The Girl in Berlin by Elizabeth Wilson

Dinah had been introduced by a local Labour Party friend. Until she joined the group she’d felt alone and isolated in her horror of the atom bomb. To find other women who felt as she did had helped her get a grip on herself. You felt so much better when you were at least trying to do something. They’d been meeting for some time, but only now were they ready to plan their first action: they were going to leaflet a shopping centre.
    Instead of discussing this, however, the meeting was swamped in speculation about the Missing Diplomats. It was always the same conversation, Dinah thought. It always circled round the possibility that the two men were Russian agents, communists, spies. The unthinkable. One member of the group said that Guy Burgess was obviously unstable. Surely the Secret Service would have more sense than to trust someone like him – and so would the Russians. A second dismissed all the stories, convinced the men were just a couple of rogues playing a practical joke. A third mentioned Klaus Fuchs, who’d been convicted of treason, but he only gave secrets to the Russiansbecause he believed that science should have no national boundaries, that knowledge belonged to everyone and that the world would be safer if both sides had the bomb.
    If only there were real peace instead of the Cold War there wouldn’t be any need for atomic weapons, nor for spies. Sometimes when Dinah thought about it all she felt anxious and close to tears. Sometimes she did cry, alone in the evening, seated by Tommy’s cot as he slept.
    Peace was so important. You’d do anything to stop another war.
    Alan meanwhile said the BBC was also awash with gossip. He was burning with impatience to have his say, like everyone with the slightest claim to acquaintance or inside knowledge. All joined the stampede for their moment of notoriety, desperate to have their second-hand moment in the spotlight.
    They went to a party the first Saturday after the news had broken. Guests from broadcasting, journalism and the arts drifted through the rooms of a dilapidated house in Maida Vale near the canal. Everyone was talking about Burgess and Maclean.
    Dinah stood beside Alan as he argued with some colleagues, speculating about what could have happened, where the two men really were. But not only was she sick of the mystery, it also didn’t do to look too dependent on your husband. It was never good to cling; better to roam around until you found someone who was willing to talk to you. And soon enough she found a rather jolly young man with tousled hair and a Fair Isle jumper, who was also bored with the Missing Diplomats and told her instead about the history of cinema he was writing. Later they danced to Jelly Roll Morton and Humphrey Lyttleton records. When there was a slow blues, the jolly young man (the name’s Frank, he told her) held her close and she enjoyed that, but then she said: ‘It’s awfully late – I’d better find my husband.’ As soon as she’d said it she wished she hadn’t, but it was late.She looked round for Alan and saw him standing with a little group of men and one woman by a marble chimneypiece. The woman was about thirty and was holding court, one arm resting along the chimneypiece.
    ‘Who’s she?’ she asked Frank.
    ‘Edith Fanshawe; she edits Poetry Now .’
    Edith Fanshawe’s pale, fluffy hair curled round a pointed face in which the features seemed too large. Her eyes were light and there was something imperious and mocking in the way she gazed at her audience. The black dress accentuated her curves in an attractive way, so that you did not notice that she was really rather too plump. When Alan saw Dinah he put his arm round her waist and said: ‘There you are. Come on. We’re going.’
    Dinah was pleased enough to leave. They took a taxi home and during the journey Alan leaned back moodily in his corner. She knew him like that; he was usually thinking about work.
    ‘I enjoyed the party,’ she offered, but