Commander would cheer up after that, but he didn’t. So I confided in Arabella then, telling her how worried I was about my boss. Work was becoming really sad, with the Commander never smiling, just permanently morose, and no Morse code on the desk or being plagued by seagulls.

  ‘He has let himself down. Men don’t like that – Monty told me the other day. He says women couldn’t give a damn, but men mind dreadfully. And for the Commander letting himself down in front of a woman is even worse than it would be with another man.’

  ‘How is Monty?’ I asked, to change the subject, and even as I spoke I thought I could smell his cooking, and see him making the perfect breakfast.

  ‘He is perfection,’ Arabella said with some satisfaction. ‘Utter perfection. It’s my mother who is the problem. In spite of everything she is missing Sergei, would you believe? Monty is a great success but Sergei loved the arts, and especially the theatre, and she misses that so much. Monty does his best to please her – but Sergei and she had a sort of understanding.’

  I thought I knew what that must be, but I kept my trap shut as MI5 trains you to do. For all I knew it was Chapter Four in the Commander’s handbook – ‘Keeping the Trap Shut’.

  ‘Why don’t we get Commander Steerforth to come round to dinner with Mater?’ she suggested.

  ‘Do you think that would work?’ I asked, not daring to tell her that I knew about Mater and her role as a double agent, and so did the Commander.

  ‘Oh, yes, I am sure it would. Anyway, if it doesn’t, at least he will get a good dinner.’

  We neither of us knew how to go about it. One wrong word from us and both our victims would stall – that much at least was apparent.

  Monty came up with a plan, which Arabella relayed to me the next day.

  ‘Nothing to do with Trigata?’ I asked, fearfully.

  ‘Oh, no – no, we have quite dealt with that, I think, although as Monty says, you can never quite be sure with import–export businesses. Never know what new fumes will be circling in the air above as they smoke their fish.’

  ‘Never,’ I agreed, remembering Trigata’s heavy foreign accents on the telephone.

  There was still so much to be thinking about, what with Harry going up for a part at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, and Hal giving him coaching which was driving Mrs Graham mad because, given that they were rehearsing in the dining room, they distracted her from her cooking in the kitchen next-door. As I say, so much was happening at Dingley Dell that for a few days I forgot about Mater and the Commander.

  Melville was shooting a film in the Highlands and Islands, which meant that his room had come free for a few days, and that must have encouraged my father to say that his aunt Bibby could come to stay.

  Fresh from the African jungle where she had fled with the love of her life, she was now a widow and eager to catch up with the rest of the family.

  ‘Oh, Lord – here she is,’ my father murmured, and put his drink down.

  We both stared at Aunt Bibby, being followed by a taxi driver who was carrying the kind of suitcases that must have seen many torrential rains, and been more used to being carried through the jungle on the heads of tall young men with perfect balance.

  ‘Dear boy,’ she said, kissing my father effusively, to which he submitted with surprising grace.

  ‘This is Lottie.’

  ‘So it is. Good! Wanted to meet my only great-niece for as long as I can remember.’

  Aunt Bibby only stayed a few days, just long enough to give me a whiff of what it was like to live in the jungle and never see another white face except that of your husband.

  ‘Bliss, dear, utter bliss,’ she told me when I took her a cup of early-morning tea, and sat on her bed to chat. ‘It is the only way for man and woman to live, believe me, the only way. Just the two of you … and the animals, of course, plenty of animals. You remember that, always.’

  Of course I thought I would, but when I told Arabella she merely rolled her eyes and said I couldn’t live without other people – that I just wasn’t the sort.

  By the time Aunt Bibby left Dingley Dell to move on to seeing new sets of relatives, her marvellously old-fashioned clothes trailing behind her, large hat insecurely balanced on a precarious mound of once chestnut hair, Arabella and I had finalised our plan to bring Commander Steerforth and Mater together.

