Charlotte Gray (2 page)

As he stood on the wing he felt his legs tremble.

He walked over to the hut, pulling off his headset, running a hand back through his hair. There was the smell of a coke brazier; there was an anxious red face in the light.

"How was it, Greg?"

"It was cold."

It was six o'clock at Waverley Station. The mist that had stolen down off Princes Street was hanging beneath the iron vaults of the ceiling, where it mingled with the exhaled steam of the London train.

The lights on the platform, dimmed for the blackout, were blue and unhealthy. In addition to the usual passengers there was a squadron of airmen moving south from one of the Scottish airfields: not just pilots, but ground staff as well-fitters, riggers, modest men who called themselves 'erks' and carried kit-bags over their shoulders.

Up on Princes Street, a young woman was kissing her mother goodbye and handing her two suitcases to a porter.

"Have to run, lassie. It leaves in two minutes." The porter moved down the broad ramp, weighed and balanced by the cases. The young woman hurried after him, the tightness of her skirt about the knee preventing her from running properly. She turned and waved to her mother, who held a handkerchief to her eyes; then she glanced up, panting, at the platform clock, whose black Roman numerals were still just visible in the vaporous light.

The train was five minutes out of Waverley Station and the blinds were down by the time she saw a spare seat through the glass door of a compartment. Inside there were only two people: a pair of young English-men with golf clubs. As he saw the woman tugging fruitlessly at the door, her two suitcases wedged in the corridor, one of them lifted an eyebrow to his friend as though to register his irritation, but smiled politely when he hauled back the door and offered to help with the suitcases.

"I hope I'm not intruding. The train's very full. I ..."

"Not at all, not at all. Do come and sit down." The other man rose unsteadily from his seat and helped to hoist the cases on to the luggage rack, where their brass-bound corners bulged through the string reticule.

The young woman thanked them for their help, then withdrew into herself by folding her hands on the lap of her grey suit and looking through the glass door into the corridor. The suit was well tailored, with a short jacket of military cut beneath which she wore a cream blouse and a pearl necklace.

There was a small spot of black beneath her right eye where her mascara had run; her fair hair was pinned up beneath a small hat.

I do hope they're not going to talk to me, she thought.

Everything about her attitude discouraged conversation. She opened a book and began to read with obvious concentration. There was a slight flush on her cheek, though it was not at once possible to say if this was her usual colour or whether exertion or embarrassment had raised this mild pink beneath the pale skin. There was a scattering of freckles beneath her eyes, and her eyebrows were the colour of the darkest of the different shades in her hair.

They were almost at Berwick when the man who had first opened the door suddenly began to talk. He began by introducing himself.

"Richard Cannerley. But my friends, like Morris here, all call me Dick."

"Charlotte Gray," she conceded, briefly shaking his proffered hand.

"What takes you south?" said Cannerley.

"I'm going to work in London." She had a slight Scottish accent.

"I wanted to do something to help."

"The good old war effort." Cannerley laughed, and a lock of fair hair fell down over his forehead.

Charlotte crossed her legs and turned a little into the compartment. It was a long journey and her book was not that interesting.

"And are you from Edinburgh?" said Cannerley.

"Not originally."

"I thought not. Your voice is not as ... precise."

"No. Not an Edinburgh Mary." Charlotte smiled.

"I was brought up in the Highlands. My parents moved to Edinburgh about ten years ago when my father took up a position in a hospital there."

"I see. Morris and I have been playing golf. Do you play?" She shook her head.

"I expect we'll go along for dinner in a bit. Would you like to join us?"

"No, thank you. I had some high tea with my mother before I left."

"Well, just come and have a glass of wine with us. They have an awfully good list. I know from previous journeys. My treat."

Charlotte looked at Cannerley with rapidly appraising eyes.

"All right," she said.

"Thank you. Excuse me for a minute."

She stood up and reached to the luggage rack for her handbag. The button on the cuff of her jacket became entangled in the string mesh and it was difficult for her to stretch up with the other hand to free it. The jacket rose up to reveal the creases of her blouse tucked into the waistband of her skirt. The skirt had also ridden up a little, showing the fine little bones of her knee. For a moment she was trapped and unwilling to stretch up further in case of some immodesty. Just as Cannerley rose to help, she managed to free her wrist and take down the bag. She disappeared through the sliding doors and down the corridor.

"What's an Edinburgh Mary?" said Morris.

"I'm not entirely sure. I presume it's someone from Momingside with that prim accent."

"You're a fast worker."

"It's the war, Robin. Autres temps, autres moeurs. She understands."

"What about Celia?"

"Celia?" Cannerley looked vague as he pulled out a cigarette.

"Now what do you think for a cold evening on the train? I remember last time they had a rather good Crozes Hermitage. Perhaps she's more of a Burgundy girl. Something full but not too heavy ..."

Cannerley settled back in his seat and rubbed his hand over the scarlet plush. Above him was a small rectangular mirror with bevelled edges in which Morris could see the top of his own head, where the dark, almost black hair was receding either side of a tongue-shaped peninsula. Morris had a dark, close-shaven face, small hands and a cautious, candid manner intensified by the way he so seldom blinked.

"Will you be at the departmental meeting tomorrow?"

Morris nodded.

"I wish I didn't have to go, but Sir Oliver insists."

"I suppose it's the French question." Cannerley brushed some cigarette ash from his knee.

"It's always the French question."

"I've almost completed my paper. I imagine you'll get a copy in due course. It's B-listed."

"I hope so. I'd like to know how you pass your time. Do you think you'll be able to get down to Welling at the weekend?"

"It's hard to see what further national emergency could arise." Cannerley's voice took on a signalled languor.

Morris did not blink.

"I haven't played there since the spring. The wind was terrible. On one of the par threes I had to take a wood."

