My Name is Eva(30)
After her meeting with Stephen Robinson, Evelyn checked the forthcoming programme of concerts at St John’s. She wanted to be sure she could attend the Bach performance if he was going to be there. It was a month away; plenty of time to prepare.
Ever since she had finally inherited the Kingsley Manor estate, Evelyn had enjoyed assuming control of the house and gardens. And since her retirement from what she always told everyone was a dull section of the Civil Service five years previously, she had enjoyed it even more. Mama’s choice of stiff and garish bedding plants, reminiscent of public parks, had gone, usurped by spires of lush delphiniums and full-blown scented peonies; the drab brocade hangings in the library and dining room replaced by the sheen of bright velvets and glowing florals. And when local friends from the Garden Club, the Conservative Association or the Women’s Institute asked if she missed going to work, she always replied, ‘Oh, not a bit! I never did anything very interesting or useful there. I mostly did the filing.’ She never mentioned the agent reports or the steaming kettle that deciphered incoming messages in the diplomatic bags.
But now she was going to do something really useful; something beneficial, if she could think about the details carefully. Colonel Stephen Robinson had been responsible not only for the deaths of Hugh and his brothers in arms, but also for selecting the location for the interrogation centre and for its mode of operation. He was not the only one who was guilty of misconduct at Bad Nenndorf, but he and he alone had been instrumental in directing and encouraging the inhuman methods employed there. And he was the one who took pride and pleasure in the administration of abuse. Not for nothing was it known as the Forbidden Village.
I won’t phone him, she thought, looking at the card he had given her. I must be sure my next move buys his trust. The card was slightly scuffed and dog-eared; he obviously didn’t have much need for calling cards any more. It bore the London address of the mansion block near the river to where she’d followed him; probably a place he’d had all the time he was posted abroad. Not a safe house exactly, but somewhere he could scuttle back to hide and gloat after whatever distasteful mission he had been deployed on. She knew what those places were like. The carpeted stairs and creaking lifts with iron grilles, the smell of Pledge polish and Brasso. An on-site caretaker to add to the security of the entry system and the locked mailboxes. The furnishings were always plain and no more personal than a third-rate seaside hotel. It almost made her pity him, as she glanced at the glowing patina of her Georgian sideboard and polished dining table.
And she could guess how miserably reduced his life was now that he was retired, how insignificant he now felt, as her investigations showed no sign of him ever having had wives, children or mistresses. He was neither a husband, father, grandfather nor a lover; he was just another lonely pensioner, whose achievements were all in the past, living on a reduced income. All he had now after his years of duty was a barren life, shrunk to an austere routine, taking advantage of London’s many free and inexpensive diversions, keeping trim by walking to his club to read their papers, then eating a meagre supper on his own in his sparse flat. He was not the sort to retire to thrifty solitude in the sticks, rearing bantams and growing dahlias, he was too dependent on his status-conscious London habits for that, so he might well be tempted by a rather more sumptuous country residence, befitting a man of his self-perceived stature.
‘Dear Colonel Robinson,’ she wrote, ‘I have checked my diary and find I am indeed going to be in London for the Bach next month. If you would still like to join me for lunch (we’ll go Dutch, I insist), that would be most agreeable.’
Of course it was the address on the headed notepaper that tempted him, even more than the offer of splitting the bill, as she knew it would. The title of Kingsley Manor looks so impressive printed in raised black script at the top of a sheet of watermarked cream Croxley Bond stationery. She guessed he would not be able to resist phoning her to confirm. ‘I’ll make a reservation for twelve noon,’ he said, in his brisk officer tones. ‘That suit you?’
It suited Evelyn very well. She could catch the ten o’clock train, then pause for coffee at Waterloo station, where the ladies’ cloakroom was perfectly respectable. She decided it was important she did not stir any memories he might have of her all those years ago, shamefaced in her khaki uniform. So after checking her hair and touching up her lipstick, she would not walk to the Tate nor browse the fabric remnants in Peter Jones; she would travel to the concert by taxi, arriving chic and elegant in her pale blue mock-Chanel suit, Mama’s largest diamond and sapphire brooch pinned in clear view to one side, her hair set in place, with a raincoat over her arm just in case the weather was unpredictable.
He was ready for her, waiting in the restaurant, gallant, waving her to the spare seat. As she shook his hand, she said, ‘This is quite delightful, Colonel.’
‘Stephen, please.’
She smiled at him. ‘Then you must call me Evelyn.’
‘You’re looking very spring-like,’ he said, casting an eye over her clothes and the brilliant, sparkling brooch.
‘It certainly feels like spring out in the country,’ she said, ‘but even the London parks have a lovely spread of daffodils.’
‘I know. I was walking through St James’s Park only the other day. Tons of daffs. What was it Wordsworth called them?’
‘A host. A host of golden daffodils. Actually, it was his sister who came up with the phrase, apparently.’