Liberation Square

by Gareth Rubin

  ‘I didn’t mean –’

  ‘I know what you meant.’ He meant that I was acting irrationally: arguing with Morton; feeling upset when I discovered where the dinner with Fellowman was to be held. Apparently smashing the damn crockery for no reason. At least he didn’t suspect the real reason that my mind was churning. I had to keep it to myself for a bit longer. I left the room.

  ‘Is there something I can do?’ I heard Charles ask.

  ‘No, just leave it,’ Nick answered him.

  In the kitchen I noticed my palm was bleeding – I had cut it on the sharp china when it broke. Running it under the cold tap numbed away the pain.

  With a clean handkerchief pressed on to the wound, I went back into the dining room to find them all sitting silently smoking. It was the kind of silence that said they had been speaking in hushed tones the moment before but had stopped when I entered.

  ‘Anyway, shall we go to the Duck?’ said Nick in an unworried tone of voice, addressing the men.

  ‘Why not?’ Morton replied, putting a lighted match into the bowl of his pipe. ‘I think we’ve finished here, haven’t we?’

  ‘I’ll take a cab home,’ Bella said sweetly to her husband. ‘There should be some on the street.’

  ‘Unless you would like a hand with the dishes, darling?’ Nick asked me.

  ‘I can do them – you go,’ I said, taking the upper half of the broken mug and placing it inside the base.

  Nick stayed back while the others went to the door.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s where they have all these functions. I don’t know if it’s security, or if they just like it or … oh, look, I’m babbling. I will understand if you don’t want to come.’ We were both straining to sound unstrained.

  I looked him straight in the eye. ‘I’ll come,’ I said. ‘I can’t get away from it.’

  ‘No,’ he said. He shifted uncomfortably on his feet. ‘But it’s so soon. I don’t want you to … I think we have to recognize that it could make you feel unwell again. You’ve been a bit …’ He took my hand in his.

  ‘I’ll survive. Who else will be there?’

  ‘Oh, lots of people with important titles and empty heads. Jane, I really do think you should speak to someone about what happened to you. What you’ve been through.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘If you say so. Well, I’ll be back soon.’

  ‘All right.’

  He joined the others outside. I watched them walk towards the pub. When they could no longer be seen, I ran out to the telephone box across the road and called Tibbot’s number, eager to tell him what I had realized from the words Lorelei had spoken when I had found her.

  There was a second of metallic clicking, and then the ringing tone. It went on and on and I willed him to pick it up. At the same time, I was watching through the glass panels, should Nick and the other men happen to return – they might decide the walk wasn’t worth the candle, or the Duck might be closed, or there might be some other reason that would bring them back to find me making a strange telephone call from outside the home. I tried to think of an excuse in case I needed it, but none seemed plausible. ‘Come on,’ I muttered into the receiver. Eventually, I hung up and hurried back to the house. I would call him as soon as I could get away again.

  Hazel was standing in the hallway, looking at me quizzically. ‘Who were you phoning?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s nothing. Just a friend of mine I’m seeing this week.’ She looked at the telephone in the hallway. ‘It’s not working very well,’ I said. ‘So, now that the men have all gone out, what shall we girls do? Would you like to listen to the radio? Or play a game?’

  Her eyes seemed to blur behind water, which she rubbed away. ‘The Odeon’s showing Victory 1945. Can we go?’

  I pursed my lips. It was nine o’clock but seeing her mother’s film might do her good. ‘Well, it’s a bit late, but all right.’

  She perked up at my answer. ‘Thank you.’

  Soon we were on a tram as it bullied a car out of its path – Socialist transport took precedence over private vehicles. Hazel looked up at me. ‘Will you come to my mum’s funeral?’ she asked.

  ‘If you want me to.’

  ‘Yeah. Please.’ She bit her lip to stop herself grinning at a private thought. ‘I think Charles is sweet on you.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you’re wrong.’ But it warmed me to see her almost smile.

