Spy Line (14 page)

Lightly, as if to turn the conversation to trivial matters, she said, ‘I will have to make sure the computer gives the okay when I come. London have promised me something special in the way of papers.’

‘They have good people here,’ I said without really
believing it. I wondered if her forged papers were being prepared by Staiger; done by the same crooks whom he got to fake his stamps and covers.

‘I know.’

‘And Erich Stinnes too?’ When the history of the Department is written no fiasco of the recent past will demonstrate its capacity for vacillation and confusion better than the way in which Stinnes was handled. Stinnes was a slippery customer, a real old-time KGB officer. He’d said he wanted to defect to us, then doubts arose on both sides until Stinnes was categorized as hostile and imprisoned by us. He eventually went back to the East as part of an exchange.

‘Stinnes is kept entirely separate. That’s the way it was planned.’ She paused and changed the subject slightly. ‘When you got rid of that brute Moskvin you removed my greatest danger. He suspected the truth.’

‘He took a Russian bullet too. One of your people shot him. Did you know that?’

She gave a frosty smile.

I didn’t want to leave it like that. ‘I wish…’

She raised a hand to silence any recriminations from me and said, ‘We’ve only got a few minutes. The car must leave at four. I must be back in Prague. There’s this damned secur ity conference tomorrow and I have to be briefed.’ The dog barked again, more fiercely this time, and the barking stopped with a shrill yelp, as if the dog had been dealt a blow.

‘Yes, four o’clock. I understand.’

‘So they did tell you something?’

It was a feeble joke but I smiled and apologetically said, ‘We left Vienna early but there was the Haydn Festival, and the road…’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘It’s always like that when it’s really important. You used to say that.’

‘When I was late?’

‘No, I didn’t mean that, Bernard.’ She took a quick look
at her watch. ‘There is another thing…’ she said. ‘My fur coat. I left it with my sister Tessa. I’m worried she might sell it, or give it away or something…’

I remembered the coat. It was a breathtaking birthday present from her father at a time when he was very keen to establish his love for her, and his wealth and success. The huge silky sable coat must have cost thousands of pounds. Fiona had always been vocally opposed to the wearing of things made of animal fur but once she’d tried on that coat her moral reservations about the fur trade seemed to dwindle. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘You must get it back from her.’

‘Well…’ I said hesitantly, ‘I can’t say I’ve talked with you.’

‘You’ll find a way,’ she said. Now it was my problem. I could see why she was so good at management.

There was the sort of awkward silence that only an English couple would inflict upon themselves. ‘And everything’s all right? The children are well?’ she asked again.

‘Wonderful,’ I said. She knew that of course. It would have been part of the deal that she had regular reports on the children. And on me. I wondered if such reports would have included news of my living with Gloria. For one terrible moment it flashed through my mind that Gloria might have been assigned to live with me and monitor everything I did, said and thought. But I dismissed the idea. Gloria was too unconventional to be an informer. ‘The children miss you, of course,’ I added.

‘They haven’t grown to hate me, have they, Bernard?’

‘No, of course not, darling.’

I said it so glibly and quickly that she must have sensed the reservations I had. It would not be easy for her to rebuild her relationships with the children.

She nodded. ‘And you?’

I don’t know whether she was asking whether I was all right or whether I’d grown to hate her. ‘I’m all right,’ I said.

‘You’ve lost weight, Bernard. Are you sure you’re quite well?’

‘I went on a diet so I can fit into my old suits.’

‘I’m glad you’re still the same,’ she said somewhat ambi guously, and there was more affection in that banal phrase than in anything she’d said up to that time.

I suppose I should have said all the things that were bottled up inside me. I should have told her that she was as beautiful as ever. That she was as brave as anyone I’d ever met. That I was proud of her. But I said, ‘Take care of yourself. It’s so near the end now.’

‘I’ll be all right. Don’t worry, darling.’ I could hear in her voice that her mind was no longer devoted to me or the children. She’d already started thinking of the next stage: it was the way of the professional. The only way to stay alive.

There came the sound of a big V8 engine. Through the window I saw her car moving out from where it had been parked in the barn. A black official car. A big shiny machine like that with official licence plates and motorcycle outriders would attract attention. And surely it was impossible to get it through that archway and down that pot-holed track.

Well, Fiona was good at doing the impossible. She’d proved that over and over.

