Red Joan (19 page)

On top of this, Joan's father seems to have aged enormously in the three years since Joan left home. He retired the previous year, but rather than improving his health by giving him the opportunity to rest, this enforced inactivity only seems to have accelerated his decline. His hair, once thick and white, is thinner, and his dark eyebrows stand out more clearly against his new pallor. Even his eyes seem to have lost some of their colour. When he takes off his suit jacket and loosens his collar at the dining table, his fingers shake a little and his mouthfuls are small and laboriously chewed.

‘How's Lally?' Joan asks, wanting to distract herself from the sudden, alarming hint of her parents' impermanence.

‘Gadding about with soldiers,' Joan's father says, pushing his half-chewed mouthful into his cheek and grimacing.

‘She's not
gadding
, Robert. She's working a few days a week at the Jewish house for the German children.'

‘Refugees,' Joan's father corrects her.

‘Yes, exactly. That's what I meant. Shame she couldn't be here today though.' Joan's mother pushes the potatoes towards Joan, encouraging her to take another one. ‘You must make more of an effort to see her, you know. She had such a lovely time in Cambridge with you.'

Joan does not look up but takes a potato and deposits it on her plate. ‘So did I, but it's hard when I work six days a week. I'll invite her again, I promise.'

‘Once the war is over,' her mother says.

Her father shakes his head. ‘It's not going to be over as soon as you think.'

‘Of course it will. Have faith.'

Her father snorts with a mixture of contempt and amusement, a noise which Joan recognises as heralding the start of one of the good-natured yet vehement discussions she remembers so well from her childhood in which argument is treated as a form of sport. ‘I don't see how that will help us win the war.'

‘Because we're on the right side. Morally right.' Her mother spears a carrot with her fork. ‘And that has to count for something. It's just common sense.'

Under normal circumstances, such a comment would have prompted Joan's father to denounce his wife as utterly nonsensical, and he would have taken delight in arguing with her as loquaciously as he could. But today he is too tired to argue, just as he has been on the last few occasions Joan has seen him, and instead he simply laughs and sits back, closing his eyes.

Joan stands up, thinking that she needs to find out if her father has seen a doctor. ‘Let me take those dishes out.'

‘It's his heart,' Joan's mother confides once they are in the kitchen and out of earshot. ‘He's been told to rest and to stop smoking, but there's not much chance of that.'

‘He's not that old, Mum.'

Her mother takes her arm and squeezes it while Joan fills the basin with soapy water. ‘He's not young. Anyway, we're fine really. How about you? Met any nice young men I should know about? Or are we still moping about that darned Russian?'

 

That darned Russian is still in Canada. Yes, she tells her mother, she writes to him every week, and no, there are no young men to rival him in her affections. But she is not moping. She is enjoying her job, not just the work but also the money and the independence it brings. She likes the closeness of the laboratory, the sense of urgency and excitement. On top of that, she likes the sociability of it, the endless rounds of dinners and drinking games in the evenings that Karen encourages her to attend. There are long games of poker after blackout, lubricated by crates of sherry and whisky brought up from the basement of the laboratories. Max rarely participates in these, being obliged to keep his distance as the most senior scientist among them, but most of the others are regular attendees and they are fun, odd nights at which the subject of research is studiously avoided, very unlike the earnest discussions of her undergraduate days. She does not tell her mother about these evenings, knowing that she would disapprove, but all in all, Joan does not consider that she has enough time to mope, especially with Leo out of harm's way, which is more than most men of his age can say at the moment.

In fact, the only one of the old Cambridge group still around is William. He is posted close enough to Cambridge to be able to visit, and he gets in touch whenever he has some time off. When she gets home from her visit to her parents' house that evening, she finds him waiting on the doorstep of her lodgings. ‘Oh,' she says, suddenly remembering that they had made plans to go to the cinema that night. ‘It's tonight, isn't it?'

He grins, leans forward and kisses her on the cheek. ‘You haven't forgotten, have you? I've already bought the tickets.'