  A bored seventeen-year-old in the ticket booth took our money and hunted around for a pen. ‘Machine’s not working. Got to write out your tickets,’ she mumbled. Inside the crowded auditorium we found it was so hot with all the bodies that the condensation was running down the walls. A couple of Soviet guest soldiers entered behind us with their British girlfriends. They went to the best seats in the house, and the four occupants of those seats got up and moved. I didn’t blame those girls, really. The Russians could get them extra coupons and into the Lyons Corner Houses. Our empire was over; theirs was just beginning.

  The seats were covered with what had clearly once been velvet but had since been rubbed almost bare – not unlike the movie, which was also showing the ravages of time, its images old and scratched. And yet Lorelei still shone in it like the sun. Oh, they could rip her from the posters, but they could hardly cut her from the film. She mourned her executed boyfriend like Shakespeare’s Juliet, and then raised a pistol to a Nazi officer. He fell and she showed no emotion. Our heroine. Our past and our future.

  When the crowds on the screen cheered the Archangel steaming up the Thames, it occurred to me that these people just didn’t know what they were letting themselves in for: the suspicions and doubts, the simple hardships of everyday life. I could feel the same thought flitting around the room too, and, as if to make the point, there was a brief power cut soon after. It came just as Lorelei began her speech about the coming dawn, the day when we would all live and build together. We had to wait in the dark for the picture to return, so I took the opportunity to slip out to the wooden call box in the lobby, telling Hazel I was going to the ladies’ room. This time, the line connected.

  ‘Tibbot,’ he mumbled.

  I was overjoyed to hear he was there. I began to blurt out everything without even saying hello. ‘I know what was wrong when she died. I’ve realized now,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘According to Grest, when I went into the bathroom, Lorelei said to me, “Who’s there? I can’t see.” But why? The lamp was on; it wasn’t dark.’

  ‘So the steam –’

  ‘There wasn’t any steam. The room was clear. But what if she meant exactly what she said – that she couldn’t see. Her sight had gone.’

  There was silence on the other end. He was contemplating it. ‘It could be,’ he said, but his voice was guarded. ‘I can’t tell why, though.’

  ‘Could Grest have done that to her?’

  ‘Well, if you beat someone badly enough they can lose their sight. But that would have left huge bruises, fractures probably. There weren’t any.’

  ‘He said there was splashing about, like a fight. That could have been her panicking to get out.’

  Tibbot cleared his throat. ‘It’s possible.’ I could tell he wasn’t sold on the idea.

  I came to the point. ‘Either way, we need to talk to him. Can you meet tomorrow afternoon?’

  ‘All right,’ he sighed. ‘Call me at the station in the morning. Eleven o’clock. Give your name as Mrs Stevens – I’ll leave a message for you if I’m out.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Back in the auditorium, Hazel looked at me curiously as I took my seat. The film had been resurrected after the power cut and Lorelei’s speech played again. Beautiful in the sunset, her face filled the screen. As you watched, you could see the whole future of our country reflected in her irises. They eventually faded to black.

  When the film ended, the lights came up to reveal Hazel’s face awash with tears and her skin red. I hadn’t noticed in the dark
, and kicked myself for not guessing that seeing her mother move and speak, then disappear, would sadden her so. Hazel had never had a chance to say goodbye, and this was the closest that she would ever get. ‘Are you all right?’ I asked. An idiotic question, but one that we always ask at those moments, as if we don’t know the truth.

  ‘Mum was really beautiful, wasn’t she?’ she managed to get out, although her voice was strangled in her throat.

  ‘Yes. She was.’ And she was, really she was. Like a picture. But such beauty couldn’t go unpunished by the world. Like Cassandra, her gift was also her undoing.

  Where had it taken her? When Nick and Lorelei had first watched this film, they couldn’t have known what the pictures would mean. They would mean Nick slowly watching the woman he had married slip away from him to become a part of the political world. And then the jealousy and pain as he learned of her affair with John Cairncross – an affair ended by a public trial and a confession of counter-revolution that would also cast Lorelei out of the spotlight. And the final image would be her lying under ripples of water.

