The force of this reasoning evidently impressed Antonia, because she took a more positive line. ‘Is there any way we can get hold of one of those damned forms?’
‘Only from the registry office.’
‘By reporting Hector’s death, you mean? That’s out. We’d have to get a doctor to look at the body first and write out a certificate.’
‘Do you think a doctor could tell what happened?’
‘He’d order a postmortem for sure. Perfectly healthy men don’t drop dead without some reason.’
‘Was Hector fit?’
‘He never had a day off work that I can remember.’
‘So he never saw a doctor. We could ask any doctor to look at him.’
‘Duckie, even the most pea-brained, superannuated, gin-sodden GP in the world knows bloody well that sudden death has to be reported to the coroner.’
Rose wasted no more words. Her mind was made up. She spun the wheel and turned sharp left into Albany Street, raced through the gears and stamped on the accelerator.
‘Christ! Where the heck are we going?’
‘You’ll see.’
27
As Rose reversed the car into a space in Lowndes Square she admitted that they wouldn’t be working to a plan. In Air Force parlance it was chocks away and let us pray.
The entrance to the Stationery Office depot was manned by a burly ex-serviceman with two rows of ribbons and a seen-it-all-before look. He said nobody was ever allowed inside without an appointment and then stared over their heads as if that were the end of it. Rose kept talking. And when she told him she was Barry Bell’s widow it worked like a password. He beamed and grasped her hand. Wing Commander Bell have been a particular pal of his with a wicked sense of humour just like his own and the depot could do with a few more like him.
It was a long time since Rose had found cause to be thankful to Barry.
She explained that she had been asked by Mr Gascoigne to collect some of her husband’s things and since she was still not coping very well alone she had brought her friend.
The doorman wrote out a pass for them and ordered a messenger boy to take the two ladies to Gascoigne’s office. They were led through swing doors and along a corridor painted in institutional green and cream. A second set of doors opened into a place of a size and scale they were unprepared for, a warehouse as long as the nave of St Paul’s, with rank upon rank of metal storage racks where the pews would have been.
Rose’s nerve faltered. She glanced Antonia’s way and rolled her eyes upwards.
Antonia shook her head and gave the V-sign.
Gascoigne’s office was higher than everything else, mounted on struts like a watchtower. They climbed an iron staircase, and had to be let into the office to wait because he wasn’t inside. Through windows the length of each wall they could see brown-coated civil servants between the racks collecting packets of stationery and loading them on to hand-trolleys.
While the boy went to look for Gascoigne the two women stared out at the scene. Antonia asked if Barry had been one of the trolley-pushers.
‘He must have been.’
‘Can’t imagine it.’
Rose could, without difficulty. She wasn’t a believer in the occult, yet she had a disturbing sense of his presence here. Listening to the doorman she had sharply visualized the wisecracking clever dick who was her husband striding through that entrance with some fresh quip to brighten the day. All along the corridor she had been conscious of him, into the warehouse and up the stairs and now if she turned her head he would be just behind her in one of those brown overalls, grinning all over his face at what had happened to her and what she was desperate enough to be planning now.
Bastard. She still hated him. Soon after they’d married he’d given up bothering to amuse her. All the bonhomie was directed at other people.
Antonia said someone was coming.
‘Oh, God.’
‘He’s only a man, darling.’
Gascoigne had come up the stairs in a rush and was breathless. He was in the same dark grey pinstripe he’d worn at the funeral. He held out his hand. ‘My dear Mrs Bell, they didn’t tell me you were expected this afternoon.’
‘They didn’t know. We just happened to be passing. This is Mrs Ashton who is helping me attend to things.’ Not entirely untruthful. Ashton had been Antonia’s maiden name. And they were attending to things.
A small stack of chairs stood in one corner. Gascoigne lifted two out and dusted them with his handkerchief. ‘How are you feeling now, Mrs Bell?’
‘Not much better, I’m afraid.’
‘It’s early days.’
‘You mentioned some articles of my husband’s.’
‘Yes, indeed.’ He opened a desk and took out a brown envelope. ‘Would you care to check them?’
‘That’s all right.’
He coughed. ‘I meant would you be good enough to check them. Perhaps it’s fussy of me, but I need a receipt.’ He flapped his hand vaguely. ‘Bureaucracy, I’m afraid.’
She let the things slide out on to his desk. A Swan fountain pen that she had seen Barry use at home to fill in his football coupon. Two tickets for a dance at the Hammersmith Palais on October 12th — one date loverboy had been unable to keep. Finally a snapshot. She got a jolt as if Barry himself had nudged her. The picture was of a woman holding a child, a boy of eighteen months or so. She turned it over. In a neat, small hand was written, ‘To Darling B from Mike and Me’.
She tore it in two and dropped it into the wastepaper basket with the dance tickets and the envelope.
Gascoigne looked shocked. ‘I seem to have dragged you here unnecessarily.’
Antonia beamed at him. ‘Not at all. The pen will come in useful, if it’s only to sign your receipt.’ She picked it up and handed it to Rose, who scribbled her signature on the slip of paper Gascoigne had ready.
Gascoigne thanked her. ‘Will you have a cup of tea? It’s past the time, but I’m sure the ladies downstairs will rise to the occasion. Wing Commander Bell was very popular with them.’
‘No doubt.’ Rose was choking with bitterness from seeing the photograph. She pressed her hankie to her face and told herself angrily to stay in control. Then she stood up and glanced out of the window at the storage racks. ‘What would really please me would be to see exactly where he worked.’
Gascoigne paled. ‘That’s not possible, I’m sorry to say.’
Antonia chipped in. ‘Oh, I say, you can’t mean that, Mr Gascoigne. You don’t know what a comfort it would be.’
‘It’s a matter of security.’
‘No, darling. Humanity. It’s a matter of humanity. What do you think she’s going to do — steal a ration book?’
‘Goodness, no.’
‘Well, then?’ She moved closer to Rose and slipped her arms around her and looked appealingly at Gascoigne.
‘There are regulations.’
‘You’re just obeying orders, is that it? That excuse has an ugly ring to it, Mr Gascoigne.’
A flicker of indecision crossed his features.
Rose raised her head from Antonia’s shoulder and smiled wanly. ‘Please forget that I mentioned it. I wouldn’t want you to get into trouble over me.’
He licked his lips. He was a lost man. He scraped his chair and sprang up. ‘Look, I think we can bend the rules just this once.’
Downstairs he hurried them past the trolley-pushers to an unoccupied space between the racks. ‘As you probably know, this depot was established early in the war, when Churchill realized the havoc that would be caused if the building in Storey’s Gate was bombed. Now I think we have more capacity than they do. We handle just about every item of government stationery. I am the despatch officer.’