V2 A Novel of World War II - Robert Harris Page 0,75

to the barman. ‘Doubles. On Wing Commander Knowsley’s tab.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘And can we get some food? We’ve just come off duty.’

‘I’ll see what the cook’s got.’

They carried their drinks over to a table by the window. Barbara lit a cigarette. ‘I could almost get to like this place. Two direct hits! We’re winning the war between us, darling.’

They clinked glasses. The gin and tonic was warm and oily, too strong for Kay’s taste, especially in the middle of the day, but she drank it anyway. Two direct hits? In two raids? She wasn’t sure she believed it. In her experience the RAF always exaggerated their successes. But she didn’t want to spoil the mood. A kind of warm loosening seemed to spread through her head. She nodded at the cigarettes. ‘Do you think I could have one of those? I’ll pay you back.’

Barbara lit it for her, and they sat back contentedly. The room was empty. Everyone else must be on duty, Kay thought. She had a sense of playing truant. Barbara said, ‘What did you do before the war?’

‘Nothing. I was at university. You?’

‘Oh, boring. I worked in a gallery.’

Kay examined her through the cigarette smoke. Yes, that fitted. She could imagine her in one of those expensive Mayfair galleries, decorously drawing in the wealthy clients; it was harder to picture her in Stanmore. ‘Was there any maths involved in that?’

‘In the gallery?’ Barbara laughed. ‘Are you pulling my leg? No! After I was called up, I just found I could do it – whoever would have thought it? – so they sent me on a course to train as a filter officer. Where were you?’

‘Medmenham. Photo reconnaissance.’

‘I was on Chain Home Radar for a year, in some freezing bunker in Suffolk, plotting altitude and angles of approach. It’s annoying, don’t you think, the way the Filter Room makes us just look like croupiers in a casino, moving tokens around with a rake?’

The soldier from behind the bar arrived, carrying two steaming plates of steak and kidney pudding, the suet crust split at the side and leaking gravy over a few pale and watery tinned carrots and a couple of potatoes. He set them down with unnecessary force. Barbara pulled a face at his retreating back. ‘I don’t think he likes waiting on women very much.’

They stubbed out their cigarettes and started to eat, Barbara eagerly, Kay more gingerly, breaking up the pudding with her fork and trying to pick out the few pieces of steak from the chunks of kidney. She felt homesick all of a sudden. Perhaps it was the drink. Finally she pushed her plate away. ‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Go ahead.’

‘What did you mean yesterday when you said I had “friends in high places”?’

Barbara carried on chewing for a while, her head over her plate, as if she hadn’t heard. ‘Forget it. I shouldn’t have said it.’

‘Tell me. I don’t mind.’

‘God, this is disgusting!’ She cut a carrot in half and ate it. Finally she looked up. ‘All right, since you ask. There’s a rumour that the only reason you’re here is because you’re having a fling with some senior bloke in the Air Ministry.’ She made a shrugging gesture with her knife and fork. ‘What can I say, darling? People are mean. Women are mean, actually – speaking as one myself. I’ll make sure they all know it isn’t true.’

Kay looked out of the window. A tram went past. Across the street, the sentry outside the bank was talking to a couple of civilians leaning on their bicycles. The balance in her mind between discretion and honesty, so long weighted on one side, suddenly tilted the other way, and she blurted out, ‘I’m afraid it is true. Or it was.’

‘Was true? So it’s over?’

‘Oh yes. It’s definitely over.’

‘Well go on. You might as well finish now you’ve started.’

She hesitated, and then, to her surprise, found herself telling the whole story for the first time, and to a woman she barely knew – Mike’s first visit to Medmenham (although she was careful not to mention his name), and then his second visit with the Churchills, and their drink in the pub, and their assignations in the countryside, and the disastrous decision to spend the weekend in his flat, and the V2 …

‘No!’ interrupted Barbara, her blue eyes wide. ‘You mean you were actually hit by one of the beastly things?’

… and the way he wouldn’t let her go with him to the hospital, and the nightmare