MI5 and Me Page 3

  This particular day she looked across to the window, obviously remembering the halcyon days of her youth.

  ‘I was a hundred and forty,’ she said, with no attempt at modesty.

  ‘You look much younger,’ I murmured, crossing myself.

  ‘We can do without jokes, Lottie, thank you. Our work is serious, we do not joke. Goodness knows, the world is insecure enough without jokes, what with the Atom Bomb, communism, and the wretched television.’

  ‘I prayed for the security of the world at Mass this morning,’ I told her.

  The Dragon looked appalled.

  ‘There is no need for you to do any such thing on my behalf, I do assure you,’ she said, and for a second I could see she thought she could smell incense. There was a short pause while she chose her next line of attack. ‘Really, I think you should keep to the rules here in the Section – unwritten though they may be. We do not mention religion or politics.’

  ‘My father mentions religion sometimes. He said Roman Catholics were allowed into MI5 now, on account of the fact they hate communism so much.’

  ‘Your father is a very distinguished man,’ the Dragon said shortly.

  Perhaps the mention of a more senior officer tempered her attitude because for the rest of the day she did not ring me for dictation, which meant that I was left kicking my heels downstairs among the dreary green filing cabinets. It was their very dreariness that gave me an idea.

  In my lunch hour I bought some magazines and Sellotape and cut out some pictures of movie stars, which I taped on to the front of the cabinets.

  I put Cary Grant alongside Grace Kelly, then Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe, last but not least.

  ‘Do admit they cheer the place up?’

  ‘You’ll probably end up in the Tower for doing that,’ Doreen the arch knitter from Files said when she saw my handiwork. ‘But I tell you, that is what MI5 needs: a bit of movie-going magic. Good for you.’

  The rest of the Section stared at my work in silent fascination.

  ‘Not so dismal now, are they, these awful cabinets?’ I asked, looking round at the rest of them.

  There was the sound of jaws dropping all around the room as, one by one, everybody took in my artwork. I could not say that they approved. They were too shocked to be able to approve. I suddenly knew how Manet felt at the first showing of his masterpiece Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe, the painting that rocked Paris. But like Manet I resolved to stand by my creation. I would not take any notice of lesser mortals with their petit-bourgeois attitudes.

  Arabella approved of my artwork.

  ‘Someone should have done that years ago,’ she murmured before putting on her intercept headphones, a dreamy look coming into her eyes.

  ‘How’s it going?’ I asked, glancing up from my book as there was still no sign or sound of the Dragon and her doings.

  ‘It’ was the raging affair that was being conducted by a well-known and very active member of the British Communist Party and an obviously extremely virile gentleman whose daytime occupation was working as a ticket collector at Earl’s Court Underground station.

  ‘She is taking him to dinner tonight, and then they’re going back to her flat for a coffee,’ Arabella whispered, because she was really meant to be typing, not listening.

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘Who knows? I don’t think she does. She can’t … she keeps saying she feels faint at the sound of his voice.’

  ‘Why are they interesting?’

  ‘Because he’s a double agent, silly.’

  I must admit up until then, what with the long and boring memos and trying to cope with the Dragon, I had forgotten that MI5 was all about catching communists.

  ‘What happens once they’ve caught one?’ I asked Arabella later, over tea in the canteen.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, they survey someone, say, and they find out they are red through and through, so what then? I mean this chap you listen to, he comes back and tells someone here “Yes, you’re right, she is a communist”, which let’s face it, they know already, and then what happens?’

  Arabella looked mystical.

  ‘I don’t know. I daresay they make the communist’s life hell,’ she said.

  ‘What, let down their tyres, and put dye in their laundrette bag when no one is looking?’ A dreadful thought occurred to me. ‘They don’t drug them and send them to – to Russia, do they?’

  ‘Gracious, no, there is no point in sending them to Russia. There are quite enough communists there already, no point in adding to them. No, I’m not sure what they do, but I am quite sure they menace them. You know – pile on the tax bills, listen in to their telephones, follow them wherever they go … restaurants, cinemas, theatres, parks … especially parks, apparently.’

  I was not satisfied, but Arabella had centred her teacake in front of her place, and once that happened I knew to pipe down until she had cut it into as many tiny slices as she could before tenderly delivering them to her mouth.

  ‘It sounds to me …’ I said finally, half to myself ‘ … it sounds to me as if catching communists is a bit of a waste of time. I mean, you catch them – that is, you know who they are – and then you follow them week in, week out, to make sure that they’re not doing anything terrible besides reading the Daily Worker. I just don’t see how that can be much use in the defence of our country. What are they doing that is so wrong?’

  ‘They are doing wrong things, all the time. They’re busy making people strike, sewing seeds of anarchy, bringing transport to a standstill, crippling our exports. Rosalie says they could put the whole country out of action, just bring it to a standstill, if they were better organised, and that is what Russia wants, and other countries too. They can’t wait to take the Great out of Britain. So that is what we are here for: to make their life unmitigated hell. But in a very nice way, of course, because that is what we British do. We make people suffer in a nice way, and then make sure they stop being stupid and realise being a nuisance is not on.’

