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About the Author

Lissa Evans has written books for both adults and children, including Their Finest Hour and a Half (published here as Their Finest), longlisted for the Orange Prize, Small Change for Stuart, shortlisted for many awards including the Carnegie Medal and the Costa Book Awards and Crooked Heart, longlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction.

About the Book

It’s 1940. In a small advertising agency in Soho, Catrin Cole writes snappy lines for Vida Elastic and So-Bee-Fee gravy browning. But the nation is in peril, all skills are transferable and there’s a place in the war effort for those who have a knack with words.

Catrin is conscripted into the world of propaganda films. After a short spell promoting the joy of swedes for the Ministry of Food, she finds herself writing dialogue for ‘Just an Ordinary Wednesday’, a heart-warming but largely fabricated ‘true story’ about rescue and romance on the beaches of Dunkirk.

And as bombs start to fall on London, she discovers that there’s just as much drama, comedy and passion behind the scenes as there is in front of the camera …

Also by Lissa Evans

April 1940

‘I was wondering,’ Sammy said, tentatively, as they paused between courses at La Venezia, ‘if you should think of getting a new photograph of yourself. Something just a tiny bit more up-to-the-minute, perhaps …’

Ambrose’s first impulse was to dismiss the idea – after all, as he reminded Sammy, he’d had a perfectly decent set of prints taken not so long ago and they’d been bloody expensive, and it wasn’t as if his current level of income allowed him to run to unnecessary extravagance. And surely the whole purpose of an agent was to increase a client’s income, rather than spend it for him?

Back at home that afternoon, Ambrose dug the file of photographs out of the bureau, just to reassure himself, and yes, they were scarcely eight years old – taken in February 1932, not long after the highly successful kinematic release of Inspector Charnforth and the Bitter Lemons Mystery – and really, they were more than adequate: full face, chin on hand, a fine, frank gaze at the camera, a curtain draped artfully across the wall behind, a briar pipe and a volume of verse resting on a table in front. They spoke of depth and maturity, of vigour and yet also of a certain masculine sensitivity. Their invisible caption – unmistakably – was ‘Leading Man’. He put the portfolio away again and gave no further thought to the matter until a fortnight later, in Sammy’s office. Where he was being kept waiting.

‘He’ll be in any minute now, Mr Hilliard,’ the typist kept saying, brightly. ‘He knows you’re expected, only he’s had to take his doggie to the vet, the poor little thing’s ate half a tin of boot polish and it’s been ever so ill.’ And since the chaos of paper on Sammy’s desk meant that it was impossible to discern which script it was that Ambrose was meant to be collecting, he was forced to sit and stew. The 1940 edition of Spotlight was on the office shelf, and he amused himself for a while by looking through the ‘Character Actors’ section – page after page of uglies, fatties, the once-beautiful and the never-handsome, each of them no doubt nurturing the hope that a browsing director, tiring of chiselled good-looks, might one day choose a more ‘interesting’ face for his next romantic lead. Poor deluded saps. He turned the page on the final gargoyle, and pointedly consulted his watch.

It occurred to Ambrose that he ought to check his own entry in the volume, and re-opening it at the beginning, he started to leaf through ‘Leading Actors’, at first briskly, and then with a growing sense of unease. When he at last reached his own photograph, he stared at it for a while; it seemed, this time, somehow less than satisfactory. He glanced again at the portraits of his rivals, and it was like picking through a police file marked ‘Dangerous Cases’ – all was mood, spleen, sullenness, seething introspection. Here slouched Marius Goring, wreathed in shadow, here Jack Hawkins, peering shiftily from beneath the brim of his hat. Glowering presence succeeded glowering presence. No one stood upright. No one gazed directly at camera. No one smiled. It was clear that the fine, frank gaze had had its hour; nowadays it was de rigueur to look as if one were just about to cosh an old lady.

‘I’ve been thinking about your suggestion of the other day,’ he said to Sammy, when his agent at last arrived at the office. ‘It’s all a matter of style, of course. There are fashions in photography as in everything else, and one simply has to accept the fact. We are in a new and brutal age.’

Sammy nodded, a touch uncertainly. ‘So, you’ll have another picture taken?’

The photographer was a blue-chinned Hungarian refugee called Erno. He was trying to establish himself in London, Sammy said, and was therefore acceptably cheap. On the debit side, his English was rudimentary.