The spoken assumption was that their games were as important as their work.

Each thought he held some part of Britain in his hands. They lunched in clubs that flanked St. James's Street; they talked to politicians, serving officers and newspapermen-not reporters, but editors or proprietors.

Cannerley had been put up for membership of two clubs by his father when he was still at Cambridge and had moved over their dim parquet and threadbare rugs with ease since he came down; he was bilingual at his father's insistence, having studied with a French tutor in the holidays from school and spent a year at university in Poitiers.

At some stage in his education he had grasped, without exactly being taught it, the knowledge of what was right for his country. In the meetings of his department and in its dealings with other departments there was never any need to spell things out. Cannerley knew. Morris knew. Sir Oliver Cresswell, the head of the service, certainly knew.

Morris had had to work harder than Cannerley to acquire this understanding. In his last year at Oxford he was surprised at his books by the Chaplain of the college, a gaunt man with grizzled silver hair. Despite his ascetic manner, the Chaplain was reputed to know 'people' in London; he had a collection of avant-garde French paintings and a bronze by Archipenko. In a college where publication by the fellows was viewed as vulgar, he had been in print three times: on Saint Augustine, on Jacob Epstein and on Greek ceramics. He had held the position of Chaplain at the British Embassy in Athens and had been briefly in Teheran. Morris at first believed the Chaplain was trying to recruit him to a homosexual prayer camp, but the Chaplain's meaning gradually became clear, by way of digressions into European political history and the integrity of British institutions. He talked about a time of coming national emergency and left Morris with a telephone number in Whitehall. This was fourteen years ago.

"By the way," said Cannerley.

"We've finally got a man into G Section."

"That's marvelous. Who is it?"

"It's some little Midlands crook called Fowler. He's not one of ours, he's one of theirs. He's already been in France twice, blundering about, blowing up trains, recruiting a lot of reluctant villains to the noble cause of Resistance."

' "Setting Europe ablaze", as the PM would have it." The drawling manner was not quite as natural to Morris as to Cannerley.

"Exactly so. And completely buggering up our operations. Anyway, a little research by our chaps has shown that several of his Brummie businesses have serious Revenue failings. He was called in for a chat last week. We pointed out that the tax man might be very interested in a closer inspection of his books."

"I see."

"At this point he became most anxious to cooperate."

"What's he going to do for us?"

"Sir Oliver hasn't decided yet. Something simple but destructive. In France."

"Destructive of what?"

"I don't know yet." Cannerley looked suddenly worried. His manner became urgent.

"Listen, Robin, I entered this business to do some good. That may sound awfully quaint to you. I don't want ... complications. Compromises. Do you know what I mean? Sometimes I think Sir Oliver-" But there was a noise as the door was slid back and Charlotte Gray reappeared. They went down the corridor Cannerley in front, Morris behind, like her bodyguards. The other compartments were all full: overhead lamps in their glass shades illuminated the laps on which books were held, many face-down as their owners' heads began to loll and jerk against the antimacassars. They had crossed the unseen Tyne and were in the frozen fields of the North Riding; there was a flash of Yorkshire ground beneath their feet as they stepped over the coupling.

"Have you found a job in London?" Morris asked Charlotte at the table.

"Yes. I'm working for a doctor's practice, as a receptionist and general helper."

"What sort of practice?" asked Cannerley, looking up from the wine list.

"He's a plastic surgeon. He treats amputees and people whose limbs don't work. He helps restore movement."

"I see. And these are war-wounded, are they?"

"Yes, they're sent on to him from various hospitals."

The spot of mascara had vanished from Charlotte's cheek. While she was tidying herself, she had also changed her mind about dinner. She sipped at the cream of asparagus soup, which tasted like most of the soup they had all eaten in the last year or so, of clammy green flour.

Charlotte smiled with sudden candour.

"It's what my mother calls bill sticker paste."

There was no fish course and no choice of meat. It was advertised as steak and kidney pie and had derived from an animal rich in kidneys.

Cannerley had chosen a Chambertin and started to pour. Charlotte held up her hand when her glass was half full, saying she was not used to wine, but Cannerley poured on.

"You could have joined the waaf, if you wanted to do something for the war. Or the fanys."

"Maybe." Charlotte felt vulnerable on this point. It was one of the reasons why she was travelling south. She drank some wine.

"But what about you? Why are you not in the services? Or are you on leave?"

"They also serve," said Cannerley, 'who only stand and wait."

"What do you mean?"

"Reserved occupation," said Morris.

"Strategy has to be coherent. I can assure you that what we do is no less exacting and no less patriotic than any pilot, any midshipman in the Atlantic, any poor old pongo plodding through ' " I didn't mean to doubt it. Cannerley looked amused.

"And you're patriotic, too?"

"Of course." Charlotte was surprised.

"Isn't everyone? Particularly at the moment."

"But what does it mean?" Cannerley laid down his knife and fork, apparently defeated by the pie.

"What exactly do you love?"

"I know what we're fighting. The Nazis. I hate them with a sort of personal bitterness."

"That's not what I asked. What are we protecting?

What is it that's so valuable? A tradition of tolerance? Great achievements? Science, exploration?"

The pink patch beneath Charlotte's pale skin grew a little more intense.

"I don't know. It's not something you can easily put into words."

"Do you think if you'd been born in another country you would feel the same way? Or is it just something about British tolerance, British science, British exploration?"

"I think so, yes. It's the countryside where you grow up, the towns and villages, the people. The people more than anything. The buildings that make up your home."

"You must be very fond of stone or brick to think them worth dying for."

"I am. I worked for a picture gallery in Edinburgh. If you don't protect buildings and paintings and so on then you have nothing left to honour the lives of previous generations."