Comrade Charlie (7 page)

Charlie looked out at a group of old people by the drooping fir tree, curious if there really were anyone called George. He said: ‘Matron says she's very pleased with you. How you're getting on.'

‘Tells lies,' his mother insisted at once. ‘She doesn't like me. Hits me for not eating cake with nuts in and you know I don't like cake with nuts in. Told you in my letter.'

‘I don't remember that bit,' said Charlie.

‘They said they'd tell her but I don't think they did. How's Edith?'

‘Edith's dead, Mum.'

She chose another chocolate, nodding in recollection. ‘I remember now,' she said. ‘Never knew anyone die of flu before.'

‘Flu that became pneumonia,' said Charlie. He was surprised she recalled the explanation he'd produced, instead of the numbing truth: that Edith had been blasted apart in mistake for him by a trigger-happy mob from the CIA avenging their Director he'd disgraced, along with his own, for being prepared to sacrifice him on a border crossing during the Berenkov pursuit. Charlie said: ‘Quite a while ago now.'

‘Liked Edith. Posh but she never had any side to her. Never looked down on me. Often wondered what she saw in a scruffy bugger like you.'

So had he, since she'd been dead, reflected Charlie. He knew a lot had in the department before that and certainly when they'd got married.
Inconceivable, old boy. I mean, lovely girl like Edith! General's daughter, would you believe! Double First at Cambridge, head of Research. And that threadbare little oik who shouldn't have been allowed office space in the first place. I mean! Inconceivable!
Charlie said, with deep feeling: ‘I miss her.' He missed Natalia, too. Maybe more so because he believed Natalia was still alive in Moscow, although he didn't know absolutely. And never would know.

‘The men asked about her,' said the woman. ‘I tell you some thing! Edith wouldn't have let you go around like that. Look at you! Bloody tramp. You never wore shoes like that when I was responsible for you. John wouldn't have allowed it. Heart of gold, your dad. Very proud of you, John was. Good to me, too.'

Muddled about some things. What about others? He stroked her hand and said: ‘What men, Mum?'

‘Told you,' she said with ancient belligerence. ‘Didn't bring any chocolates. I didn't like them. Kept asking me questions…' She plucked out a chocolate shaped in a half moon and said: ‘I can't find that on the chart that tells you what they are. Is it a hard or a soft one?'

‘It's soft,' said Charlie. ‘That square shape is a hard one.' Charlie had the impression of a distant warning, a far-away bell almost too muted properly to distinguish. He smoothed his mother's hand some more and said coaxingly: ‘These men: was that the new man who likes you? And a friend of his, perhaps?'

The woman splayed her hand with the wedding ring Charlie had noticed when he first arrived. ‘George gave me that,' she said. ‘That is how I know he likes me. Calls me Judith. I don't know why but that's what he calls me. Judith.' Her name was Mary.

‘Was it, Mum? Was George one of them?'

‘What are you talking about?' she demanded suspiciously.

‘I want to know about these men who didn't bring you chocolates or complain to matron about the cake with nuts.'

She looked suddenly, sharply, at him like a disturbed bird. ‘Course it wasn't George, you silly sod. They were visitors, like you…' She smiled, showing the real teeth she possessed. ‘No one's had more visitors than me, not for weeks! Matron said, so there!'

‘Who were they?' said Charlie. He didn't look at her as he spoke, making it all sound casual.

‘Men were always fond of me,' she said, drifting off. ‘Popular. That's what I was. Always enjoyed a good laugh.'

‘Have they been before?'

‘Course not. They're important. Official. Told me. From a Ministry…something like that…'

The bells were louder now, easier to hear. ‘What did they want?'

‘All sorts of things. Asked about Edith…you… lots of things I can't think of now…' She suddenly tightened her fingers upon his. ‘You haven't done anything wrong, have you? Been up to thieving or something like that.'

‘No, Mum,' said Charlie gently. ‘I haven't been thieving. How many were there?'

‘Two,' she said at once. ‘Dressed nice. Not like you, scruffy bugger. They wrote things down.'

The matron, Ms Hewlett, had written about pension changes in her letter. He was abruptly anxious to talk to the woman. He said: ‘How did they speak?'