  I stared at Arabella. She had obviously had a lot of thoughts about MI5 and all that, and also come to quite a few rather good conclusions. She had made me feel less grey, and more excited about our work. Catching a communist spy who was buying secrets from us was going to be fun, and also patriotic. It might even mean that the number nines would be more frequent.

  I waltzed back into our Section feeling pretty chipper.

  It was only as I passed Files that I noticed they were unusually quiet, as was the rest of the room. Everyone was busy being Very Busy as if they had all been told not to look at me.

  I went to my desk and looked around. Still no one was looking at me. I didn’t like that, I like people looking at me, but worse than that there had been skulduggery at work – the decorations on the filing cabinets had been removed.

  The telephone on my desk rang. I picked up, knowing that nothing good was going to come of answering this call and being proved instantly right.

  ‘Please will you come down to the first floor? Head of Section wants to see you at once.’

  I put down my handbag, knowing that it might be the last time it was left on my desk. I turned to Arabella, who was once more listening enthralled to her intercept, but seeing the look on my face, she put down her earphones.

  ‘You have the look of someone who has just heard something beastly,’ she said.

  ‘I have to go down to the first floor. Head of Section wants to see me.’

  Arabella looked serious.

  ‘The first floor is where they – but, well, I mustn’t say.’

  ‘Where they what?’

  ‘You will find out soon enough.’

  ‘No, tell me.’

  ‘I can’t. It’s classified information. You have to show your pass three times just to get through to whoever is seeing you, so don’t be surprised at what happens. It’s torture.’

  ‘Torture?’

  ‘Torture, but you’ll come through i
t, because you’re so plucky. Really, you will. Just don’t say too much. No matter what, say as little as you can.’

  I gave her my best ‘it’s a far, far better thing I do now’ look, which was completely wasted on her as she was back listening to the double agent wooing the communist lady.

  Down, down I went, I thought, just like Richard II, ‘wanting the manage of unruly jades’ – a line that always comes to my mind in certain circumstances simply because it is about the only one I can remember from Richard II. As a matter of fact, I really would have given anything to be on a bolting horse rather than the knee-knocking experience of showing my security pass three times, and trying out my best smile on three different door Johnnies, who looked intensely bored by seeing both me and my pass, so there was no point in trying to charm them.

  Finally I came to Head of Section’s door. I knew it was the right door because it said Head of Section on it.

  As I went in I remembered Arabella’s reassuring words about the British not torturing people; even so I looked around me straight away. There was no sign of anything except bookshelves.

  ‘How are you, young lady?’

  It wasn’t the same lady who had let me in, as it were. This one was very different. I thought she must be grander, because she had a better desk and a Parker pen, and I had passed two secretaries on the way in.

  I went to say ‘I am quite well, thank you’ but I couldn’t get the words out, so I just stood and waited, dreading to hear what kind of agonies I was going to have to endure for putting up the pics of movie stars on the filing cabinets.

  ‘Do sit down.’

  I sat down.

  ‘I expect you know why you’re here?’

  I nodded, already a broken reed, awaiting my sentence.

  She opened a file and read through it.

  ‘Four weeks,’ she finally stated. ‘You have been here four weeks, and already you are, I believe, a credit to your Section.’

  I stared at her. Was it possible that this was a refined MI5 kind of torture? They led you to believe one thing, before twisting it in such a way that you were forced to confess to something you had never done? Anything was possible. I knew that my father was very good at laying traps, because I had more than once fallen into one.

  ‘Yes, your work has been satisfactory. You are quite prepared to correct your mistakes, and more than that – you always have a cheerful mien.’

  I never quite knew what a ‘cheerful mien’ was but now I realised that I was supposed to have one, I immediately assumed an expression of life-enhancing goodwill.

  She looked at me with sudden concern.

  ‘Are you feeling all right?’

  ‘Definitely, thank you.’

  ‘Oh, good, you seemed to have lost colour.’

  ‘Oh, I’m always losing things. It’s just a habit.’

  She laughed.

  ‘I can see why you’re such an asset to your Section, yes indeed.’

  She paused. ‘So, now you can go home to your father and tell him that you have passed our requirements, and what is more we are very pleased with you.’ She paused again. ‘I know you will go on to even greater things, but for the time being I am only too happy to leave you in your present position, where you are giving so much satisfaction.

  ‘For the first year your weekly wage will remain the same, but you get six weeks’ paid leave, as it is known here, which I always think is such an asset, truly. You can take the whole six weeks as one, if you wish, which means that you can, say, go to Ascot and follow the Season a little, if you like, or you can take off to warmer climes and sizzle on the beaches. But for now – thank you for coming to see me, and well done. Very well done indeed. Most pleased.’

  I walked back to the door, painfully aware that my legs felt weak and my head quite light.

  Her voice stopped me as I reached for the door handle.

  ‘Just one more thing.’

  I turned, knowing that the Real Truth was about to be spoken and that she had been leading me on.