  I had dropped a hint that I thought it would be a good idea for him to see Mater, in case, in the following months, the Section was closed and scattered to the four ends of Brackenwood House.

  ‘She is, after all, Arabella’s mother, and it could do you nothing but good if you are moved on to another Section. You will know that she is a firm contact for you,’ I said, sounding a little too maternal even to my own ears. ‘Arabella has told me that her mother would be delighted to meet you, and asked if you might like to go round for dinner on Friday night?’

  Commander Steerforth looked thrilled, and then suddenly shy.

  ‘I haven’t had dinner alone with a lady for a very long time,’ he confessed.

  ‘Oh, you won’t be alone, Arabella and I will be there …’

  He looked disappointed.

  ‘… for drinks,’ I added hastily. ‘And Monty will be there to serve dinner. You’ll like Monty. He’s a wonderful cook.’

  ‘It will make a change from poached eggs,’ Commander Steerforth joked. ‘Informal? Just black tie?’

  ‘Something like that,’ I agreed,

  ‘Tails are not worn now, are they? Not for dinner, not since the war.’ He sighed nostalgically. ‘And even then, you know, they were going out of style.’

  Arabella thought she had arranged everything quite superbly, and indeed she had, until Commander Steerforth arrived and Monty opened the door to him.

  The moment they clapped eyes on each other the flat was filled with joy.

  ‘Miss Arabella never told me our guest was Commander Steerforth! I served under him in the war, and a better man could not be found.’ Monty adjusted his wig excitedly. ‘Of all the Commanders for Madam to have to dinner, it had to be Commander Steerforth … my Commander. Life can surely get no better.’

  He bustled back to the kitchen, leaving us to take the guest in to drinks.

  I wish I could say that the moment Commander Steerforth saw the Mater it was love at first sight but of course it wasn’t. It was, however, quite cordial enough to make Arabella and I feel happy to leave them together for dinner while we went off to the cinema and supper on our own at Dingley Dell.

  ‘Do you think it is safe for you to go back now?’ I asked, eventually.

  ‘I’ll make loud throat-clearing noises before I go in,’ Arabella joked.

  I went to bed that night, thinking more about Aunt Bibby and her exciting stories of eloping to Africa than I did about Mater and Commander Steerforth, so when I arrived back in the Section to find Arabella looking both calm and excited, which only Arabella could, it was almost a foregone conclusion that Mater and the Commander had got on like a house on fire, especially since I knew he thought so highly of her wartime career as an SOE agent.

  ‘It went like clockwork,’ Arabella reported in the canteen over coffee and a bun, thankfully without coconut.

  ‘So you are the fairy godmother, and our dear Commander will be as cheerful as a cricket on a hearth?’

  ‘Oh, no, nothing to do with me,’ Arabella stated, putting her special spoon back in her handbag. ‘No, no, all to do with Monty. He cooked up a storm apparently – all the Comm
ander’s favourites – although how he knew, searchez-moi.’

  ‘Not difficult. The Commander eats anything,’ I said, tersely. ‘Even his own cooking.’

  ‘At any rate, it is all arranged. He is to take Mater to a play next week, and before long I am sure they will marry late in life and Monty will be their bridesmaid.’

  ‘What did they have for dinner?’ I asked, suddenly feeling suspicious of Arabella’s reticence on that subject.

  ‘You don’t want to know.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Lobster.’ Arabella assumed her sphinx-like expression. ‘Let’s just hope it was from Harrods and not Trigata, Lottie.’

  FRIENDS, ROMANS, AND COPPERS

  Life back in Dingley Dell was as always full of incident, what with spies coming and going all the time. We seemed to be taking care of a great many spy demands: everything from taking calls from their agents, to entertaining their dogs or girlfriends. My mother was the soul of patience, but her martyred expression spoke of inner turmoil, and she made up for it by going to Stratford to see a great many productions, most of which she found to be less than good, but at least it gave rise to some good discussions with Melville.

