The Yellow Glass

by Claire Ingrams

  I sat down at the telephone table and put a hand on the phone. The trouble was, I reflected - taking in the tasteful blue and cream curtains from Harrods, the quiet, yet quality, watercolours that Tristram had brought to the marriage and the naff old cocktail cabinet full of bits of shiny rubbish that’d come along for the ride with me - that I didn’t really care as much as one was supposed to care. For the stuff, I mean: all the stuff one doesn’t care about that one works at jobs one doesn’t care about to buy and put in one’s house that one doesn’t care about. My hand remained on the phone while I gazed into thin air, summoning up pictures of things that I possibly might care about. The motorbike, or the car, or the airplane that I was going to pilot into the deep, blue yonder. And then, rather unexpectedly, Tristram Upshott . . . Don’t say I didn’t warn you about Tuesday.

  Wednesday morning saw me standing at the sink again with my bowl of porridge. But this time my mind was on shoes. An impeccably polished, handmade pair of gentlemen’s shoes, to be precise. By the clock on the kitchen wall, I’d established that these shoes strolled across the front of the kitchen window every ten minutes. Not nine, not eleven, but every ten minutes, on the dot. Hutch was having the house watched - I was convinced of it - and I could not, for the life of me, think why. It certainly put the willies up, though, and I had to go and have a steadying cigarette in the patch of garden out the back; as far away as I could possibly get from those shoes, short of leaping over the wall.

  I sat on the back step next to the fishing gnome I’d bought to annoy my husband - it hadn’t worked, he’d only laughed - flicking ash into a pot full of dead chrysanths, while all sorts of wild scenarios played out in my head. From the abduction scenario, where Hutch was so deranged with lust that he’d commanded his men to bring me to him, to the idea that this had nothing to do with me at all, but was all about my errant husband. Had Tristram been up to something dreadful that had put his bosses’ backs up and set them watching the house for his return? That seemed a distinct possibility, although I said so myself. Abduction was just too straight out of ‘Ivanhoe’ for the modern day and age and Hutch struck me as more of an opportunist than a man consumed with desire. However, the notion that Tristram had returned to his old, light-fingered ways was not so absurd. (Not that my husband had been the type of thief who stole anything of particular value, but perhaps he’d picked something important up inadvertently, which was why he’d been forced to disappear.) I had visions of him spending the rest of his life fleeing from the authorities; of him yearning after me from dark doorways and us having snatched meetings on the tops of Ferris wheels. For the first time that week, I began to worry about him.

  My anxiety was only compounded when I telephoned my sister, Millicent, that evening. She told me that Rosa had been discharged from hospital and was back home, apparently suffering from a nasty bout of hay fever, which I was pleased - if a touch puzzled - to hear. We discussed this and that, and then (this is the anxiety-making bit) we said goodbye and she replaced the phone at her end and there was a distinct ‘click’ on the line after she did so. I stared at my receiver, like bad actors do when they’ve received surprising news in a play involving French windows. It was clear to me that we had not been alone on the line and that the powers that be now knew all about my niece’s hay fever.

  Thursday evening couldn’t come too soon for me. Yes, I wanted to find out about the microfiche, but - more than that - I was desperate to learn Mr Piotrowski’s professional opinion on the watchers and listeners; to be reassured that I wasn’t simply going stark, staring, off my rocker. However, before that, there was plenty to be done. For I’d drawn up a schedule.

  First on my list had been the quick call to my cleaner in the morning, to enquire whether she could possibly do the house later that afternoon, because I was giving an impromptu cocktail party that very evening.

  “I’m awfully sorry to muck you about like this, Joan,” I said. “I know Friday is your day, but the house is in such a state I daren’t let company over the threshold. Please, please say you will, darling. Double wages for your trouble?”

  It turned out to be no trouble at all, and Joan would be delighted to pop round at half past four to do me.

  “Marvellous! You’re an absolute saint to do it. I’ve got the window-cleaner coming too, thank heaven, so that’s perfect timing! See you later, Joan.”

  I waited for the click before I replaced the receiver, then I went upstairs to sort out some clothes and lay them on the bed.