She giggled, engulfing him in chocolate breath. ‘Like every else speaks, of course!'

‘I mean how did they sound? Did they sound English or foreign?'

She frowned and Charlie thought how unlined his mother's face normally was, apart from this momentary effort at recall. ‘Properly,' she decided. ‘Not foreign.'

There were always fantasies about men who liked her but he'd never known her maintain a pretence as consistently as this before. He said: ‘Did they tell you they'd come back again?'

The frown stayed. ‘You haven't told me you like my hair.'

‘I was going to,' said Charlie, irritated at forgetting. ‘It looks good. You're very pretty.'

‘Went into Salisbury yesterday to get it done.'

‘On the bus?' anticipated Charlie, deciding momentarily to break the single-track questions.

‘Don't need to go by bus,' she said. ‘George drives me, in his car. He's got a car, you know? You can't see it, though. It's around the back of the house, in a garage. It's green and it's got a radio.'

‘Did they have a car, the men who came to see you?'

The old woman nodded. ‘Black. It had lots of things to make a radio work.'

Two aerials: would the second have been for a telephone or a two-way radio? ‘What about them coming back?' repeated Charlie.

Once more there was the furrowed-brow effort at recollection, then a shrug. ‘I don't know. Maybe.'

‘Try and help me, Mum,' pleaded Charlie. ‘Try to think of something they said, the way they said it. Just one thing.'

‘Is this a hard centre?'

It was an oblong shape described on the chart as a praline surprise. ‘It should be,' said Charlie.

‘You couldn't get chocolate during the war, you know? I could, though. I knew this American army sergeant…' Her face twisted. ‘…Can't remember his name right now. Hershey bars, they were called. You remember all that chocolate when you were young?'

‘Yes, Mum,' said Charlie, who didn't. He looked around, trying to locate the matron.

‘Not bitter chocolate, though. I like bitter chocolate best,' said the woman. She suddenly brightened. ‘I might get more money!' she announced.

Charlie sighed at the new avenue to nowhere opening up in his mother's confused mind. He said: ‘That'll be useful.'

‘What's it called, when you get extra because you need it?' she demanded, looking directly at him.

‘Extra what, Mum?'

‘Pension,' she said impatiently.

‘Is that what the men said, that you were going to get more pension money?' seized Charlie.

‘I think that's what they meant.'

‘Supplementary,' suggested Charlie.

‘That was it!' said the woman. ‘That was the word. It means extra money, doesn't it?'

‘Yes,' said Charlie. ‘That's what it means.'

‘That's it then: what I'm going to get,' she said, triumphantly. ‘Why didn't Edith come with you?'

‘She's dead, Mum.'

‘Dead? Edith? When?'

‘Quite a long time ago.'

‘Never knew. Why didn't you tell me?'

‘I meant to,' said Charlie. ‘I'm sorry.'

‘Shame.' Her eyes closed. She made a tiny attempt to open them but it seemed too difficult. She tried again, even more feebly, and then stopped. Her held-away head went at last against the pillow: so lacquered was her hair that the tight waves flowed on undisturbed.

Charlie waited several minutes before easing his hand from hers, managing to stand without grating the chair. He checked as he walked, satisfying himself the matron was not in the grounds, relieved that she was in the office when he got there.

‘Great improvement, isn't it?' the woman demanded at once.

‘She's gone to sleep now,' said Charlie. ‘She rambled a little.'

‘At least she's talking!'

‘About some men,' said Charlie. ‘Men in a black car.'

‘That's right,' agreed the matron. ‘Pension people. I told you in my letter.'

Charlie nodded. ‘So people
did
come. I thought you were referring to some form or notice or something.'

‘Supplementary Benefit,' smiled the woman. ‘They check from time to time, into everybody's financial circumstances. To see if there's any special need.'

‘Have other people here been visited?'

‘Quite a few, from time to time.'

‘By these two particular men?'

The matron's face set in a serious expression. Instead of replying she said: ‘Is something wrong?'

‘I'm sure there's not,' said Charlie reassuringly. ‘I'm just curious, that's all.'

