Their Finest Hour and a Half (3 page)

‘No, telling rotten jokes badly is yours, and trying actually to get something done is mine. Heard the one about the junior under-assistant in Home Intelligence who got transferred to Reception and Facilities?'

‘No,' said Flaxton, endeavouring to reach the door.

‘You will.' The door closed, and the speaker turned back to Catrin, smiled charmingly and offered a hand. ‘Roger Swain, assistant deputy sub-controller film division. I'm so sorry we were late and that you were subjected to Flaxton. His department's conducting a humour survey to examine public attitudes towards the civil defence services and he's run out of internal victims. Did you laugh?'

‘Not much, I'm afraid.'

‘Good.'

‘
Film
division?'

‘That's correct. It's Miss Cole, is it? Or Mrs?'

‘Mrs.'

‘Your husband's in the forces? Or is he another one of us pen pushers?'

‘He's an artist.' She said the word with pride.

‘An artist?' Roger raised an eyebrow. ‘Would I have heard of him?'

‘Ellis Cole.'

‘Rings a bell. Pit wheels, belching chimneys, that type of thing?'

‘That's right.'

‘And is he keeping busy?'

‘He's working on a short contract from the War Artists Committee – four paintings for the Ministry of Supply.'

It didn't sound much, she knew, but Roger nodded politely. ‘Splendid. Well, we'd better get started, I suppose. This—'

‘Buckley,' said the older man, laconically, seating himself on one corner of the desk and folding his arms across the shelf of his paunch; he had a slab of fair hair, a narrow ginger moustache and teeth that looked rather sharp. He was smiling, but the effect was more predatory than welcoming. ‘I've been told I'm a special advisor,' he said, ‘though not, it transpires, special enough to actually get paid. Welsh, are you?'

‘Yes.'

‘Can't be helped.
And
you're much younger than I thought you'd be. What are you, twenty-one, twenty-two?' His tone was accusatory; she felt herself beginning to redden.

‘Nearly twenty,' she said.

‘Saints preserve us. Here.' He slid a thin sheaf of paper across the desk top. ‘Read it. Tell me what you think.'

She looked at him uncertainly. ‘
Read
it,' he said, with deliberation, and she hurriedly bent her head. It was a short script, carelessly typed on paper so thin that she could see the shadow of her fingers through every sheet.

‘What do you think?' asked Buckley.

Catrin looked up at him, trying to gauge the level of his question. ‘You mean, what do I think of the patriotic message?' she asked tentatively, aiming high. There was no reply; she lowered her sights. ‘The way it's set out, do you mean? I'm not familiar with this sort of thing, but I can see that it's inconsistent, I'm sure I . . . or do you mean the typing? There are lots of errors, I could go through it with a—'

‘I'm talking about the script,' he said. His voice had a trace of northern accent, imperfectly concealed. ‘Is it a good script? Would it make a good film?'

She shrugged, helplessly. ‘I don't know anything about films. Are you sure—'

‘Read it again,' he said. ‘Pretend to yourself these are real girls having a real conversation and tell me exactly what you think of what Joan says to Ruby and of what Ruby says to Joan.'

Self-consciously, Catrin complied.

‘Well?'

‘I don't think they sou—' she began to say, and then stopped, mid-syllable, hit by an awful thought.

‘
I
didn't write it,' said Buckley, reading her expression. ‘Say what you like.'

‘I don't think they sound as if they're in a factory. It says that they're shouting over the machines, but it reads as though they're somewhere quiet, talking over a cup of tea.'

‘How would they talk in a factory, then?'

‘In an abbreviated way, I'd imagine, to save their voices. Half-sentences. “You going out tonight?” That sort of thing.'

‘All right. Anything else?'

She looked at the script again. ‘The phone call.'

‘What about it?'

‘In real life nobody actually repeats what the person at the other end has just said – the emergency order, the hundred gross of bullets and so on. It sounds false.'

‘Does it?'

Roger leaned forward. ‘And the patriotic message, as you phrased it? If you were making bullets do you think it would inspire you to put in an extra shift?'

‘I think . . .' Was there a correct answer? She attempted a tactful one: ‘I think I might find it too unrealistic.'

‘Too unrealistic to take seriously?'

‘Yes.'

