The Yellow Glass

by Claire Ingrams

  Please, dear Madam, waste no time in handing over this document to the British Secret Services (or to your husband, if you have had your fill of revenge), and forgive the intrusion of an old spy who, like an elderly dog with no teeth, cannot forget the taste of a bone.

  Kind regards,

  Apoloniusz Z Piotrowski

  9. The Black Box

  Nobody bothered to tell me she was safe - no surprises there. The first I knew there were a couple of suits at the door strong-arming me into the back of a van. (We live in a police state, right enough.)

  I thought it was to do with the mag, that I’d got under the skin of a few establishment cats with my newest feature, my A to Z of conspiracy theories. How governments manipulate conspiracy theories to their own advantage, especially with regards to war. There was plenty of mileage in it and I’d only got as far as G for Gunpowder plot; as in discrediting the Catholics. (Wait until I get to K for Korean war - that should really shake ‘em up! I’m interested in the conspiracy theory as a paradigm for how we live today: how paranoia and ignorance combine to create these fables where we all think we’re the only ones who know what the hell’s going on and how these stories can be manipulated by governments for their own ends . . although the idea that governments might be engaged in this type of manipulation is, obviously, a conspiracy theory in itself.)

  To be honest, I hoped that was what was going on. That the mag had got right up a few establishment noses. I should’ve realised the men were connected with Rosa’s uncle, the spy.

  Then again, I reckoned it was good to know your enemies whoever they turned out to be (if you want to understand the times you live in you’ve got to be open to as many experiences as you can, man). So I was dead curious about the whole story on that journey in the van. Yeah, all the time I was in there I was thinking about how necessary it was to get close to the enemy in order to understand what made them tick and how, while doing that, you’d got to try and seal yourself off, so they didn’t influence you unduly. In that way, I guess we’re all spies.

  I leant over to talk to the grey suit accompanying me in the back of the van.

  “Where’re we going, then?”

  “Not far now, Mr Arkonnen,” he replied. “We’ve just got one or two questions for you. Shouldn’t take too long.” He was quite an approachable lad, for a goon.

  “Fair enough,” I said. “The magazine’s gone to the printers and I’ve a bit of time on my hands.”

  There didn’t seem to be any point in antagonizing them. Not yet.

  It took around half an hour to reach our destination, which was a lot further than the local police station. We’d driven right inside an enclosed courtyard before they let me out and I just got a glimpse of grey stone walls and blind-eyed windows before they hustled me in, so I was unable to identify the joint. But, wherever it was, it had establishment all over it, that was for sure; it was carved into the fabric like the letters on a stick of Blackpool rock.

  After that, they left me in an under-furnished room for a couple of hours - most likely to unnerve me - and let me mull over my many crimes. It was laughable how they followed the manual, but it was no big sweat. I mean, they didn’t take my tobacco. So I smoked a few rollies and thought about George Orwell[21].

  But then Rosa’s uncle turned up.

  “Hello Magnus,” he said. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

  “Hey!” I was genuinely surprised to see him - that character just hadn’t crossed my mind. “What are you doing here, man?”

  “We’ve got some questions to ask you, Magnus. That alright?”

  He sat down on the only other chair in the room, took a fountain pen out of the top pocket of his Saville Row suit and spread a few papers out on the bare table.

  “I won’t beat about the bush. It’s pretty serious stuff and we need some straight answers.”

  “Is it Rosa?” I asked. “Have you found her? How’s she doing?”

  He stared right through me with that piercing, entitled, look of his.

  “Rosa is fine, Magnus. That is . . I haven’t had a chance to see her, but I hear she’s absolutely fine after her adventures. I’m interested that you didn’t telephone me to find out how she was. If you care so very much.”

  He was wrong-footing me, trying to making me feel bad and, therefore, vulnerable.

  “I lost the number you gave me.”

  “Did you?”

  “But I’m only a friend. You’re her bloody uncle and it looks like you’ve not bothered to check up on her at all.”

  He finally blinked and squeezed out a cold, lop-sided smile. “Touché.”

