The Yellow Glass

by Claire Ingrams

  “No I won’t. You can speak to her tomorrow. Goodbye, Father.”

  I was heading to the bathroom when I pulled up short. What did he mean “Is Kathleen still . .” Had he begun to ask “Is Kathleen still awake, or is Kathleen still there?” And, if it was the latter, had he aborted the sentence when he realised he was giving the game away? What was going on?

  I knocked on the spare bedroom door, but there was no answer, so I opened it as gingerly as I could. She hadn’t bothered to draw the curtains and the orange glow from a street lamp washed across the flower-strewn walls. The bed was untouched, not a wrinkle in the white counterpane. I went cold. Then I ran to our bedroom and wrenched open the wardrobe doors. She’d taken every stitch she owned, down to her furs. There was no need to sprint outside to check that her white Austin Princess had gone, but I did. This was one plot I hadn’t seen coming.

  Kathleen had left me and, contrary to many people’s expectations when we’d got married, it was the first time she’d ever done so. (I was guessing there hadn’t been a guest present on the steps of Chelsea Town Hall who hadn’t expected the worst . . and yet . . I never had.) I felt like the carpet had been pulled out from underneath my feet and I’d landed in a completely unknown place. I sat down on the bedroom floor and remained there for the next two hours, waiting for Kathleen to fetch up at my father’s house in Norfolk.

  I woke up in the spare bed and couldn’t think where the hell I was. It didn’t take too long to remember. I closed my eyes again, as if the recollection were the tail end of a nightmare that might take itself off if I put my mind to it. I’d rung Norfolk and she’d refused to speak to me and I’d pushed the matter and got into an argument with my father that was just like every argument we’d ever had. My recent disgraceful behaviour was merely an addendum to the long list of disgraceful behaviour that my father had been compiling from my earliest childhood; I rather wondered how he’d had the time to do anything else, the list was so lengthy. The only up side to Kathleen’s choice of refuge was that it looked like she hadn’t got another man. If she’d taken a lover, she would, surely, have run to his arms and not to those of my elderly father. I reached for the empty pack of cigarettes on the bedside table and discovered that I was still wearing my suit and tie.

  The sun was shining when I got into the car, coughing my lungs up from too much tobacco. London had grabbed at the chance of a sunny weekend in that unanimous way that it does, as if everybody had read the memo together: all the men were in light-weight suits and all the women were wearing summer frocks. The elms were a chlorotic green, the river sparkled, the air was softer and every damn person except me had a spring in their step . . but no more of that. I was off to HQ to do some work. First stop, Personnel.

  Essentially, Personnel was one step up from the typing pool and entirely manned by women. Of course, it was another world from hiring operatives, for which there were grapevines that curled questing tendrils through Oxbridge and one or two of the top public schools and an elaborate hierarchy within the system, beginning with the young shadows and ending with Hutch. The war had been different - more of an open playing-field in some ways - and I doubted whether they’d have taken me but for my war record (especially since I’d been sent down from more public schools than I’d had hot dinners). However, I had the sense that there’d been a certain amount of backsliding since 1945, despite Atlee and Bevan et al. It was remarkable, then, that Hutch, himself, didn’t hail from the top drawer (although, where he did hail from was anybody’s guess), but surveyed the scene with an outsider’s eye; one of the few things I rather admired him for, in actual fact. But I digress.

  The auburn-tressed girl perched at the front desk in Personnel was more than happy to hand over the file on my section head secretary (who turned out to be a Miss Jane Watson, which was not so very far from Miss Whatshername, after all). I sat down with the document while she made me a strong cup of unspeakable office coffee.

  ——

  What do they want? I asked myself.

  ——

  Miss Watson had been with HQ for over a year and had come with a glowing reference from her previous position, as personal secretary to a member of the House of Lords. I was familiar with the name of the peer who’d been so bowled over by the ‘trustworthy and supremely efficient’ Miss Watson. The gentleman was - I had it on good authority - an ancient relic who’d lost his marbles long before the outset of the Great War.

  The red-head set my coffee down beside the open file and leant over me with an encouraging smile; at a loose end on a sunny Saturday when everyone else had gone out to play.

