The Yellow Glass Read online

  The Yellow Glass

  Claire Ingrams

  Contents

  1. The Yellow Glass

  2. The First Uncle

  3. The Journalist

  4. The Girl’s Done a Bunk

  5. HQ

  6. Down the Slide

  7. Radiation

  8. The Fair Lady of Golabki

  9. The Establishment & The Black Box

  10. The Second Uncle

  11. Grounded in Kent

  12. A Platter of Vegetables

  13. Cullet, Crizzling & Murder

  14. The Rare Bird

  15. Hospitals & Pubs

  16. On Board the Humber

  17. The Third Uncle

  18. The Arms of Morpheus

  19. The Tramp

  20. Being Joe Bloggs

  21. Rosa Thinks it Through

  22. The Covert Operation

  23. Up and At It

  24. The Power-House & the Caravan

  25. The New Elizabethan Age

  26. Watching & Listening

  27. May I Ask a Question?

  28. The Kelp Chamber

  29. Burn in Hell

  30. The Same Stars

  1. The Yellow Glass

  These are the facts. My name is Rosa. Rosa Stone. I was nineteen in August and that’s the honest to God truth. What else? Let me give you some family background. My mother, Millicent Stone, makes fashionable hats. My father, Jerzy Stone, baked the bread for the new Queen’s coronation breakfast. My brother, Samuel Stone, is eight (so he hasn’t done much at all). I grew up in London and then Kent and now I’m back in London and living in digs over the bridge from Chelsea, which is actually Battersea and I don’t know why I was such a snob as to mention Chelsea at all because the two are obviously worlds’ apart. So far so good, but now it gets more tricky. I work as a personal secretary for a firm in the import/export line. Truth or lie? Well, take a look at me in my crisp, white blouse and plain, woollen skirt with my cardigan draped over my shoulders in case of chilly draughts. I’ve got a little string of imitation pearls round my throat and I’ve pinned my dark brown hair up in a bun (even though it took thirteen bobby-pins to do it). I’m wearing glasses, although I have the eyes of a hawk. Or do I? I’m afraid I’m rather a pill. Or am I? That’s for you to decide. Only one thing is certain (write it in CAPS): I AM A SPY IN HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE.

  In ten seconds this paper will self-destruct: one, two, three . . .

  It didn’t, of course. Which means that the above bit of doodling on the office foolscap is actually a rather severe transgression against the Official Secrets Act of 1939, which I signed many months back . . although the Official Secrets Act of 1939 is, in fact, a law, so I’d be transgressing against it whether I’d signed it or not. Such a lot of transgression in such a small space.

  “Four teas, Miss Dodd,” Mr Orchard has stuck his head around the office door and into my tiny anteroom, which is so crammed full of boxes that I am practically condemned to my desk.

  “Quick as you can.”

  “Coming right up, Mr Orchard,” I reply, because Miss Dodd is me.

  With some effort, I manage to push my chair back and squeeze my way to the door and then I walk down the corridor (in my sensible heels) to the kitchenette with the enamelled tile ceiling, leaving the incriminating paper lying face up on my desk for any old person to see. Don’t worry; it honestly doesn’t matter, because it’s encrypted. What my shorthand teacher at the Marian Claybell Secretarial College for Young Ladies called ‘an absolute atrocity, Miss Stone. Utterly incomprehensible in every way’ and I like to think of in more historical terms. I call it ‘the Rosetta Stone’ because it’s a cipher that can be used to crack an unknown language (for Ancient Egyptian read Rosa Stone’s story). And because it sounds like me.

  The kitchenette smells of tinned meat and fish paste mixed together and fried in rancid dripping. The two girls from Mr Unsworth’s office are there.

  “I do think it’s the limit . .” says the bottle blonde, breaking off abruptly when she sees me.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Saunders,” I say, reaching for the whistling kettle. “Any milk left?”

  “I don’t know, I’m sure,” she replies. “Come on, Flo. Some people have work to do.”

  They sway back to their office, ever so tight with one another; their pointy-brassiere-ed bosoms colliding as they hook arms to whisper about me. I know what they say. They dislike me because I’m a temp. and a pill, to boot. Also, they can’t quite place me in terms of class. And - the worst crime of all - I once used one of their personal teacups by mistake. I couldn’t care less.

