Autumn Leaves

by Tessa Lunney

  “Is there a telephone inside this station?”

  “Yes, mademoiselle.”

  “Show me.” I slipped her a whole franc. Her eyes widened but when I put my finger to my lips, she nodded and put the money silently in her pocket. She wove her way through the departing passengers to a little booth at the far end of the station. It was wedged between the guardhouse and the bar, a glass cubicle with blue frames.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Delphine.” She curtsied, her lank hair flopping forward as she did so. She moved quickly for someone with rough wooden clogs on her feet. Her clothes were grubby, with a skirt so full of holes it could masquerade as lace.

  “Do you sell matches here every day, Delphine?”

  “Yes, mademoiselle.”

  “Then I might see you again.” She could be useful. I felt a pang that I was already recruiting; she didn’t need any more hardship in her life. But then again, if she was to help me, I’d buy her some proper shoes and probably teach her to read. Surely that was better than selling matches. She looked at me, pallid and expectant.

  “In fact, make sure that I do.” I slipped her another coin. She took it with perfect gravity, curtsied like I was her new mistress, and resumed her match-selling. I noticed she had a new ring to her voice as she sang out her wares, she stood a little straighter and ignored the taunts from the boys around her.

  “London, Mayfair 5714, please.” I was surprised how confident I sounded saying Fox’s number, how straightforward the French operator was, then the English operator, the fuzz and static on the line, the operator checking if Fox would accept reverse charges. I kicked out the cigarette butts that littered the floor and shut the door tightly. There were too many people about, but despite this, the station buzzed with loneliness. Under the harsh electric lamps, every unfilled space rang with absence.

  “Fox.” His voice was steel, not silver, as he answered the call.

  “Darkling I listen.”

  Then he laughed. I was flooded with a relief so profound it felt like joy.

  “Hail to thee, blithe spirit!”

  “No spirit, nor any light-winged dryad of the trees—”

  “Bird thou never wert!”

  “I’m flesh and blood, skin and bone.”

  “And brain. When will you teach me half your gladness?”

  “You couldn’t know the half of the half.”

  “That harmonious madness?”

  “Precisely. Your madness has rhythm but no harmony. Like a machine.”

  “The world listens to machines.”

  “As I am listening now.”

  “Very good, Vixen.” He made a satisfied-sounding hum. “I thought you might have imagined me as Frankenstein’s monster, so I’m glad I avoided that allusion.”

  “You remind me more of Frankenstein himself.”

  “And you’re the monster?”

  “And I’m Mary Shelley.”

  He left a long pause. “A year is a long time for a funeral.”

  “I got stuck in Sydney in 1899, just as now I’m stuck in England in 1819.” I wanted to get away from the personal and onto the professional. I was only calling him to get the key to the mission. With the door closed, the booth stank of stale smoke.

  “It’s England in 1922 you need to attend to.”

  “I’m in France, Fox.”

  Another pause. “Joyce is very poetic, wouldn’t you say, in his use of language? He certainly admires poets, spends his time with poets and librettists, calls himself an artist and not merely a writer.”

  Where the sweet hell was this going? Surely he had not read Ulysses… poets and a clever use of language, aha, that was the key to the clues. I took out the mission letter and read over it once again.

  “ ‘England’ is a metonym for the royal family.”

  “Very good, Vixen.”

  “The princes are real princes then.”

  “Their mother would say so.”

  “Mother? Ah, so they’re brothers, two brother princes. Soldiers, if all those war references have any meaning.”

  “Tinker, tailor, soldier—”

  “Sailor—naval men?”

  Fox hummed.

  “Or one of them is a sailor and the other is a soldier… but what war is there now for English princes?”

  “It is a grave situation.”

  “Grave—that’s in the letter, along with all that talk of trenches and shelling and Versailles statutes.” Someone’s barking laugh was cut off as the door to the station bar slammed shut. “While I’m thinking out loud, tell me: black-clad, brown shirt, free corps… have I met these princes before? Or the houseboys, perhaps?”

  “I see I’m going to have to make these clues a little more complicated next time.”

  “Or you could just tell me what I have to do and when, as you did in the war.”

  “You miss the good old days?”

  “They weren’t good, as the photos you gave me show.”

  “ ‘We look before and after and pine for what is not.’ ”

  “Are they payment or a threat?”

  “ ‘Our sincerest laughter with some pain is fraught.’ ”

  “ ‘Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.’ ” Fox was quoting Shelley’s “To a Skylark,” the same poem on the back of the photographs. “That’s just post-war life.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Sure of what? That it’s life, or that it’s post war?”

  “These games really are beneath you. I’ve underestimated you.”

  “Just tell me what I have to do and when.” But I winced at my own impatience. I must never betray my feelings to Fox, even if that feeling was easily understandable frustration, as any such admission gave him too much power. I just had to play the game as he wanted it played, to the very end, or I would never get my payment: full proof of Tom’s innocence. I chewed the end of my pencil in place of a cigarette; it was too stuffy in this booth to smoke.

  “Teach me half your madness, Vixen.”

  “Madness? That is the saddest thought.”

  “But it makes the sweetest song.”