  When the allotted time arrived, Joan was wonderfully punctual (which was just as well, because I was hovering about on the doorstep pretending to water a dead plant and giving the street an eyeful of my dress). She tripped in, fluffing up her blond hair and taking her apron out of her bag.

  “Oh, don’t worry about all that,” I said, having shut the door behind her, firmly and pushed her down the hall. “The house can look after itself. Let’s have a cup of tea together while I tell you my plan. Come on,” I beckoned her towards the basement stairs.

  “Plan, Mrs Upshott?”

  “Mmm,” I replied. “You know how you once admired this dress, darling? Well . .”

  Joan looked charming in my frock, as she did in the blue hat with the broad brim that I’d once worn to Ladies Day at Ascot. With twice her usual wage stashed away in an old handbag of mine (and the money to see Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in ‘To Catch a Thief’[48] at The Chelsea Classic), and the promise that she could keep the dress, it was little wonder that she positively glowed when she left the house at five. Would they take the bait? In all honesty, it didn’t matter too much if they didn’t because I had the rest of my schedule to complete.

  If I said I didn’t enjoy the next bit, I’d be lying. I was in my element and had to stop myself reaching for the bashed, tin box of greasepaint that I’d used during the war. I’d taken the collar off one of Tristram’s shirts and shortened a pair of braces. The trousers were on the baggy side, but not too long, since I’m tall, and I made sure to stuff plenty of cash into the pockets, so as to be ready for all contingencies. The jacket didn’t work, though - being far too broad in the shoulders, so that I looked like one of those old music hall girls who dressed up as a chap and kept twirling the ends of their moustaches - so I ripped the arms off a grey jumper that’d suffered from the moths and put that on, instead. It really wasn’t bad at all and, when I’d washed my face and stuck my hair under a cloth cap that Tristram wore in the country, I was quite delighted with the effect, swaggering back and forth in front of the wardrobe mirror. Next off, it was down to the kitchen to collect a bucket of water and a dishcloth.

  I left the house through the back garden, went round the side and out through the front gate, whistling. Then I strolled down the Fulham Road, dumped the bucket and cloth outside the Queen’s Elm pub and went in to find Mr Piotrowski.

  He was sitting in the corner of the empty saloon nursing a pint of bitter.

  “Evenin’ Guv’nor,” I said. “ ‘Ow’s tricks?”

  He gazed up at me, as dead pan as any straight man in a comedy turn.

  “Take that chair,” he pointed to the chair with its back to the bar, “and I’d better get you a pint.”

  I couldn’t feel that he’d given my performance a vote of confidence and subsided into my seat.

  “There,” he returned with the glass. “You do drink ale?”

  “I’ll drink anything, me. Ta very much. Down the hatch!”

  “I think that will do, Kathleen; we are alone in the pub, after all. Is there any particular reason behind this subterfuge?”

  I leant over the table and whispered:

  “You Know Who has his men watching the house and listening to my telephone calls.”

  “Indeed? This does not surprise me.”

  “No? Well, it blooming well surprised me, I can tell you! But I’ve given them the slip and I think they’re probably watching Cary Grant and Grace Kelly by now. It’s a long story.”

  “I
’m sure.”

  “The thing is, I don’t know whether it’s me or my husband they’re interested in.” I took a quick slurp of my beer, thirsty after all the excitement. “Probably my husband.”

  “No, you’re quite wrong,” he remarked. “It’s you, Kathleen.”

  “What? You mean he really is deranged with lust?”

  “No. I mean that the clerk at the front desk of HQ had a good look at the front of the microfiche envelope and will have reported his observations to Hutchcraft immediately after our hasty departure. They must have been highly delighted when you spent those hours at my flat, giving them ample time in which to tap your phone. I feel I have let you down.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I had no idea of the scope of this business; none, whatsoever. Only as I reached the final document in the encrypted correspondence, did I realise the terrible danger in which I had left you. I congratulate you on your disguise; it shows a speed of thought and a flare for detail that are the hallmarks of a successful spy . .”