  “Do all of the references get checked, do you know?” I asked.

  “We do our very best to check every detail, Mr Upshott. We have to, when you think what important material we handle.”

  “Right. Are you familiar with this one?” I pointed to the peer’s name and she leant so close I could read the tag on the inside of her summer frock.

  “Before my time, I’m afraid, Mr Upshott. Would you like me to look into it now? I’d be happy to.”

  She certainly looked like she’d be happy to look into all sorts of things.

  “That won’t be necessary.”

  She wandered off, a mite disconsolate.

  ——

  What do they want? The familiar, the faithful, the feminine. I gave them plenty of all that. I couldn’t resist a little chuckle when I pulled the carbon out.

  ——

  I cast an eye over Miss Watson’s personal statement, from her birth in Hillingdon, to her triumphant grades at secretarial school. Her years of selfless dedication to an ailing mother. Her voluntary work for the Girl Guides Association, as a Brown Owl, no less. Her attachment to Lord Relic, whose employ she had been reluctant to leave but for his insistence that her country would be better served at HQ. The recent death of her mother, allowing her to move to a flat on Baker Street. I nearly choked on my coffee. Baker Street, Miss Watson? Rooming with your friend, Miss Holmes, perhaps?

  I snapped the file shut, convinced that the so-called Miss Jane Watson had written her own Curriculum Vitae, references and all, before being installed as a mole in my section and applying her fertile imagination to Arko’s files. And the worst of it was that she’d been with us for an entire year! It was unthinkable, the kind of damage she could have done in that time. Had she been falsifying all manner of documents, or was Operation Crystal Clear her priority? It occurred to me that if she were reporting directly to Reg Arkonnen, it was rather intriguing that he’d turned up to the Heaviside meeting in person. If he were fully clued up about HQ having spies at the scene, then he’d have known about me and he might very well have known about Rosa, too. For heaven’s sake, had there been anybody at all at that meeting who wasn’t in disguise? It was like a night at the theatre.

  Well, Orchard was certainly kosher. Gerald Orchard, the Managing Director of Heaviside Import/Exports, was well known to us as a conduit - a fence, if you prefer - of long standing. He did a bit of this and that, old Orchard, although Operation Crystal Clear was pretty high octane stuff for him. We’d let him lie for the time being because we hadn’t wanted to disturb Arko any more than was strictly necessary after the farrago of the broken glass. However, that was now irrelevant if Arkonnen was in the know, and I’d get Orchard brought in as soon as possible and give him a squeeze. Which left Bob Dexter, the American. It was beginning to look like Dexter was the key. Reg Arkonnen had risked a hell of a lot to be at that meeting, just so that he could present a front to the American. If Bob Dexter was the key, I asked myself . . was he also the patsy?

  15. Hospitals & Pubs

  Is it finished? That was as much as I could get my head around. So unbearably short and I’d never get to hear Chet Baker blow his trumpet again. Is it finished?

  “Hello Mr Arkonnen. Time to wake up. It’s a beautifully sunny Saturday morning. Wakey wakey, Mr Arkonnen.”

  It was a nurse and a young, pretty one at that; she’d a
scrap of lace on her head and lipstick on her teeth. It had to be a nurse. Choirs of angels didn’t say wakey wakey, did they? It was a nurse and I wasn’t finished at all, but in hospital. I had a terrible thought: if I was in hospital, who was looking after Pablo?

  “Here’s your auntie come to see you, Mr Arkonnen. Can you say hello to your auntie?”

  “Hello Auntie,” I said, startled by the sound of my own voice; somebody had attacked it with sandpaper, it was that raw. “Please could you look after Pablo.”

  Another face, inches from mine, but it seemed distorted, like the view through a fish-eye lens. It wore winged glasses and it gave off the smell of warm face powder.

  “Pablo?” It asked. “Who’s Pablo?”

  “Pablo Neruda[37]. My cat.”

  The face smiled and nodded and turned into my Aunt Dilys.

  “Hello Aunt Dilys. What’re you doing here?”

  “You’ve been in the wars, Magnus,” she said, smiling down at me, “but we’ve got a lot to be grateful to you for.”

  “Have we?” I was confused

  She carried on smiling and nodding, and I got more confused.

