An Unlikely Spy Read online

  “Yes, I did. She was confused, Stephen, that’s all.”

  Stephen folded his arms, giving her a hard look. Evelyn began searching through her bag for her key. She couldn’t stand him watching her like that, incredulity in his eyes, demanding something of her that she couldn’t give.

  “I’m sorry about tonight,” she said. “I’m not myself, you’re right. But I’m tired—that’s all. So very tired.”

  Immediately his face softened. “Why didn’t you say?”

  “Because I wanted to see you, that’s why.”

  It had taken Evelyn some time to acknowledge the depth of these feelings to herself. That come Monday morning she would already have started counting down the clock to when she would next see him.

  Stephen blew out his cheeks again.

  “Can I at least fix you something upstairs? You’ve had no supper.”

  “No, I . . .” Evelyn pressed her lips together, afraid she might cry. “I think I’ll just turn in for the night. But will you telephone tomorrow? We can make new plans.”

  “All right.”

  Evelyn could hear the disappointment in his voice, but she was desperate to get inside; she needed to be on her own to think. From the main road came the trill of the bus, the sound of a man shouting nearer to King’s Cross station, the drift of a saxophone from the jazz club down the street. London was only now waking up for the night, but giving Stephen’s arm a squeeze Evelyn headed to the front door without looking back.

  * * *

  Later, Evelyn sat on the edge of her windowsill and smoked. From here she had a good view of the narrow street pocketed behind Euston Road. She wasn’t sure what she was waiting for. She finished her cigarette and pulled down the window, trying as always to close the gap where the frame didn’t quite meet the ledge. Wrapping a shawl around her shoulders, she slumped into the armchair next to the fireplace, which was a grim thing with a low mantelpiece and a blackened grate smelling of old coke. She glanced at her watch. It was late, nearly midnight, but she knew he’d still be awake.

  She went to the bureau by her bed and pulled out the small leather address book from the drawer. Then she crept downstairs to the telephone in the hall and dialed. The call rang for so long she thought he wasn’t home until she heard the faint click of connection and that low, scratchy voice.

  “Stepney Green 1484.”

  “I’m telephoning for the weather report.”

  There was a pause and a muffled sound on the other end of the line, like a sigh.

  “What have you observed?”

  “I believe summer has arrived.”

  “And the seed?”

  Evelyn screwed her eyes shut. “It’s growing.”

  The line went silent. Evelyn gripped the receiver. She didn’t know what she would do if he couldn’t help. But after several excruciating moments she heard his breathing resume.

  “Well, well. If it isn’t Chameleon.” He let out a low whistle. “Bugger me.”

  She slumped against the cool wall, almost faint with relief.

  “Hello, Vincent. I’m sorry to call so late.”

  “It’s no bother. I don’t sleep much these days, anyway.” There was more clatter and another deep, puckered inhale—he must still be smoking those awful cigars. “You’re not in trouble, are you?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe.” Evelyn swallowed. “Something happened tonight. I’m not sure what to make of it. I know it’s been a while, but could we meet? I’m in Bloomsbury.”

  “I know where you are, darling.” She could hear the shape of Vincent’s smile. “All right. Tomorrow morning. Zafer’s, Lavender Hill. Ten o’clock.” And he hung up.

  Back inside her flat, Evelyn returned to the window. The night outside was blotchy like spilled ink. Among the shadows she could just make out the cat belonging to the lady at number twenty scavenging through a dustbin and, farther along the street, in the direction of Mabel’s Tavern, Old Jim the street sweeper bent over his broom and shovel.

  She glanced back at her bed, at the slim pillow resting against the headboard, and felt her chest ache. How long was she prepared to live like this, to be always furtive and afraid? What if Stephen didn’t call her in the morning? What if her reticence that evening—a reticence they both recognized but had never brought out into the clear air—spelled the beginning of the end between them? In some ways, it would make things easier. To always wonder. To never test the strength of her feelings. Because she had told herself that if it ever came to this she would run. Pack a bag and catch the first train to meet the ferry. She still had contacts in Belgium; Christine might help her. She still knew how to become another person.

