An Unlikely Spy

by Rebecca Starford

  He had hoisted her onto his shoulders after that. He wasn’t a big man; she could feel his sharp bones beneath his coat, and his legs buckled for a moment before he steadied the weight of her. From that height Evelyn could see everything: the leering guy doll, as big as a giant from Gulliver’s Travels, the smaller, wrinkled pontiff, and the dozens of burning crucifixes like something from a nightmare as they blazed through the dark.

  Perhaps her father had sensed her trembling, because he strained his neck to ask, “Are you all right?” But she hadn’t been afraid. Something else had awakened in her, a quickening of the blood. She had stared at the guy, at the deep wells of his eyes, and felt a thrill work its way from the bottom of her spine to the top of her head.

  “Evelyn?”

  It was Nina, hands gripping her shoulders, shaking her just as her father had that night.

  She looked around. Chesterfield had left the stage and their box had begun to fill up with people from the adjacent alcove.

  “Come along.” Nina took her arm. “Let’s catch up with the others.”

  But outside men and women were spilling from the entrance, making it impossible to break away and locate their companions in the crowd.

  “Never mind,” said Nina as they were borne across the street by the movement of the throng. “We’re all meeting at the flat later anyway.”

  They continued on through St. James’s Park. The assembly comprised several hundred people, those up the front holding placards and banners, Chesterfield himself leading the procession. Nina and Evelyn stayed toward the back, happy to walk at a more sedate pace through the gardens, which were still busy despite the approaching dusk.

  “Are you all right?” Nina stopped to examine Evelyn’s face, her own unusually animated. “You look quite dazed.”

  “Yes, I’m fine.” From the corner of her eye, Evelyn glimpsed children throwing bread to the ducks on the lake. What did they make of this ghastly parade? “But it was incredible, wasn’t it? I’ve never seen anything—heard anything—like that in my entire life!”

  “Nor me,” said Nina. “It certainly lifts the spirits.”

  “You think it’s true, then, what Chesterfield said about the pogroms and the press?”

  “Oh, yes.” Nina stared resolutely ahead. “We had the same problem in Russia. It was the Jew creditors, in fact, exerting all that pressure on the peasants that led to the overthrow of the Tsar. They control everything, you know. The press, the banks, even the monarchy.” She sniffed. “Because of them my family was forced from our home and from our position in society. The Jews ruined our lives.”

  They rounded the corner, Buckingham Palace looming on the left. In a few minutes, they would cross into Green Park and make their way toward the underground. Evelyn paused to gaze up at the gilded bronze of Winged Victory standing there on her globe, a victor’s palm in her hand, but a moment later she regretted it—if she hadn’t hesitated, she would have missed the clear, bell-like cry of “Evelyn!”

  She stopped dead. It was Julia on the other side of the roundabout by the grass, her bulky coat dragging almost to the ground, a lead looped over her wrist, Tortoise attached to the end of it and sniffing at a lamppost.

  “I thought it was you! What a coincidence finding you here.” Julia came toward them, smiling wide in delight.

  “Isn’t it!” Evelyn’s voice sounded off kilter, like the pin had been set wrong on the gramophone. She stood there like another statue, paralyzed by indecision. Tortoise gave her thumb a half-hearted lick.

  “And who is your friend?” Julia asked pleasantly.

  “I’m sorry.” Evelyn shook herself back to life. “This is Miss Nina Ivanov.”

  “Pleased to meet you.” Julia raised a finger as though testing the wind. “Ivanov . . . That’s Russian, isn’t it? And where have you both come from?”

  “Caxton Hall.” Nina stood a little taller. “Mr. Chesterfield was giving a lecture. Rousing, wasn’t it?”

  She glanced at Evelyn, who let out a small, strangled laugh. “You could say that.”

  “Chesterfield?” Julia shook her head. “Not heard of him. What was he speaking on?”

  “Oh, well . . .” Evelyn’s blood was squealing through her veins now and she was aware of sweat gathering at the back of her neck. “This and that.”

