I Can't Begin to Tell You (35 page)

Without another word, Ruby left.

That evening, she sat in the tin bath in her digs. The trains rattling past the house shook the bathroom window. She washed between her toes and legs and considered the theory of the unconscious. According to the psychologists, all humans possessed one, and it drove their inner and outer lives. An upheaval was taking place in Ruby’s, but she couldn’t force whatever it was to the surface.

She towelled herself dry, hoiked out the knickers with the braid edging, put on the one good frock she possessed, with three-quarter sleeves and a pretty neckline, and piled her hair on top of her head. Salt-of-the-earth Janet was in London on twelve-hour leave, and they were going to make an evening of it.

‘Not bad, girl,’ she informed the reflection in the small mirror.

At the Berkeley Hotel, Janet leaped to her feet when she saw Ruby at the entrance to the bar. ‘Good to see you. We’ve got the drinks.’ She manhandled Ruby to the table where, to her surprise, haughty-as-a-duchess Frances was also seated.

Frances
had been staring glumly into her glass but looked up. ‘Nice to see you, Ruby.’

‘And you,’ said Ruby, and she meant it.

Looking back, Ruby reckoned it must have been something to do with the Joe Loss band pumping out its music, or the warm and spiced summer evening, but the spiky feelings took a back seat and Ruby relaxed.

Janet pushed a glass over to her. ‘Down the hatch.’

‘Let’s make the evening one in the eye for Hitler.’

Several cocktails later they were picked up by three RAF pilots on ‘bloody well-earned’ twenty-four-hour leave.

The men were drunk and very tired, but more or less in control. ‘Dance with us, girls,’ said the tallest, a recent burn mark visible on his cheek. His name was Tony. ‘Do your bit for the war.’

‘War means sacrifice,’ Ruby teased, ‘but I never realized how much.’

She took to the floor with him while Janet and Frances were swept up by Robin and Hal. Dancing with Tony was far from unpleasant.

Getting to London had been a nightmare, Tony murmured in her ear, but he and the boys had been hell-bent on it. ‘Because I end up dancing with someone like you. Just what the doctor ordered.’

Ruby laughed. It was fun. Tony was fun. And she could tell that he wanted her. Well, not
her
precisely but a female body. She certainly wasn’t offended. Such a big deal was made about sex. Such a hum and furore and hypocrisy when, in fact, it was as straightforward as enjoying good food.

The band slowed the tempo. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Janet entangled with Hal. Frances was moving dreamily across the floor with Rob. You could tell she had had dancing lessons and the two of them looked good together, the kind of good which money bought.

Tony pulled her closer. ‘Funny old life, isn’t it?’

She
touched his uniformed chest. ‘At least we have this,’ she said.

‘Meaning?’

‘Sensations. Music. Dancing. Drink.’

‘You should try flying. It’s euphoria like you can never experience on earth. A feeling of total liberty.’

‘I’d like to. I’ve never done it.’

‘Get yourself transferred to a bomber station. You could have a new boyfriend every night and someone would be sure to take you up. Be prepared for tears, though. We come and … go.’

The lightly uttered words touched her. Having never flown, she didn’t
know
what Tony was really talking about but she could grasp that the pilots and the WAAFs lived close to the edge.

At the end of the evening Tony tucked a hand under her elbow and steered her onto the dance floor for the final dance. ‘Come to the hotel with me, Ruby? I’m flying tomorrow, and I would like it very much.’

An ache for Peter took her by surprise. Then she recollected the cold hostility with which they had parted.

Tony was smiling down at her. Oh God, he might die in the next few days and he knew it. ‘Yes, I’ll come.’

They said their goodnights to the others. Their bright lipstick now smudged, the girls exchanged complicit glances. One day they might share confidences about the evening and its various finales … Taxis. Awkward admissions into a hotel. Whisky in tooth mugs. Even more awkward, or drunken, moments in the hotel bed.

Halfway through their love-making, Ruby knew that this wasn’t so much a mistake as a lapse in taste. Not that she wasn’t enjoying it. Tony was nice, he made love with vigour and panache, and they had fun. And, understanding the neediness of a man about to fly into battle, she strove to give him what he wanted. But she sensed he craved more and she couldn’t give it
to him. Although her pity was powerful it was not as elemental as true desire.