  But it was too late. She couldn’t leave—she didn’t know how to anymore. Flight was part of the past, the old days. It sounded almost quaint how people spoke about the war now, as if they were only cracking open an old biscuit tin and not the lid of an ancient sarcophagus. Yet that was how it felt to Evelyn as she sat in the gloom, head pressed against the cool glass: as though she had been woken from a curse.

  July 1939

  Two

  FROM HER VANTAGE point beneath a marble arch, Evelyn glimpsed Sally Wesley cross from the corner of Stephenson Street toward New Street. It was a Friday afternoon and the road outside the station was banked up with taxis and buses, commuters frantic to be in London by dinnertime swelling about the grand Edwardian entrance. Clutching her small leather suitcase, Evelyn moved out of the shade and made her way along the pavement, head down, sultry air full of dust, exhaust, and the faint rot of the Birmingham canals swirling about her feet.

  “Evelyn!” Sally gave a great looping wave. “So sorry—are we very late?”

  She didn’t sound all that repentant, though Sally never did. There was even, thought Evelyn as her friend rushed over to embrace her, the start of a smile in her voice. She steered Evelyn through the remaining crowds, complimenting her dress (which was a plain one) and her straw hat (forgetting that it had once belonged to her), in an attempt to appease Evelyn after the hour-long wait that had left her sweaty and dazed. For her part, Sally looked well. Her long golden hair had been done up in a loose chignon and she exhibited both the tan and languor of a relaxed summer spent in the Shropshire sun.

  They dodged the young men slouching under the hotel awning smoking and kicking at loose stones; one muttered something toward Evelyn under his breath, while another, hands deep in his pockets, spat on the asphalt. Sally, who had never been one for the smaller observations of people, noticed none of this as she happily chatted away in a manner that demanded no reply, taking Evelyn’s hand as they crossed the road toward the row of cars opposite the station. It seemed extraordinary to Evelyn that it had already been six weeks since they had dozed together in the shade beside the Cherwell, lulled by the gentle drone of dragonflies, after seeing off the last of the Somerville College girls at the end of term.

  Sally’s father, Hugh, had come around to the back of the Bentley. A pair of motoring goggles rested on top of his broad head, his white hair flared like duckling down. He also wore his old Cambridge blues, his blazer bulging at his thickening waist.

  “I see you’re dressed for the occasion, Hugh,” Evelyn called.

  “Never miss a chance to grind you Oxford girls down, eh, Evelyn? Did I ever tell you about the Eights of ’09?”

  “Only about a thousand times.”

  Hugh laughed and bent down to give Evelyn a kiss, his ruddy cheek smooth against hers. He smelled faintly of Caron aftershave and diesel.

  “Well, isn’t this fine,” he bellowed, taking her suitcase as he stepped off the curb. “Just like the old days. We’ve missed you at the manor, Evelyn.” This was the first time in many years that Evelyn had not spent July at the Wesleys’ estate in Onibury. “Sallywag’s been rattling round like a spare penny.”

  “I have,” Sally confirmed, opening the passenger-side door. “Bored practically out of my skull.”

  Evelyn climbed sluggishly into the back sea
t, a faint ache pulsing behind her left eye.

  “What about Jonty?” she asked, the car heaving as Hugh grunted and cajoled her suitcase into the boot.

  “That’s the thing, I’ve hardly seen him.” Sally pulled her door shut. “He’s been at the air base since April, though you’d think he’d been locked away in jail. He had to get special leave for tomorrow night—isn’t that tight?”

  “To attend his own engagement party? Yes, I should say so.”

  Sally reached over the seat and clasped Evelyn’s hand in her sticky one, giving it a squeeze.

  “I’m so glad you could make it, Ev. Seems silly, but I’m terribly nervous about it all now. Mother’s invited about half of London. All these people just to make a fuss over me.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t miss it for anything. And it certainly beats another weekend at Mrs. Banker’s.”

  Finally, Hugh climbed back into the driver’s seat. He started up the Bentley and they drove southward, down the wide road that curved around the town hall.