  Yet (here’s a thought), might they be working undercover, too? It seems most unlikely in a business that appears to be mainly engaged in the import/export of glass and other ceramics from Finland, but you never know; when one is a spy one sees the world quite differently. It grows layers like a Savoy cabbage. Is this business a cover for something else, entirely, or is it a legitimate concern blighted by one rogue element? These are the type of questions that I ask myself when I’m not transgressing against the Official Secrets Act of 1939.

  Certainly, there are plenty of crates and boxes containing pottery and glassware of an unmistakably Scandinavian design about the place. I know this because most of them are stacked up in my office and I’ve had ample opportunity to investigate them thoroughly in quiet periods (i.e.: most of my working day). I take care to kick over the traces of my snooping activities, of course and go to immense trouble to un-knot bits of string and not reach for the scissors. I’ve even hidden a screwdriver in my handbag so that I can pry nails from packing cases and crates. So far, I’ve found quantities of mustard-coloured plates, bowls and coffee pots, a number of glass owls, a lot of chunky, yellow glass and heaps of white platters decorated with stick ladies wearing big hats and picking flowers. It’s all tremendously interesting, (you will discover that I find most things tremendously interesting, except when I find them tremendously dull), but if there’s a state secret hidden among the crockery, I’ve yet to uncover it.

  All I know is that the boss got me in here to be his eyes and ears after my first - and only - term at Cambridge proved to be a bit of a disaster. (Oh, I found the subject I was reading phenomenally dull and began to go to other students’ lectures and stay out all night and, before I knew it, the porter had tattled to the dean and several departments had ganged up on me and I was sent down. Although I’d gone before then.) However, that’s ancient history now and couldn’t matter less, because the boss knows what I can do: my special talents. The boss has known me for years. I must say, I didn’t expect the assignment to be this quiet and uneventful and downright dull when I agreed to undertake it, though.

  Having got that off my chest, today feels appreciably different. Spooning tea into the teapot, I can feel butterflies beginning to emerge from their cocoons (?!) in the pit of my stomach. This is what I’ve been waiting for during these interminable weeks of being pill-like Miss Dodd. He’s here, you see; the boss is actually here, in Mr Orchard’s office. And I’m making tea for him. No more being bored to tears. No more fooling about with the Rosetta Stone and playing Russian roulette with the Official Secrets Act before I’ve accomplished anything palpable. I have the distinct feeling that this is the day that my mission will become clear. Teaspoons, sugar bowl, milk jug, four cups and saucers, cosy on the teapot and it’s time to go.

  “Would you mind awfully holding the door for me, Jim?”

  The lazy office boy is loitering in the corridor looking like a tremendous ted with his hair greased up in a quiff.

  “Righto, Miss,” he holds it only just open and I have to squeeze through, under his arm, with my tray, because I’m no sylph. I
make sure to smile gratefully at him.

  Then I rest the tea things on top of a filing cabinet and knock on Mr Orchard’s door.

  “Enter.”

  There are four men in Mr Orchard’s office and, at first, it’s difficult to tell one from the other because the curtains are two-thirds closed and the lights are switched off. Scraps of a dejected afternoon - or is it a precocious twilight? – sidle in, revealing dim stacks of dockets and files and a Paul Nash[1] print of a bomb crater and some defoliated trees hanging, slightly crooked, on one wall. It takes a minute for my eyes to adjust to such gloom, while I hover with the tea tray, uncertain where to place it.

  “Capital, Miss Dodd.”

  Mr Orchard is in his usual place behind his desk. I know him to be a jowl-ed middle-aged man with big teeth and mustardy tweeds and a knitted tie and I don’t need to give him a second glance. Of the newcomers, two have their backs to me. One stands by the window, presumably watching the sights of Fulham - in this case, the chimneys of Lots Road Power Station - get swallowed up by dirty grey fog. He’s wearing a grey suit and hat, and has one hand in his trouser pocket, while the other swings a pair of dark glasses against his leg to a rhythm of his own. Back and forth they go as I bend to set the tea-tray down on the little side table that Mr Orchard has indicated. Forth and back, as I straighten and pick up the teapot to pour.