‘Brooding,’ said Ambrose, who had taken the precaution of bringing the copy of Spotlight with him to the room above a hat shop in D’Arblay Street. ‘Darkly atmospheric.’ He jabbed a finger at the picture of Leslie Howard (another Hungarian, come to think of it; Christ, they were everywhere). It showed the actor gazing dyspeptically off to one side, the dim lighting heightening the contours of his face.

Erno frowned, and looked from Ambrose to the picture of Leslie Howard and then back again.

Give me strength, thought Ambrose. ‘Yes,’ he said, trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice. ‘I want you to make me look exactly like him.’

Erno stared at the photograph for almost a full minute, and then went away to a corner of the room and rummaged in a bag. He came back after some time with a piece of what looked like fine cheesecloth.

‘Moment, plizz,’ he said, and began, with painful slowness, to fasten the material over the camera lens.

‘Will you be very much longer?’ asked Ambrose. ‘Only I have an awfully busy day ahead of me.’

May 1940

‘Do you think I should wear my good shoes for the interview?’ asked Catrin, still curled beneath the eiderdown. ‘Not that they’ll be looking at my feet, I suppose …’

There was no immediate response from Ellis. He was standing naked beside the window, peering upward between the opened blackouts in an attempt to gauge what the weather might be like at street level, and he scratched his knuckles, one hand and then the other, the skin between them permanently inflamed from contact with turpentine, before turning towards her. ‘What was that?’ he asked.

‘Oh … nothing important, really.’ She had learned that she talked far too much in the mornings.

She watched him scoop his shirt from the floor and begin to get dressed. He was tall, the skin very white beneath his clothes, his face high-cheekboned, almost Slavic. Not only handsome but foreign, she’d thought, with a thrill, when she’d first seen him, though he’d turned out, prosaically enough, to come from Kent.

‘Are you back for supper?’ she asked. ‘Only I suppose I ought to use up the beetroot, it’s starting to get little white spots.’

‘Oh. Well, I could bring you something to eat at the studio, if you wanted.’

He was tying his bootlaces, and he looked up at her with an air of puzzled impatience, as if she would insist on speaking in Swahili; and it was impossible, as always, for her to gauge whether a scarred eardrum meant that he hadn’t quite caught what she was saying or whether he simply wasn’t listening.

‘I could bring your supper to the studio,’ she said again. ‘After I get back from work. If you’d like.’

He gave a grunt and then straightened up, tugging at the sleeves that were always too short for his arms. ‘I’d better be going,’ he said.

She pulled on a dressing-gown and followed him into the kitchen. He was standing beside the table, frowning at the worn pocket-book in which he kept his notes, angling the pages in order to catch the light.

‘Would you type these up for me, Cat?’ he asked. ‘One day soon, before the bloody thing falls to bits.’

‘I will. I’m sure I will. You should see Mr Caradoc’s, it’s all drunken spiders.’

He nodded, his thoughts already elsewhere. ‘See you later, then,’ he said. She stood barefoot on the doormat and watched him climb the basement steps two at a time, and it occurred to her as he disappeared from view that the ‘see you later’ must mean that he was expecting her to come to the studio with some supper, since otherwise he’d go straight from there to the warden’s post at Baker Street, and she wouldn’t see him again until the following morning. Though perhaps she was reading too much into the phrase.

She tended to do that, to pick through his speeches like a cryptologist, trying to elicit answers without having to actually ask him any more questions. And it was nearly always the boring-but-necessary things that he failed to catch the first time – meals and shoe-repairs and what to say to the landlord about the geyser – things that simply had to be sorted out before she left for work. She would hear herself pecking away at the same topic, phrasing and re-phrasing in an effort to dislodge a useful response, and it was dreadful to think of how dull she must sound to him.

She closed the front door and filled the kettle, and put the heel of a loaf under the grill. There was only margarine left, and nothing to spread on it but the carrot jam that she’d bought by mistake, thinking it was marmalade. She dabbed a spoonful of it on to the toast and ate it quickly, before the taste could catch up with her, and then went back in the bedroom and started to hunt for her good shoes. It was a long time since she’d worn them.

She shared an office at Finch & Caradoc with the junior copywriter, a good-natured boy, only a month or two younger than herself, but a tremendous talker, and since, this morning, he was away at his army medical, she was able to whip through Mr Caradoc’s letters without disturbance. She had already moved on to her other work by the time that Donald flung open the door, lobbed his hat in the general direction of the coat-hooks and began to flap his elbows.

‘Go on, guess!’ he said, adding in some random footwork. ‘Go on, guess what I’ve just been categorized. Go on, Catrin – guess.’

