Warlight

During the war, coastal towns were removed from maps, and the Saints’ signposts were taken down in case of a German invasion. Un-mapped airstrips and decoy airfields were built and then disappeared after the war. When Nathaniel lived in Suffolk after his mother’s return, he worked for a kind neighbor, Sam Malakite, who sold produce grown in former airfields. Distant from his mother, Nathaniel bonded with Sam and regarded him as a stable parental figure. He fondly remembers their summer harvests and the joy of listening to Sam’s stories under the shade of a mulberry tree.

As an adult, Nathaniel considers the genre of memoir as a “lost inheritance” (131) composed of reflections.

Nathaniel works at the archives in London during the week and spends his weekends in Suffolk. He runs into Arthur McCash at work and thinks about the knife wounds hidden under his shirt. Nathaniel hopes to run into The Darter, Agnes, and The Moth’s other associates but finds no trace of them. He takes skiffs out on the Thames late in the night to revisit his canal routes. He feels that his childhood, like his mother, is a mystery to him.

At work, Nathaniel is convinced that records of his mother have been destroyed or intentionally withheld from him. He breaks into cabinets to review restricted files on his lunch break before returning them. Rachel rejected Rose the night of the abduction in the theatre and has no interest in researching her mother’s past. For her, The Darter and The Moth were the strangers who kept her safe.

Rachel lives with her partner and invites Nathaniel to one of her theatre performances. The siblings have not seen each other for some time, and Rachel introduces Nathaniel to her infant son, Walter, named after The Moth. Rachel tells him that The Moth protected them whereas their parents abandoned them. She insists that their names are not Wren and Stitch. She encourages Nathaniel to look for Agnes and invokes The Darter’s advice to choose his own life.

Nathaniel uncovers files on Rose’s work during the war as a radio operator intercepting coded German messages for Bletchley Park. After the war, she continued working abroad in covert operations. Nathaniel sees the false names and crossed-out dates on her passport and believes the only evidence he has are the scars on her arm.

Arthur McCash meets Nathaniel for dinner but refuses to tell him any information about The Moth, his father, and the other contacts. He assures Nathaniel that he and Rachel always had guardians around them. McCash was the one to take Rose to see Nathaniel at a dance club on her rare returns to London. Nathaniel thinks about Walter, preferring to use his real name, and all the times he protected them with his watchful gaze. Life at Ruvigny Gardens was like a theatre company, with scripted roles and hidden moments off stage.

At the archives, Nathaniel finds memos regarding Rose’s cover and the possibility that people may still be after her. He learns that she chose people outside the agency, including Sam Malakite and other unseen figures, to continue to guard her children. In her journal, Rose wrote that she sensed she was still a target. 

When Nathaniel lived in Suffolk, he shared his mother’s private lifestyle and avoided schwer and confrontation. During an argument, Nathaniel blamed her for Rachel’s estrangement, and Rose explained that the sounds of bombers in the sky and her concern for their safety compelled her to join the war effort. She revealed that Olive Lawrence was a colleague who kept her abreast of their welfare.

At White Paint, Rose taught Nathaniel chess and told him about a historic match in 1858 at an opera. Paul Morphy, a prodigy, defeated his opponents by sacrificing his queen, and the game transpired while scenes of love and tragedy were performed onstage. Nathaniel recalls the chess games they played in the greenhouse as rare moments when they felt like mother and son.

As an adult, Nathaniel replays his memories of his mother in Suffolk and believes he has to love her if he is to understand her. Rose had married young and wanted to study law but chose to raise her children instead. She joined the war effort in her thirties. In the archives and his family’s personal records, he finds no information about his father.

Rose is killed when Nathaniel is 18 and away at university. He returns to the Saints for her burial, and Rachel does not attend the funeral. Nathaniel is surprised to see many people attend the service despite the secrecy. He does not know who made the arrangements or who chose her epitaph. A man speaks to him, but Nathaniel, numb with grief, ignores him. After the service, Sam confides that he found Rose’s body in the greenhouse at White Paint and called a number she prepared for him in case of this scenario. Sam was instructed to leave the house and not mention anything. Nathaniel visits his mother’s home and sees that evidence of her murder has been erased.

Nathaniel’s grandmother called the flooring at White Paint “the nightingale floors” because they creaked at each step like a burglar alarm. The noise comforted Rose and made her feel safe. After the funeral, Nathaniel peruses his mother’s bookcases and wonders in which novels she found a version of herself. He finds a hand-drawn map in the pages of a Balzac book, but some of their old family photos are missing. Photos of Rose with a tall man, later revealed to be Marsh Felon, the boy who had fallen off her family’s roof, were extracted. Nathaniel recalls that Felon, a man he had seen at his work building, was the man who had attempted to speak to him at his mother’s funeral.