  “You saved your uncle’s life, Magnus.”

  “Did I?” I genuinely hadn’t a clue what she was on about. “How did I do that, then?”

  “Don’t you remember?”

  “No.” My forehead felt clammy and I tried to bring a hand up to wipe it, only my arm was bandaged, shoulder to tips of my fingers, and consequently unable to move. “No. Tell me. Please tell me. I can’t . .”

  I heard the nurse murmur in the background, but I couldn’t shift myself to look at her. None of me was working properly and I was beginning to panic.

  “Don’t you remember anything, Magnus?”

  “No. Please tell me, Aunt Dilys.”

  “Well . .”

  I heard the nurse murmur again, but my aunt bent her head to my ear and half-whispered into it, very fast, in her clipped, high voice.

  “ . . . Reginald was giving you a lift home the night before last and the brakes failed and your uncle would have been killed if you hadn’t thrown your body over his to protect him, so that all he got was a couple of scratches. So bless you, Magnus.” She patted my head as if I were still a schoolboy and disappeared.

  “A car crash, was it?” I asked.

  “She’s nipped off, Mr Arkonnen,” it was the young nurse again. “It was just a quick visit, I’m afraid, and that’s your lot for today. You’re not up to visitors, only she begged me, being your nearest and dearest and everything.”

  Nearest and dearest? I’d no idea what anyone was on about. You could count the number of times I’d met my London aunt on one hand. I closed my eyes and breathed slowly. How many deep breaths did it take to make a bad dream go away?

  ——

  Inevitably, I ran into Jay Tamang on my way out of HQ.

  “Morning, Tamang. Working weekends, eh? The Monk certainly keeps your nose to the grindstone.”

  “Good Morning, Mr Upshott. How is Mrs Upshott?”

  “Mrs Upshott?” He’d caught me off-guard. “Mrs Upshott is fine. Blooming. Terrific form.”

  “You are a very lucky man, if I may say so, Mr Upshott.”

  “Yes. Indeed. She’s a lovely woman.”

  “She is. But I meant that you are lucky to have been forgiven so swiftly.”

  This seemed somewhat impertinent; as if our experiences down the slide - the fear of radiation and death and the shedding of clothes - had brought us together. I opened my mouth to express my thoughts, only to hear myself say:

  “D’you fancy a drink, Tamang?”

  He looked surprised. Was it too early? Perhaps he didn’t drink? I, instantly, regretted asking.

  “Look . . scrap that. I expect your religion forbids it, or something.” I turned to go.

  “I’ve drunk alcohol with you before. We drank whiskey at seven o’clock in the morning.”

  A belligerent look had crept over his face and his shoulders had tensed. Had I offended the man?

  “So we did.” I checked my watch. “Well it’s ten-forty five now, so we’re practically teetotallers, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Let me get my new duffle coat, Mr Upshott.”

  London was looking far too full of the joys of Spring for me, so I deliberately ignored the riverside pubs and I took him to the Black Box, instead. A grubby hole like that suited me down to the ground that morning. It still stank of the tobacco and ale consumed by some of South London’s finest crooks the night before, although a cleaner was finishing up and the floor was damp from the mop. We were the first customers of the day and I picked up a hand bell on the bar counter to ring for the landlord, who rose from the cellar with his sleeves rolled up to show inky blue tattoos on both forearms.

  “What can I get you, gentlemen?”

  “Scotch I think. For old times sake.”

  I got a grin out of Tamang, who nodded his head for the same.

  “Two, please.”

  Some music started up, a snatch of Charlie Parker.

  “Sad, isn’t it?” Said Tamang.

  “What’s sad?” Could the man see inside my head?

  “His death last month.”

  I looked at him with new eyes; there was evidently more to Tamang than nuts and bolts and abstruse technical manuals.

  “It was,” I agreed, selecting a hard chair in a gloomy corner and sitting down. “A damn waste of a brilliant talent.”

  “Ah, but might not the talent have been different - even diminished - had he not been the type to waste it?”

  What did we have here? A philosopher? I was pleasantly surprised by his comment. The dreariest part about being a spy was the need to categorize people; one learnt to put them into little compartments with monotonous accuracy. How I loved it when people rebelled against my preconceptions.