Afterwards, she got up and went into the bathroom to sponge herself down. The water was tepid and she shivered with the late-night chill, and with a misery that she did her best to ignore.

She had used sex as revenge, and the experience turned out to be sour. And – she smiled wryly at herself in the mirror as she dried herself, her limbs pale in the dim light – how very old-fashioned the revenge lay was, too.

Hands behind his head, Tony watched her as she got dressed. ‘Shall we meet again, oh Ruby?’

She smiled down at him. ‘I think not. I don’t make a habit of this, and there is someone else.’

He frowned. ‘Heavens. An unvirtuous woman. And I had imagined you had succumbed to my charms. Didn’t think most women did that sort of thing.’ He beat the flat of his hand on the mattress. ‘I thought … I had an idea … but never mind.’ He looked up at her. ‘Most girls I know aren’t as cool.’

She sat down on the edge of the bed and took his hand. ‘I liked you very much.’

‘But it was just the sex. Or the champagne?’

‘Or wartime?’

‘How very honest, Ruby.’ The remark didn’t sound like a compliment. ‘Money well spent, then.’ He dropped her hand. ‘You’re an unusual woman.’

She picked at a thread on her handbag strap. ‘Most women would think more like me if they had a chance.’

‘Would they now?’

She left with Tony’s derision in her ears.

She had her come-uppance. It was so late that the last bus back to her digs had gone and she was forced to pick her way through the darkness and the bomb-pocked streets in her evening dress.

When
she got back to her room, she shut the door, leaned against it and cried.

The next few days saw lockdown at the office. There was either a big push on, or an emergency, and endless meetings took place behind closed doors in smoke-filled rooms where the chiefs gathered.

Eventually, Peter returned to his office and asked for Ruby. He looked as though he had eaten nothing much for days and the black circles were back under his eyes.

‘You look awful,’ she said.

‘A forty-eight-hour special. You’d have enjoyed it.’

Ruby said nothing and waited.

Peter propped his chin in his hand. ‘Are we going to speak to each other?’

What had she done? The answer was nothing, and everything. She had never admired conventional mores. If she wished to sleep with a man, she would. All the same, she wished she hadn’t done so with Tony.

‘I searched for you the other night,’ he said gently. ‘I couldn’t find you.’

‘And?’

‘I wanted to ask if you were still angry.’

She felt thwarted by his sweetness, and maddened. Her instincts had been right all along. Love, even sex, was too complicated a subject on which to waste time. The guilt, jealousy, despair, bewilderment were neither interesting nor
worth
it.

‘I was. I think I still am,’ she replied. ‘I know dinosaurs roam these corridors, but we’re here to think laterally. Isn’t that our point? And when we try to do something that needs doing …’ She didn’t finish the sentence.

‘Try to understand, Ruby.’ The tension was ratcheting up between them again. ‘This outfit’s improvised. Nothing like
us has existed before. We’ve no experience to draw on, no manuals.’

‘I’ve heard enough.’ She had her hand on the door handle.

He added: ‘There have to be rules and, if you or I were found out, we could be keel-hauled.’

Despite everything, she felt a squeak of triumph. Peter was engaged. His comment revealed that he was thinking about it.

She turned round. ‘We agree the agents trust us. We instruct them to have faith … in
us
. We have to justify that.’

Agents were melting into enemy territory with only hope and trust and a bit of fieldcraft to get them through.

Peter got to his feet and came over to Ruby. ‘Where were you the other night? Tell me.’

In that moment her feelings did an infuriating volte-face. If she told Peter the truth, she knew,
she knew
, he would disappear. She couldn’t let that happen. His dark eyes, his sweetness, his clever and subtle mind, his slight elegant body were hers.

‘I went home to my digs,’ she said.

She was compromised. Everything was compromised.

‘Is that the truth?’

She didn’t believe in lying and this one was one of the hardest lies she had ever told. ‘Yes.’

He stared down into her face. He didn’t believe her and she felt his hurt and distaste as if they were her own. ‘I thought we trusted each other.’

The old intemperate demon got the upper hand. ‘Then go to hell, Peter.’

Yet Ruby wasn’t giving up.

The agents had no one else to trust.