Once back in London it was easy to believe my trip to Central Europe had all been a dream. In fact I suppressed all thought of my meeting with Fiona from my mind. Or I really tried to do so. When Gloria met me at the airport, she gave a whoop of joy that could be heard across the concourse. She grabbed me and kissed me and held me tight. It was only then that I began to see the full extent of the terrible emotional dilemma I had created: or should I say dilemma that Fiona had created for me.

Gloria had left her new car – an orange-coloured Metro – double banked outside Terminal Two, a place where the parking warden charm school invigilates its ferocity finals. But she got away unscathed: I suppose it was tea time.

The car was brand new and she was keen to demonstrate its wonders. I sat back and watched her with delight. The awful truth was that I felt relaxed, and truly at home, here in London with Gloria in my arms. She was young and vital, and she excited me. My feelings for Fiona were different – and more complex. As well as being my wife, my colleague and my rival, she was the mother of my children.

Werner Volkmann’s caustic wife Zena once told me that I’d married Fiona because she was everything that I wasn’t. By that I suppose she meant educated, sophisticated and moving in the right circles. But I would have claimed otherwise. My education, sophistication, and the circles I moved
in too, were radically different to anything Fiona had known, but not inferior. I’d married her because I loved her des perately but perhaps it was a love too coloured by respect. Perhaps we’d both married believing that it was the combin ation of our talents and experience that really mattered; that we would prove to be an invincible combination and our children would excel in every way. But such reasoning is false, marriages cannot be held together solely by mutual respect. Especially when that respect depends upon in experience, as respect so often does. Now we knew each other better, and I had discovered that Fiona’s love for me was sober and cerebral, like her love of learning and her love of her country. Gloria was not much more than half Fiona’s age: Lord, what an oppressing thought that was! But Gloria had an irrepressible energy and excitement and curiosity and contrariness. I loved Gloria as I loved the exhilaration she’d brought to my life and the boundless love she gave both me and the children. But I loved Fiona too.

‘Good trip?’ She tried to demonstrate the self-seeking radio and the auto-reverse tape player while overtaking a bus on the inside. She was an unrestrained driver as she was an un restrained lover and an unrestrained everything else.

‘The usual routine. Salzburg and Vienna. You know.’ I felt no pang of conscience at saying that the trip had been routine. This was not the right time to sit down with Gloria and hear what she thought about Fiona. I hadn’t yet worked out what I thought myself.

‘I
don’t
know! How would I know? Tell me about it.’

‘Salzburg: von Karajan held up rehearsals while we had a cup of that awful coffee he brews up under the rostrum. Then on to Vienna: a private view of the Bruegels and a boring little cocktail party reception for me. Then a private dinner with the ambassador and that uncomfortable box the Embassy subscribes to at the Opera. The usual stuff.’ She bared her teeth at me. I said, ‘Oh yes, and I was attacked by a fierce dog.’

‘We’re invited to the Cruyers’,’ Gloria told me as she got to the traffic lights near Hogarth’s house. ‘Daphne phoned me at home. She was terribly friendly. I was surprised. She’s always been rather distant with me. Long dresses would you believe? And black tie.’

‘You’re joking.’

‘No I’m not.’

‘Black tie? Long dresses? At the Cruyers’?’

‘On Saturday evening. Your sister-in-law Tessa and her husband are going. I don’t know who else.’

‘And you said “yes”?’

‘Dicky knew you were expected back today.’

‘Good God.’

‘I sent your dinner suit to the cleaners. It will be ready Saturday morning.’

‘Do you know these trousers don’t match this jacket?’ I asked her.

‘Of course. I’m always telling you. I thought you did it to annoy Dicky.’

‘Why would having mismatched trousers and jacket annoy Dicky?’

‘It’s no good trying to put the blame on me. You should keep your suits on proper hangers and not leave everything draped around. Of course your trousers get mixed up. Did someone remark on it then?’

‘I just noticed.’

‘I’ll bet someone remarked on it, and made you feel a fool.’ She laughed. ‘What did they say – “Have you got another suit like that at home?” Is that what they said?’ She giggled again. Gloria loved her own jokes: they were the only ones she saw the point of. But her laughter was infectious and despite myself I laughed too.

‘No one noticed except me,’ I insisted.