‘No! I’m D2 and that means—’ he stopped dancing long enough to fish a slip of paper from his overcoat-pocket and hold it triumphantly above his head. ‘Unfit for any military service whether at home or abroad. Any.’ He kissed the form and resumed dancing, adding a tuneless lyric to the patter of his steps:

‘Can you? Oh yes.’ He stopped jigging and sat down, and then, as the exertion began to catch up with him, braced his hands on his knees and breathed effortfully for a while, neck sinews straining. ‘Got a bit carried away …’ he said, between inhalations. ‘… been dreading it … thought I’d get home duties … be posted to some lousy hole … brother’s got asthma … C1, he’s not so bad … in Caithness now … guarding an underwear dump.’

‘Protective clothing … Underwear’s a better … What’s the word? Pay off.’

‘Eleven o’clock – I’d better get on.’ She glanced at her notepad again.

She nodded, and then, because it seemed possible that he would literally rather die than shut up for thirty seconds, she wound the carbons into the Underwood and began to type straight from her notes, changing the odd word as she went along.

IVY LYNN #9. ‘IMAGINATION’

Colin – this is set in Ivy’s kitchen (already established in I & L # 3, 4 & 7). I would be ever so grateful if Ivy could look a little less glamorous than usual (please – no corsage or hat, she’s just doing some cooking). _______

Illustration 1

Ivy is sitting at the kitchen table, looking gloomily at a tiny chop, three potatoes and a parsnip. Lynn has poked her head round the back door.

Lynne:	Out of ingredients?
Ivy:	Out of ideas, more like.

Illustration 2

Lynn has approached the table and is holding up one of the potatoes.

Lynne:	Surely even Bert likes casseroles?
Ivy:	Loves them – but you try making decent gravy out of just one chop.

Illustration 3

Lynn has opened one of the kitchen cupboards and is rummaging around.

Lynne:	He won’t know it’s only one chop if you add just a single delicious spoonful of—
Ivy:	Don’t torture me! I’m fresh out and there’s none in the shops at the moment.

Illustration 4

Lynn, looking quizzical, is taking a full bottle of So-Bee-Fee All-Meat Extract from the cupboard. Ivy looks astonished.

Ivy: Another bottle? But where on earth was it hiding?

Lynne: Somewhere you never look, you naughty girl. Behind the jar of carrot jam Bert’s mother made!

Colin, is it possible to put the final caption – ‘So-Bee-Fee All-Meat Extract: Make Sure You Use Every Last Drop’ – over an illustration of Ivy looking embarrassed, one hand over mouth, other holding product?

Catrin sat back and flexed her fingers. Six months before, when conscription had started to nibble away at the junior roster of Finch & Caradoc, her secretarial duties had been expanded – first to include sub-editing, and then copywriting – and she’d been handed the poisoned chalice of the So-Bee-Fee account, with its stolid pre-war emphasis on gigantic joints of meat and dim but eager kitchen maids.

‘Try and come up with something more modern …’ had been Mr Caradoc’s vague brief, and she’d decided upon two protagonists not much older than herself: busy young housewives with too much to do and no time to do it in, the type of women whose beauty regimen would comprise a couple of hairgrips and a dab of powder. Colin Finch’s prototype illustration had shown a pair of elaborately coiffured matrons, drooping languidly beside the kitchen table as if unable to support the weight of their Parisian daywear. ‘But no one wears gloves to make pastry,’ she’d protested, and Colin had shrugged and carried on drawing Lynn’s diamanté stole-clasp. Since then, by a slow process of attrition (or ‘nagging’ as Colin called it), her creations had edged a little closer to reality, and she’d become quite fond of the pair of them – of Ivy, in particular, who was always stuck for dinner ideas and whose husband revealed a new, and irritating, food fad every other week. (‘Bert’s told me he’s never liked curly kale’, ‘Bert asked why we have to have potatoes quite so often’, ‘Bert’s had enough of mince, he says.’)

‘Do the manufacturers mind that?’ asked Donald, who had partially recovered, and was wheezing gently over her shoulder. ‘Saying that there’s no So-Bee-Fee in the shops?’

Catrin looked up at him. ‘You mean you haven’t had Mr Caradoc’s little lecture yet?’

‘No, really.’ She slid the pages out of the typewriter and clipped them together with one of the six paper-clips still left in the office. ‘According to Mr Caradoc they were in every housemaid’s cupboard until the Great War and then the Kleeze factories stopped producing Kleeze and began churning out left-handed swivel-loaders or whatever-it-was and it didn’t occur to anyone that, by the time it was all over, people would have forgotten they’d ever used Kleeze.’

