dinner?"
"I'm afraid I already have an appointment." It was true. She had offered, at any rate, to cook Gregory something at the flat.
Ten days later Charlotte received a brown foolscap envelope in the post. Inside it was a smaller white envelope. Inside that was a letter headed war office, with the official address in Whitehall. A heavyweight typewriter had punched its inky message into the low-grade paper. It invited Charlotte to present herself to a room on the third floor of a West End hotel. It requested her to bring the letter with her on Wednesday at 2 pm.
"I've got an appointment to see Mr. Jackson," Charlotte told a large man in a stained tunic behind the Reception desk. As she said the name, she saw for the first time how much it sounded like an alias, chosen for the way it was unlikely to be garbled on the telephone.
The porter said nothing, but allowed his eyes to travel slowly down Charlotte's figure. When his inspection had reached her knees, he nodded and called over a youth in braided uniform who took Charlotte across the lobby to a lift. He rotated a lever inside the cage and they moved heavily upwards. They stopped at the third floor with a juddering suddenness and the boy hauled back the metal doors; Charlotte stepped out into a dim corridor. The youth set off" ahead of her, dragging his feet soundlessly along the strip of carpet. Charlotte saw the tired acquiescence in his bobbing shoulders as the room numbers rose into the high three hundreds on her right; every now and then they passed a fire extinguisher and a notice pointing the direction of the air-raid shelter. There was the distant clank of a tea trolley, as though life were sustainable in these twilit corridors without reference to the world outside.
The bell-boy deposited her at a door with no number and knocked.
Charlotte put a florin in his hand to hasten his departure; she did not want the youth to see her meet this Mr. Jackson. He moved off quickly as the door opened and Charlotte found herself looking at a slightly built man of about forty with buck teeth and thick glasses. He had a pale, froggy look, a damp handshake and a broad, nervous smile.
"Have you brought that letter with you?"
"Yes." Charlotte pulled it out of her bag and handed it over. Jackson held it close to his face to read it, then visibly relaxed.
"Jolly good. Now come and sit down. Frightfully uncomfortable, I'm afraid, but we just have to make do with what we're given."
There was a trestle table in the middle of the room covered by a green baize cloth. The washbasin in the corner had been partly concealed by a board on which a pile of papers was dangerously balanced; the hard little chair on which Charlotte sat down was also of the willingly collapsible type. She noticed that Jackson lowered himself very gently on to his, as though he had learned from hard experience. Provisionally poised, he gave her another welcoming smile, like the headmaster at a boarding school inexpertly trying to reassure his new pupils. He slipped Charlotte's letter into the jacket of his suit, and it occurred to her that there was no longer any evidence of who had asked her or of where she had been.
"Now then. Miss. Gray. I think the best thing is if I try and put you in the picture a little bit. Then I shall ask you one or two questions about yourself. Does that sound agreeable? Jolly good. I'm not going to give you a lot of technical stuff. All you need to know is that I work for something called G Section. We answer to a parent group which in turn answers to the Chiefs of Staff Committee and ultimately of course to the War Cabinet. What we're concerned with, quite simply, is France." He gave a short tenor laugh.
"I understand that you're a fluent French speaker and of course that's jolly handy. It's a great shame that our two languages are so incompatible. At least, I mean the accents are. We've had a few awfully good people we've had to turn away because although they speak fluent
"I'm afraid I already have an appointment." It was true. She had offered, at any rate, to cook Gregory something at the flat.
Ten days later Charlotte received a brown foolscap envelope in the post. Inside it was a smaller white envelope. Inside that was a letter headed war office, with the official address in Whitehall. A heavyweight typewriter had punched its inky message into the low-grade paper. It invited Charlotte to present herself to a room on the third floor of a West End hotel. It requested her to bring the letter with her on Wednesday at 2 pm.
"I've got an appointment to see Mr. Jackson," Charlotte told a large man in a stained tunic behind the Reception desk. As she said the name, she saw for the first time how much it sounded like an alias, chosen for the way it was unlikely to be garbled on the telephone.
The porter said nothing, but allowed his eyes to travel slowly down Charlotte's figure. When his inspection had reached her knees, he nodded and called over a youth in braided uniform who took Charlotte across the lobby to a lift. He rotated a lever inside the cage and they moved heavily upwards. They stopped at the third floor with a juddering suddenness and the boy hauled back the metal doors; Charlotte stepped out into a dim corridor. The youth set off" ahead of her, dragging his feet soundlessly along the strip of carpet. Charlotte saw the tired acquiescence in his bobbing shoulders as the room numbers rose into the high three hundreds on her right; every now and then they passed a fire extinguisher and a notice pointing the direction of the air-raid shelter. There was the distant clank of a tea trolley, as though life were sustainable in these twilit corridors without reference to the world outside.
The bell-boy deposited her at a door with no number and knocked.
Charlotte put a florin in his hand to hasten his departure; she did not want the youth to see her meet this Mr. Jackson. He moved off quickly as the door opened and Charlotte found herself looking at a slightly built man of about forty with buck teeth and thick glasses. He had a pale, froggy look, a damp handshake and a broad, nervous smile.
"Have you brought that letter with you?"
"Yes." Charlotte pulled it out of her bag and handed it over. Jackson held it close to his face to read it, then visibly relaxed.
"Jolly good. Now come and sit down. Frightfully uncomfortable, I'm afraid, but we just have to make do with what we're given."
There was a trestle table in the middle of the room covered by a green baize cloth. The washbasin in the corner had been partly concealed by a board on which a pile of papers was dangerously balanced; the hard little chair on which Charlotte sat down was also of the willingly collapsible type. She noticed that Jackson lowered himself very gently on to his, as though he had learned from hard experience. Provisionally poised, he gave her another welcoming smile, like the headmaster at a boarding school inexpertly trying to reassure his new pupils. He slipped Charlotte's letter into the jacket of his suit, and it occurred to her that there was no longer any evidence of who had asked her or of where she had been.
"Now then. Miss. Gray. I think the best thing is if I try and put you in the picture a little bit. Then I shall ask you one or two questions about yourself. Does that sound agreeable? Jolly good. I'm not going to give you a lot of technical stuff. All you need to know is that I work for something called G Section. We answer to a parent group which in turn answers to the Chiefs of Staff Committee and ultimately of course to the War Cabinet. What we're concerned with, quite simply, is France." He gave a short tenor laugh.
"I understand that you're a fluent French speaker and of course that's jolly handy. It's a great shame that our two languages are so incompatible. At least, I mean the accents are. We've had a few awfully good people we've had to turn away because although they speak fluent
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