‘Of course not,' she says, fixing a smile on her face. ‘What are we going to see?'

‘
How Green Was My Valley
.'

‘How green was your what?'

He starts to explain that this is the title of the film, but Joan interrupts. ‘I was joking.'

‘Oh, right. Yes.'

Joan's feelings towards William are ambivalent. She finds it irritating when he attempts to be charming, as he frequently does. It seems too deliberate, too forced, and yet somehow he manages to get away with it. In general, people seem to like him because he quotes
Winnie-the-Pooh
at inappropriate moments and is rich enough to have a perpetually carefree demeanour, and it is a source of mild irritation to her to know that this will be enough for him to have a successful career in the Foreign Office whenever he decides he'd like to, just as his father did before him.

But still, she likes to see him as a reminder of earlier times, of Leo.

The film is set during the strikes in the Welsh mining villages of the Rhondda valley, a long film in which food is carried in beautifully made wicker baskets and little Huw Morgan's eyes gleam from his coal-dusted face over a screeching classical score, reminding her of the columns of coal miners she once saw marching through St. Albans.

The evening is warm and musky as they walk back across Parkers' Piece to Joan's lodgings. William holds out his arm for her to take and she slips her hand into the crook of it, although she does not want to. It seems too familiar, too tactile.

‘Well? Did you enjoy it, Jo-jo?'

Joan flinches. Only Leo calls her Jo-jo and William knows that. Well, maybe Sonya too. He is probably just trying to be friendly.

‘It was sad,' she says. ‘And a bit American. Everyone was too pretty. There wasn't enough genuine grime.'

William laughs. ‘I think the director did originally intend to film it in Wales but the war got in the way.'

‘It has a habit of that,' Joan murmurs.

‘It'll get in the way for the Yanks too, soon. Roosevelt wants to join in. It's just the American public who are reluctant.'

‘I'd have thought that would be enough to stop him.'

‘This war's not like the last one. They can't expect to remain out of it just because they're surrounded by oceans. Something will happen to bring them in.'

Joan glances at him sceptically but says nothing. How can he always speak with such assurance? What is it that makes him so confident of his own opinion?

William casts a sidelong glance in her direction. ‘Anyway, how are things with you? Enjoying your job?'

‘Yes. Very much.'

‘What is it you're working on again? I don't think you've told me.'

‘It's research.'

‘Yes, I know that. What sort of research?'

Joan punches him on the arm. ‘You know I can't tell you that.'

‘Careless talk, blah, blah blah. I've seen the posters. But I'm still interested.'

‘Well, I can't tell you because I don't know. I'm just a secretary. They don't tell me anything.'

‘And you don't read, you just type. Is that it?'

‘Exactly.'

William purses his lips and looks at her. ‘But it must be nice to know you're contributing to the war effort.' He thinks about this for a moment and then grins suddenly. ‘How about lunch tomorrow? Or dinner? I haven't got all that much to do, and a chap's got to make the most of his leave these days. They keep talking about sending us off somewhere.'

Why? she thinks. What do you want from me? We're not comfortable together. ‘I can't,' she says, trying to look disappointed.

‘Why not?' William asks. ‘I'll come to meet you at the laboratory. You could just tell them you're popping out for lunch. Or I could meet you after work.'

Joan laughs. ‘I'm a secretary,' she tells him. ‘I'm not allowed to pop anywhere for lunch. Besides, there's no time. I don't finish until after seven and I have too much to do to go out at lunchtime.'

‘Your boss must like you then.'

‘Why do you say that?'

‘If he didn't like you, he wouldn't give you so much to do. He wouldn't want you around.'

Joan nods. She would concede that there is a certain complicity between her and Max, a calmness in their little corner of the laboratory, even if there is usually a door between them. She likes the way he asks how she is every morning, and the way he thanks her for his morning cup of tea, which is more than most of them do, and he seems grateful and apologetic at the same time. ‘I suppose so,' she agrees. ‘Why are you interested in all this anyway? It's boring.'