Roger nodded, and took a letter from his pocket. ‘You're in company,' he said, drily, unfolding it. ‘Let me read you something. Our current head of the films division receives regular reports from the field, so to speak, and this is from the manager of the Woolwich Granada. He writes: ‘
The MOI short
Biting the Bullet
was received by our audience, consisting of a very large portion of workers from the Arsenal (nearly all female), with satirical laughter and a chorus of “Oo's” and “Oh Yeah's”.
' He re-pocketed the letter and folded his arms. ‘Our current head of the films division has said that he requires more emphasis on a convincing and realistic female angle in our short films. Buckley, who's written a script or two—'

‘Thirty-three features, fourteen shorts and a serial,' said Buckley.

‘. . . has seen your work—'

‘Gravy ads,' said Buckley.

‘. . . and seems to think you have something of an ear for women's dialogue.'

‘Might,' said Buckley, picking at one of his nails. ‘Might have something of an ear. Might eventually learn, given time and a great deal of knowledgeable and patient coaching, how to turn out a line or two.'

‘And, obviously,' continued Roger, ‘as we would never ignore such an overwhelmingly enthusiastic recommendation from an expert of his calibre, we thought we might as well get you on board. We're working on a series of domestic shorts for Home Security, co-produced with an outside company. You can join the scenario boys on the fifth floor on Monday and see how you get on. Any questions? Mrs Cole?'

‘No.' It was all she could manage to say. During her five-minute walk between the entrance and Room 717d, past walls of files and crates of folders, past meetings so short of chairs that participants were seated on upturned waste-paper bins, past typists whose hands were a pallid blur, she thought she had seen her immediate future: a shared plywood hutch and an infinity of shorthand. The new reality was too strange to assimilate.

Roger got to his feet. ‘You'll need to see personnel before you go, we can point you in the right direction. I heard a new name for us yesterday,' he added, to Buckley, as they filed out of the office.

‘What's that?'

‘The Ministry of Malformation. Used seriously, by a woman on the bus.'

‘Not bad.'

‘My current favourite's the Mystery of Information. So apposite.'

‘I heard Reith's gone.'

‘Yes, last week, we're between ministers at the moment – this is public information, incidentally, Mrs Cole, so no need to worry about careless talk. I'm afraid it's like a fairground duck-shoot in here, we've had two ministers since September, and three heads of the films division in five months. The last but one came from the National Gallery – they thought they'd give us someone who knew all about pictures.' He sniggered at his own joke and then halted beside a bank of lifts. ‘Take this to the sixth floor,' he said to Catrin, ‘then ask again. And we'll see you next week.' He shook hands, and paused to wait for Buckley who was peering into another of the three-wall wooden shacks.

‘Hell,' said Buckley. ‘It's like an ant's nest.'

‘No,' said Roger. ‘Ants cooperate. Goodbye, Mrs Cole.'

She spent the afternoon at Finch & Caradoc fiddling with copy for a currently unobtainable face cream, thinking all the while about the occasions on which she'd seen the legend ‘The Ministry of Information Presents' swim out of the darkness. There was a distinctive audience noise associated with its appearance, a vocal expression that was not quite a groan, more a release of tension, as if permission had been given to carry on talking and folding coats and settling in before the important business of the evening began. She could recall very little of the films themselves – the odd sweeping view of a field studded with hayricks (‘this, then is Britain . . .' ), a man in a stiff collar talking about war bonds, a demonstration of the correct way to use a garden fork – wholesome items all, but indigestible, the cabbage that had to be eaten before the meat. Dialogue, snappy or otherwise, had been minimal.

By five thirty she had achieved nothing in the way of useful work, and Colin Finch told her to go home; instead, she caught the tube straight to Paddington, and queued for ten minutes at a chip shop before taking the familiar route along a narrow street that ran parallel to the railway lines, passing a succession of warehouses before reaching the disused garage where Ellis had his studio. ‘Glass roof,' he'd explained when she'd first seen it, a virtue that apparently excused the seatless lavatory, the lack of hot water and the vicious cross-draughts that whined between the double doors. Blackout regulations had created yet another disadvantage, and at twilight, the occupants had to climb on to the roof and spend half an hour pulling a set of home-made shutters over the panes; Ellis was up a ladder doing just that when she arrived, and she passed unnoticed through the shadows towards the roughly partitioned corner where he worked.