  “I suppose that’s where this crowd has come from.” Julia waved a hand behind her. “Great rabble, chanting and carrying on with placards.”

  She watched Evelyn uncertainly, not bothered by Tortoise tugging on the lead, probably eager for his dinner. The sun had fallen behind the trees; they would soon be standing in shadow. Evelyn was peering down The Mall, wishing some distraction might be summonsed from the gleam of cars cruising east, when she saw the outline of a man by the fence of Lancaster House: dark-haired, woolen suit, loping across the lawn. The scene had a surreal element to it, like encountering a leopard in Trafalgar Square, and when he hit the walking track the man accelerated, his long legs hardly touching the ground. He was gesturing madly, hollering something Evelyn could not catch, and then she saw that behind him were a gang of half a dozen men, all dressed in black trousers, belts with big brass buckles, and black turtleneck sweaters. They were gaining on the man, who flew past Evelyn only to trip on the hedge a few dozen yards ahead and careen into the rose garden.

  “Oh my . . .” Julia, dropping Tortoise’s lead, rushed over to him. “Are you all right, sir?”

  He got himself up, swiping away the brambles tangled around his arms. His nose was bloody, eyes wild. He was only a boy, seventeen, eighteen at most.

  “Please, miss,” he cried. “You must help me.”

  Julia glanced at Evelyn, her own eyes wide in alarm. “But of course we’ll help. Just let me—”

  She didn’t get to finish. The big-shouldered men had pulled up, and Evelyn caught a glimpse of the insignia on their red armbands, a black disc shot through with a bolt of gold lightning. Fascist thugs, Mosley’s lot, out for blood after the rally. One of them said something to Nina and pushed his way toward the boy, sending Evelyn stumbling off the curb.

  “I beg your pardon.” Julia turned on them, giving the leader a poke in the chest. “Just what are you doing?”

  “Julia.” Evelyn’s voice was a plea. A warning. But Julia wasn’t listening.

  “Now, look here. I don’t know what this young man has done, but you’re to leave him alone.”

  “I’d move out the way if I were you, miss.” The tallest of the group, a great hulking man with red hair, took a menacing step forward.

  “Don’t be so ridiculous.” Julia sized him up and gave a disgusted shake of her head. “You can’t go around attacking whomever you like.”

  “Julia, I think we ought to leave this,” Evelyn said, firmer this time.

  “For God’s sake.” Julia was on her tiptoes, searching about the road. “Where are the police when you need them?”

  As she said this, the redhead reached out and gripped Julia by the arm, wrenching her aside.

  “We’ve got no problem with you, lady, but he’s ours. So I suggest you move along and leave us to it.”

  “This is extraordinary.” Julia looked to Evelyn in the twilight. “Are we going to stand for it?”

  Evelyn could feel Nina’s glare on her as though it was scorching fire into the center of her brain. She hadn’t imagined that her moment of reckoning would play out to this particular script, but here she was, worlds colliding—and now she had to choose. She thought of the texture of that silk dress, the watery slip of it through her fingers, gone. Maybe in time she would tell Julia the truth. Maybe in time Julia would forgive her.

  “No!” Evelyn hadn’t meant to shout it, and Julia reared back as if she had been bitten. “Leave him, Julia. Just leave the boy to them.”

  “What on earth are you talking about?” Julia, a strange glint in her eyes, looked beyond Evelyn to Nina, as if she might know the answer. “He needs our help. Those brutes will tear him in half.”<
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  “He does not need our help,” Evelyn shot back. “He’s nothing but a filthy little Jew.”

  Julia blinked at her, astonished. “A what?”

  “You heard.” It was Nina, her low voice cutting across the lawn. “We’ve no business here and nor do you.” She stepped forward and placed a soft hand on Evelyn’s back. “Come along,” she said. “We should be going.”

  “Evelyn.” Julia was staring at her. “I don’t understand. This isn’t like you.”

  Evelyn linked her arm through Nina’s and began walking away. With the defense weakened, the men were on top of the boy in seconds, laying into him with their fists and steel-capped boots. “Dirty Yid,” she heard them hiss as the blows rained down. “You filthy fucking scum.”