‘It’s about time you had a new suit. Or what about grey flannels and a dark blue blazer? You could wear that outfit to the office.’

‘I don’t want a new suit or blazer and flannels, and if I did buy new clothes I wouldn’t buy them for the office.’

‘You’d look good in a blazer.’

I never knew when she was serious and when she was goading me. ‘Wouldn’t I need a badge on the pocket?’

‘Alcoholics Anonymous?’ she said.

‘Very droll.’

‘I’ve bought a lovely dress,’ she confessed. ‘Lilac with big puff sleeves.’ So that was really it. That little preamble about me having a new suit was just to assuage her guilt about spending money on a dress.

‘Good,’ I said.

That wasn’t enough to put her at her ease. ‘I didn’t have a long dress, and I didn’t want to rent one.’

‘Good. Good. I said good.’

‘You are a pig, darling.’

I kissed her ear and grunted.

‘Don’t do that when I’m driving.’

The Cruyers’ dinner party must have been planned for weeks. At previous dinners his wife Daphne – an unenthusiastic cook – could be seen dashing in and out of the kitchen, sipping champagne between stirring the saucepans, referring to cookery books and hissing instructions to Dicky. But this time they had some gravelly-voiced old fellow to open the door and breathe alcohol fumes upon all arriving guests; and an elderly lady, attired in full chef’s outfit, complete with toque, to do whatever was happening in the kitchen. There was a smell of boiled fish as she peered out of the kitchen to see us in the hallway. Whether she was counting the dinner guests or checking on the old man’s sobriety was unresolved by the time the doorbell sounded behind us.

There was soft guitar music trickling out of the hi-fi. ‘We tried to get Paul Bocuse,’ Dicky was saying as we moved into the crowded drawing room, ‘but he sent his sous-chef instead.’ Dicky turned to greet us and said, ‘Gloria, chérie!

How spiffing you look!’ in the fruity voice he used to tell jokes. He gave her a deferent, stand-off kiss on both cheeks to avoid spoiling her make-up.

‘And
Bernard,
old sport!’ he said, his tone suggesting that it was an interesting coincidence that Gloria and I should arrive together. ‘No need to introduce you to anyone here. Circulate! It’s chums only tonight.’

Most of the people must have already consumed a glass or two of wine, for there was that shrill excitement that comes from drinking on an empty head. Daphne Cruyer came across to greet us. I’d always liked Daphne. In a way I shared with her the problem of putting up with Dicky every day. She never said as much, of course, but I sometimes thought I detected that same fellow-feeling for me.

Daphne had been an art student when she first met Dicky. She had never entirely recovered from either experience. Tonight the drawing room was elaborately decorated with Japanese lanterns and paper fish. I guessed it was Daphne’s purchase of her amazing rainbow-patterned silk kimono that had prompted this formal gathering. I would hardly think it was prompted by Dicky’s new white slubbed-silk dinner jacket. But you could never be sure.

Daphne asked me how I was, with that unusual tone of voice that suggested she really wanted to know. In an effort to reciprocate this kindness I didn’t tell her. Instead I admired her kimono and her Madame Butterfly hairdo. She’d bought the kimono on holiday in Tokyo. They’d gone on a ten-day trip to Japan together with their well-travelled neighbours. I would never have guessed how much you pay for a cup of coffee on the Ginza but Daphne had adored every moment of it, even the raw fish. She said Gloria was looking well. I agreed and reflected upon the fact that it had taken over three years for the Cruyers to decide that Gloria and I were socially acceptable as a couple, and that this momentous decision had coincided with the moment I learned that my wife was about to return.

‘Dicky said everything in the office got into a terrible muddle when you went away,’ said Daphne.

‘I think it did,’ I agreed.

‘Dicky became awfully moody. Awfully withdrawn. I felt sorry for him.’

‘I came back,’ I said.

‘And I’m glad,’ said Daphne. She smiled. I wondered how much Dicky had told her about my time on the run in Berlin. Nothing I hoped: but it wouldn’t be the first time that Daphne had wormed information out of him. She was awfully clever at handling Dicky. I should get her to give me a few lessons.

‘We built on to the attic,’ said Daphne. ‘I have a little studio upstairs now. You must see it next time you’re here.’

‘For painting?’

