Wives at War by Jessica Stirling Page A

guns.’
    â€˜Resistance,’ said Polly.
    â€˜Lots of it,’ said Christy. ‘It isn’t a recognised movement like the Fighting French and there’s no up-front leader like De Gaulle – but it’s there okay, stoked by smouldering fury at what the Duce’s done to the country. When the time comes to mount offensives on Italian-held territories—’
    â€˜Like North Africa?’
    â€˜Like North Africa – we’ll need inside help.’
    â€˜An active Fifth Column.’
    â€˜You got it,’ Christy said.
    â€˜To overthrow the Duce.’
    â€˜Eventually maybe. One step at a time, though. First we need to set up organised grass-roots resistance groups – and we need to pay them.’
    â€˜Are you telling me my husband has offered to finance the anti-Fascist cause in Italy?’
    â€˜He has.’
    â€˜But you don’t trust him?’
    â€˜Nope, apparently we don’t.’
    â€˜Because his father and brother are criminals?’
    â€˜Because,’ Christy said, ‘it’s all too good to be true.’
    *   *   *
    First out of the bag came two bath towels, then the camera cases and umpteen rolls of film. The cameras were nothing like the old box Brownie with which Jackie had recorded the growth and progress of the children. They were sleek objects in compact leather cases, a Rolleiflex and a Contax, plus the tiny two-and-a-quarter-inch miniature that Babs had seen on the tram. Beneath the cameras was a collection of lenses and light meters wrapped in chamois leather; beneath the lenses, three notebooks.
    Babs placed the items on the bedspread in the order in which she took them from the bag. She was nervous now, scared almost.
    She handled the notebooks gingerly.
    The first was a log or journal, each page – and there were many pages – packed with coded records of delivered film. The record bristled with the names of foreign towns and cities – Madrid, Helsinki, Warsaw, Berlin. Babs didn’t like the sense of smallness that those names gave her or the thought that a man who had been to all those places was sleeping in her son’s bed.
    Hastily, she closed the log and dropped it back in the bag.
    The second book listed claims for expenses, most of which seemed to have been paid. The pages of the last notebook were almost blank but a word – ‘Marzipan’ – appeared on page one, together with a telephone number. Printed in the same dark blue ink in the same crabbed hand, her name appeared on the second page, ‘Barbara Hallop’, followed by the address of the Cyprus Street Recruitment and Welfare Centre, which suggested that her meeting with Christy had not been accidental after all.
    She glanced at her watch: after eleven.
    Carefully she repacked the bag and put it on the floor.
    The smaller bag was less securely sealed than the first. It contained clothing: woollens, stockings, pyjamas, underwear, two shirts, one necktie, six or eight handkerchiefs, a shaving wallet and a fat packet of contraceptives. Six dozen contraceptives. Why was the man carrying seventy-two French letters in his luggage? Did he have women in every port and was he out in the streets of Glasgow looking for women when he wasn’t with her or – Babs blew out her cheeks and cleared her throat – did he intend to use the entire consignment before he left Scotland and if so who would be the lucky – or unlucky – lady on the receiving end?
    Cheeks burning, she stuffed the packet back into the bag.
    She was on the point of closing the bag when she noticed an envelope sticking out from between two cotton undershirts.
    She slid it out, a plump brown 9 × 6 manila envelope all scuffed and stained and, fortunately, unsealed. She spilled the contents on to the bedspread. Photographs, not glossy professional photographs but family snaps similar to those Jackie used to take with the Brownie. Ma and Pa