  “ ‘Cor, stone the crows!” I nearly choked on my beer.

  “. . despite your tendency to overdo it. I think you will find, my dear, that the cake does not always require quite so much icing!”

  He could have been directing me in . . just about any part I’d ever played, to be honest.

  “Now drink up. We need to be on our way as soon as possible. Tell me, Kathleen, do you have a safe house? Preferably somewhere out of London. I’m afraid they’ll trace my flat like a shot, if they haven’t already done so. In fact, I also took precautions not to be followed today.”

  All I could think of was Shore House.

  “I know a place,” I said. “We could catch the train. It’s a hop and a skip and then you’re in the sea.”

  The train was too crowded with passengers returning home from work to discuss the microfiche any further. Then it was into a taxi at Dover Priory and straight to St Margarets Bay, and it was well past nine at night before we reached my sister’s house. What with all the dashing about that our flight from London had entailed, I’d quite forgotten to ring and give advance notice of our arrival.

  “Kathleen!” It was Mills at the white front door and she seemed ever so glad to see me. “Why are you dressed as a man, dear?”

  “Who’s dressed as a man?” Went Rosa, in the background.

  “A window-cleaner, actually,” I said. “Evening, both. This is Mr Piotrowski. We’re seeking sanctuary, if that’s alright with you.”

  “How nice to meet you,” said my polite sister, shaking Mr Piotrowski’s hand. “Please do come in.”

  We stepped in out of the night and I took off my cloth cap, slung it on a peg by the door and then whisked the old spy’s filthy coat off him before he had a chance to protest.

  “Hallo there,” my brother-in-law bounded out of the sitting-room to greet us. “Piotrowski, did you say? I’m Jerzy Stone. Delighted you could make it.”

  A slight man followed him into the hall.

  “Mr Tamang!” I cried. “What in heavens’ name are you doing here?”

  “Mrs Upshott!” He exclaimed. “I am so sorry. So terribly sorry. We have heard no news. It is driving us mad with anxiety.”

  I must have looked more than usually blank. Millicent took my hand in hers and drew me aside, confiding in her low, sensible voice:

  “I’ve been trying to call you all day, but there was an odd noise on your line and I couldn’t get through. I’m so glad you’re here, Kathleen; it’s like a miracle that you’ve come. Tristram is in the most dreadful danger and the police can’t find him and seem to think there’s nothing wrong and we don’t know what on earth we should do and . .”

  “Tristram? In danger?” My heart tumbled out of my ribcage and, if I hadn’t known how much I loved the man before, I certainly did then. “Tell me. Oh, God, Mills! Tell me quickly.”

  She led me into the drawing-room and sat beside me as they told me what had happened.

  “The Government?” It seemed that all my fears had come true.

  “Yes,” they chorused. “The British Government.”

  It was then that Mr Piotrowski spoke up from a stool by the fire to which he had, unobtrusively, hidden himself, so that it was as if we’d all forgotten he’d ever been there:

  “No,” he said, firmly. “This is not the work of the Government. They’re not behind this.”

  He raised his elegant fingers - as he had done three days earlier - to mimic a conjurer shooting cards from beneath his cuffs; spreading that invisible deck of cards and then magicking them into thin air.

  “It is the magician, Hutchcraft.”

  27. May I Ask a Question?

  My Aunt Kathleen’s mysterious companion seemed to know more about the operation than the rest of us put together and I couldn’t help wondering where he’d sprung from.

  “Psst,” I whispered into Jay Tamang’s ear. “Who is he?”

  We were side by side on the sofa, with a ringside view of my parents as they fussed over my aunt. The man had chosen to sit behind us on an uncomfortable, carved stool that an Eastern European carpenter had made for a child a hundred years earlier and that my mother kept as a decoration by the hearth. Nobody had ever sat on that stool by choice, not since it had escaped from a pogrom on the back of a horse and cart.

  “I don’t know, Rosa. I’ve never seen him at HQ.”