  * * *

  An hour later, Evelyn’s legs still felt hollow as she sat with the others at Nina’s kitchen table drinking lemon tea. She tried to eat one of the pryaniki biscuits from the plate in front of her but couldn’t; her stomach was churning with fright. Someone was recounting their favorite lines from the rally, which elicited murmurs of agreement, and Evelyn was glad that Nina hadn’t mentioned the boy, nor how they had met Julia in the park—it was already taking all Evelyn’s willpower to refrain from putting her head down on the table and clenching her eyes shut. Nina hadn’t said much at all, in fact, and once the cups had been cleared she went through to the living room, loaded a Bruckner symphony on the gramophone, and turned the volume right up.

  “In case they’re listening,” she whispered on her return, pointing to the far wall.

  “Listening?” Evelyn followed the line of her finger. “The neighbors?”

  “No, MI5, of course.”

  Evelyn’s eyes snapped back to Nina’s. They held one another’s gaze for a beat, Evelyn’s face aching from the tight, determined set of her smile.

  “Why should MI5 want to listen to you?” she asked.

  “Can’t you guess?”

  Evelyn swallowed. The lemon tea had left an unpleasant aftertaste. Clasping her hands together beneath the table, she noticed for the first time what looked like posters and tins of greasepaint stacked against the skirting board. One poster had been propped up on top of the pile, showing an enormously fat man in a suit and bowler hat leering from behind a Union Jack, his big lips downturned, his nose hooked. From his lapel swung a gold chain with the Star of David. Beneath this image ran the large print: THIS WAR IS A JEW WAR.

  Evelyn turned back to Nina, then to Mrs. Randall and the others, a shiver working its way down her spine. They were all watching her, waiting. She was close now—she could feel it.

  At her feet was her handbag containing the list of typists from the War Office, folded away inside a sealed brown envelope. She reached for it. “Before I forget, Nina, I have that list you asked for . . .” She slid the envelope across the table.

  Nina snatched it up, and Evelyn watched the women crowd around for the opening, smiles spreading over their faces.

  “Excellent work,” Mrs. Randall remarked as Nina stood up and went to hide the envelope in the sitting room. When she came back to the kitchen she stopped at the pantry and brought out a carton of eggs and a glass bowl, placing them on the table. After cracking the eggs into the bowl, she reached for the whisk beside the sink.

  “When you were last here, Evelyn, you talked plainly about the war,” she said quietly. “I admired that honesty—we all did. Here was a young woman who shared our beliefs. Here was an ally in our fight.”

  Nina started beating the mixture in a fast, smooth rhythm, the whisk never once touching the bottom of the bowl.

  “Chesterfield spoke to you this afternoon,” she continued. “He got inside your head. I could feel that, sitting there beside you, and I could see it as we marched through the park. Which is why I invited you back here again tonight. And it’s why we have decided to share something very special with you.”

  Evelyn glanced around the table, the blood roaring in her head. “Oh yes? What’s that?”

  A smile flickered across Nina’s face. “The truth is, Evelyn, that we’re part of a secret organization. The Lion Society, we call it, and if MI5 ever got wind of what we do they’d come after us in a flash. We meet here each week, though I flatter myself that my cooking is an additional incentive.”

  The others chuckled as Nina stepped over to a different cupboard, bringing out a plump clove of garlic and a small onion, which she started peeling. When she was done, she swept the skin from the board and pointed to the posters by the wall.

  “For months we’ve been spreading our message that the war is a Jew war. But it’s not enough—the government isn’t listening. They refuse to see that prosperity can be found in appeasement and adopting more of Hitler’s attitudes to nationhood. So we need to take a different approach; something more cunning, more subversive. To effect real change we need people on the inside of institutions that are working against the British people. Inside places like Parliament, the judiciary, even the War Office . . .”

  Evelyn raised a hand to her clammy brow. “The War Office?”

