Edward then said something rather muffled, about whether the Americans would give anything in return. Giles’s clearer voice resumed, saying that they could only hope, that they had to try to break the stalemate or the war could go on for years. ‘Doing some more research with us won’t put them in danger. Even those cowardly sods should be up to that. It’s sickening isn’t it, them and the Russians, sitting it out while we get the brunt.’
Laura turned in her bed. She was used to the scorn that everyone in London expressed about America. ‘Cowardly sods’ was one of the milder phrases they used. She knew that it should mean nothing to her; Toby had once told her, meaning to be kind, that she could consider herself English now she was married, while Edward had once commented that it was good their secret commitment to an international cause meant they had left the pettiness of nationalism behind. Yet the criticism of America still seemed to have a personal thrust, and made her quail a little before she gathered herself to reject it. There was a longer pause, and then Edward said he might turn in. There seemed to be no bombs falling, however, and Giles asked him if he fancied a game of chess first. Quiet fell, punctuated only by their comments on the moves.
The next morning, everyone woke before dawn with the all-clear, bleary after a short night’s sleep. Laura was planning to go back to bed for a while, but once they were in their room, Edward suddenly said that he had some papers he had forgotten about and wondered if she could photograph them immediately, as they had to be back in their place that day. Laura agreed without thinking. She knew that her work was necessary now; Edward was working such long hours that he could never have managed to cross this chaotic city to meet Stefan frequently enough to deliver papers. So she used the thin dawn light to photograph as Edward fell back to sleep for one more hour. Click, click: she heard Toby come into the house after his night with the Home Guard, and she put down the camera as he came up the stairs so that he wouldn’t hear her and wonder why someone was taking pictures at dawn.
Usually when Laura met Stefan the focus was simply on handing over the films. They had evolved a process that had become almost nonchalant: both holding a copy of The Times, they would exchange newspapers by leaving them apparently casually on a café table or a park bench between them; the films were taped inside her newspaper, and there was no need, very often, for them to speak at all. But that day the meeting place had been fixed in a square near to City Road. It was entirely empty at that morning hour, and they were unseen, so for once Stefan didn’t get up from the bench once the newspapers had been laid between them. He said he had been asked to pass on thanks for her hard work. Was she happy?
Laura did not answer at once. She had no problems doing the work, but the first few months of aerial bombardment had affected her in a more visceral way than she had expected. Sometimes in the middle of the night one felt that there was no end in sight, that the pounding and the fear would go on forever, and then when morning came it was only the breath between one night and another. She remembered the great certainties of the pamphlets she had read before the war, their airy summoning of war and victory, but it all felt so different now, in the muddle and mess of a city under attack, in a conflict in which the Soviet Union was not even involved. But she did not feel she could speak of her fear and uncertainty to Stefan, so in an effort to lay those thoughts aside she remembered what Giles had said the previous night, and she started telling Stefan about how perhaps the war might enter a new phase soon, how a friend of Edward’s was taking new research over to the States, in the hope that together the Americans and British could crack the night-fighting.
Laura caught the importance of what she had just said at the same time that Stefan did, and she was not surprised when Stefan began to grill her on everything she knew about Giles and his work. She had little enough to pass on, but when she mentioned the improved magnetron that Giles said was their precious new development, she saw how Stefan’s hands gripped The Times that he had picked up. He spoke to her for a while about what might be possible, what was needed. ‘If Edward …’ he said, but she responded quickly. No, it was not Edward who should be asked to do this to his friend. She was the one who had brought the secret to Stefan, she would see what was possible. As soon as she had spoken, she felt unsure that this was right, but then it was too late to go back, Stefan was already getting up and walking away down the grey London street.
It was a dark winter morning a couple of weeks later that Edward mentioned as he was shaving that Giles would be coming over that evening, passing through London on his journey to America.