– Aye! The polis from St Leonard’s asked for them the other day. I asked him what he was looking for and he said they had to check to make sure I wasn’t a spy, Ivy. A spy! He was flirting with me, but really! Have you heard anything so ridiculous? Do you think I’d make a good spy?

I return her gaze, light and easy. Kiss her on the cheek, tuck her hair behind her ear, run my fingers down her neck.

– No, but I think you’d make a fucking braw wife.

– Oh, well, fuck you very much.

– Morag! You are not built for things like that, you’re too good.

– Right then, Rudolf Hess! Just because you worked on the SOE listening stations, and you’re a trained FANY wireless operator, just because you’re going to live with your new friend down south and get all qualified to do things I don’t know anything about, there is no need to get all above yourself, Ivy Proudfoot! Is she cute, your friend down there?

– No, she’s hideous.

Morag smiles.

I go through to the little bedroom because I don’t want her to see me almost cry.

Archie is playing his piano upstairs.

Someone is cooking meat. It smells like three weeks’ worth of rations are being blown on one massive meal. It makes me hungry. Fruit cake and tea! Maybe some cheese and oatcakes and peppered mackerel and pickles or just a boiled egg with salt and a tomato, then a brandy, or a sherry, or a gin and tonic or two before we get to Cupid’s Corner at the Palais. I will need at least a drink or two if I am to do what the recruiters have asked of me. I touch a phial of poison in my pocket. I didn’t know my mission would start before I even left this city.

– What time are you leaving in the morning, Ivy?

– Early.

I go into the wardrobe and pick up my bag. Its bottom is false.

When I got this after graduating from Training 1, I knew it was becoming real.

All the items are there.

In my head I only speak in French already.

For me it has been like that for months.

I dream in it. I will not speak one word of English after I leave here tomorrow.

Not even through final parts of training.