  He wanted me to “sing” the clues. I put my notebook and the mission on the little bench that supported the telephone.

  “There are two princes, brothers, who represent England. They will be ‘dragged’ by ‘houseboys’ into ‘public scorn,’ that is, into doing something that will shame the monarchy. I assume, therefore, that I need to stop that happening. ‘Realpolitik’ and Shelley’s own radicalism mean that this shameful thing they intend to do is political. This something has to do with the brown shirts, the ‘free corps’ or Freikorps, and black-clad somebodies as well. The title of the poem you use, ‘England in 1819,’ suggests that this political something is anti-English… combined with the brown-shirts, I’d guess it would be something against England’s centuries-old democracy.”

  “I applaud you.” He sounded disappointed.

  “ ‘We look before and after and pine for what is not.’ ” “To a Skylark” intruded; there had to be another meaning, there always was. “Is this something to do with the aristocratic resurrection that Prince Felix Yusupov was talking about? Using the Fascists to fight the Bolsheviks?”

  “ ‘The world should listen then.’ ”

  “But who wouldn’t listen now?” Why had Fox chosen me for this mission? “Some of your colleagues? Other men in government?”

  “If you can make them listen about the princes, then I can make them listen about a certain farm boy.”

  The screech of trains echoed through the station. I pressed the phone closer to my ear.

  “They will listen, then, to the gladness of a patriotic colonial, the madness of days lost unconscious in the mud.”

  He was talking about Tom, how he had been knocked out by a blast at Passchendaele and recovered in a German trench. How Tom wandered back to the line in a daze, only to find he was accused of being a German spy
and had been charged with treason. Fox knew so much, but I hadn’t mentioned what had happened since 1917. I pulled my scarf tighter around my neck. I was suddenly cold.

  “If you are my blithe spirit, Vixen, then such harmonious madness from my lips would flow.”

  “No one could be blithe enough to counteract you. If I am a bird, then you are a cage.”

  “Bird thou never wert.”

  “According to you, I’m a vixen.”

  “And vixens find their prey. It’s time to work.”

  “I don’t like your kind of work.”

  “I would worry if I didn’t know you, Vixen. If I didn’t know how much you loved the hunt.”

  I couldn’t fault him. How could I lie and say otherwise, when it was clear I had spent all day thinking only of his letter, his codes, this mission?

  “And what would you do for my farm boy?”

  “I could do everything to rescue Lieutenant Thompson.”

  “If I do everything for you,” I said, and he murmured assent.

  “And why me, Fox? Why send the mission like this? Who are we hiding from?”

  “We. You don’t often use ‘we.’ You often assume that we work against each other, not with each other.”

  “I don’t work with you. I work under you and under sufferance. But if I’m hiding, it’s because you’re hiding, so the ‘we’ is unavoidable.”

  “Not a royal ‘we’ then.”

  “I’ll leave that for the mission. So? Who is after us?”

  “You will meet with my man Bacon—”

  “Is that Fry? I met him last time.”

  “He will fill you in on some of these details.”

  “Surely no one is listening to your private calls. Isn’t that why you asked me to call you at home—for privacy? Isn’t that why you let me ramble on about the mission? You aren’t making sense. Who are we hiding from?”

  “Bacon—Fry, as you call him—has other things to give you.”

  I wasn’t going to get more out of Fox tonight. In the time I had been speaking to him the station had nearly emptied. The guards were turning down the lights and all the beggar children had disappeared.

  “One last thing, Fox. ‘Rarely, rarely, comest thou’… why that poem? It’s so… sweet.”

  But the operator was on the line; Fox had hung up.

  The station was deserted. The last train had departed, the last returned from the country, every traveler had hurried off to the warmth and comfort of their hotel, their local café, their home. The bar held only a few stragglers. A single station guard, an old man with enormous eyebrows, made his rounds. I felt disappointed and strangely alone, that Fox had once again hung up without a goodbye, and I couldn’t bear to think what that might mean. I marched from the station to the Rotonde and spent a bottle making acquaintances and speaking nonsense before I was walked home by my neighbors to a fitful, haunted sleep.

  13

  “my rambler rose”

  “Kiki, this is perfect!”

  “Bertie, this is Paris.”

  “Princes, Paris landmarks, and Rasputin’s killer… it’s so good to have you back.”

  I was once again at the station telephone booth, shouting over the steam and squeals, the yells and clangs, to dictate my column to Bertie down the line.

  “Although, Kiki, I have heard that the postal system between France and England is really very reliable.”

  “More reliable than reverse charges, you mean? Ask Sir Huffandpuff if the Star can buy me a typewriter and I’ll make sure all of my columns are on time.”

  “I can approve a typewriter for you—done.”

  “By the way, which day is on time?”

  “Today.”

  “And today is…”

  “Kiki!”

  “I jest. I bought a newspaper, I know what day it is.”

  “We go out on a Friday—that’s today, Kiki, just to remind you. I’d like your work by the last post on Wednesday so I have time to edit it, but last post on Thursday is acceptable. It’s set and printed in, oh, about half an hour so it can hit the stands this afternoon.”