‘You mean they’d forgotten the ease that came with Kleeze?’ said Donald, happily, sitting down again and swinging his feet on to the desk.

‘So what Mr Caradoc says we have to remember is, that it’s our duty to our clients to keep the memory of their products alive, whether or not they’re available in the shops. Which, in the case of So-Bee-Fee, they’re not. At least for a month or two.’

‘No.’ She paused. ‘There’s no beef in So-Bee-Fee.’ The thought still had the power to embarrass her, though it made Donald laugh. ‘I’d better dash,’ she said, getting up.

‘Especially one like you.’ He turned puce and made a great business of fishing in his pocket for a cigarette, and Catrin climbed the stairs to what Colin Finch liked to call his studio, and knocked at the half-open door.

He was standing in bulky silhouette against the window, gazing out at the plane trees of Fitzroy Square. ‘Want your opinion, young lady,’ he said, without turning, his voice stuck in a key of perpetual melancholy. ‘The Female Viewpoint. Take a look at the sketch.’ Catrin went over to the drawing-board and inspected the pneumatic blonde ATS girl straining her buttons at the wheel of a truck.

She hesitated; although Colin always asked for opinions he never really wanted them unless they chimed absolutely with his own.

‘McLean’s. “Molly Brown’s McLeaned her Teeth Today.” Is she a McLean’s sort of girl, I wonder?’

It took her a second or two to phrase a tactful reply. ‘To be honest, Colin, I’m not sure that anyone’s going to be looking at her teeth.’

‘Oh God,’ he said, savagely, ‘so you did, I forgot. Yet another conscript for the slogans department.’

‘More than likely. “Keep Mum and Eat More Prunes.” Though you’ll probably spend most of your time typing memoranda. “Dear Cecil,” – he assumed a high, prissy voice – “yours of the first inst, I shall look into the matter of the amendment to Clause 9 of Form 3/B7 just as soon as the international situation permits …”’ He turned back to the window and laid his forehead against the glass. ‘Soon there’ll be no one left to write copy,’ he said. ‘Goods will be sold from giant cardboard boxes stamped “Rice” or “Hair oil”. Buxom Molly Brown will be replaced by a label saying: “Clean Your Teeth by Order of the Minister for Hygiene.”’ He sighed again, misting the window-pane in front of him.

‘I really had better go,’ said Catrin, after the moment of introspection had stretched out to half a minute.

‘Best of luck, then,’ said Colin, insincerely. ‘Don’t trip over any red tape.’

From a distance, the Ministry of Information looked almost elemental, a chalk cliff rearing above the choppy roofs of Fitzrovia. From the main entrance, where Catrin stopped to tweak one stocking so that the darn was concealed by her coat, it looked more like a vast mausoleum.

‘Authority?’ said the policeman at the door, and Catrin handed over her letter (H/HI/F Division, Room 717d, Swain) and was nodded through.

Room 717d had clearly been part of a corridor before three sections of plywood had transformed it into a space only just large enough to hold a desk and two chairs. Catrin had been waiting there alone for nearly ten minutes when a young man whose name she didn’t quite catch poked his head round the door, checked that she was unoccupied, and proceeded to sit down, open a file and – without explanation or preamble – read her a series of jokes. Each time he finished a punchline he looked at her sharply, hoping, presumably, for laughter, but since his delivery possessed all the comic flair of a platform announcer it was hard to oblige, and Catrin could feel her mouth stiffening into a dreadful fake grin. ‘Just one more,’ he said, after the fourth. ‘An ARP warden goes into a butchers and looks at what he’s got on the slab. He’s got liver, he’s got kidneys, he’s got sheep’s hearts and he’s got a lovely great tongue. “I’m going to get you summonsed,” says the warden. “Why?” says the butcher. “I haven’t done nothing wrong.” “Oh yes, you has—”’ The young man frowned, and there was a pause while he re-read the line, lips moving soundlessly. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, ‘these are, of course, transcribed from actual conversations, hence the ungrammatical element which does tend to make them rather difficult to read. So anyway, the butcher says “I haven’t done nothing wrong”, and then the warden says, “Oh yes, you has, you haven’t put your lights out.”’

He sat back and gazed at Catrin expectantly. There was a long moment. ‘Did you understand the pun?’ he asked, frowning.

‘You understood that “lights” is a synonym for some form of offal? Lungs, I believe.’

