She dances on until the very end of the night, declining several invitations from young men who offer to walk her home. Her feet hurt. She has blisters. Every step a stab of pain that has a sort of purity to it. Every step a process of forgiveness. A pact being made.

  35

  It’s after midnight. Margaret doesn’t have the energy to chase down sleep. It has fled too far for her to catch it and she doesn’t have the patience to coax it back. Besides, she doesn’t want to lie alone in her empty bed. Life feels precarious, as though it could end this very night. There’s an impatience inside her to do the things she must, before she changes her mind.

  From the end of the street, she can see there is a light on in James’s office. She hasn’t stopped and checked but she can feel the blisters on her feet are bleeding: warmth pooling in the bottom of her shoes, the feet of her stockings stiffening against her skin. Both arms are burning too, taking turns to carry the carpet bag she almost forgot to retrieve from the Tower cloakroom before she left. She stops at the front gate of HQ, and sits on the low wall to gather herself. Nearly there now. If she can just make it to the front door, she’ll be able to take a proper seat and have a glass of water.

  A knock on the door could wake the neighbours, so she taps gently on his window instead. No answer. She taps again, a little louder this time and, bringing her ear to the glass, hears movement from the other side, and steps back. The crack between the curtains is edged open and James’s eye appears. She stands perfectly still, taking him in as he squints out into the darkness, unable to see her body, which is only inches from his. He opens the curtain wider still and she sees his face, his hair. Gently, she brings her hands to the glass, placing her fingers the other side of his. He detects the movement and smiles then. Relieved, no doubt, to find that it is not a stranger knocking on his window at this time of night. For a moment neither of them moves, then Margaret turns towards the door. She can’t stay out here just looking in. There are things she wants to say.

  ‘You frightened the life out of me!’ he says, opening the door and stepping back to let her in.

  ‘And not for the first time! I thought I’d come by in case you were still working.’

  ‘And as you can see, I am. I should have finished up hours ago. Have you heard?’

  ‘Yes, just now.’

  ‘There’s been talk of nothing else on the wireless. Peace for our time.’

  ‘Apparently so …’

  Neither of them will say it, just as neither mentioned the air raid shelter. Tonight is not the night to admit that they don’t believe it; that they know, deep down, that war will come. For once, Margaret understands it instinctively. But the euphoria she felt in the ballroom is with her still, the air between the two of them just as heavy with joy, with possibility.

  ‘Margaret – you’re limping!’

  ‘Just a few blisters. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Come and sit down. I’ll make you a cup of tea.’

  It is such a relief to settle herself in his armchair. The memory of the time she fell asleep in this very spot brings not shame but fondness. She thinks of the bag of crisps he left out for her supper. His office is just as chaotic as ever. She can spot quite a few additions to his collection, including a pair of roller skates, each with its own paper tag, marked ‘left foot’ and ‘right foot’. She wonders if he has tried strapping them to his own shoes, and her amusement turns suddenly to sadness. She stayed away from HQ for too long.

  On the wall next to his desk, he has created a display of the photographs they took that day on the pier. Standing, to get a closer look, she almost immediately regrets putting weight back on her feet, but she can see the mother eating the ice cream, and the group of boys fishing from the pier. There’s a young woman with her back to the camera, looking out to sea, the sun shining on her hair. The camera has caught her unawares, but there’s something about her. Something carefree. Margaret is certain that, though she cannot see her face, she is smiling.

  ‘Do you like it?’ James says, startling her. He is standing in the doorway holding two mugs of tea. ‘I hope you don’t mind that I put it up on …’

  ‘It’s me,’ she says. It is not a question. Somehow it is not a surprise. She is the girl in the photograph. Putting down the cups, he stands behind her and all she can think about is her neck. The stretch of tanned skin that rises from her collar and meets the curl of her hair. She can see it in the photograph. A part of herself that she never usually sees. And right now his eyes are inches away from her bare flesh. His mouth too.

  ‘It’s a beautiful picture,’ he says. ‘You look so—’

  ‘Happy.’ She realises that it is true. ‘It’s been quite an experience working here.’

  ‘Been?’

  Neither one of them moves. She is still looking at the photograph; he is still looking at her.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t understand …’

  ‘I’m sorry to do this at such a late hour but I wanted to tell you as soon as possible. I’ve decided to leave Mass Observation.’

  ‘Leave?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll stay until the end of the season. But I can’t see a future for me after that.’

  She feels him step away, hears the creak as he sits on his desk chair. ‘Is this? Margaret, I hope that what I said that day at the Pleasure Beach—’

  ‘It’s not that.’ She turns around to face him now, leans back against the desk, gripping the edges with both hands.

  ‘But you are so good at your job. Harrisson was delighted with your work.’

  She can feel a blush of pleasure inside her, but she mustn’t be diverted from what she has come to do. ‘It just doesn’t feel right, what we’re doing. Treating people like … as though they are animals to be studied. And what good is all this research going to do?’

