It was the prospect of leaving Bernard and the children, of course. They would end up hating her. Even if she did everything that was expected of her, and returned a heroine, they would hate her for leaving them. Her father would hate her too. And her sister Tessa. And what would happen to the children? She had asked Bret that, but he had dismissed her fears. The children would be cared for in the manner that her sacrifice and heroism deserved, he'd said in that theatrical style that Bret could get away with because he was so damn certain. But how sincere was he? That worried her sometimes. Sincere or not she couldn't help thinking that her children would be forgotten once she was working in the East. Billy would survive boarding school – and perhaps even flourish there – but Sally would find such an environment unendurable. Fiona had resolved not to put her children through the sort of childhood that she had hated so much.
Bret told her that the only thing that frightened her more than the prospect of finding that her husband and children wouldn't be able to manage without her, was the prospect of finding that they could. Bastard! But perhaps there was a glimmer of truth there. Perhaps that was the permanent crippling dilemma that motherhood brought.
She had never been a very good mother and that knowledge plagued her. She'd never wanted motherhood in the way that her sister Tessa so desperately did. Fiona had never liked babies: her friends' babies had appalled her with their endless demands and the way that they completely upset the households. Babies cried very loudly; babies vomited very frequently and dirtied their nappies very stenchfully. Even when hugging her own babies she had always been uneasy in case her dress was soiled. The children's nurse had seen that right from the start, and Fiona still remembered the accusing look in her eyes. That look said, I am their real mother: you are not fit to look after them.
Fiona was useless with children but she didn't want to be barren either. She wanted to tick motherhood off the list. She worried about them always, and wanted them to be clever at school, and most of all she looked forward to sharing their lives with them when they grew up. But it was now that they needed her so much. Perhaps it was not too late. Perhaps she should walk out of London Central and apply herself to the children as she had applied herself to her studies and her work.
Never a day went past but she told herself that she should go to Bret and tell him she had changed her mind. But each time she spoke to him – long before she could bring the conversation to the point she wanted – he persuaded her that her first duty was to her country and the Department. Even the Director-General had spoken with unusual gravity about this scheme to get her into position as a field agent, a field agent of prime importance. It would, of course, show that women could bring off an intelligence coup as well as any man. That, more than anything else, had helped her keep going when her spirits were low.
Since the beginning of the year her tiffs and differences with Bernard had multiplied. It wasn't all Bernard's fault, things had been difficult for him too. Operation 'Reisezug' had been something of a disaster: three of their own people killed, or so the rumour said. Max Busby was carrying a lot of the material in his memory and Max never came back.
Bernard didn't talk about it but anyone who knew him could see how shaken he was.
Bernard was now officially 'rested' from field work and, in what might have been an effort to comfort her, Bret Rensselaer had let slip the fact that the Department had decided that Bernard should spend the rest of his life behind a desk. Not the German Desk. Dicky Cruyer-a vain and shallow man – had got the German Desk. Bernard was in line for it and would have done it with more skill and intelligence, but Dicky had the administrative experience as well as the personality and background that the Department favoured for top jobs. Bernard said that all Dicky had was the right old school tie, but Bernard could be a bit touchy about such things. She'd wondered if Bret decided against Bernard's promotion because of her assignment, but Bret insisted that it was a decision made at the top.
She was sure that her painful domestic life could be transformed if Bret would let her confide in her husband. As it was she couldn't always account for her movements. It had been bad enough when she'd only had to have the odd meeting with Martin Euan Pryce-Hughes. Now there were countless covert briefings by Bret and a lot of studying to do. And the studying was of material that she mustn't let Bernard catch sight of. Bernard was smart and quick. She wouldn't have to make many mistakes for him to guess what was happening, and the D-G had taken it upon himself to tell her that if Bernard discovered what was planned the whole thing was off.
Poor Bernard; poor Billy; poor Sally. She sat on the bench at Waterloo and thought about them all. She felt drained and ill. Crying released the tension within her but it did nothing to alleviate the pain. She cried some more in the constrained, unobtrusive and dignified way she'd learned to cry at boarding school, and stared across the concourse where people were hurrying for their commuter trains or saying their farewells. She told herself that their troubles might be worse than hers but that did nothing to help: in fact it made her feel even more dejected.
The weather did nothing to cheer her. It was one of those miserably cold and rainy days that so often punctuate an English summer. Everyone was bundled into coats and scarves and the cold damp air contributed to Fiona's chilly gloom. Trains arrived; trains departed. A young woman wanted to know the time, and an elderly couple walked past arguing vociferously. Pigeons and sparrows came gliding down from the girders of the roof, encouraged by a bearded man on a bench nearby who threw crumbs to them. She sat there watching the birds for what seemed a long time.
'Pardon me, madam.' Fiona looked up to see two men: a uniformed railway policeman and a man in civilian clothes. 'You were talking to a young woman a few minutes back?' It was the policeman who spoke.
At first she thought they were going to tell her to move on, or arrest her for soliciting, or make some other sort of fuss, but then she realized that the man in civilian clothes was not a policeman. 'Yes?'
'In a dark blue coat, with a red silk scarf? Dark hair. Pretty girl.' It was the man in the camel-hair coat speaking. He'd taken his hat off in a courteous gesture that surprised her, and she noticed the way he gripped it in his suntanned hand. He seemed nervous.
'She just asked me the time. She caught the train for Southampton,' said Fiona. A train announcement, resonant and unintelligible, interrupted her and she waited for it to finish. 'At least, that's what she said she was going to do.'
'She had a big green plastic bag with a shoulder strap,' said the man.
It was, she decided, a question. 'She had a bag,' said Fiona. 'I didn't notice anything about it.'
'Are you all right, madam?' said the policeman. He'd noticed her reddened, tear-filled eyes.
'I'm quite all right,' she said firmly. She looked at her watch and got to her feet to show that she was about to leave.
The policeman nodded. He wanted to believe her; he wasn't looking for more trouble. 'It's the gentleman's daughter,' explained the policeman.
'My name's Lindner. Adam Lindner. Yeah, she's only sixteen,' said the man. 'She ran away from home. She looks older.' He had a soft transatlantic accent that she couldn't place.
'We'll phone Southampton,' said the policeman briskly. 'They'll pick her up when the train gets there.'
'Was there anyone with her?' asked the father authoritatively.
Fiona looked at him. He was tall and athletic; in his late thirties perhaps. His moustache was full but carefully trimmed. He had doleful eyebrows and a somewhat squashed nose in a weather-beaten face. He was handsome in a seemingly uncontrived way, like the tough-guy film-stars whose photos she'd pinned above her bed at school. His clothes were expensive and too perfect, the style that foreigners selected when they wanted to look English: a magnificent camel-hair overcoat, a paisley-patterned tie, its knot supported by a gold pin through the shirt collar, and the shiny Oxford shoes. 'Yes,' she said, 'there was a man with her.'