‘And therefore the warden’s final comment is a play on the ARP’s habitual call to “put your lights out”.’

He made a note. ‘And would you say that your opinion of the authority and/or ability of air-raid precaution wardens would be adversely affected by hearing this particular piece of humour?’

‘I see.’ He made another note. ‘And if this particular piece of humour was broadcast on the wireless, do you think that would affect your opinion on the authority and/or the ability of the BBC to—’

The door from the corridor opened suddenly, admitting two men. ‘Off you go, Flaxton,’ said the younger and better-looking of the two, ‘no one wants to hear your jokes.’

Flaxton slammed the file shut and stood up. ‘We all have work to do, Roger,’ he said, with something akin to a flounce. ‘Morale happens to be mine, whereas undermining morale appears to be yours.’

‘No, telling rotten jokes badly is yours, and trying actually to get something done is mine. Heard the one about the junior under-assistant in Home Intelligence who got transferred to Reception and Facilities?’

‘You will.’ The door closed, and the speaker turned back to Catrin, smiled charmingly and offered a hand. ‘Roger Swain, assistant deputy sub-controller film division. I’m so sorry we were late and that you were subjected to Flaxton. His department’s conducting a humour survey to examine public attitudes towards the civil defence services and he’s run out of internal victims. Did you laugh?’

‘He’s working on a short contract from the War Artists Committee – four paintings for the Ministry of Supply.’

It didn’t sound much, she knew, but Roger nodded politely. ‘Splendid. Well, we’d better get started, I suppose. This—’

‘Buckley,’ said the older man, laconically, seating himself on one corner of the desk and folding his arms across the shelf of his paunch; he had a slab of fair hair, a narrow ginger moustache and teeth that looked rather sharp. He was smiling, but the effect was more predatory than welcoming. ‘I’ve been told I’m a special advisor,’ he said, ‘though not, it transpires, special enough to actually get paid. Welsh, are you?’

‘Can’t be helped. And you’re much younger than I thought you’d be. What are you, twenty-one, twenty-two?’ His tone was accusatory; she felt herself beginning to redden.

‘Saints preserve us. Here.’ He slid a thin sheaf of paper across the desk top. ‘Read it. Tell me what you think.’

She looked at him uncertainly. ‘Read it,’ he said, with deliberation, and she hurriedly bent her head. It was a short script, carelessly typed on paper so thin that she could see the shadow of her fingers through every sheet.

BITING THE BULLET

1. EXTERIOR. BROWN’S ARMAMENTS FACTORY, EVENNG

Noise of machines etc.

2. INTERIOR FACTORY

Rows of production lines, women working away producing bullet casings. Close up of 2 young women in partic. Shouting at each other over the noise of the machines.

RUBY

Are you going out somewhere special tonight, Joan?

JOAN

Yes I am, I’m meeting Charlie at the Palais, he’s got a weekend pass and I can’t wait for a dance. What about you?

RUBY

No, I’m simply too tired, I’ve been working seven days straight. I’m staying in and going to bed early.

JOQN

I don’t blame you, I could sleep for a whole wek. Roll on the end of the shift.

RUBY

There’s only another five minutes to go.

JOAN

Just five minutes to go, girls!

The other women cheer and then carry on working.

3. INTERIOR GLASS-WALLED OFFICE TO ONE SIDE OF THE FACTORY FLOOR

A manageress is doing paperwork. The clock behind her shows one minute to eight. The phone rings.

MANAGERESS

Day manageress speaking. Oh, hello Mr Carr. Yes, yes, we had no problems making that order. Yes, that’s right.

The clock hand moves to eight o’clock, and a bell rings.

4. INTERIOR FACTORY

The women on the production line start to shut down their machie.s and leave the floor, hurrying past the office.

5. INTERIOR OFFICE

MANAGERESSS

I’m sorry, Mr Carr, what was that you said? An emergency order? You need a hundred gross of bullets? By tomorrow morning?

Joan and Ruby, passing the open office door, overhear this and grimace at each other.
They wait to hear what the manageress says.

MAGAHERESS

I’m afraid that’s simply imposssible. My girls have worked hard all day, they’re dead-beat.

A whole group of girls are listening at the door now.

MANAGERESS

No, I can’t ask them to stay on, even if it is for the sake of our soldiers.

Ruby bites her lip.

MAGANERESS

No, I’m sorry, Mr Carr, I know our troops are in desperate need, but you’re asking me to push my workers beyond what is physically possible, and I can’t—

Ruby makes a decision.