  “And how is old Mrs. B?” Sally shouted over the engine. “She really was awful that time on the telephone. She ought to brighten up, non? I can’t imagine how she manages to keep any lodgers.”

  Sally had never seen the boardinghouse on Bramham Gardens in Earl’s Court—and Evelyn hoped to keep it that way. It was a tired old terrace, identical to the rest in the block, and grimy from the smog, the paintwork chipped and the front curtains always crookedly drawn.

  “Mrs. Banker’s not so bad,” Evelyn said. “I think she’s rather lonely.”

  “You would be too with manners like that. What did she call you again?”

  “Your most royal highness.”

  Sally laughed. It had always been difficult to make her understand the particular searching quality in Mrs. Banker that Evelyn found so unsettling.

  “She’s never quite got the measure of me, that’s all.” Evelyn stared up at the pastel sky. The afternoon had a heavy, ripe feeling like it was about to spoil, and far away fat clouds were beginning to cluster. “Imagines I’m one thing when I’m really another.”

  Sally folded her hands behind her head, yawning. “But who does she imagine you might be?”

  On that final afternoon by the Magdalen Bridge, Evelyn had eventually said goodbye to Sally and returned to halls for her luggage, then caught the bus to London. With the help of another college friend whose father was the director of the board, she had lined up a job in the advertising department of an Old Bond Street cosmetics firm. She’d replied to the classified about the room in Earl’s Court. Sally had been furious, insisting that Evelyn should stay at the Wesley family house in Mayfair, which otherwise sat empty over the summer; but with notions of independence, and perhaps a little overconfidence, Evelyn had been determined to strike out on her own, away from the cloistered safety of the university and, though she daren’t say it, away from Sally.

  But London was proving to be a hard city, living in it quite different from visiting. Instinctively, Evelyn scrunched her toes inside her brogues, where large blisters had swelled from the long days spent on her feet. The truth was she had no money to buy new shoes—her wage at Vivian de la Croix barely covered her room and board, her bus fare, and a sandwich for lunch. And the job, though not mentally taxing, had her trudging all day around the city’s department stores to advise them on how best to exhibit their compacts and rouge in the front display windows, leaving her with only enough energy each night to return to Bramham Gardens for a supper of Mrs. Banker’s potted ham and green beans. She knew it was only temporary, but still Evelyn wanted to do more, much more—she just hadn’t quite landed on what that might be.

  It was fortuitous, then, that she had received Sally’s letter last week, a frantic scribble in smeared ink on a card embossed with the Wesley crest: Engaged! At last! Celebration at the Manor on the 22nd—do say you’ll come! x S. Evelyn had propped the card against the ledge of her bureau and smiled at it from time to time. She wasn’t quite sure how, but she had the strong sense that this weekend would offer the chance to recast her life in London. Things tended to turn out like this; knowing the right sort of people, she’d come to learn, opened many doors. Besides, her ambitions for now were modest. She wanted to use the German she had read at Oxford to find a teaching job or do a little translation, though with another war threatening that prospect was looking less likely by the day.

  Still, Evelyn refused to despair. She studied Hugh’s hair whipping about in the hot, dry breeze. He was bound to know someone in the Foreign Office or some other ministry and could arrange an introduction—that was the sort of man he was. Evelyn stretched out her bare legs, trying to catch some sun on her knees, and recalled her manager’s advice to the new recruits on her first day at Vivian de la Croix: Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising. It had been a rousing speech on the office floor, followed by a round of applause as if they were in a football locker room, before the salesmen and -women of the firm streamed noisily from the building with satchels stuffed full of samples. But all Evelyn could think about as she watched them leave was something she believed Oscar Wilde once said: Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.

  The afternoon sun pulsed across the city. The noisy traffic around the canal basin had soon banked up, and despite her hat Evelyn’s face began to burn. Sally sat with her head tipped back, a pair of tortoiseshell sunglasses deflecting the worst of the glare, and Evelyn reached forward to place a hand on her friend’s brown shoulder.

  “So, has a date been decided for the big day?”