  My father also came and went all the time, but never once asked how life was in my Section. I started to suspect that the new plans for us had not been a success with the top people. I knew Commander Steerforth and Rosalie had done an excellent job of making the interrogations seem expert, and authentic, and we had all endured First Aid practice to the satisfaction of the Red Cross although thankfully without donning costumes. Commander Steerforth’s security booklet had now been read through, not just by him but also by me. I have to say that the advice about what to do in the event of an atomic bomb dropping on the Section was, to my mind, a little light on solid fact. I could not see why getting under a table might help, nor pulling the curtains, particularly since in our Section we didn’t have any.

  I said as much to the Commander but he was now too busy dreaming about taking Mater to the theatre to pay much attention. Arabella was also distracted, busy making plans to travel to Greece when her leave came up, which was probably why she was so busy practising her French. Harry was away working on a film where he had one line, a line he was quite excited about. It was ‘How nice of you to meet the train, Mrs Davenport’, which together we had rehearsed umpteen times until even I knew how to say it. So when our neighbour – an artist – asked me to sit to him, for want of something else to do at the time, I readily agreed.

  I say ‘readily’, but the truth was that no sooner had I agreed than I regretted it. I was certainly not going to tell my father because Van was an old friend of his from their days together at Oxford, and I had the definite feeling that he would not approve.

  I knew where Van’s studio was, and it was comfortingly near to Dingley Dell. As I headed there I told myself that, perhaps more importantly, it was on the ground floor and so easy to get out of.

  I had already planned my escape before he opened the door.

  Van stared at me. He was a tall, well-built man with a great shock of blond hair and startling blue eyes. He wore the kind of clothes that faded so well you knew they had once been very expensive.

  ‘How many cardigans are you wearing?’ he asked curiously.

  ‘Two,’ I said as sunshine flooded the studio room. ‘I’m a rather cold sort of person.’

  ‘Even so, perhaps you would like to remove one?’

  I shook my head, thinking that if I did it might be a slippery slope, and the next thing he would want would be for me to remove another, until I was sitting to him in my vest.

  I sat down on the chaise-longue he had provided, and looked around me with some interest. I’d always liked painters’ studios, and had the feeling that most people did because they had an air of adventure about them, as if the room itself knew that anything could happen there, at any time. A masterpiece might be born or a sudden revelation lead to a new artistic movement – or, judging from some of the drawings on the wall, models of both sexes might start twisting their bodies into some pretty funny poses.

  ‘So you’re too cold to remove any of your woollen clothing?’ asked Van, lighting a Gauloise and staring at me as if I had nothing on at all.

  I nodded, and then thought quickly.

  ‘Good title for a famous painting, though, don’t you think?’

  ‘What?’ he asked, a little edgily, as he continued to stare at me seated on the chaise-longue.

  ‘“Girl With Two Cardigans” by Joachim Van Cleft,’ I suggested. ‘It would be the talk of the Summer Exhibition.’

  He thought for a minute.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘and you’re right – a good title for a painting makes for a good sale. I like that.’

  I was beginning to feel a trifle hot, but I would not, could not, let him see that in case he wanted me to strip down to my vest. Besides he had started sketching.

  As he did he stared at me. Saturday morning was not always the best time to be at Dingley Dell as poor Harry had discovered, but now I felt as if Van, as he was always known, had X-ray eyes, and while he stared at me I was required to hold the rather boring pose he had put me in on his chaise-longue. I started to long for a normal Saturday morning, when I would go to Portobello Road and see a friend or two, and we would wander about pretending we knew all about the antiques that were on sale.

  ‘Don’t move!’ Van kept saying that. ‘Don’t fidget!’ While he himself was dashing backwards and forwards, either to his ashtray or his coffee pot. Or his telephone, which rang constantly.