RUBY

Come on girls! The job’s got to be done and we’re the ones who can do it!

6. INTRIOR FACTORY

With a loud cheer, the women rush back to their machines and switch them on again.

7. INTRIOR OFFICE

MANAGERESS

(smiling) Mr Carr, you’re not going to believe this, but something quite wonderful has hppened …

8. INTERIOR FACTORY

Production lin going full pelt.

Catrin looked up at him, trying to gauge the level of his question. ‘You mean, what do I think of the patriotic message?’ she asked tentatively, aiming high. There was no reply; she lowered her sights. ‘The way it’s set out, do you mean? I’m not familiar with this sort of thing, but I can see that it’s inconsistent, I’m sure I … or do you mean the typing? There are lots of errors, I could go through it with a—’

‘I’m talking about the script,’ he said. His voice had a trace of northern accent, imperfectly concealed. ‘Is it a good script? Would it make a good film?’

She shrugged, helplessly. ‘I don’t know anything about films. Are you sure—’

‘Read it again,’ he said. ‘Pretend to yourself these are real girls having a real conversation and tell me exactly what you think of what Joan says to Ruby and of what Ruby says to Joan.’

‘I don’t think they sou—’ she began to say, and then stopped, mid-syllable, hit by an awful thought.

‘I didn’t write it,’ said Buckley, reading her expression. ‘Say what you like.’

‘I don’t think they sound as if they’re in a factory. It says that they’re shouting over the machines, but it reads as though they’re somewhere quiet, talking over a cup of tea.’

‘In an abbreviated way, I’d imagine, to save their voices. Half-sentences. “You going out tonight?” That sort of thing.’

‘In real life nobody actually repeats what the person at the other end has just said – the emergency order, the hundred gross of bullets and so on. It sounds false.’

Roger leaned forward. ‘And the patriotic message, as you phrased it? If you were making bullets do you think it would inspire you to put in an extra shift?’

‘I think …’ Was there a correct answer? She attempted a tactful one: ‘I think I might find it too unrealistic.’

Roger nodded, and took a letter from his pocket. ‘You’re in company,’ he said, drily, unfolding it. ‘Let me read you something. Our current head of the films division receives regular reports from the field, so to speak, and this is from the manager of the Woolwich Granada. He writes: ‘The MOI short Biting the Bullet was received by our audience, consisting of a very large portion of workers from the Arsenal (nearly all female), with satirical laughter and a chorus of “Oo’s” and “Oh Yeah’s”.’ He re-pocketed the letter and folded his arms. ‘Our current head of the films division has said that he requires more emphasis on a convincing and realistic female angle in our short films. Buckley, who’s written a script or two—’

‘… and seems to think you have something of an ear for women’s dialogue.’

‘Might,’ said Buckley, picking at one of his nails. ‘Might have something of an ear. Might eventually learn, given time and a great deal of knowledgeable and patient coaching, how to turn out a line or two.’

‘And, obviously,’ continued Roger, ‘as we would never ignore such an overwhelmingly enthusiastic recommendation from an expert of his calibre, we thought we might as well get you on board. We’re working on a series of domestic shorts for Home Security, co-produced with an outside company. You can join the scenario boys on the fifth floor on Monday and see how you get on. Any questions? Mrs Cole?’

‘No.’ It was all she could manage to say. During her five-minute walk between the entrance and Room 717d, past walls of files and crates of folders, past meetings so short of chairs that participants were seated on upturned waste-paper bins, past typists whose hands were a pallid blur, she thought she had seen her immediate future: a shared plywood hutch and an infinity of shorthand. The new reality was too strange to assimilate.

Roger got to his feet. ‘You’ll need to see personnel before you go, we can point you in the right direction. I heard a new name for us yesterday,’ he added, to Buckley, as they filed out of the office.

‘Yes, last week, we’re between ministers at the moment – this is public information, incidentally, Mrs Cole, so no need to worry about careless talk. I’m afraid it’s like a fairground duck-shoot in here, we’ve had two ministers since September, and three heads of the films division in five months. The last but one came from the National Gallery – they thought they’d give us someone who knew all about pictures.’ He sniggered at his own joke and then halted beside a bank of lifts. ‘Take this to the sixth floor,’ he said to Catrin, ‘then ask again. And we’ll see you next week.’ He shook hands, and paused to wait for Buckley who was peering into another of the three-wall wooden shacks.