  “Please don’t get her started on the wedding.” Hugh groaned, dabbing at the back of his neck with a handkerchief. Sally had spoken of little else but Jonty this past year. “Or the invitations . . .”

  “Well, they shouldn’t have sent the wrong paper!” Sally twisted in her seat to face Evelyn. “It’s all terrifically exciting. Mrs. van der Hoort. Sounds awfully regal, doesn’t it?”

  “Sounds foreign, that’s what,” muttered Hugh.

  “Though talk about delaying the inevitable. Really, I should have had the thing stitched up years ago and saved Daddy the tuition fees.”

  Evelyn smiled, though she couldn’t help feeling that Sally was right. Being Jonty’s wife would make her happy in a way no other occupation could—which was lucky, Evelyn supposed, because Sally wasn’t much inclined to work. Still, no matter how hard she tried, Evelyn could not muster any enthusiasm for the nuptials. She had never taken to Jonty. He was blond and thick-set with two big front teeth, and spoke to Sally with drawling familiarity, as if she were an aging aunt and not his future wife.

  As they idled on the Broad Street bridge, Evelyn peered down to the canal beneath them and spotted a blue and red barge. On the front deck stood an elderly man pouring water from a bucket into the river. When he was finished, he stood straighter and gazed toward the creeping shadow of the tunnel. Something about the man, perhaps his stance with his palms pressed into the small of his back, reminded Evelyn of her father.

  She had been putting off a visit to her parents since she’d left Oxford; the most recent of her father’s letters sat unopened on her bureau at Bramham Gardens. He had sounded disappointed when she telephoned the house last month with the news about her job at Vivian de la Croix, though he didn’t say as much—neither of her parents were all that good at saying what they really thought—and after that Evelyn hadn’t confided in them about her life in London. It was a habit already formed; for years her parents had shown little interest in her education, except when she announced she had decided to read German at Oxford; her father had refused to speak to her for a week, prompting her mother to remark, “Couldn’t you have at least chosen French, dear?” They didn’t understand: she had fallen in love with the language and the way it transported her to a different world the moment her German teacher stood in front of the class and read out passages from Faust. For Evelyn, another language was a means of escape. She exhaled a stre
am of air through gritted teeth. She knew she must visit Lewes soon, but as she watched the man on the barge potter about the bow, gathering up a heavy length of rope and dropping it down by the bucket, she swept the thought aside. She refused to be bothered by obligation this weekend.

  “Anyway,” said Sally, throwing out an arm along the warm leather seat back to examine her red nail polish, “I fancy spring for the wedding, but Jonty’s keen for sooner. And the manor does look gorgeous when the leaves turn . . .” She sighed. “All depends on what old Jerry has planned, I suppose.”

  “Mm.” Evelyn squinted against the glare. “That may throw a spanner in the works.” It was shameful, really, but that was how everyone had begun to speak about the tensions in Europe: as though the world grinding toward another cataclysm was no more inconvenient than the late arrival of a train.

  “I suppose if there has been a declaration, Jonty could wear his full-dress uniform, with the headgear and everything?”

  “Now that’s what I love about you, Sal,” Evelyn said. “You’ll find a positive in every situation.”

  Sally gave a shrug. “I’m nothing if not pragmatic.”

  “Jonty’s a solid boy,” Hugh piped up. “Maybe a bit brash at times, but he has a good heart. I’m still making up my mind about those other van der Hoorts.”

  Sally put her arm around her father’s broad shoulders and ruffled his hair. “You’ve known them for twenty years, Daddy. What else is there to make up your mind about?”

  Hugh kept his eyes fixed on the road. Evelyn knew little of Jonty’s parents except that they owned vineyards in Stellenbosch and were, according to Sally, “filthy rich,” which always conjured the image of them scrounging for grapes on their hands and knees in the chalky earth. Sally twisted in her seat again, her sparkling eyes wide as she pushed back her sunglasses and gazed at Evelyn.

  “But can you believe they still won’t stay over at the manor? Not even for one night. Those South Africans are peculiar, if you ask me. Too much sun.”