  “Did she run away again?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Rosa Stone, a spy! Tell me you won’t use that lass again, man.”

  “I can certainly assure you of that. Now . . Magnus . .” he handed me a document and his Cartier fountain pen, “this is the Official Secrets Act of 1939 and I’d be grateful if you’d put your signature to it before we proceed any further.”

  “The Official Secrets Act, eh?” I took a quick look at it. “I’m impressed. However . .” I handed it straight back to him, “no way can I sign this thing, man. Freedom of the press, yeah? You can’t muzzle us.”

  “Oh, really; pull the other one! A Paler Shade of Red is not exactly the New Statesman, is it? It’s not even Punch magazine and that’s gone completely downhill[22].”

  “Come again?”

  “If your circulation extends to a hundred, I’d be surprised, quite frankly. As a citizen of this country, it’s your duty to sign the Act when required to do so.”

  I stood up. I felt like rolling up my sleeves again.

  “As a journalist, it’s my primary duty to report what’s going on in this country. And that duty applies however small my circulation. Although, I think you’d be surprised to hear how way off target your estimation is.”

  “Christ. Sit down, Magnus. Please.” He suddenly looked dead tired. “Let’s have no more aggro. Listen to me, now,” his voice had jettisoned a fraction of it’s public school baggage. “I let slip a few details that were not for common consumption the other day and I take full responsibility for that. But. The Service can only protect this country if it’s allowed to do its job properly and that means with as little fuss as possible; I really don’t see that it would be any skin off your nose to sign this document. Just to reassure us that one or two details about this particular operation will not be splashed all over your publication and that we can talk in further confidence. What do you say?”

  I sat back down and thought about it.

  “Ask me whatever it is you’ve brought me in here to ask, and then I’ll consider signing it.”

  He made an exasperated little noise and I could see I’d scored a point off him.

  “Very well. I’ll get straight to the crux of the matter. Tell me about your family, Magnus. The Arkonnens.”

  “You what?” I was flummoxed. “The Arkonnens? What the hell is all this about?”

  He was studying me again, staring like a hawk at a swaying blade of grass.

  “You say your family came from Finland, is that correct?”

  I nodded, slowly.

  “Recently?”

  “I don’t think you’d call sailing over on a Viking longboat that recent, no. There’ve been Arkonnens in Hull forever. Why?”

  “Are you in touch with any branches of the family remaining in Finland?”

  “It’s a way back, wouldn’t you say?” I laughed. “Keeping up family connections with your Viking forebears!”

  “I can see that you might have trouble keeping up connections with anybody, Magnus. But what about your parents?”

  He was great at a put-down, was Rosa’s uncle, but I’d had enough.

  “My parents were both killed in the Hull Blitz[23].” I stood up. “If you’re not going to tell me what all this is about, then I’d like to go now, please.”

  He stood up, too. “Ah. I’m . . .” There wa
s a long pause while he tried to get his head round saying something kind and failed. “You are, what . . twenty-four? Twenty-five?”

  “I’m twenty-three.”

  “Are you now? You’ve done well to be supporting yourself with your little publication.” He looked dead surprised, the patronizing bastard.

  “Are you supporting yourself, Magnus?”

  “Yes, I bloody am!” I exploded. He’d seen where and how I lived, did he honestly think I was taking some rich man’s shilling?

  “No affiliations that bring . . how should I put it? Grants? Endowments?”

  Ah! This was more like it. This was the kind of crap I’d been expecting when they’d pulled me in.

  “You think I’m working for Mother Russia, don’t you? In the pay of the Soviets and spreading propaganda through this lily-white country that’d never consider spreading propaganda anywhere, itself!”

  “Sit down again, if you would. And think before you speak, will you? You’re doing yourself no favours with that tone. I’ll ask you once more. Magnus Arkonnen, is your publication - A Paler Shade of Red - receiving financial backing from any interested parties that we should know about?”

  “No, it damn well isn’t!”

  I ignored his request and went over to the door; I was pleasantly surprised to find it wasn’t locked. I couldn’t prevent myself firing off a parting shot:

  “And you can stick your Official Secrets Act wherever you like . . I know where I’d stick it!”