  ‘I can’t answer that,’ he says. ‘But surely doing something is better than doing nothing. At least we are trying to understand. Without understanding how will anything be done to improve them?’

  ‘But what if they don’t want to be improved?’ There’s an edge of anger in her voice. ‘Don’t want to be told how they should be living their lives?’

  He shakes his head, confused. ‘It’s not about telling them how they should be living their lives.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  There is silence and he looks around the room. He seems unsure what to say. Unsure why she is attacking him. She is questioning everything they have done here. Everything they have been working on. Together. ‘Perhaps for some people,’ he says, quietly. ‘But I believe some good will come of it. How they could be living their lives, given the opportunity.’ Then he looks directly at her. ‘Margaret, has something happened?’ he says.

  ‘It’s just a feeling. That I’m on the wrong side somehow.’

  ‘Was it London? I thought you were coming back last night. I was concerned.’ Had he been waiting to see her?

  ‘I stayed on another night,’ she says, attempting nonchalance, but her mouth is dry and she swallows hard.

  ‘Harrisson then. Did he say something?’ He looks away, as if turning from the answer.

  ‘I went to Soho to speak to the girls there, find out what they thought about Davidson.’

  ‘He sent you to Soho? On your own?’ He stands from his chair and takes a step towards her, then stops himself. ‘My God, Margaret, did something …?’

  ‘No. Nothing like that.’

  ‘You’d tell me … if … I know it might be difficult … But I hope we are friends, Margaret.’ He looks away again.

  ‘Really, it was fine.’

  ‘Fine?’

  It does sound like a strange description now she thinks of it. An underwhelming word. A lazy one, her school teachers would have said. Inadequate in the circumstances, which surely qualify as extraordinary. She went to Soho and met with a prostitute. Found her and talked with her. Margaret Finch, from Northampton, who has spent her life doing what is expected. Watching quietly. Not speaking up. Margaret Finch, whose stepmother would fall into a faint at the thought of it. ‘Yes, fine. Much less exciting than you’d think. I met one of them for a …’ She can’t bring herself to say drink. ‘… a chat. Barbara, the one who gave evidence against him in court. I wanted to find out whether she was … what the papers said …’

  She looks at him and sees his eyes are wide. ‘But surely, Margaret, the fact you found her in Soho …’

  ‘According to the articles she was a temptress. Or a victim. One thing or the other,’ she says. ‘But she was neither. She was … just a woman.’ She shrugs. She actually shrugs. And this time the nonchalance is real. She feels light. Untroubled. As if she can see herself clearly. ‘A woman trying to make her way in life. Like we all are.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Is this what has made you decide to leave?’

  ‘No. Not exactly.’ She does not know how to explain, can barely understand it herself.

  ‘And you’re sure it’s nothing I said? That I haven’t caused you to feel … uncomfortable. When I suggested we go to the ballroom – I give you my word that I won’t repeat my invita—’

  ‘I’ve been there tonight,’ she says. ‘Just now. When I got off the train. And it is quite marvellous. You must go and see it.’

  He drops his head. ‘I must.’

  She feels suddenly tired. Needs to sit back down. She has said what she came to say, and more that she didn’t intend to. She makes her way to the armchair and lowers herself into it.

  ‘Margaret …’ he says. ‘Are you sure you won’t change your mind? About leaving, I mean. I’ll be … I’ll miss you.’ She knows it is true. She knows because she will miss him too. The way she feels is nothing like the romance novels Mother reads. There has been no chase. No capture. All this time she has been pretending to look the other way, but this fondness has gradually circled her, padding softly, stepping closer each time so as not to frighten her away.

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘I thought I was happy here, with all this,’ he picks up the toy sailing boat from a shelf, turning it in his hands. ‘On my own in my office. But these past few weeks. Our missions … I wouldn’t have done it without you. Any of it. It’s been …’ He steps forward and kneels down on the floor in front of her chair and takes her hands.

  ‘It has,’ she says.

  ‘I think you are extraordinary. Brave. This job, it’s not easy. And all that work on Davidson. I was wrong to—’

  ‘No. He wasted a lot of people’s time and their sympathy. I was stupid to get so involved. When you said you thought I was struggling … it was true. If it wasn’t for you helping me—’

  ‘Perhaps we helped each other.’

  ‘Perhaps we did.’

  They find each other’s eyes and neither turns away. They just look. Amazed but not surprised.

  ‘And it worked out,’ he says. ‘Harrisson was impressed that you got so close to him. Even suggested … Ridiculous to even … That a woman like you would … with a man like him … Grotesque. As if you’d …’

  As if she would. As if she would throw herself at a man like that. Try to kiss him. Be rejected. She pulls her hands away. Perhaps James thinks she feels repulsion at the very thought. But it’s the memory that makes her recoil.

