The Yellow Glass

by Claire Ingrams

  To cut a long spy story short, I nipped back to the stern, dressed Joe in Tamang’s clothes, grabbed the radiation suits and, somehow, slogged back up the ladder with Joe and the suits slung over my back. I dragged the lot over to the bows, where I slid the hatch and flung the suits into the hold. Then I retrieved Joe and got him over to the mainmast, lashed him securely, made sure to keep him gagged and rested his chin on his chest. I pulled the hood of the duffle coat up around his closely shaved neck, to hide the pallor of his skin but, all in all, his dark brown hair and youth gave a similar impression to Jay Tamang. Then I crawled back down the hatch and drank two cups of tea, extremely fast, with a big bowl of pink blancmange to follow.

  Tamang had treated the cut on his head and the bruising on his legs with antiseptic and then hopped into the spare suit, but he still seemed uneasy, largely because he seemed to have developed an antipathy to the cat. He sat, cross-legged, on the floor, clutching a mug of tea and staring at the creature, which lay curled up on top of Magnus’ chest, staring back.

  “Don’t keep looking at him,” I advised. “He’s lapping up the attention; any minute now, he’ll come and jump on your head.”

  “Aargh!” The cat seemed to have got to him more than anything else.

  I went over and picked the cat up by his front legs and he hung, placidly, in my arms - his back paws almost grazing the ground - like a sack of particularly heavy potatoes.

  “He’s a peaceful old fellow, look.” I set the cat on my head and he stayed there, quite happily, purring. “Does he suit me?”

  Tamang stared, gravely, at the cat on my head.

  “Why is it so big? I don’t think it natural for a feline to be so big.”

  I put the cat back down on the floor and watched him wander over to the fridge.

  “Well, he’s the full tom, if you get my meaning. And a hungry tom, at that.”

  I dug out his chicken livers from the fridge, watched him gobble them up in two seconds flat and then washed up the bowl with the other dishes we’d used.

  “Time to get some kip, I think. I’d better get that ruddy suit back on.”

  “What about the man?” Tamang motioned upwards. “Won’t he come down here?”

  “Oh yes. By my estimation, he should be joining us any minute now to make sandwiches, but I don’t think he’ll be too fussed if he finds Joe Bloggs having some kip on the top bunk. I rather think Joe pulls rank, actually.”

  “Joe Bloggs?”

  “Mmm. Young chap in a radiation suit escorting a select cargo to Reg Arkonnen in Dover. But only one of us can be Joe, you understand. The other has to be small enough to top and tail with the sleeping journalist, keeping his head well under the blankets.”

  Tamang gave a resigned sigh, grabbed himself an apple from the fruit bowl and got into bed with the Left. The cat promptly tried to dash in with him.

  “Oh, no, you don’t!”

  I grabbed the animal and took him up to the top bunk with me. It had been a long enough night for Jay Tamang, already and that seemed the very least I could do.

  I was woken by the sound of murmuring voices down below.

  “Rosa,” murmured Magnus Arkonnen. “Rosa Stone.”

  “Yes,” went Tamang, “that was the girl. But we have had no notification that she is dead and I’m sure Mr Upshott would have mentioned it, if that were the case.”

  “Yeah? I wouldn’t put it past him not to; he’s a cold-blooded bastard, that one.”

  I hung my head down over the edge of the top bunk.

  “Good morning, Magnus. Slept well?”

  He stared, glumly, up at me.

  “I’ve a cracking headache. Any more dope and I’ll OD.”

  I climbed down and considered Dilys Arkonnen.

  “Auntie’s still out, I see.”

  I glanced at my watch and discovered that it was six thirty in the morning.

  “I wonder how long she’ll be? You might want to put your hood on just in case, Tamang. Oh, and get out of bed. Finding any more men in her nephew’s bed might tip her over the edge.”

  “I reckon she’s well over the edge by now,” Magnus pointed out. “So, what’s the plan, man?”

  I put the kettle on the stove and began to assemble some thick wodges of bread, margarine and jam for the assembled parties.