  I kept snatching glances at the mystery man, trying not to let him catch me at it. He was positively antediluvian, with transparent skin stretched tight over high cheek-bones and a preposterous nose and silver hair worn long, as if he were a fin-de-siècle bohemian who guzzled absinthe, and tremendously etiolated fingers and dirty clothes. Honestly; not just dirty, but filthy. I wondered whether he’d chosen to sit so far away from the rest of us because he ponged.

  “The microfiche will be Hutchcraft’s undoing,” Mr Piotrowski proclaimed.

  “Goodness, I’ve no idea who or what you’re talking about, but please do come and join us,” my mother put her oar in. “Come and sit next to Rosa on the sofa. Make room for Mr Piotrowski, dear.”

  The old man sat down beside me and I held my breath.

  “Rosa Stone, I believe?” He offered a skeletal hand. “You are a remarkable young lady, by all accounts. I am greatly interested to meet you.”

  I released my breath in a great whoosh, which I tried to convert into a cough, and smiled. Now that I came to look at him properly, I was struck by his uncanny resemblance to John Gielgud’s ‘King Lear’[49] at his most noble.

  “Hay fever still bad, is it, Rosa?” Enquired my aunt.

  “Oh . . you know . . I’m coping. Please tell us more about this microfiche, Mr Piotrowski,” I pleaded. “We’re simply dying to hear.”

  “And how about a small brandy to oil the wheels?” My father asked.

  “That would be most acceptable. Thank you, Mr Stone.”

  “Jerzy, please.”

  “Apoloniusz.”

  They’d recognised one another; something indefinably Eastern European had passed between them, it was clear. Any minute now and my father would be pickling beets.

  “The microfiche is an encrypted correspondence between Sir Godfrey Hutchcraft, the current head of British Security and the KGB, which was discovered, hidden in a church, by Kathleen. Who then brought it to me - in a roundabout fashion - because I have some expertise in these matters. Now, before I reveal its contents, I need to know exactly what you all know,” Mr Piotrowski declared, looking more Gielgud-esque by the minute, while we all maintained a respectful hush in the face of such charismatic delivery. “For her part, Kathleen has told me about a plot to trade illegal uranium, hidden in glass, around the world; a clandestine operation upon which she believes her husband was engaged undercover, before his disappearance.”

  “That’s my Uncle Tristram,” I couldn’t help piping up, “who employed me to be his eyes and ears.”

  “The brave Mr Upshott,” Jay added, “my senior
officer in the field - although I work in the technical department and, sadly, cannot claim to be a spy.”

  “Ah,” Mr Piotrowski turned to Jay and I, “I shall consider you two young people my primary assets. Tell me more, if you please.”

  I practically rocketed off the edge of the sofa, I had so much to tell him.

  “One minute,” Jay put a restraining hand on my arm. “Exactly who are you, sir? If you don’t mind me asking?”

  “He’s a spy,” Aunt Kathleen said. “Surely anyone can see that. Apoloniusz Z Piotrowski is probably one of the best spies this country has ever had and we’ve treated him shamefully.”

  A look passed between the old man and my beautiful aunt that I couldn’t begin to decipher; it held secrets.

  “Shamefully?” Repeated my father, shaking his head. “Now, that I can believe.”

  “Oh, Jerzy,” my mother sighed, “let’s hear what everybody’s got to say before we start the revolution.”

  Anyway, Jay and I then proceeded to tell him our stories, (and I hung my head and spoke to the carpet while I told him of the death of Uncle Albert). We culminated in our mutual revelation regarding seaweed.

  “And that’s all we know about Operation Crystal Clear; the sum total of our knowledge, to date,” I finished.

  “Operation Crystal Clear, is that what he calls it?” Mr Piotrowski uttered a rather mirthless laugh. “Why did you not tell me this at the very beginning, Kathleen? That name has Hutchcraft stamped all over it. It’s his little joke, do you see? Crystal clear; in other words, completely and utterly empty. You are right; although there evidently is glass, it does not contain uranium.” He looked thoughtful. “I’d be interested to discover his relationship to this glass-maker, this man who is, apparently, supplying a million pieces of glass in the belief that Hutchcraft’s scientists are pumping it full of dangerous substances.”