  I yanked open the door and walked, fast, down the corridor. I had my head down and was pounding towards what I intensely hoped was the exit, expecting to be challenged and clapped in irons any moment, when another door opened abruptly to my right and out stepped Rosa Stone, of all people. She had a poppy-red dress on with a purple cape over her shoulders, emerald green high heels, earrings like the chandeliers in the Tower Ballroom, Blackpool and her curly black hair loose down her back. It was like they’d just invented Technicolor with no advance warning.

  “Magnus!” She cried. “Have they been pumping you, as well? Too awful, isn’t it?”

  I think I mumbled something non-committal about her uncle.

  “Oh no! Uncle Tristram’s not here, is he? We must leave at once.”

  She was toting a big carpet bag in one hand, but she grasped my arm with the other one and pushed me in the opposite direction to the one I’d been going; she’s a substantial girl, is Rosa, and she’d dragged me halfway down the corridor before I knew where I was. We reached the lobby unscathed, but there was a big man in uniform leaning on the reception desk I didn’t much like the look of. Surprisingly, Rosa hailed him like he was her best mate.

  “Evening, Arnold. How are you? Lovely to see you. Must dash.”

  She swept me past him and out onto the pavement of a quiet street. There was a smear of good, old London smog in the air and dusk had crept in while I’d been having fun and games with ‘Uncle Tristram’, the spy.

  “D’you come here often, Rosa?” I asked.

  “Me? No, only the second time ever. I just remembered his name. You know how it is.”

  I didn’t really, but then my memory is downright ordinary, however much I’ve tried to train it for my job; not like Rosa’s. She remembers everything - and I mean everything - from the names of folk she’s barely met to the variety of cake I was eating when we first ran into each other back at the Varsity office in college.

  Rosa sighed. “I’m dog tired, Magnus. I can’t tell you! You don’t have a car, by any chance?”

  “Wish I could afford one, man. Where’ve you got to get to?”

  “Good question. I’ve just got out of hospital, actually,” she said, airily. “I can’t go back to my flat in Battersea. I’m avoiding my uncle, so I can’t go to my aunt’s house. I was staying with some friends on a house-boat next to Hammersmith Bridge, but it’s an awfully tight squeeze and I can’t offer to pay any rent because I haven’t got a job . .”

  “You can come back to mine, if you like,” I tried to say it nonchalantly, but it came out right gruff and unwilling. I don’t think Rosa noticed, either way.

  “Oh, Magnus, that’s so sweet of you. I might take you up on that another time, but I think I’ll go home to my parents in Kent for a bit. Most of my things are there, you know?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ve got to re-coup.”

  “Yeah? What about a drink? We could do some re-couping together.” I wrenched my eyes off her and looked around for familiar landmarks, taking stock. “Where are we, anyhow?”

  “Waterloo, but we’re supposed to keep schtum about the location of HQ. I expect you signed the Official Secrets Act?”

  “Funny you should ask that,” I said, and changed the subject. “Well, if we’re in Waterloo, I know a tidy little place off The Cut, stays open all hours and plays some great jazz.”

  “You would! I thought the area was a wasteland, apart from the Old Vic.”

  I tapped my nose, “Gotta be in the know, man! Let’s scoot!”

  I hustled Rosa past the Old Vic with difficulty because the lass was mad for theatre and remembered whole performances from curtain-up to the last bow, and I mean whole performances: every single word of them, including who said what when and what they were holding at the time. She was going on that much about Richard Burton in Hamlet[24], I thought I’d have to strangle her.

  “I can’t think why, but he made me shiver just watching him because one never knew what he might do next, somehow, even though I know Hamlet from cover to cover and Claire Bloom, well, she was so unbelievably beautiful and I think she might be Jewish, like me, although Ophelia is a bit of a drip however she’s performed and . .”

  “Give it a rest, Rosa,” I said. “I thought you were tired, man. This is the place, look. The Black Box.”

  ——

  Down the stairs, snoop. I’ve got you.