  35

  Tibbot and I sat on a bench in Victoria Park as he threw bread to the birds on the pond. ‘Bloody ducks eat better than I do,’ he muttered.

  ‘Better than most people. Well, this side of the Wall.’

  ‘They had better be careful or they might just end up as a Sunday roast.’

  ‘Is that your plan?’ I said.

  ‘Not this week. I don’t have the mushroom sauce to do them justice.’ He stopped and nodded towards the path.

  A bruised figure was walking quickly towards us. He looked all around to see who else might observe him here, before sitting. ‘What do you want?’ he said in an angry tone. ‘I’m busy.’ I gazed at Grest’s face, curious to know how he had explained to his colleagues the marks that Tibbot’s fists had left on him.

  ‘Doing such important work,’ I replied.

  ‘Tell me what you want or I leave.’

  I didn’t think he would, but there seemed little point in pushing him. ‘You said before that on the day she died, you heard me go into the bathroom, and then she shouted, “Who’s there? I can’t see.” ’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Why would that be? That she couldn’t see?’

  He took a long look at me. ‘You’re a proper one, aren’t you?’

  ‘Mrs Cawson has a new friend,’ said Tibbot. ‘Comrade Fellowman. He’s best mates with Guy Burgess, you know.’

  ‘A true guardian angel.’

  ‘So you really should answer the question. Was there something wrong with her sight?’

  Grest waited again before answering. He was beginning to enjoy himself. ‘Tart was blind as a fucking bat. At least she was then.’

  So that confirmed what I thought. ‘Did you do that to her?’ Tibbot demanded. ‘Smack her too hard?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Stop lying to us!’

  ‘I’m not, mate. She was like that when I got there.’

  Tibbot looked at him suspiciously. ‘Slipped your mind to tell us last time, did it?’

  Grest leaned back casually, watching the truth dawn on us. ‘Don’t work for you, do I? I wasn’t exactly in the mood to natter.’

  ‘But you are now?’

  He smirked. ‘Well, I’ve been thinking about it. You see, Cawson called me the day before it happened. Said she was doing the dirty on us and I had to go round there to get the last of the stuff and the ledger. Now when I got there, I found her pegging out and myself in the middle of it all. So I had no choice – I had to keep the blues away from it and make sure no one investigated too far. You want to tell me the timing was coincidence?’

  I understood what he was implying. ‘But how could Nick plan it like that?’ I said, confused.

  ‘He’s the doctor, not me. Something in her food, her drink. That Champagne, I should think. It wouldn’t need to be to the minute.’

  No, it wouldn’t have to be to the minute. Just so long as Grest was there around the same time, he would make sure any investigation was superficial. But then I had stumbled in and set everything awry. Poor us. Poor Lorelei.

  ‘What did he use?’

  ‘Don’t ask me. Ask him.’

  ‘What exactly did he say?’ Tibbot asked, tapping his fingers together thoughtfully at the information.

  ‘Just that. She was stabbing us in the back so I should get the stuff and bring it to him. Then things would go on like before, but without her.’

  ‘Did he tell you to hurt her?’

  ‘Not in so many words, but she wasn’t going to just hand it all over tied up in a fucking ribbon, was she?’ Tibbot looked faintly disgusted. ‘Right, well, unless you want any more little stories?’

  ‘Go on, then, fuck off,’ Tibbot muttered to him.

  Grest walked away, and we watched his back recede along the path. He had a rolling sort of gait now, casual, unconcerned.

  ‘Could you have tests done on her body?’ I asked after we had both sat, mulling over what Grest had told us.

  ‘Well, her blood and hair could be tested for chemical traces, but it’s a NatSec case, so I can’t touch it. And, even if I could, we don’t know what they should be looking for – they can’t test for every drug known to man.’

  ‘She’s being cremated tomorrow. After that, we’ll never know.’ I stared at the monument to the Soviet sailors who had died in the battle for London. Their names were carved into the mottled marble block shaped like a cruiser. Someone had laid fresh red flowers on it – Pioneers, perhaps, or one of the Soviet guest regiments.