Mary was summoned by Signalmaster Falks. ‘Our lords and masters have been playing silly buggers again.’

For once, she had to make an effort to concentrate. ‘Oh?’

Signalmaster Falks was not an organized man and it took him several searches through his overflowing in-tray to produce the piece of paper he wanted. ‘Yup. That’s it.’ He scanned the typewritten page. ‘From now on, each agent is to produce a crib sheet of their fist before they go in. We’re to keep copies here as reference. You’re to refer to them at all times.’

‘I don’t need one,’ she protested. ‘I know them like the back of my hand.’

‘
You
might not need one, Voss. But some of the fluffy bunnies that I’m unfortunate enough to have on my watch might.’

Mary wasn’t having that. ‘Sir, they do a good job.’

He eyed her up as if to say:
Not you, too
. ‘As I said, our lords and masters like to stick a finger in where it don’t belong and they’ve instructed us to keep physical records of all our agents. And we are to –’ he peered at the paper ‘–
consult
them.’

‘If it keeps them happy, sir.’

Signalmaster Falks stood up. ‘You’re a good worker, Voss. I have put in a recommendation to headquarters. It was the least I could do.’ He cocked an eyebrow. ‘Never know where it might lead.’

Her astonishment was so great that words almost deserted her. ‘Thank you, sir.’

Falks returned to the chaos of his in-tray. ‘Don’t stand about, Voss. Get on with it.’

Several days later she was ordered by the duty sergeant to report to the room at the end of the corridor.
Pronto, Voss
.

The
corridor was bustling with uniformed personnel, all of them seemingly focused and in a hurry.

Wearing a lieutenant’s insignia, the FANY who was waiting for Mary sat behind the cheap-looking desk on a chair which had seen better days. An equally battered one had been placed in front of the desk. She held out her hand. ‘I’m Ingram. But I don’t hold much with all that formality. Please call me Ruby.’

Ruby was a good fifteen years younger than Mary, with large eyes, dark hair and enviably clear skin. Her mouth could have been termed generous except for a pinched, almost angry, set at the corners, but she was vivid and arresting.

Pointing to the second chair, she said, ‘And I don’t hold with standing either. Please sit.’

The two women faced each other across the desk.

To Mary’s surprise, Ruby smiled. ‘I’ve been told that apparently you lot are the signal-ritas and my lot are cipherines.’

‘Could be worse,’ said Mary.

Ruby was amused and then turned serious. ‘The reports are that you’re the best in the group, so I’ve been sent down here to brief you and to pick your brains.’

‘Well, that must be a first.’ The words flashed from Mary before she could stop them.

Ruby’s interest in Mary seemed to quicken. ‘You’ve been informed about the crib sheets for the agents?’

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

‘It’s a good precaution,’ Mary replied. ‘And, for the new, er, signal-rita, invaluable. But, for the old hands, probably unnecessary.’

Ruby looked puzzled. ‘Please explain.’

‘We just know our agents.’

‘Ah, the Morse-trained ear?’

‘We know the characteristics that are always evident, whatever the conditions they are sent under.’

‘Even when there’s a problem with the signal?’

Mary
had never been so sure of anything in her life. ‘Yes.’

‘And when they’re frightened, or under pressure. Or exhausted?’

‘Especially then,’ said Mary. ‘Because –’ She stopped herself.

‘Because?’ Ruby leaned forward, sniffing up facts, rooting out doubts. ‘Be honest. Be precise, if you can.’

Mary shed her diffidence. ‘Because I … and the others … care about each and every one, personally. I … we … watch over them.’

There was a second’s uncomprehending silence.

‘Because you care about them.’ Ruby was sceptical to the point of offence.

Mary took up the gauntlet. ‘It sounds mad, but it’s true. Unless you understand them, you can’t read them. Or take the message properly.’

‘That’s irrational and unreliable.’ Ruby sat back and stared at Mary, challenging her.

Mary folded her hands in her lap and said nothing.

‘I don’t believe in the irrational. I believe in evidence and careful analysis,’ continued Ruby.

Mary heard herself say, ‘Everything has its place.’

‘Of course, you have no idea who they are.’

‘None.’

Ruby shrugged. ‘It’s unusual. Or, put it this way, your approach is not the kind of analysis that the average man would accept.’