She spent the afternoon at Finch & Caradoc fiddling with copy for a currently unobtainable face cream, thinking all the while about the occasions on which she’d seen the legend ‘The Ministry of Information Presents’ swim out of the darkness. There was a distinctive audience noise associated with its appearance, a vocal expression that was not quite a groan, more a release of tension, as if permission had been given to carry on talking and folding coats and settling in before the important business of the evening began. She could recall very little of the films themselves – the odd sweeping view of a field studded with hayricks (‘this, then is Britain …’), a man in a stiff collar talking about war bonds, a demonstration of the correct way to use a garden fork – wholesome items all, but indigestible, the cabbage that had to be eaten before the meat. Dialogue, snappy or otherwise, had been minimal.

By five thirty she had achieved nothing in the way of useful work, and Colin Finch told her to go home; instead, she caught the tube straight to Paddington, and queued for ten minutes at a chip shop before taking the familiar route along a narrow street that ran parallel to the railway lines, passing a succession of warehouses before reaching the disused garage where Ellis had his studio. ‘Glass roof,’ he’d explained when she’d first seen it, a virtue that apparently excused the seatless lavatory, the lack of hot water and the vicious cross-draughts that whined between the double doors. Blackout regulations had created yet another disadvantage, and at twilight, the occupants had to climb on to the roof and spend half an hour pulling a set of home-made shutters over the panes; Ellis was up a ladder doing just that when she arrived, and she passed unnoticed through the shadows towards the roughly partitioned corner where he worked.

It was neat, as usual, linseed and turps bottles wiped and capped, finished canvases stacked against each other and covered with a cloth, wood for framing tied in a bundle beneath a table. The only painting visible was hardly begun, charcoal lines and a greyish wash offering a ghostly view of a colossal cylindrical object, and a small figure peering into its interior.

Ellis’s notebook was lying on the table. She picked it up and leafed through to the most recent entry, and found herself easily able to read the tiny, scribbled comments he’d made during his visit to an ordnance factory.

That had been his previous short contract from the War Artists Committee – two pictures of the subterranean ARP control rooms in Kensington. He had finished the commission and then enrolled as a volunteer warden. ‘I should be painting this war from the inside,’ he’d said, with his usual certainty.

Above her, another shutter banged to, and she heard his voice, indistinct through the glass. The first time she’d seen him actually at the easel, she’d expected dash and sweat and galloping inspiration and she’d been secretly disappointed; his technique was entirely without drama. He painted steadily and methodically, mixing colours with calm concentration and studying his preliminary sketches for minutes at a time. She had learned since then that if it were galloping inspiration she required, she had only to watch Perry, who worked in a cubicle on the other side of the garage, and who had recently, accidentally, painted over a fly that had momentarily landed on his canvas. His work wasn’t a patch on Ellis’s.

On impulse, she began to thumb through the little book from the beginning, looking for the point at which she’d seen him come through the door of the Rivoli Café in Ebbw Vale, two and a half years ago. She’d served him pilchards on toast and a cup of coffee, and had blushed scarlet when he’d caught her staring over his shoulder at the sketch-pad, at the bold, economical drawings.

‘They’re ever so good,’ she’d said, shyly. ‘It’s the steel-works, isn’t it?’ and he’d nodded.

And he was an artist, a proper artist, fourteen years older than herself, and he’d just come back, injured, from the civil war in Spain, and that evening he met her out of the café and kissed her in a doorway opposite the cinema and until that moment, she’d been hoping that a certificate in shorthand and typing from an evening course in Merthyr might be her ticket out of 12 Barram Terrace and away from a recently acquired stepmother, who was making it unpleasantly clear that there was room for only one woman in the house. She’d imagined a future in a place as far away as Swansea – a job in a typing pool, perhaps, a bed in a hostel for single girls – but when Ellis had left for London, ten days later, he’d said ‘come with me if you want’ and she’d done just that, she’d run off with him, and, oh, the daring of it.

‘And I’ll be useful,’ she’d promised Ellis. ‘I’ll look after you ever so well.’ Though, despite her best efforts, she wasn’t much of a cook, and she could never seem to iron a shirt without leaving triangular scorch marks, and since she had never finished the shorthand part of her course, it had been hard, at first, finding a job that could make a decent contribution towards the rents for both studio and flat. She’d been lucky to find Mr Caradoc, who was deeply sentimental about his childhood in Wales, and who didn’t mind a few errors.

There was no mention of herself in the notes; it wasn’t that type of diary, of course.