  “I’m afraid there’s not an awful lot that can be done with you, Magnus. You’re pretty much surplus to requirements until your injuries mend. I hope you can understand that.”

  For once, he didn’t argue. Although, he looked severely down in the mouth.

  “One thing I will say, however. You can stop worrying about my niece; I spoke on the phone with her, a couple of evenings back and she was alive and well and staying with her family in Kent. Going on about Richard Burton, actually.”

  “Hey, man! That sounds like Rosa!”

  His entire face transformed before my eyes. Lit up and all the rest of it. The boy was one hell of a sorry case.

  “Yes, it does. She’s keeping an eye on proceedings that end - she tipped us off about the Kent angle - but she’s got strict instructions not to interfere any further.”

  “You’ll be lucky!”

  I finished making breakfast, passed the plates round and went to find my hood.

  “I think she’s learnt her lesson,” I said and, I have to say, it sounded thoroughly unconvincing, even to my own ears.

  “Right,” there were a couple of points that needed clearing up. “I’m heading up on deck, so just a few words, you two.”

  They looked alert and ready for action.

  “Magnus, you will be departing with your aunt for the holiday home. Can’t be helped, I’m afraid. But, I’d be grateful if you’d use your journalist’s skills and commit anything unusual you might come across to memory; even the smallest thing could help the Operation. This is the telephone number of the Stone family and I’ll check back with them from time to time. Got it?”

  I told him the number and got him to repeat it back to me several times. I was pleased to see that he accepted his fate with unusual grace, considering that he was Magnus Arkonnen.

  “Tamang, I want you to remain down here, with your hood over your face, for the time being. But, the minute that Dilys Arkonnen begins to stir, get yourself up the ladder and over to the hold in the back of the barge and let me know. You will be passing the wheelhouse, so try to walk tall and mumble politely if Mr Severs says anything because, obviously, you will be being Joe Bloggs.”

  He nodded, as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as if the day before had never happened.

  “Good luck everyone,” I gave them my old army salute.

  Then I shuffled up the ladder for the last time, feeling optimistic that we had all the bases covered.

  “See you in Dover.”

  21. A Shaggy Dog

  They took samples of every bodily fluid I owned, but they couldn’t find anything wrong with me.

  “Are you sure you don’t have kidney pain?” One doctor asked.

  “How are your eyes?” Asked another, holding up four fingers. “How many?”

  I was tempted to say five, but I stopped myself.

  “We’ll take a good look at them, anyhow,” he promised, and they did, holding up charts of rapidly diminishing letters for me to read.

  “J. K. Q,” I got down to the itsy-bitsy ones at the very bottom.

  “Q?” He queried. “I don’t think that’s a Q.” He peered at it. “No, you’re right, Miss Stone. It is a Q. Well done; not many get that far.”

  I felt absurdly pleased because I could have memorised all of the charts from my last visit to Charing Cross, but I hadn’t. Honestly.

  I’d been in hospital for two days when a nurse asked me, casually, whilst filling up my jug of water:

  “Any hay fever in your family?”

  “Oh, yes,” I replied, sitting up in bed. “My father’s riddled with it. He grew up in the London fogs and he didn’t know he had it until we went to live in
Kent and all of the wildflowers attacked him en-masse. But I’ve never suffered from it.”

  “No? It can start at any time. But I expect the doctors have ruled it out. Like me to find you a magazine? Home Chat’s got some lovely knitting patterns in it this month.”

  “Thank you, that would be wonderful,” I said.

  But I wasn’t really thinking about knitting patterns. No, I was thinking about speedwell, buttercup and stinging nettle. About chalk milkwort, vetch, heartsease and oxeye daisy. And then, further back, to the verdant spaces of the riverside at Putney and the daffodils in Hurlingham Park. Was it possible that I was suffering from nothing more than the onset of a particularly chesty form of hay fever?