  ‘My guv’nor called me in for a word this morning,’ Tibbot said after a while. ‘NatSec’s been on to him.’

  I understood what he was getting at. ‘You think you’ll be out?’

  ‘The station’s getting a political officer from next week. I know who it is. He’s not a pal. So it’s for the best if I toddle off, probably – well, retirement wasn’t far off anyway. And that’s that.’

  I had the impression it was more of a blow than he was letting on. The police, after all, had been his life. ‘What will you do with your time?’ I asked.

  ‘Fishing. Lots of fishing.’

  ‘That’s your hobby, is it?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Haven’t tried it yet.’

  ‘Never?’

  ‘How hard can it be? Sit by a river. Pole. Bit of string. Worm.’ I smiled. After a moment he spoke again. ‘Jane, it looks like your husband has some responsibility for Lorelei’s death. He sent Grest to her and that led to her drowning. But there’s no real evidence that he drugged her.’ He pointed to Grest’s retreating back. ‘Whatever he thinks or says – it can’t be trusted.’

  ‘But you think he’s telling the truth, don’t you?’

  He looked pained. ‘Yes,’ he said after a while.

  36

  The bedside clock said it was after nine when I woke the next morning, Friday, in the spare bedroom. I had told Nick I was having a bout of insomnia and wouldn’t want to disturb him – in truth, I just hadn’t wanted to spend the night in the same bed as him. I wouldn’t usually sleep nearly so late either, but recent events had left me exhausted. I heard voices downstairs. ‘Who was –’ I began, as the bedroom door opened. But it wasn’t Nick, as I had expected, standing there. It was Sanderson Morton, observing me. I was too taken aback to say anything.

  ‘Your husband has asked me to talk to you,’ he said. He was carrying a black leather bag.

  ‘Has he?’ was all I could reply.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He thinks that you may be having a difficult time right now.’ He walked over and sat on a stool in front of the dresser. ‘You recently suffered something very distressing.’ I couldn’t think what to say. ‘He told me you suffered a miscarriage. That must have been a terrible event for you.’

  ‘Yes,’ I whispered, knocked for six by the invasiveness, the di
rectness.

  He looked as if he were broaching a topic he found difficult himself. ‘Mrs Cawson – this can be quite a delicate subject – you know about shell shock, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It comes from being in a very stressful situation. Essentially, your mind attunes to that level of stress. Then it can’t cope when you’re in a normal situation. You suffer panic, insomnia, general unhappiness. That sort of thing. This is something that Soviet doctors have recently discovered and passed the knowledge on to us. So, believe it or not, what you are going through now is something like shell shock.’ He opened the clasp on his bag with a click that seemed to ring off the walls.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He turned on a small electric lamp. ‘Lie back,’ he said. My nerves were stretched taut, but I did so and he peered in my eyes. ‘Look up,’ he said, pulling down my lower eyelid. ‘And now look down.’ He released me and timed my pulse. His fingers on my wrist were oily. I watched his face as the second hand whirred around the dial on his watch. ‘Do you think about it a lot?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, truthfully.

  ‘I can give you something that will lift your mood, so you don’t dwell too much on it. From there, you can recover at your own pace. It’s healthier in the long run.’

  ‘I just want to deal with it myself.’

  ‘I understand. And that is to be commended. But sometimes we need help from our friends and family.’

  ‘Please just leave me alone.’

  ‘I have treated many men with shell shock. Believe me, you will recover far more quickly if you give yourself a rest from those thoughts.’ He took a phial and syringe from his bag.

  ‘I don’t want it,’ I said.

  ‘It will help you.’ He drew a line of liquid up into the glass of the syringe.

  ‘I don’t want it,’ I said again, pushing him away.

  ‘Now, Mrs Cawson –’

  ‘No!’ I cried.

  ‘Mrs Cawson!’ He grabbed my wrist from under the blanket and dragged it up, exposing my arm. ‘Do you want me to get your husband up here?’ I struggled to get out of bed, but he was a big man and used his weight against me. All I could see was Rachel, dragged away in her hospital, spitting and screaming out in raw pain.