  Nina looked up. A pale blue vein pulsed at her forehead. “Will you work with us, Evelyn? Will you join in this fight? We can have a tremendous impact. We could even alter history . . . How many people will be able to look back on their lives and say that?”

  They all stared at her, waiting. Evelyn watched as Nina picked up the knife and began slicing the onion, the thwack of the metal striking the board oddly grounding, the smell of butter in the warming pan almost a comfort. Her heartbeat grew steady.

  “You know what inspired me most about Chesterfield?” she began. “His convictions. He wasn’t afraid. I’ve always been afraid of what other people think. But not anymore. Not after today. Now I understand the difference one person can make. That through my actions I can shape a better world. I suppose that’s what makes a real revolutionary.” Evelyn made herself look up, her face flushed, her hands trembling in her lap. “It’s what makes me grateful to have met you.”

  “And that’s what Britain needs, isn’t it?” Nina said, her eyes bright. “Our very own revolution.”

  “Yes!” someone cried, and the table burst into shrill applause.

  Nina went to fetch something from a kitchen drawer. When she returned to the table she pushed a small felt case over to Evelyn.

  “Go on, dear,” Mrs. Randall said. “Open it.”

  Inside was a silver badge about the size of a penny engraved with an image of a glorious eagle swooping down to attack a spitting viper. Nina unclipped it from the casing and pinned it to Evelyn’s cotton blouse.

  “Do you like it?” Mrs. Randall asked. “Everyone gets a PJ when they join.”

  Evelyn glanced down at the repulsive thing, her skin crawling. It was like having a tarantula in her breast pocket.

  “PJ?”

  “Perish Judah. Clever, isn’t it?”

  “There you are.” Nina sat back, pleased. “Doesn’t she look the part, everyone?”

  The women all nodded.

  “And I think it’s time you met my husband.” Mrs. Randall leaned across the table, her breath sour as she whispered to Evelyn. “Andrew’s heard a lot about you. Perhaps you’d like to come by the house on Friday evening? We’re in Onslow Square. There’s much you could share with him.”

  “I’d be honored,” Evelyn said.

  She had done it. She had arranged the meeting with Randall. But how much had it cost her? She glanced over to Nina now pouring the omelette mixture into the pan on the stove, and through the fragrant mist the other woman returned a small, tight smile.

  * * *

  Later, once everyone else had gone home, Evelyn walked with Nina along Brompton Road, each of them carrying a tube of rolled-up posters under one arm, while Nina had the tin of greasepaint in her other. There was hardly any traffic about, the night very cold and clear. Nina wasn’t saying much but it wasn’t awkward, and Evelyn was grateful for the quiet. Her own head was a horri
ble jumble, every new thought looping back to Julia and wondering how on earth she would ever explain herself, or what she would do if the Wesleys found out about what had happened in the park.

  “I suspect we’re rather alike, Evelyn,” Nina said as they waited for a taxi to pass near the square. “We’ve both made a home for ourselves in places we wouldn’t normally belong. Who would have thought a Russian could inspire such patriotism in the English? We live in a topsy-turvy world.”

  They crossed the road, passing a young man walking a pair of scrappy terriers in tartan jackets.

  “You still don’t think of yourself as English?” Evelyn asked.

  “I consider myself both Russian and English, but you English will never accept me as one of your own. Not really. You’ve always feared foreigners. Always sought to conquer rather than live alongside them.”

  “And what’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing at all. But I’ve always thought you need to understand your own nature if you’re to have dominion over another.”

  They had stopped at the corner opposite Harrods. Evelyn took the glue tucked under Nina’s arm and strode across the road. When she reached the facade she laid a hand against the stonework.

  “Here,” she called with a quick glance over her shoulder. “This is as good a spot as any.” She popped open the tube, slid out a poster, and unfurled it. “Keep a lookout, won’t you?”

  Evelyn pulled the cap off the glue with her teeth and squeezed out a cross onto the back of the sheet. Then, in one swift motion, she pivoted, pressed the poster against the wall, and smoothed it down from top to bottom with her forearm.