The last set of shutters slammed down and for a few seconds there was pitch darkness before the lights sprang on. Perry, over by the switch, shouted, ‘Any chinks?’ and there was an answering ‘no’ from the rooftop, and half a minute later Ellis squeezed between the double doors.

Catrin waved. ‘I’ve brought you something to eat,’ she called, and the two men strolled across, talking, and Ellis curled an arm around her waist and caught her close. ‘You’ll never guess—’ she began.

‘I wouldn’t mind so much,’ said Perry, continuing the conversation, ‘if it weren’t for the fact that most of the stuff – present company excepted, of course – that most of the stuff being bought by the Committee is so bloody anodyne, kiddies’ nurseries, and bank clerks in tin hats, and pretty vapour trails over fields of barley and even when there’s a chance to show war, actual war, who do they pick to send to France with the BEF? Bloody illustrators, that’s who they pick. And who do they turn down, even though he offered his services? Only Bomberg, poor old sod.’

‘They think he’s too leftish,’ said Ellis. ‘Goes for those of us who went to Spain, as well.’

‘And when the bombing starts in London,’ added Perry, reaching for a chip, ‘when there’s death on every doorstep, who will they get to paint the devastation?’ He paused, dramatically. ‘Bloody illustrators, that’s who. Bet they’re kicking themselves Beatrix Potter’s not available.’

Ellis shook his head. ‘It’ll change. New forms of war require new forms of art.’

‘I should hope they do. I’m sick of seeing stuffy old portraits of generals, the sort of thing that chap Eves does – technique unchanged in twenty years. You know he’s on a bloody salary from the War Office?’

Ellis released Catrin’s waist and began to cut up the fish with the blade he used for sharpening pencils.

‘I had my interview at the Ministry of Information. And you’ll never guess where I’ve ended up.’

‘Slogans,’ suggested Perry. ‘“Divide and Rule.” “Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory”.’

‘No, not slogans. They’ve seen the advertisements that I wrote for So-Bee-Fee and they’re putting me in the film division. Helping to write scripts!’

She waited for a reaction; Ellis nodded a couple of times. ‘Yes, I’d heard that they’re starting to siphon money into film propaganda.’

‘The transient arts,’ said Perry, disparagingly. ‘Next thing we know they’ll be setting up a ballet division. And what are they paying you?’

‘Three pounds a week. I’ll be working mainly on women’s dialogue. In short films. And they said I’d—’

‘SHOWING A LIGHT!’ shouted Ellis, suddenly, and the figure who had just entered the garage closed the door hastily behind himself and shouted an apology.

‘Which is a reminder,’ said Ellis, checking his watch, ‘that I’d better get off to Post C. Thanks for the supper, Cat.’ He kissed her on the lips and then crammed a last handful of chips into his mouth.

‘No thanks,’ she said. She felt oddly flat. It was so seldom that she had anything of interest to tell Ellis.

‘Three pounds a week,’ said Perry, ruminatively, picking up scraps of batter with a damp finger. ‘Wish I could write gossip for three pounds a week.’

June 1940

There was no chair with his name on the back. There was no dressing-room, and in any case there was no costume to be fitted. There was no car to collect him from home or to return him at the end of the day. The script was printed on what looked like rice paper. The sole water closet in the studio could be used by anyone, even electricians. The director was eight years old. The continuity girl was ninety. The pay was an insult.

‘I really am grateful,’ said Ambrose to the journalist from Kinematograph Weekly, ‘to be able to do something for the war effort. Really – it’s almost a privilege.’ He took a mouthful of lukewarm chicory and smiled over the journalist’s shoulder at the lady sitting at the next table. She looked startled.

It had been yet another disappointment to add to the catalogue accrued during the day so far that the journalist – a shabby, enthusiastic man named Heswell – was not interviewing Ambrose for a feature on Ambrose but for some article about Ministry-sponsored films, Ambrose acting as a mere conduit for information. There being – but of course! – no green room in the studio, they had adjourned to a café in the next street, taking advantage of the mid-morning break enforced by the striking of one inadequate set and the erection of another.

‘I gather it’s all very economical,’ said Heswell, dabbing away at a tiny notepad. ‘What is it – two films a day? Seventy seconds apiece?’

‘That means yes,’ said Ambrose, abandoning charm. ‘I simply hope that the degree of economy being used does not transfer to the screen.’

THEIR FINEST

Lissa Evans

Contents

About the Author

About the Book

Also by Lissa Evans

TRAILER

April 1940

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May 1940

THE MINISTRY OF INFORMATION PRESENTS …

June 1940