‘Sounds like more of a breakfast conversation,’ she said.
‘There’s a girl,’ he said. ‘She’s in trouble.’
Eleanor raised an eyebrow.
‘There’s a chance she’s dead,’ Cook continued, ‘but it’s not a certainty.’
Eleanor got up and stood in front of Cook. She unbuttoned his shirt. Cook let her.
‘It must seem like a very small thing,’ he said, ‘compared to thousands being killed by the bombs.’
‘Is it thousands?’ she asked.
‘You’re the journalist,’ he said. ‘Just a guess, from what I’ve seen in the docks.’
‘What’s it like down there?’
Cook thought of the shelter. The child’s hand, covered in dust, the rest of the body under tons of concrete.
‘Not pretty,’ he said.
‘You think the people are with Churchill?’ she asked, undoing his belt.
‘No,’ he said, realising it was the truth as he said it. ‘There’s no support. No food. No housing. There’s looting. Not a good situation. Not like all this ...’. He looked around the luxurious hotel room, the sheer opulence of ice cubes clinking in his glass.
‘That’s what I’m here to report,’ she said. ‘But they’ve got people watching me. Making sure I don’t see too much.’
‘People?’
‘My chaperones,’ she said. ‘Keeping me safe. Making sure I see what they want me to see. Working-class neighbourhoods with Union Jacks in every window, cheering Churchill when he gets out of his armoured car for ten seconds.’
‘Where are they now?’
‘I gave them the slip,’ she said. ‘They think I’m in the basement bar, listening to jazz.’
‘You should come to the island, see what’s happening.’
‘Would you take me?’
‘It’s a free country,’ Cook said. You can come with me or you can get on the tube and see for yourself.’
‘I’ve never taken public transport,’ she said, ‘sounds like quite the adventure.’
She kissed him.
‘What about the countryside?’ she asked. ‘What’s the sentiment down there?’
Cook opened his mouth to answer, but something stopped him. He thought of the posters behind the check-in desk:
Keep Mum, She’s Not So Dumb
Careless Talk Costs Lives
Simplistic messages, unnecessary and over the top. Heavy-handed propaganda designed to keep people in a state of panic. But now he found himself talking freely with a woman he’d only recently met. Suddenly the posters didn’t seem so unnecessary.
‘Come down sometime and I’ll give you the tour,’ he said.
She peeled off his shirt, threw it towards a chair. It slid down the polished leather and crumpled on the floor. Cook felt a flash of irritation – fought the urge to hurry over and pick it up. He distracted himself by looking at the cityscape. A bomber went down, trailing fire. A series of explosions erupted where it had gone down, its own bombs triggered by the impact. Somewhere beyond St Paul’s.