  I spent a lot of time thinking - having little else to do in my solitary confinement - and the idea grew on me. And, then, other ideas began to germinate and I thought them through, one by one, while I stared, unseeing, at the hospital ceiling. I thought about my involvement in Uncle Tristram’s operation, about him wanting me to be his eyes and ears, and it occurred to me that I’d gone much further and that what I’d actually become was a canary. Only, instead of carrying me down mineshafts to test the presence of poisonous gases, I’d been exposed to yellow glass. Again and again, I’d been exposed to glass that was ostensibly pumped full of dangerous amounts of uranium, but I hadn’t keeled over in my cage. My kidneys were still functioning and my eyes were still clear. There was only one, logical, conclusion; I had proved beyond any reasonable doubt - by my continuing, healthy existence - that the deadly glass was a fabrication of a different kind. It was, in fact, a story.

  I thought back to my research with the Encyclopaedia Britannica and I wondered why anybody had ever thought it possible that glass could hold vast amounts of uranium? The whole idea was completely ridiculous! Yes, uranium glass certainly existed and had enough uranium oxide in it to fluoresce under ultraviolet light; I’d seen that for myself in Reg Arkonnen’s shed. But massive amounts of uranium that could be exported to Russia? I hardly thought so. And, if I hardly thought so, then why on earth had HQ fallen for it? If this was a story, then it was the persistent variety they called a shaggy dog story. I was only too conscious that I’d sworn to have no more to do with Uncle Tristram’s work, but who could resist a shaggy dog? Certainly not me. At which point, my father poked his head around the hospital door and broke my chain of thought.

  “Surprise!” He boomed. “The powers that be have allowed visitors. How are you, bubeleh?”

  “Hello Daddy. How lovely to see you. I’m perfectly fine, actually.”

  He came in, parked himself on the edge of my bed and dumped a brown paper bag on my bedside table.

  “You didn’t bring grapes, did you?”

  “What do you take me for!” He gave me a look of mock horror and a dramatic arm gesture that was straight off the boards of the Yiddish theatre. “Chocolate buns, Rosa. But I shall take them away if you are too ill to eat them.”

  “Just you try!” I grabbed the bag and hugged it to my breast.

  “This I like to see. You do seem well. Have they drained the poison out of you?”

  “Poison!” I scoffed. “It’s pure poppycock. I don’t believe there ever was any poison in the first place.”

  He looked confused and took his horrible, black beret off to scratch his head.

  “No poison? How can that be? Everybody says there was poison.”

  “Yes, they do and that’s the problem, actually . . . Tell me, Daddy, how is your hay fever?”

  “Not so good, now you ask,” he began to mop his eyes with his beret, as if my question had brought on an attack. “It’s started unusually early this year, but Doctor Knowles says they’ve developed a new medicine that might help. Anti-hiss-something or other[43]. I forget. The old brain is slowing down.”

  “So, what’s new?”

  He laughed and put his beret back on:

  “Are you sure you’re not well enough to come home?” And then, “Sam misses you.”

  This was such an outrageous lie that I wondered what could be behind it. (Until I remembered how awful the atmosphere had been at home since Uncle Albert had died, what with his sisters missing him so much and me feeling so racked with guilt that I could barely speak.) Perhaps they needed me at home.

  “I shall discharge myself first thing tomorrow morning and get the Dover train,” I said, “whether they want me to or not.”

  “Oh. I didn’t mean . .”

  “I know you didn’t, Daddy. But I’m fine, honestly; as well as I’ve ever been. It looks like I’ve inherited your hay fever, actually, so I’ll get Dr Knowles to give me some anti-hiss-something, too.”

  “Really? Is that the doctors’ diagnosis?”

  “Mmm,” I said, feeling virtuous because I could have lied and given him an outright ‘yes’, but I hadn’t. “Tell Mummy not to worry and I love her and I’ll see her tomorrow.”

  “Well. If you are sure. I must get back to work now; I have a meeting in London with a very important customer.” He got up, kissed me and went to go. “Oh, by the way, there is a little something for you in the bag with the buns. I thought it might help to pass the time . . .”

  I watched the door shut behind him and lay back on my pillows, feeling rather surprised at myself. I’d had the chance to run - to do a bunk, as they called it in my family - and I hadn’t taken it. Instead I was going back home to do my duty. Wonders would never cease! I felt I deserved a chocolate bun, so I stuffed one into my mouth, quickly followed by another one and then another, and then I took a look at the book he’d brought me.

