‘Is Kurt one of these bad hats?’
‘Most emphatically, I’m afraid.’
‘But what has he done?’ She held onto his arm, wanting, needing an answer. How could this possibly be? The Kurt she knew transformed into Sturmbannführer von Stavenhow?
Leo glanced round. ‘Not here. I’ll explain later.’
Edith looked down the deserted corridor, the parquet dulled and scored, marked with cigarette burns. The tall windows filmed with grime, still criss-crossed with peeling tape.
‘What is this place, Leo?’
‘It’s a place that’s never existed officially and is about to cease to be entirely.’ He nodded to a pile of boxes stacked by the door.
‘Secret, you mean? Hush-hush?’
He nodded.
‘What am I doing here? What do you want me to do, exactly?’ Edith asked, a sudden, cold realization dawning. ‘Be some kind of spy?’
‘I wouldn’t go as far as that. Not in the accepted sense.’
‘The Official Secrets Act?’
‘Oh,’ Leo waved a dismissive hand. ‘Everyone signs that. People get the wrong end of the stick about intelligence work. Most of it’s done by perfectly unexceptional types: businessmen, travel agents, teachers, clerks, typists, shop assistants, anybody really. Ordinary men – and women. It’s mostly a matter of keeping eyes and ears open, passing on information. Women are excellent at it. Superior intuition.’
Edith frowned. ‘How do you know I’d be suited?’
‘Oh, you’d be perfect.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Better get the old skates on. You’ll find the driver waiting.’ He kissed her on the cheek. ‘I’ll pick you up from Dori’s at eightish. Wear something nice. I’ve booked a table at The Savoy.’
Edith sat in the back of the car. The driver seemed to know where he was going without her instruction. What was this about? She’d done favours for Leo before. Attended meetings at university, dropped off a parcel or two, collected ditto. Sat on a certain park bench until a man walked by with a dog. Another park, another town. Wait by the floral clock. Same man. Different dog. What did Leo want? The Official Secrets Act suggested something serious. In Edith’s experience, the swankier the place, the bigger the favour and it didn’t get swankier than The Savoy on New Year’s Eve.
2
34 Cromwell Square, Paddington
31st December 1945
Ration Book Canapés
Quickly made from readily available ingredients, serve these delicious savouries to your guests with drinks or before dinner. Hand round fried cubes of spam, speared on toothpicks; triangles of thinly cut hot toast, crusts removed, spread with fried corned beef or tinned snoek mashed with pepper and vinegar. Keep the crusts to make breadcrumbs.
Stella Snelling’s A Dozen Delicious Ways with Canapés
Women’s Journal, week ending 23rd January 1943
Dori’s square was close to Paddington Station. One side was a great yawning cavity, the buildings flanking the gap shored up with beams wedged against the walls. Dori’s row was more or less intact, although some of the houses were boarded, either unsafe or waiting for their owners to return. Dori’s was second from the end, the cream frontage in need of repainting with chunks of stucco missing. All the result of the bomb that had brought Edith here in the first place.
Edith thanked the driver and went down the basement area steps to the kitchen. She didn’t feel ready yet to join the party going on upstairs. Dori’s parties started early and went on late.
Easter time, 1941, she’d stumbled down these very steps with bells clanging, wardens shouting, half the square smoking rubble and the trees on fire. After a weekend in Leo’s flat, she’d been trying to get home when she’d been caught in a raid and been diverted, herded into the shelter of the tube at Paddington. Adeline had been on the platform, taking photographs. An unmistakable figure, her flying jacket hung about with cameras, her white-blonde hair jammed under a soft peaked cap. Edith had first met the American journalist through Leo and they’d hit it off immediately, meeting up when their paths crossed in London. Edith waved, relieved to see a friendly face among so many strangers. Adeline smiled, equally as pleased to see Edith. Adeline shared her small silver flask of bourbon and they’d settled down together to sit out the raid, talking about who they’d seen, where they’d been and everything in between.
After the all clear sounded, they’d emerged to fires raging. Then, guided by some kind of premonition, Adeline had hauled Edith into a deep doorway just as another bomb went off, very near. A delayed fuse, a tail ender dropping the last of his load. The explosion had sucked all the air. They had clung to each other, the vacuum pressing them together like giant hands, while bricks flew, bouncing past like children’s toys. Adeline had taken her by the hand and they’d stumbled through fallen masonry and abandoned cars towards the entrance to the square. A warden shouted: ‘You can’t go no further!’ and Edith had baulked but Adeline had just gripped her hand tighter, pulling her down steps with the warden still yelling.
Half the square were in Dori’s basement. ‘Waifs and strays, orphans from the storm!’ Dori had waved a bottle of gin in greeting. ‘Come and have a drink, darlings. It’s the only thing to do!’
Adeline had gone straight back out. She had to capture what she’d just seen: the destruction of the square, the flames in the trees, the faces of firemen and ambulance crews strained and white in the flashlights’ glare, even the irate ARP warden, would appear on American breakfast tables in the pages of News Illustrated. Edith was just relieved to be out of it, glad of the shelter and enjoying the impromptu party. So much better than being at a freezing station, waiting for the trains to start running; so much more fun than sitting in the air-raid shelter at home.
By the time the trains were running, Dori had taken to Edith: ‘You can cook! Come any time!’ she’d said and meant it. Edith was equally taken with Dori; ebullient and flamboyant, she was fascinatingly different from anyone else Edith knew. She took to dropping in whenever she was in London and needing to find somewhere to stay when she was in the city, she joined the ever-changing group of people who periodically lodged with Dori. It was never for long: a day or two, a weekend here and there, a week at the most, but it became her lifeline.
Edith let herself into the kitchen and found a couple of young things standing by the kitchen table looking bewildered.
‘Is that you, Edith?’ Dori came from upstairs. ‘I thought I saw you sneaking in.’ Her voice was slightly slurred, as though she’d started the party early, but when she appeared in the kitchen doorway, she looked lovely. Her green silk dress cut low, her black hair falling in deep, soft, sloping waves. A light dust of powder gave a hint of colour to her pale, ivory skin; eyebrows defined to accentuate the tilt of eyes made to look even darker and larger by a sweep of liner and liberal use of mascara. ‘Meet Pam and Frankie.’ The two girls bobbed their heads slightly, as though Dori was royalty. ‘You couldn’t help them rustle up some of those delicious canapés, could you, darling?’ She gave Edith her best red lipstick smile. ‘I’ll pop the geyser on and run your bath.’ She disappeared up the stairs again. ‘And check on my goulash!’