Ms Hewlett did not look completely convinced. She said: ‘These were inspectors I had not seen before. But that has no significance. Quite often the people are different from those who have come before.'

‘
Two
inspectors!' queried Charlie. ‘Does it always take two inspectors?'

The woman's colour began to rise. Again there was a hesitation. ‘No,' she said. ‘It's not usually two.'

‘They carried identification, of course?'

‘They telephoned several days in advance. That's the normal procedure. Told me they were coming and why. And they quoted your mother's National Insurance number, the one that's on her pension book. No one else has access to details like that except people from the Ministry.'

Was he overreacting, Charlie asked himself. Possibly. But Charlie frequently responded to the antennae of instinct and he thought there was a message here somewhere. He said: ‘Where do such inspectors come from when they carry out these checks? Towns, I mean?'

‘It varies,' said the woman. ‘Salisbury, Andover, Winchester…all over…'

‘From what office did the two men come to see my mother?'

The subsiding colour grew again. ‘They didn't say.'

‘No number? Nowhere you could contact them?'

‘They said when they left that she didn't qualify. That there'd be no need to talk about it again.'

‘So that looks like the end of it,' said Charlie with attempted finality.

‘Did they upset her?' asked the woman. ‘They said they'd like to see her, and she was so much better I thought it would be a treat for her. Visitors. It's important to them, visitors. I knew they were wasting
their
time: of course I did. It was your mother I was thinking about, not them.'

Poor woman, thought Charlie: poor innocent, compassionate, unknowing woman. He said: ‘I'm sure she enjoyed it.' He didn't think he'd get into cake with nuts. He added: ‘Did she sign anything?'

‘Oh no!' insisted the woman. ‘Your mother was on the verandah, just like today. And I was outside all the time they were with her. I would have seen.'

‘Like I said,' repeated Charlie. ‘I'm sure it's all perfectly proper.'

‘I
know
it is,' insisted the woman.

From his Vauxhall apartment, not from Westminster Bridge Road, Charlie contacted every regional and local pensions office remotely likely to have organized the visit to his mother. None had. He extended the check to the main department building in London and was once more assured there was neither interest in nor consideration of awarding his mother any supplementary pension allowance.

There was the beginning of fury – but only briefly, because Charlie didn't allow it. Fear had its benefits; released adrenaline and heightened senses. But not anger or fury. Neither. That sort of emotion was positively counter-productive: obscured the proper reasoning and the correct balances. This time, anyway, his feelings catapulted far beyond fury. Charlie was engulfed by an implacable, vindictive coldness. He'd chosen an existence of constant deceit and constant suspicion, a sinister shape to every shadow, a dangerous meaning to every word. That's what he gave and that's what he expected back. A fragile old lady with skin like paper wasn't any part of that; a fragile old lady in whose twilight life long-ago lovers stayed on as names with indistinct faces, William who became John and who might not have been a real person at all. But they'd made her part of it: sullied her with it. His own people; he was convinced of it being his own people, directed by Harkness. Wrong to move prematurely, though: he had to establish it absolutely. And there was a way: a required, procedural way that would protect him if he were wrong – if he were the target of a hostile pursuit – and raise a stink in all the embarrassing places if he were right. Harkness was going to regret this vendetta.

Ironically another vendetta was being conceived against Charlie Muffin almost four thousand miles away.

‘We've got to start all over again,' announced Alexei Berenkov, who had sought the encounter with Valeri Kalenin. ‘Part of the Star Wars missile is being made in England.'

Kalenin shrugged philosophically. ‘We've done well enough in America,' he said. ‘This can only be a setback, surely.'

Berenkov had come to Dzerzhinsky Square intending to suggest to Kalenin that the English involvement provided an opportunity for a further operation, but abruptly he changed his mind. He shouldn't involve this man who'd risked so much for him. Berenkov knew he could, on his own, evolve the retribution for all the harm that Charlie Muffin had caused and attempted to cause him. With customary confidence Berenkov decided he didn't need any help or advice in destroying Charlie Muffin, as the man had sought to destroy him. But failed. Berenkov said: ‘I have the same freedom to operate in England as I have in America?'