  It was a miniature Collins GEM, ‘Plants of the British Isles: Sea & Shore’, and I was very pleased to have it. I set about memorising the entire contents ready for the next time I saw my father, because he was bound to test me on them.

  Of course, I already knew quite a bit about sea-campions and thrifts and other wildflowers that grew by the shore, but I was actually fairly ignorant about seaweeds, so I set about filling this gap in my knowledge. Hours passed while I immersed myself in wracks and kelps, dulses and ulvas and I thrilled to the wonderful common names of many species: from Dead Man’s Bootlaces, to Landlady’s Wig, Brown Tuning Fork Weed to Sea Whistle and Sugar Kelp. There was even one called False Eyelash Weed! I imagined generations of people finding these bizarre weeds, slimy of texture and alien of shape, washed up on their beaches and attempting to make sense of them by giving them names that related to commonplaces in their own lives; attempting to tame them with language.

  The tea lady interrupted me, eventually.

  “Anybody at home?”

  “Come in,” I called and she wheeled her urn through the door.

  “They’ve taken the notice off of your door, I see, dear. Looks like you’ve got nothing worth catching. Fancy a cuppa?”

  “I’d love one, thank you.”

  She was just pouring me a cup of tea when the policeman walked in.

  “Miss Stone? Miss Rosa Stone?”

  The terrible, sinking feeling reappeared; the feeling that had only just begun to go. I had to make a conscious effort not to let it drag me down.

  “That’s me. Can I help you?”

  “Sergeant Riley,” he said. “I’m from Scotland Yard.”

  He showed me his badge, but once you’ve had dealings with the police you recognise them forever more, whether in or out of uniform. There was something about the voice and the set of the shoulders. And the feet, of course. I couldn’t see this one’s feet, but the voice and the shoulders were all present and correct. He was quite young and brown-haired and wearing a brown cord jacket over a brown v-necked jumper over a white shirt and a brown knitted tie. Despite being a symphony in brown, he looked quite presentable, actually, and my hands went to my hair, which was in even more of a sorry tangle than usual. I could have done with a little warning.

  “Hello Sergeant Riley. Would you like a cup of tea while the urn’s here?”

  He shook his head and pulled up a
chair, rather close to the bed. I felt a touch flustered and adjusted my pale pink bedjacket, wishing it hadn’t been pink because I looked an absolute lemon in pink, whatever the shade.

  “We just need a few more details, Miss Stone.”

  “Righto,” I said, as brightly as I could muster.

  “I’d like to take you back to the moment you looked in the shed, is that alright?”

  It very much was not alright, but I took a big swig of my tea, nearly burning the roof off my mouth in the process, and began.

  “Well, I looked in the shed and, at first, I saw nothing . . but once the uranium glass began to glow . .”

  “To glow?”

  He looked up from his notepad and wrinkled his nose, in a sceptical fashion; I’d had a bit of trouble with the police and this part of the story before. Being policemen, they tended to distrust anything that was new to them and fluorescing glass had certainly been off their radar.

  “Yes. The uranium oxide used to tint the glass reacted to the ultraviolet light inherent in twilight; it’s a perfectly normal phenomenon and I can lend you my Encyclopaedia Britannica if you’d like to confirm it.”

  “Thanks, but I can go to the library,” he muttered, head well down while he wrote out the above sentence in longhand.

  “You need to learn shorthand,” I suggested.

  He looked up from his pad and into my eyes, briefly. His eyes were a rather lovely limpid hazel. I think I may have tugged at my bedjacket a bit more.

  “Anyway. Where was I?”

  “Glowing glass.”

  “Right. And then a hand came from behind and shoved me into the shed and locked the door.”

  “A hand? No glove?”

  “Gosh, no you’re right!” Sergeant Riley was obviously brainier than the others who’d been to see me. “So . . he didn’t have his radiation suit on at that point. He put it on before he came back to finish me off.”

  “If that was him,” he muttered into his pad.