  “The Star is a weekend publication now?”

  “Daily was too onerous. Weekly makes us a proper magazine. We even have an agony aunt!”

  “Is that you?”

  “ ‘Dear Worried of Croydon,’ ” he intoned, “ ‘the reason you are unable to find a man is not that there are no young men after the war, but that you have not left your parlor since Armistice. Throw off your slippers and head for the dance halls.’ ”

  “You have found your perfect role.”

  “No, my perfect role is as your batman.”

  “My batman?” A batman was an officer’s servant in the war. “Am I an officer? Is this the war?”

  “Well, I do help you carry out orders from your general.”

  “Do you? I’m confused, or perhaps still a bit hungover.”

  “I was walking through Whitehall a little while ago…”

  “Ah.”

  “And a certain man caught my eye. Tall, broad-shouldered, lovely navy coat, slight limp. He was going where I was going, so I found myself following him into the underground at Westminster, traveling the few stops to Temple Station, but instead of heading back to the office I followed him up the road into Soho. He walked into one of my favorite watering holes, so naturally I followed—it was lunchtime, after all…”

  “It’s always lunchtime with you, Bertie.”

  “And he ordered whisky… so to cut a long story short, my new lover works for Fox.”

  “Hold on… I think you’ve cut the story too short.”

  “I put a bit of your detective work into practice. He smokes Sobranies, he quotes Romantic poets at odd times, and he never relaxes. He says he’s a secretary, but even a parliamentary secretary can’t work such late hours.”

  “What’s his excuse?”

  “Excuses are for schoolmasters and maiden aunts, darling. When I mention the late hour, he just shrugs like the administration of government is too difficult for him to explain.”

  “How long have you been seeing this man?”

  “A couple of months. But it was only when you arrived last week and reminded me of Fox that I started to realize that two plus two makes four. I thought it might be good, you know, to have a little peephole into the inner workings of a silver-tongued, Savile-Row-suited surgeon.”

  “I haven’t had that since the war. I love you. Take notes.”

  “Like a real spy?”

  “Don’t wish for it. It’s a dirty, lonely life.”

  “You’re not alone as long as I’m alive.”

  “Ditto.”

  “You’re always a bit dirty, though.”

  “Send me some soap, then! I like Pears, preferably scented with something spicy.” I opened the door and lit a cigarette. “And stay alive, Bertie. I need you.”

  * * *

  It was Friday, five minutes to four. I was at Gare de l’Est to welcome a certain foreign correspondent, veteran Anzac, farm boy, Tom-Tom heartbeat of mine back to Paris. The station was full of people coming and going for the weekend, all in their coats and hats, gloves and scarves, waves of people in black and gray and brown. I received more than one look as I stood at the end of the platform like a glamourous canary—a mustard yellow coat with matching cloche hat, soft yellow gloves that matched my yellow suede shoes, a golden silk dress embroidered with autumnal leaves. I wanted to be noticeable for more than just my golden hair; I wanted to be a beacon, a light, a flame. I was also nervous, stupidly so. As I often did, I dressed brilliantly to disguise my fears, in the hope that this disguise might, for a time, become my true self. My clothing was a talisman for brighter days, as I needed to be so much brighter than I felt—I needed electric blue velvet, parrot green silk, bright pink leather—I craved gold thread holding down little silver mirrors and diamonds around my hem so that I sparkled. That would be my first task when this mission was over: a carnivalesque
wardrobe, a neon street-light wardrobe, a wardrobe to ward off the dark.

  Trains steamed into the platforms and the crowds surged. I didn’t know where he was coming from, I just had to scan the moving throng and trust that Parisians hadn’t all grown to be over six foot tall in the past year. They hadn’t, as there he was, his blue fedora tilted back on his head so he could do as I was doing, hunt impatiently for the face from home. I watched him for a moment, his head strained forward, his eyes wide and searching, the skin over his cheek twitching as he clenched his jaw. Then he saw me, and I couldn’t stop my smile, I couldn’t stop myself from pushing my way to him, from jumping into his arms and saying his name over and over. He wrapped both of his arms around me to keep me close, both feet off the ground, his face buried in my neck.

  “Button.” His voice was muffled by my scarf.

  I pulled his head away so I could look more closely at his face. He was much thinner than last year, his cheeks slightly hollow, and his eyes sunken. His skin was pale beneath his soldier’s tan, a dirty tan of relentless exposure and not at all healthy. He wore the same suit as last year, a navy wool pinstripe, but it was now fraying at the collar, it was covered with stains and cigarette ash. His eyes, deep blue, looked at me like I had saved him from drowning.

  “Yes,” I said. I felt the same way.

  “Button.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Not without a good meal and a pint, you’re skin and bone.”

  “You can talk. Do you even own a mirror?”

  “You’re my mirror.” He took off my hat to stroke my hair. “Button, are you…”

  “Yes. Now I am.” Now I’m alright, now that I’m back here. He understood; he smiled, his little boy smile of unalloyed joy.

  A cough sounded next to us and a young man with a black moustache looked at us sheepishly. Tom gave an embarrassed laugh and let me down.