  “How old are you, Tamang?”

  “I am twenty-seven, Mr Upshott. How old are you?”

  “I’m thirty. D’you know, I thought you were younger?”

  He laughed his delighted laugh.

  “Do you know, I thought you were older?”

  That would be the war. The three years that separated us might have been three hundred.

  “Well . .” I raised my glass. “Cheers.”

  “Cheers, Mr Upshott!”

  He put his scotch down and silence fell, while he jiggled his glass about on the table. He looked unusually bashful.

  “I have seen Mrs Upshott before,” he announced, abruptly.

  “Mmm? Is that so? In one of her films?”

  “No. I have watched her films . . some of them . . but . .”

  “Spit it out, Tamang.”

  “Mrs Upshott sang for us in Burma. She sang like . . a nightingale. I have never forgotten it.”

  What was he talking about? Burma? What had Tamang been doing in Burma?

  “Gorkha battalion, Indian Army. Burma Campaign. Allied offensive 1944 to 1945.” He rattled it off like every soldier there ever was or would be, his face impassive as a stone.

  “You were a Gurkha?” I was astonished. “But . . you’d have been, what, sixteen or seventeen, at most?”

  “They needed every man they could get in the final push. Even a Tamang,” he gave a wry laugh. “Then, after the partition of India in 1948, my regiment moved across to the British Army, where I qualified as an engineer and became interested in the sciences.”

  “So, you’re from Nepal, Tamang?”

  “The Kathmandu Valley, Mr Upshott,” he nodded.

  I couldn’t get over it; I’d thought him a child and all the time he’d been one of the bravest of the brave - because my admiration for the Gurkhas was immense - and liberated Burma from the Japs. He’d have seen some sights over there, that was for sure. I shook my head in wonder.

  “And Kathleen sang for you all those years ago?”

  “A nightingale in the jungle,” Tamang said. “You are a very lucky man, Mr Upshott.”

&n
bsp; “Me?”

  Luck wasn’t everything. Somewhere along the line, I’d made a complete cock-up of my marriage, as I’d cocked-up so much in my life. I shrugged and chucked the last of my scotch down my throat.

  “Let’s get back to work, Tamang.” A thought occurred. “You must be sick to death of being stuck in that basement, especially on a day like this. If the Monk can spare you, how’d you like to join me in the field?”

  He looked more than happy to join me in the field.

  “It would be an honour.”

  “Don’t talk bloody rubbish,” I replied. “The honour’s all mine. Come on,” I got up from the table. “I’ve a few questions for the tattooed landlord.”

  ——

  I woke up again later in the day. It was like coming up for air, like swimming up from a cave deep under the sea and wondering whether you’ll ever make it to the surface. I gasped and opened my eyes. The curtains were drawn round my bed, but the shape of the hospital window shone through in a yellow rectangle of sunshine. They’d pumped me full of dope and I was dead drowsy. There was a newspaper by my bed, but I hadn’t a hope of reaching it because my arms and legs still refused to co-operate. I craned my neck. It was the Express and there was a picture of Elizabeth Taylor on the front at some film gala. I wasn’t proud; I’d have given anything to read about Elizabeth Taylor’s gala.

  It was silent as the grave in that ward. I wondered whether anybody knew I was there: any mates, any people I cared about who cared about me and might smuggle me in a fresh pouch of tobacco, or the latest copy of the Tribune. Not just some woman who’d happened to marry my uncle and I barely knew. Not that I liked my uncle, anyhow. I frowned, wondering why that’d come to me. Why didn’t I like my uncle? He was easy enough to talk to, wasn’t a rabid Tory as far as I knew, liked a drink and a smoke and a bit of music. I hadn’t a clue why, but I suddenly thought of Acker Bilk; just like that. There was Acker, toting his clarinet, all got up in his striped waistcoat and bowler hat, filling my brain with a vague, but growing, sense of disquiet. Blimey, trad Jazz wasn’t that bad! In the list of crimes against music it wasn’t up there with Dean Martin crooning ‘That’s Amore’[38] or Johnny Ray crying. Cold panic clutched at me. My God, I wasn’t having a heart attack, was I?