LITMIR.BIZ

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that at least part of the embarrassment I was feeling came from knowing that it was eleven o’clock and my uncle’s second-in-command had barely stepped into the office. And he had immediately approached me with a question about our work, only to catch me staring into the shadows when I ought to have been busy too.

      There had been a subtle touch of hesitation in his interruption, like concern when I didn’t want it. Now he made everything worse by accepting the manuscript from my hand and remarking, ‘Hearing you say all that about Miss Prichard’s memoir, it seems to me as if you and I ought to be trading jobs. My experience in publishing only runs to about nine months, whereas yours runs to years. Don’t you mind settling for taking the messages?’

      His eyes briefly lifted from the manuscript in his hand. He really was different today.

      This was the change that had been brewing over the course of all his little absences of late – a harder energy which ran itself back into stillness through a pattern of asking me more about myself than was the norm.

      I thought he did it whenever something had unsettled his peace of mind. This time, though, I couldn’t help stiffening to say in a clipped sort of voice, ‘That’s an oddly challenging question, Mr Underhill.’

      Then I caught the sound of my own defensiveness. It made me add more cheerfully, ‘It isn’t that I mind, exactly, that you might occasionally require more from me than a harmless chat about the weather. But didn’t you know that you aren’t supposed to draw attention to the smallness of my role?’

      Because he was right in a way – I was an experienced editor. I’d spent a good portion of my own war years working on the staff of the regional ministry office. I'd won one of those under-reported roles that basically required me to ensure that all information leaflets and posters and National Savings campaigns were adjusted to be relevant to the local population. So, thanks to me, a Mrs Whatsit from Ham Cottage had known that in the event of invasion, her emergency food distribution point would be the such-and-such building in Stratford-upon-Avon.

      Then, as it happened, the German tanks hadn’t invaded. The leaflets had been made redundant and so had I. And, with that in mind, this unsolicited comment on my new role here was a bit like that question mark which hangs over the way people talk about the cleaning ladies and the servers. Dignity was a very delicate thing.

      In my case, and the case of an awful lot of women like me, everyone knew how much we’d slaved for the great machine of war when we’d filled the void left by the departing men. They knew too how we were being cheerfully relegated once more to the role of underling now that peace had brought the survivors home again. And yet absolutely no one except a few restless youths ever dared to actually comment on it. Because who amongst us knew what complaint to make, when we were all poor and those war-shaken men had to have the chance to feel that normality was re-emerging somehow?

      So, I suppose the real issue here was that I had already grasped that there was a considerable difference between Robert’s career prospects and mine. I even had a plan for what I would do if it ran into my future. I just never would have expected this particular demobbed soldier to humble me by asking me about it.

      Particularly when we both knew that Uncle George didn’t have the work for three editors. Or the money. And it had been an act of generosity that my uncle had even been able to do this much for me.

      With a head full of concerns of my own about what was the matter with this man today, I couldn’t help retorting then with uncharacteristic coolness, ‘Anyway, it isn’t so much a case of whether or not I mind noting down the messages for you, Mr Underhill. It’s simply that I set quite a high value on having the funds to buy food this side of Christmas, that’s all.’

      I shouldn’t have said that. It turned out that not only was I struggling to deal with the sudden sense of my inequality here, but I also knew even less about his present mood than I thought. Because his head lifted from the manuscript again and I found that I had surprised him.

      He hadn’t expected to offend me. And his expression didn’t match the usual blankness that came in whenever I said something unguarded in this quiet office. This way of studying me was steadier. Aside from his reaction to the barb in my words, I thought it pretty clear that he had noticed that my mercenary summary of my motives was a lie. Normally I spoke by smiling.

      I didn’t even have the chance to answer that look by telling him something truthful, because there was a clatter of the other office door opening and then Uncle George was there in the doorway.

      The older man bustled in with a question for his second-in-command. He didn’t notice the closeness of my position to the corner of Robert’s desk, with the editor himself standing in the small space just beyond.

      Uncle George didn’t notice the speed of my self-conscious retreat to the cabinet by the door either. He was about as opposite a stamp of man to Robert as possible. George Kathay was the intellectual who fitted books and these quiet rooms but was also jolly and comfortable and long overdue for retirement. He had looked the same in all the years I had known him: willowy and wispy-haired and amiable, dressed in neat but old-fashioned brown suits made of wool.

      ‘Good morning, Mr Kathay,’ said Robert. He had moved when I had moved, but more smoothly.

      He had passed further behind his desk to set the manuscript down, and now he was checking his watch to confirm that it was indeed still morning. Just.

      My uncle didn’t have time for the preliminaries today. ‘Morning, Lucy. Rob. I’d hoped you’d be back sooner than this. What news have you got for me?’

      Robert’s reply was brief. ‘Mixed’

      ‘Ah.’

      There was an odd little pause in the wake of that when it struck me that they were speaking in code. Then my uncle seemed to suddenly consider my presence more seriously. In fact, he began to look like a man who was about to ask me to go and make the tea.

      And that part really surprised me, because I was already making my discreet exit from the room. I mean to say that I always made the tea; it’s just that it was unlike my uncle to use it as a means of bustling me out of the way.

      Today, however, Uncle George gave me the strange experience of learning that after weeks of complacently enjoying the process of finding my feet, I might have been wrong for imagining that we were all friends here, each bearing a different share of the work. Because the rank of editors above the lower staff really did exist. And these two men had private business to discuss.

      It gave me a very peculiar feeling then to slip away to my desk.

      My dim corner was screened from Robert’s desk by the partition between us, so he couldn’t have seen my flush. I thought they might simply shut the door and exclude me that way. But then the younger man made the span of the floorboards between my seat and that open threshold so much narrower when he said with unexpected mildness, ‘Can you give me five minutes to gather together a few things, Mr Kathay, and then I’ll come along to your office?’

      He made it seem as if they were merely about to have one of their ordinary weekly consultations. But it was too late. Uncle George was fidgeting into the open doorway, and then he announced as if it were news the other editor needed to hear, ‘Lucy is our borrowed daughter, you know.’

      Now I truly was concerned. Because I thought I knew what my uncle was about to say next, and yet I was certain that if Robert had managed to grasp my professional qualifications, he must surely have gleaned this little detail.

      All the same, my uncle made it worse by rushing into saying, ‘Lucy is a farmer’s daughter who dislikes the mess of a farmyard. My brother-in-law’s family have a place beyond Worcester with an awful lot of sheep. And cows. Or crops. Actually, I think it’s just sheep and crops, isn’t it Lucy? She’s agreeing.’

      He added that last part for Robert’s benefit since the younger man couldn’t see my uncertain nod.

      I was staring. Because these rapid words were designed to convey affection and an awful lot of care. Uncle George was acting as if I had

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