Bunny didn’t respond.
‘Two thousand people killed in one night,’ Margaret said. ‘How long do you need to rebuild the RAF?’
‘Couple of months,’ Bunny replied.
‘What if the people of London decide they don’t like being used as a diversionary tactic?’
‘We’re rather hoping they don’t,’ Bunny said, a typical understatement. ‘We’ve modelled it all out. We think there’s a fifty-five per cent chance it brings everyone together. Blitz spirit, we’re calling it. All the press are on board.’
Margaret thought he was being optimistic. Easy to play with public opinion when the public don’t have any power, the poor down in the docks for instance. Give it a few nights of bombing over Knightsbridge – that would be a different matter. But she kept quiet. She’d learnt that about Bunny. When he was lecturing, you let him carry on. Same for most men, in her experience.
‘The French gave up France to save Paris,’ he said. ‘We’re taking the alternative view. We think it’s rather easier to rebuild a city than it is to retake your country.’
‘It sounds like you’ve thought it all through,’ Margaret said.
‘We’re going to put you up in one of our receiving facilities,’ Bunny said. ‘There’ll be lots of recent arrivals from the continent. We thought you might be able to make yourself useful helping us sort them out – let us know which of them have swastika armbands in their sock drawer.’
It was what she’d expected. They wouldn’t just set her free. She was suspect, now. Tainted. Impossible for anyone to know which side she was on. ‘Make yourself useful’ sounded like code for ‘stay where we can keep an eye on you until we decide how much we can trust you’.
‘Facility?’ she asked. It had an unpleasant ring to it. A prison. Or a remote island. The sort of place meant to wear down a person’s sense of self. Show them that everything they once had, once were, could be taken away.
‘Bit of a zoo, I’m afraid,’ Bunny said, ‘with all the comings and goings. Shouldn’t be any real danger.’
‘I can handle danger,’ Margaret said. She could even handle discomfort, but given the choice, she’d rather not. She’d heard they were using Holloway. God knows what they’d done with the regular inmates – volunteered them all into the army perhaps.
The car took a sharp right turn and suddenly they were crossing the river, the blazing docks casting an orange glow on the interior of the car, casting Bunny into the shadows. Where he belonged.
‘We can debrief tomorrow,’ Bunny said. ‘I’ll meet you for breakfast.’
Margaret didn’t want to imagine what breakfast would be like at a prison, even a prison repurposed for ‘recent arrivals from the continent’.
The car pulled up. Margaret hadn’t been paying attention to the route. Besides, she’d never got to know London particularly well. Even though she was a member of the country’s ruling class, most of her upbringing had been at a remove – in Switzerland and India. London had always been seen through the lens of a storybook, or a flickering newsreel.
The driver hopped out and opened the door on Bunny’s side. Bunny climbed out, making an effort of it. He looked older than when she’d first met him, even though it had only been a year since he’d first approached her and asked if she’d be interested in ‘doing her bit’.
Margaret climbed out of the car, expecting the worst – some kind of impenetrable fortress, high brick walls andbarbed wire. She realised she knew the street. She’d been here before.
Margaret had come to the Empire for tea with her aunt, the very first time she’d come up to London. At the time she’d barely glanced at the surroundings. Apart from anything, it was far less opulent than many of the grand buildings on the Bombay waterfront she’d grown up in. Even so, she found herself remembering her aunt – a kind woman who’d done her best, all things considered.
‘No bag,’ Margaret snapped at the hovering bellboy. He clicked his heels and made himself scarce, as Bunny escorted Margaret through the revolving door, the bomb-proof tape marring the effect.
They stood in the lobby. Bunny put his hands on Margaret’s shoulders, gave her a grimace. Like being dropped off, your first day at boarding school. Don’t get into trouble. Don’t embarrass us.
‘You’ll want to explore, of course,’ Bunny said. ‘But don’t go too far.’
‘Am I allowed out?’
‘Of course!’ Bunny pretended to laugh. ‘You’re not a prisoner. Far from it. You’re a returning hero. We don’t want to lose you. You’re one of our most valuable assets.’
For a man whose business was lying, Bunny was shockingly bad at it.
‘Do you want to give me any parameters?’
‘I don’t know if we need to go that far.’
‘So I could take a train to the country?’
‘Nobody’s going to raise any eyebrows if you want to go shopping in Mayfair, or up to Oxford Street. Go to a show at the Café de Paris. That kind of thing.’