  ‘Well, he’s getting his punishment now,’ he says. ‘You wouldn’t get me performing in that act for all the tea in China.’

  ‘The stuffed whale?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘He was planning Jonah and the Whale.’

  ‘Well, it’s Daniel and the Lions now. Not stuffed. He’s appearing with the real thing. In Skegness.’

  ‘That’s impossible.’ Davidson, a man who ran at the sight of a church mouse? So spooked by a dog that he ducked into an alleyway. ‘There’s no way.’

  ‘According to the papers—’

  ‘He is the last man who would put himself in that position. It’s a trick. It must be.’

  ‘Well, if it is, it’s certainly convincing everyone.’

  She knows Davidson was desperate to keep them queuing up to see him, but not this. She thinks back to the last time she saw him and replays the moment. What has she driven him to? No, it can’t be right. ‘It will be another conjuring act. There will be some illusion or other. I’ll work it out.’

  She has always wondered why people do not say what they mean, or mean what they say; why they pretend, why they hide. It has taken her years, but she realises that she has learnt to do the same. Not only that, but it comes naturally to her now: to tame the impulse, to moderate the thought. But she is emboldened by how far she has come, can still feel the music pulsing inside her. She presses the ball of her foot against the floor, a stab of pain to spur her on. It’s up to her now. She can spend her life watching, or choose to see; she can waste her time wondering, or she can find out if what she has feared about herself is true.

  ‘Do you fancy a day trip?’ she says, taking his hands again. ‘We could go together. Just for fun. Get a bite to eat in Skegness, have a walk along the coast?’

  36

  They decided on the following Saturday as the most appropriate date, for despite the rather giddy mood of their planning, there were James’s commitments at HQ to consider. At least it gave Margaret three days to recover from her trip to London. She was glad of the time to gather herself, a little frightened that something had awoken inside her: an impulsiveness that, if unchecked, could sweep her too far away from the self she had come to rely upon. But she was surprised the next morning that she was not woken by the usual regret or shame. There was something else instead, a similar sensation in many ways, a churn in her stomach that she understood to be excitement.

  Little thought was required to decide on an outfit for the trip. She had only three dresses, and the yellow one she had been wearing in the photograph seemed the obvious choice. She took the opportunity to buy new shoes, however, and made sure to break them in with short walks along the seafront to give her blisters chance to heal. At one time she would have found the process of buying any clothing embarrassing. She’d always felt a weight of expectation to have opinions on the relative merits of bows versus buckles; to know whether T-bars or ankle straps would be more flattering. It was one of the many feminine instincts she did not have, and any time spent considering how to elongate the leg or make the foot appear smaller had always only made her more painfully aware of her shortcomings. On several occasions she had been so keen to leave the shop that she had ended up with shoes that rubbed or pinched and had spent the next few years suffering the consequences. But this time she did not rush it; she allowed a shop assistant to measure her feet to be sure of the right size, and tried several pairs to find the most comfortable for the job. She didn’t want anything to distract her from enjoying their day out.

  Saturday morning comes, and she dresses in the clothes she’d laid out the night before.

  ‘You’re early for a weekend!’ Maude lifts herself out of a chair at the dining-room table, her hair wrapped in a headscarf, a housecoat over her nightdress. ‘I haven’t got the breakfast on yet.’

  ‘It’s all right. I’m not hungry.’ She couldn’t eat anything if she tried. The sensation in her stomach is much more intense this morning, though she tries to persuade herself that she sees James all the time at work and should treat the day no differently.

  ‘I can make you some toast.’

  ‘No really, it’s fine. You were having a quiet moment. I’m interrupting.’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ she says, reaching for another cup from the shelf and pouring her some tea without asking. ‘Come and sit down!’

  Margaret takes the chair opposite Maude’s and helps herself to a spoonful of sugar. She’s gradually got used to the strength of her landlady’s tea, brewed for so long that it inevitably has speckles of brown floating on the top like soap scum. She is a woman who rinses every last drop of taste from every tea leaf. But who could blame her?

  ‘Don’t you look nice,’ Maude says, refreshing the pot with more hot water. ‘Off somewhere special?’

  ‘Skegness.’

  ‘That’s the one they call the Blackpool of the East?’

  ‘I think so, yes.’

  ‘Bet it’s not a patch on this place. There’s nowhere like Blackpool is there?’

  ‘No,’ Margaret says. ‘I can’t imagine there is. And the weather’s not as good over that side of the country. The prevailing wind, off the North Sea – much colder over there.’

  ‘You’re a smart one, aren’t you?’ Maude sits again. ‘And good for you. In my day it were never good for a girl to show she were clever. Are you sure you won’t have some bread before you go?’

  ‘All right then.’

  Margaret watches her cut a thin slice with enviable precision. ‘You’ve never been to Skegness then?’

  ‘Me?’ says Maude. ‘No, I’ve never been further than Fleet-wood. Too busy with this place.’

 

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