  ‘Yes, just one thing, and I am sure you won’t mind my mentioning it. Best if you don’t try decorating the filing cabinets again. Might lead to an outbreak of travel posters and pin ups. Such a nice thought though, nonetheless.’

  ‘Of course. Thank you.’

  I floated past the policemen, proudly flashing my security pass, and then took the lift back to what I now thought of as My Floor. I had passed my month’s trial at MI5. My work was satisfactory. I hadn’t been tortured. I walked into the Section, and went straight up to Arabella.

  ‘It was fine. Just my first month assessment.’

  Arabella looked innocent.

  ‘I thought it might be. So…’ She looked at me with her most sanguine expression. ‘You’ll be staying on with the Dragon then? What fun.’

  I stared at her. I hadn’t thought about that. It meant, instead of being shot of her, I was cemented into position. If I could have made my eyes fill with tears, I would have done, but as it was time to get back on the number nine bus, I couldn’t afford that luxury. I should go and find out what was happening at home, because now I Knew What I Knew, it seemed to me that something always was.

  THE FASTEST GUN IN W8

  I had always found it difficult to understand why my mother perpetually had people in the house, either calling or staying, but now I knew that they were probably all spies and spooks and agents of one kind or another, it was quite understandable.

  That evening, after I had stopped for a coffee with Arabella, I wandered home, happy in the knowledge that my mother would be only too pleased to hear that I had passed into the inner sanctum of MI5 and would be earning eight pounds a week, and enjoying six weeks’ holiday on full pay. I knew she would like that last bit so much because it would mean I would be somewhere else rather than sitting about the house, which the previous evening she had told me she found a bit much because I was taking up a room that she would prefer to use for guests. She hinted now, almost daily, that my moving out might be much the best course for both of us.

  For this reason I found myself putting my front-door key in the latch and creeping into the house as if I were on a spying mission, which I knew I wasn’t, but even so it seemed a better way to enter, quietly, surreptitiously, without causing a stir. As I crept past the drawing-room door, I could not help but glance in – just to make sure of the numbers at dinner, I told myself, but really it was because I wanted to know who might be there. My father was, but not my mother. My father was having a long, quiet conversation with a man in one corner of the room, while the other people present, a mixed lot, were talking to each other in a desultory way, as if they were all awaiting the result of my father’s conversation with the gentleman in question.

  I climbed the stairs to my room, passing the door of one of the guest rooms on the way. I paused. I could hear someone moving about inside. As quietly as possible, in the same way I had opened the front door, I pushed open the guest-room door, only to stop. I was right; there was someone in the room. It was my mother and she was holding a gun.

  My first thought was that I had to move out, straight away. I mean, if this was what it had come to, there was no question. For once in my life I found there were no words I could think of that were appropriate to the situation. I knew at once from Mother’s expression that making a joke was just not on. She had a very cross look on her face, so cross that it reminded me of the day I pulled some bobbles off the curtain trimming in her bedroom. It was that bad.

  ‘I have told your father time and time again,’ she said, moving the gun about as she talked in a way that would make a grown man faint, ‘he is not to leave revolvers in the side drawer of the guest rooms. He will do it. It is bad enough he goes around with a knuckleduster in his pocket, pulling his suit out of shape, bad enough that his swordstick came apart at the races the other day, but now here we are with guns where they definitely should not be. If only he wasn’t so absent-minded.’ She sighed. ‘It takes a terrible
toll on the wives, all this undercover business, what with weapons, and people coming and going at all times of the day and night – including your father, one never knows where he is – and now guns in awkward places. I mean supposing Mrs Graham had found it, or your grandmother – particularly your grandmother – she would have a fit.’

  I saw my opportunity to open up the conversation a bit. After all, from my understanding of the Grahams, they were working for my father anyway and a gun here or there might not make any difference, I shouldn’t have thought.

  ‘I expect Mrs Graham would understand,’ I offered. ‘Besides, she doesn’t look in drawers. She only dusts.’

  My mother threw me a pitying look, which although it was less terrifying than her previous expression, was still not exactly cordial.

  ‘Everyone looks in drawers, it is just a fact, and if you don’t know that then you should. Everyone looks in drawers, handbags, envelopes and medicine cabinets, just so long as it is nothing to do with them. People feel compelled to look. That’s just a simple fact. On the other hand, if it is to do with them, they will no more glance in a drawer, look in their handbag, open an envelope or even a medicine cupboard, unless they absolutely have to. That is human nature, Lottie, and if you don’t know it by now, then you should do.’

  She looked at the gun, which was still in her hand.

  ‘I don’t know if it is loaded,’ she said crossly. ‘You had better go down and ask your father.’ She sighed again. ‘He’s having one of his bogey dinners, no one allowed except him and his inner bogey circle.’ She shook her head once more. ‘And that is another thing that is so dull about being married to someone in the security service – it makes socialising so difficult. How can I keep up my social life in any kind of way when I can never count on your father being there? And if he’s not there, he’s somewhere else doing something most wives would rather not know about. Really, it is impossible. If I could, I would get in touch with the Director Generals of both services and point this out to them. The strain on the wives’ social lives – and, believe me, it is a strain – is terrible.’