‘Maybe not,’ said Mary. ‘But, as I say, it has its place. I know it does.’

Suddenly, Ruby grinned. ‘I’m anxious, always, to debunk the average man.’

In the adjacent room, a telephone was ringing. On and on it went.

‘Someone answer it.’ Ruby rolled her eyes. ‘Please.’

Someone did, and there was peace.

Ruby produced a file from the briefcase at her feet. ‘These
are the latest crib sheets we’ve taken from agents. These show us the basic characteristics of how an agent transmits, which never change, whatever the conditions.’

Mary nodded.

‘These are from the newer agents, obviously. We’ve no records for the ones who were already in the field when the decision was taken to keep these crib sheets. But most of your section is here. I want you to check them before we put them on file. Take a look at this one.’

Mary looked at the sheet Ruby put on the table in front of her. What she saw was an in-depth exercise on square-rule paper of every single letter of the alphabet in Morse. She only needed to study it for a few seconds. ‘Agent with the call sign DEV,’ she said.

‘And this one?’

‘YEW.’

Methodically, Ruby took her through the next two pages and Mary supplied the information without any problem.

‘Who else do you have who we don’t have records for?’

‘XRT,’ said Mary. ‘Vinegar.’

Ruby’s chair scraped along the floor, and she got to her feet. Mary couldn’t help noticing how thin she was. ‘Tell me about Vinegar.’

Mary clicked back through her mental file. ‘I was assigned him … in early November 1942. Last year.’

Ruby checked the list. ‘Correct.’

‘He transmits like clockwork. There’s never much trouble with the signal. In fact, he’s been remarkably consistent.’

There was a tiny pause. Suggestive? A cloud appeared on Mary’s horizon.

‘Think. Have there ever been any problems?’

‘Only with his first transmissions,’ she replied. ‘He was nervous. I could tell by the rhythm and he was all over the place. In fact, on the very first one he muddled the sign-off and his
frequency. But I didn’t have to worry because, after his first four skeds, he was trouble free.’

Mary looked at Ruby. Something was up. The cloud on the horizon grew darker, and a worm twisted and turned in her chest.

‘So after that Vinegar never seemed under pressure? Or frightened? Or to be transmitting in difficult conditions?’

‘No,’ Mary replied. ‘It’s quite unusual. You could trust him for a perfect message each time. Is he in trouble?’

Ruby ignored the question. ‘Anything else?’

‘Occasionally, his messages are shorter than most agents’.’

‘Right,’ said Ruby in such a way that Mary knew that the information had been important. ‘Anyone else?’

‘ZYA … Mayonnaise.’ There was a catch in her throat. ‘He went dark a few weeks ago and missed a couple of skeds, but I continued to search for him. Then he came back on the emergency frequency. Once. But his last message, number fifty, was odd. I reported it to the signalmaster and asked if the security checks were used.’

‘What sort of odd?’

‘His fist was almost unrecognizable … It could have been someone else transmitting. For example, Mayonnaise’s H is always very dashing: full of energy and life. On that last message, the H was configured differently.’ Her fingers twisted together. ‘I’d like to know what’s happened to him.’

Did Ruby understand how she felt? Peering at her, Mary rather thought that, despite the brisk manner, she did. At any rate, a little.

‘You know I can’t answer that. Even if I knew.’ Her gaze was shrewd and – indeed – not unsympathetic. ‘He or she is the one you care about?’

Mary stared at her. ‘One of them,’ she admitted.

Pushing her vacated chair tidily back under the desk, Ruby said carefully, ‘Shall we just say there was an explanation for Mayonnaise?’

It
was a small drop of information. But manna to Mary.

She looked down at her hands. ‘I see.’

‘You mustn’t get involved, you know. Otherwise how do we fight the war? If you care too much then it becomes impossible.’ She slotted her papers back into the briefcase.

Was Ruby giving this piece of advice to herself as much as to her?
Pot and kettle
, Mary said to herself.

‘Are you quite sure you don’t get muddled between them all?’ Ruby shot the question at Mary.

‘Muddled! No.
Never
.’

That appeared to satisfy Ruby. ‘My orders are to tell you that, if you ever suspect anything, you ask to talk to Major Martin. Understood?’