  ——

  Rosa tripped down the stairs in her green heels, still all starry-eyed and in a world of her own about Richard bloomin’ Burton. She’d start acting the whole of Hamlet out, there and then, if I didn’t distract her and get a drink down her neck, fast. I suggested she find us a table and pushed my way to the front of the bar for a couple of pints and some Smiths’ crisps.

  The Black Box wasn’t one of those swank, West End joints, all red plush banquettes and men on the door who made you wear a tie; I steered well clear of them. (I wasn’t sure I still owned a tie, to be honest.) Those places attracted visiting Jazz royalty from the States, but you could always buy those cats’ records. The Black Box was just a dim, little cellar, a bit spit and sawdust, but authentic. You got a right mix of clientele, from be-boppers to some local gangland types (as I said; authentic), but somebody there did know their jazz and, if you struck lucky, you could see some storming live sets.

  No-one was playing when we came down the stairs, they just had some Bird on the turntable (not that there’s any ‘just’ about it - nobody did bebop like Charlie Parker, God rest his soul)[25].

  “Here are, Rosa,” I handed her a pint, “get that down you.”

  ——

  I set the boy to wait across the street, all fired up because I’d bought him a new pair of shoes. Idiot boy. Morons, the pack of them. Cretins everywhere you look. Not got the faintest how bloody serious this is.

  ——

  She looked a bit dubious about the pint, but I hadn’t wanted to patronize her with a half and, besides, that amount of fluid should drown Richard Burton, good and proper.

  “Now, what’s all this about hospital? Have you been ill?”

  “Oh, it was only a little uranium poisoning; nothing to worry about. I shouldn’t think I’m radioactive, or anything,” she breezed. “When it gets darker you can tell me whether I start to glow.”

  My beer sloshed all over the table. Uranium poisoning? They’d mentioned a bit of spying in an office and a swim across the river, but nobody had said anything about uranium. What the hell had ‘Uncle
Tristram’ got her mixed up in?

  “Are you telling me you’ve been exposed to uranium, Rosa?”

  “Yes, but I don’t think I can divulge any more if you haven’t signed the Official Secrets Act of 1939.” She took a big swig of her beer and rummaged through her crisps for the blue bag of salt. “Why were you at HQ, then?”

  “I don’t know . . I thought I knew; I thought I’d got to them politically. Through the mag. But now I’m not sure that was it. I think, maybe, your uncle wanted to check my credentials.”

  “Why?” She laughed, gaily. “To see whether you were suitable marriage material for his lovely niece?”

  I felt my cheeks flush, but she was oblivious; crunching crisps and learning the beer mats by heart.

  “I don’t think so, Rosa. Though he did seem dead interested in my family.”

  “Really? I’m interested in your family, too. Tell me about them, Magnus.”

  “You’re interested in everything!”

  I downed the remains of my pint that weren’t dripping off the edge of the table and fumbled in my pockets, hopefully. By some miracle, I’d enough for a couple more and the bus fare home for two. I’d have to make the next drink last.

  “Hey!” Rosa noticed me counting coins. “Let me. I’m not completely broke, you know.”

  This was good news and I began to relax, fetching my tin of Old Holborn out of my coat pocket and my papers. The joint was filling up nicely; a group of laid-back West Indian men had come in and some office girls were pretending not to notice them and the vibe was mellow. And then somebody behind the bar replaced Bird with Chet Baker and the Gerry Mulligan Quartet’s ‘My Funny Valentine’ and I was done for. I paused with my rollie paper stuck to my lip. Man, oh man! Chet’s trumpet solo came sliding off the street and into the Black Box - so apparently simple - starting off plain, so you’d no idea that he was about to gather up the strings of your heart, one by one, and pick you up like a balloon and send you flying into the sky. Why didn’t everybody shut up? Couldn’t they get what the cat was at? It was romance without the cheese; stripped of show-tune baloney until it was nothing but a pure stream of air - trumpet-air, Chet-breath - circling your head and heart and binding them with sadness. So much sadness. Then Rosa Stone came back to the table in her red dress and green shoes, two pints of best bitter in her hands and I looked up at her and it dawned on me how bloody lost I was.