  I wouldn’t have minded if he’d had long interesting conversations, but it was always the same sort of chat, no matter who was ringing him. From the tone of the conversation this end Van seemed to be very much in demand, and his dialogue was along the lines that Harry would call now drag me ons, whereby he ended up allowing himself to be taken out by some yearning female. With Van it was always: ‘Oh, very well, if you think I will enjoy it.’ Or: ‘Well, if you think you can afford it, darling.’ Listening to him, I realised that older women were much bolder than I’d thought. I also had the feeling that Van was someone who expected women to come after him, which was what Arabella always called interesting.

  At least the telephone calls gave me time to wiggle my feet or scratch my nose before he turned round and started booming at me not to fidget.

  It didn’t take long for me to start feeling sorry for all those models made to lie in cold bathwater with their long hair freshly brushed, while some over-zealous Pre-Raphaelite puffed and panted at his easel. But unlike me they’d had no other choice because most of them were very, very poor and very, very beautiful, and if you are very, very poor and very, very beautiful everyone knows you always pay for it. It is just one of those given facts, like millionaires always being tight with money and putting slot machines on the toilet doors, or telephone kiosks in the hall.

  These thoughts were occupying my mind when the telephone rang yet again at the same time as there was a knock at the front door. Van went immediately to answer it because he was expecting a new supply of paints and canvases from somewhere up North. I was glad that he had to check through everything because it meant I could get up, and stretch, and it also gave me an excuse to pick up the telephone and pretend to be someone else, which is always a good way to pass a boring few minutes when nothing is happening except time passing by.

  ‘’Allo?’ I said, doing what I thought was a good imitation of Arabella speaking bad French. ‘Nathalie speaking. Can I ’elp you?’

  I had it in mind, if it was one of Van’s many older ladies, to pretend to be a model so as to make them jealous. I have no idea why but I had always thought French models the world over were called Nathalie, and the very idea that they might be called anything else had never occurred to me.

  But the voice at the other end was all too familiar. And if I am going to be honest, it was one that, had I not been wearing two cardigans and a vest, I would
have said made my blood run cold.

  By the time Van came back into the room I had resumed my pose, because I didn’t want him to know what I had done. More than that, I suddenly did not want to arouse suspicion.

  ‘Who was that on the telephone, Lottie?’ he asked.

  If he had known me better Van would have known I was lying because when I lie I always open my eyes too wide, but as it was he didn’t know me at all so when I said, with eyes as large as coffee saucers, that it was a wrong number, he seemed to accept it readily.

  From then on, I suppose like all guilty people, I lived the whole morning in dread of another call from the same source. I could not wait to scarper, as Harry called it, or hightail it out of there. And hightail I did, slap on the dot of one o’clock, with the best excuse in the world, namely that Mrs Graham was making my favourite lunch.

  ‘You’re a somewhat greedy person, aren’t you?’ Van grumbled.

  I agreed I was before leaving without paying any attention to the painting, or the sketch or whatever it was that I had been sitting to him for.

  ‘I do hope it’s not a portrait,’ my mother sighed when I confessed how I had spent the morning. ‘You wouldn’t want anything that looks like you, Lottie. And no nudity, or silliness like that. Van is a bit of a ladies’ man, you know. Not that he would be interested in you, I don’t suppose.’

  After a delicious lunch in the garden, I approached my father hoping that he might be in a good enough mood to hear what I had to say without getting crusty.

  ‘What it is, you see,’ I began, distracting him from the rest of the people there.

  He gave me one of his looks.

  ‘’Allo, ’allo,’ he said in a very bad cockney accent, which he sometimes did after a few drinks of a Saturday. ‘What ’ave we here a-then?’

  ‘It’s probably nothing really,’ I began as his frown deepened, probably because he saw my mother had put the cork back in the wine bottle. ‘The thing about it is, I went to sit to Van this morning—’

  ‘Dog sit, did you say?’

  ‘No, you know, sit to him. As in for a painter.’