‘Not for me it isn't. I'm going to be sent away any day now. It's nice to know how to imagine everything back home.'

She cringes slightly. ‘William,' she says. ‘I don't want you to get the wrong idea.'

‘The wrong idea about what?'

‘Well . . . ' she pauses, ‘about us.'

He laughs and squeezes her arm. ‘Don't be silly, Jo-jo. I know. We're friends. That's all. I know it's Leo you're waiting for.'

‘I'm not waiting,' she corrects him, but then she looks up at him and allows him to see the blush rising in her cheeks.

‘Of course you're not,' he says. ‘And besides, I thought you knew.'

‘Knew what?'

‘About me.'

They are walking down her road now, a row of tightly packed Victorian houses, larger from the inside than they appear from the pavement, with cellars and attics. Joan looks at him and frowns. She cannot think what he means. ‘What about you?'

He looks at her, astonished. ‘You mean you actually don't know?'

Joan tries to keep the exasperation out of her voice. ‘Know what?'

William waves his arm, as if to brush her question aside. ‘Ask Leo next time you see him.'

‘Fine,' Joan says, irritated that he will not just tell her. ‘I will. Well, anyway, here we are. Thank you for walking me home.'

‘Don't mention it.' William leans forward and kisses her wetly on the cheek. She feels the imprint of his lips lingering on her skin. He smiles, stands back and salutes in a ridiculously overdramatic manner while Joan rummages in her bag for her key. She wants to wipe the kiss off, but she knows she should wait until she is inside before she does so. She finds her key, smiles, and offers an embarrassed salute in return from the porch as she steps inside.

S
o would you have said that William—Sir William—knew what you were doing at the laboratory?' Ms. Hart asks. She is leaning forwards in her chair, her voice betraying a hint of breathlessness. A glance is exchanged between Mr. Adams and Ms. Hart, and it is clear that this question is something they have planned.

‘William?' Joan asks, crinkling her eyes as if confused.

Ms. Hart doesn't flinch. ‘Yes, William.'

There is a pause, and quite suddenly Joan realises what they are getting at. She remembers what Nick said when he first came to warn her, that they want her to incriminate William, here, now, while there is still time to issue a warrant for an autopsy. Before his body is cremated on Friday. But she has made a promise. She shakes her head, thinking of the St. Christopher's charm necklace hidden in the drawer next to her bed, slipped casually to her the last time she saw him so many years ago. ‘No,' she says. Her voice is clipped and sure. ‘He didn't know anything. He was just mildly inquisitive, and a bit of a tease.'

Ms. Hart frowns. ‘So you wouldn't say he was deliberately trying to extract information from you?'

‘No.'

‘And he never made any sort of approach to you?'

‘No.'

‘Remember that anything you later wish to rely on in court—'

Joan interrupts, not wishing to hear this again. ‘I know.'

 

The Times
, 23 June 1941

 

FULL AID FOR RUSSIA: PRIME MINISTER'S DECLARATION OF BRITISH POLICY

 

Mr. Churchill said:

 

‘At four o'clock this morning, Hitler attacked and invaded Russia. All his usual formalities of perfidy were observed with scrupulous technique. A non-aggression treaty had been solemnly signed, and was in force between the two countries. No complaint had been made of its non-fulfilment. Under its cloak of false confidence, the German armies drew up an immense strength along a line which stretched from the White Sea to the Black Sea, and their air fleets and armoured divisions slowly and methodically took up their positions. Then suddenly, without declaration of war, without even an ultimatum, the German bombs rained down from the sky on the Russian cities.

No one has been a more persistent opponent of communism than I have been for the past twenty-five years. I will unsay no word that I have spoken about it, but all this fades away before the spectacle that is now unfolding.

We have but one aim and one single irrevocable purpose. We are resolved to destroy Hitler and every vestige of the Nazi regime. From this nothing will turn us. Any man or State who fights against Hitler will have our aid. That is our policy and that is our declaration.