‘Yes.’

Before she left, Ruby gave Mary a piece of paper with a telephone number on it. ‘You and I know,’ she said, ‘who runs the shop and, if you ever need to get hold of me, use this. But don’t let anyone else see it. Or tell anyone about it.’

Finish. End of session.

On the way back to her station, Mary glanced out of a window and spotted Ruby. Briefcase parked by her feet, she was leaning up against a wall and smoking what was probably one of those popular Turkish ciggies the girls fought over. One foot was tucked up behind her for balance and her skirt had ridden up above her knee. She smoked quickly and appreciatively, looking like a woman in charge of her life.

Mary glanced up at the clock. Two minutes. Her headphones hissed and fluted.

The minute hand reached twelve.

Where was Vinegar?

He was a few minutes late for his sked but, eventually, he checked in. She took up her pencil. At the end of the message, Vinegar signed off as usual …
I have nothing further for you
.

Her pencil faltered. Had she got that correct? There was a
change in the rhythm of Q, which should have been dash dash dot dash. Instead she transcribed: dash dot dash dot. The letter C.

It was followed by A instead of R.

Instead of reading QRU it read CAU.

He had done it again. It was exactly as had happened on his first transmission. Not only that, he also muddled the frequency.

After putting the message into the basket, Mary made a note in her notebook: ‘QRU reading CAU’.

Checking twice to see if she had made a mistake, something she dreaded, she then made another comment in her notebook: ‘Frequency change from LMS to GHT.’

What was eluding her? No one was supposed to read the messages. Indeed, she couldn’t. But the Q system was a universal language which the girls had got to know. Any fool could.

Mary rubbed her tired eyes. She thought about her agents, about where they might be. Was Mayonnaise moving around a city where everyone watched everyone else? How tough it must be, unable to trust anyone. Perhaps he was hidden, perched in a barn, or shivering in an open field, or high up in a mountain?

Vinegar … Why would he change frequency?

Between skeds, she searched out the duty signalmaster. It was, unfortunately, Signalmaster Noble.

‘I’d like to request that you get in touch with Major Martin.’

He frowned. ‘And why, may I ask?’

She held his gaze. ‘I’m afraid I can’t say.’

‘I won’t do anything unless you tell me what is going on.’

‘I’m sorry, sir. I can’t.’

This was a face-off. Noble opted for the usual tactic to resolve it. ‘Get back to your bench, Voss.’

‘Sir, this might be important.’

‘I don’t care if it’s an invitation to Hitler’s bloody birthday party. Get back to your station.’

It
was a double-shift day and Mary spent the period between them at a table in the canteen with a cup of stewed tea in front of her, trying to work out what to do. After that, she took a walk in the grounds. These were extensive and had once housed a noteworthy rose garden but, since the house had been commandeered, the signal bods had stuck aerials everywhere, even among the flowerbeds. Lately, these had multiplied over the lawns, finally destroying what remained of the garden’s elegance.

She wished she had someone with whom to talk things over and longed to be able to ask advice as to how to behave when she was so sure something was wrong.

She had always been obedient as a child, then as a daughter and an employee. Not unusual for a woman. Her mother had seen to that, drumming that way of being into Mary.

Clocking off, she walked into town. It was four o’clock and the afternoon sun was shifting over the town’s market square and settling on the window of the Currant Bun café. There was a scurry of schoolchildren and shoppers. The butcher was about to close down his stall for the day, and the man on the hardware stall was packing up his tin bowls and clothes pegs. She made her way to the post office and queued for twenty minutes until the phone box was free.

She dialled, waited for the call to be answered and inserted the coins. ‘Lieutenant Ingram, please.’

‘Who is this?’ demanded a female voice.

She explained.

‘And who gave you this number?’

‘Lieutenant Ingram. She asked me to contact her if I thought I should.’

There was a long pause. Mary raised her eyes to the ceiling. She had only three minutes and at least one had elapsed.

‘You’re not supposed to have this number. You could be in serious trouble.’

Something snapped in Mary. ‘I insist you give my message to Lieutenant Ingram.’

She
had said it.
Insist
.

Afterwards, she took her time to walk back to Mrs Cotton. Her sense of relief was overwhelming.

There wasn’t long to wait before the repercussions began.