  I pass a cup to the nearest man, who is sitting at the desk facing Mr Orchard and he reaches for the sugar bowl, turning to smile up at me with nice white teeth. He is young and not bad-looking, but I wish he hadn’t because the third newcomer has noticed the smile and frowns, fleetingly. The third man is sitting in a shadowy corner and wearing a pin-striped suit and black shoes shiny enough to see one’s face in.

  “Will that be all, Mr Orchard?” I ask, hoping for more.

  “That’ll do for now, yes,” he replies, in such a distracted manner that I flick a glance at him.

  I note that Mr Orchard now merits this second glance, his tie having skewed to one side and a single bead of sweat being all set to launch itself from the tip of his nose. I feel like a sniffer dog released into the scene of a crime for one second flat; all a-quiver. If this second is all I have then I will make the most of it. I am immediately struck by the unlikely presence of a black velvet cloth, which has been spread over Mr O.’s desk and upon which sits a selection of the chunky Finnish glass, gleaming softly in the crepuscular gloom. I would note more, given more time, but that seems to be that; I can’t help but feel a touch dispirited. Nevertheless, I begin to trip cheerfully out of the office, as if fully satisfied with the successful completion of my onerous secretarial duties.

  “We’ll need a record, Orchard,” the third man pipes up, suddenly. “To dot the i’s and cross the t’s.”

  “Yup,” the good-looking young man agrees, turning out to be American (which explains the excellent teeth), “gotta be signed and sealed.”

  Mr Orchard swipes at his nose and then reaches, belatedly, for the checked hankie in his top right-hand pocket.

  “Of course. Take it down, please, Miss Dodd.”

  “Two ticks, Mr Orchard.”

  I slip out for my notepad, trying not to look pleased.

  When I get back the young American rises and offers me his chair, but leaves his hand lying casually along the back of it while I sit down. This is puzzling, but I shift to the front of the seat to avoid contact and sit ramrod straight.

  “Ready when you are, Mr Orchard.”

  “Right, let’s see. 14th April 1955, stop. Contract drawn up between Heaviside Import/Exports Ltd and Sambaware Enterprises, Territory of Alaska, stop. Ref: Dilko Arkonnen (two ‘n’s) Vas-Glass & Ceramics, stop. Quantities as follows:”

  “That is some freaky shorthand you have there, Miss Dodd,” the American is still standing behind me and has begun leaning over with his hand now on my shoulder. “I’ve never seen shorthand quite like that before.”

  I smile up at him, “I know, it’s dreadful really, but it gets the job done, I can assure you. Sorry, Mr Orchard. I’ve got as far as ‘Quantities as follows:’?”

  “One million pieces, stop.”

  I break the lead in my pencil.

  “Sorry, Mr Orchard, but I may have misheard. The quantity was . . ?”

  “One million pieces. Stop.”

  Somebody passes me a new pencil, not the American, who is actually beginning to tickle the back of my neck, but the third man.

  “Six noughts, I think you’ll find,” he remarks, drily.

  “Thank you so much,” I reply and swat lightly at my neck, as if at a fly.

  The American chuckles quietly and extends a couple of fingers down the back of my crisp, white blouse. I really don’t like this.

  “Signatories, Orchard, don’t you think? Mmm? Then we can get this show on the road,” says the third man.

  “Signatories, Miss Dodd. Mr G. Orchard, Financial Director, Heaviside etc., stop. Space for signature. New line,” the American’s fingers are tickling me atrociously and I cross my legs and slide forward to get away from him, so that I’m barely sitting on the chair at all. “Mr A. Arkonnen, Managing Director, Dilko Arkonnen Vas-Glass & Ceramics Finland, stop. As before,” it’s becoming just about unbearable and I slap my notepad down on Mr Orchard’s desk and lean my head and shoulders over it, as if over a decidedly tricky piece of work. “Mr B Dexter, Sambaware Enterprises, Cape Prince of Wales, Seward Peninsula, Territory of Alaska, USA, stop. Witness to the above signatories, Mr T. Clarendon, Legal representative for Trelawney & Mole Solicitors, Bayswater, Lon . .”

  My notepad slips out from under me and skids clear across the desk as if propelled by some wicked power of its own, knocking over a hefty yellow vase, which promptly knocks over two yellow goblets, precipitating all three off the edge of the desk and onto the hard linoleum floor.

  “I’m so . .” I make an automatic move to catch them before they smash to smithereens, but my arms scrabble in thin air.

  “No!” The American leaps away from me, like a man possessed.

  “Really, I didn’t mean to . .”

  “Christ!” Mr Orchard positively screams.

  I suspect that I look at him rather blankly because I’m actually so taken aback at the violence of the general reaction to my unfortunate accident. I cannot help noticing that Mr O. has grabbed his checked hankie and clamped it over his mouth and nose.

  Then it is that the Finn at the window turns around for the first time and I have the opportunity to see his face, quite distinctly, in the strip of light between the curtains. He’s a bluff, pleasant-looking man in his mid forties under his grey, felt hat. Strawberry-blond sideburns and rounded cheeks, full, bloody-coloured lips. Yes, the effect is pleasant enough . . until the light catches his eyes. There is something very odd about his eyes. They are tremendously pale, like a pint of milk, so that his pupils stand out like tiny beetles that have fallen in and are trying not to drown. His mouth opens in shock. Is he about to say something Finnish? No, he isn’t.

  The Finn flings out one arm and punches it in a great arc through the window behind him. He repeats this once and then twice and then he launches himself through the hole that he has made. Crumbs, it’s lucky that we’re on the ground floor. I may have turned to the other three men and begun to gabble something to that effect, but nobody hears me because they are so intent on escaping, themselves: first Mr Orchard and then the American rush to the window and positively vault after the Finn. I stare through the broken glass as if they might suddenly re-appear, jumping in bottoms’ first, like a film that’s spooling backwards.

  The third man looks at me and sighs.

  “Oh Rosa,” he sighs, “what have you done?”

  “I don’t know, Uncle Tristram,” I say. “Perhaps you could tell me?”

  “I can tell you what you haven’t done, Rosa,” he says, unfolding his handkerchief and kneeling down to pick up a shard of yellow glass. “You haven’t condemned the whole of London to uranium poiso
ning and slow death by radiation.” He turns the fragment of glass until it winks, prettily. Then he smiles his crooked smile. “So that’s something.”

  My uncle - and my boss - Tristram Upshott, and I left Heaviside Import/Exports via the front door and went to wait for a bus at the stop outside the Lots Road Power Station. Fulham was looking at it’s most abject. Fog had turned to rain and it was still so very cold after the freezing, interminable winter we’d just endured. The boss unfurled his black umbrella so that we could both take shelter while we waited.

  “Where’s your car, Uncle?”

  I’d never imagined that he would take buses, not in my wildest dreams.

  “I parked it up by World’s End. I daresay they’ll be watching it. It may be a goner. Now, tell me, Gypsy (his pet name for me), that room you took in Battersea; anything you’re particularly attached to in it?”

  “What, like peeling wallpaper, or the stained mattress, d’you mean?”

  “Please don’t be more than usually precocious. Any personal things you care about? Or, more to the point, things that could be used to trace you?”

  “No.” I thought about it. “No, nothing at all. Miss Dodd’s clothes are in the wardrobe. And some books . .”

  “Notebooks?” He broke in. “Were you scribbling there? You had strict instructions not to scribble, remember. Not to scribble and not to touch any deliveries,” he peered down at me under the umbrella and a thick lock of blue-black hair broke free from the bondage of hair-oil and fell over his unreadable eyes.

  I was saved by the bus. We climbed up to the top deck and found we had it all to ourselves.

  “Do let’s sit at the front,” I exclaimed.

  “Very well,” he slid in first, but remained standing and seemed to be winding open the top bit of window, which was odd considering that it such an exceedingly nippy afternoon for April. “One moment.” He took off his black bowler hat and promptly dropped it out of the window. “That’s better. Trelawney & Mole Solicitors have rather bitten the dust, I should think.”