‘Still-life pictures: fruit and flowers and so on. Dicky wants me to go back to doing abstracts. But he was always adding blobs of colour to them. I got so angry with him that I finally went back to fruit and flowers. Dicky is such a meddler. I suppose you know that.’

‘Yes, I do.’

When Daphne had moved on I said my hellos to everyone including Sir Giles Streeply-Cox – a retired Foreign Office man – and his wife. ‘Creepy-Pox’ with his sanguine complexion and bushy white sideburns might have been mistaken for a prosperous farmer until one heard that baroque Whitehall accent. Nowadays he grew roses between visits to London where he chaired a Civil Service interview board and prowled around the more languorous latitudes of Whitehall spreading alarm and despondency. Like all such senior officials and politicians he had a prodigious memory. He remembered me from another dinner party not so long before. ‘Young Samson isn’t it? Saw you at that gathering at that girl Matthews’ little place. Nouvelle cuisine wasn’t it? Ummm I thought it was. Don’t get enough to eat, what?’ The Streeply-Coxes certainly got around.

He leaned close to me and said, ‘Tell me something, Samson. Do you know the name of this damned tune?’

‘It’s called “Cordoba”,’ I said. ‘Albeniz; played by Julian Bream.’ I answered authoritatively because after purchasing his hi-fi Dicky had played it over and over to demonstrate the track selector.

‘Catchy little piece,’ said Streeply-Cox. He looked at his wife and nodded before adding, ‘My wife said you were a know-all.’

‘I try, Sir Giles,’ I said and moved away murmuring about getting another glass of wine.

Once clear of the dreaded Streeply-Cox I decided that finding another glass of champagne wouldn’t be a bad idea. I waylaid the old man with the drinks and then took a moment or two to look around. The same rather battered painting of Adam and Eve dominated the fireplace. Dicky always called it
naïf
in an attempt to give it class but to my eyes it was just badly drawn. The framed colour photo of Dicky’s boat had gone. That rather confirmed the rumours I’d heard about him putting it up for sale. Daphne had never been happy about that boat. She was rather prone to sea-sickness and yet if she didn’t join Dicky on his nautical weekends she knew there was a risk that some other female would share the captain’s cabin.

The antique cabinet that had once held a collection of matchbox covers now held a Japanese dagger, some netsuke and an assortment of other small oriental artefacts. On the wall behind it there were six framed woodblock prints, including the inevitable ‘Breaking Wave’. They’d fitted a fine mesh screen across the artificial coal fire. I suppose too many people threw litter into it. Dicky was always on his knees, clawing cigarette butts and screwed up scraps of paper from the plastic coal.

I reflected that every decoration in the room was new except the Adam and Eve that Daphne had found in a flea market in Amsterdam. It was a sign of the Cruyers’ widening
horizons and deepening pockets. I wondered how long Adam and Eve would last and what they’d be replaced with. Adam was already looking a bit apprehensive.

It was while trying to decide about the expression upon the face of Eve that I spotted my errant sister-in-law Tessa, and her husband George Kosinski. They were both dressed up to the nines, but even Tessa in her Paris model-gown didn’t excel the stupendous Gloria, who looked more enchanting than ever.

Tessa came over. She must have been getting on for forty but she was still vibrantly attractive, with her long fair hair and bright blue eyes, and she still had that breathless way of speaking that made one think that she’d been waiting anxiously to see you again. ‘I thought maybe you’d been sent to the bloody moon, poppet,’ she said, giving me an un characteristically coy kiss. ‘I’ve missed you, darling.’

I confess to a frisson as she kissed me: I’d never noticed before how much like Fiona she could look. Tonight especially so. Perhaps it was just an accident of her dress or make-up. Perhaps it was something to do with Tessa getting older; or Fiona getting older; or me getting older. Whatever it was, for a moment it made me stare at her, deprived of words until she said, ‘Fuck! Is my lipstick smudged or something?’

‘No, Tessa. You’re looking more lovely than ever. Just stunning.’

‘Well that’s really something coming from you, Bernard. All we girls know that being noticed by Bernard Samson is the ultimate accolade.’

The old fellow – whom I heard Daphne address as ‘Jenkins’ – came round with a big silver tray of champagne. Tessa selected one unhurriedly and held her glass up to the light as if silently offering a toast but I knew she was trying to identify the champagne from its colour and the bubbles. It was one of her party tricks. Her mastering it must have cost George a fortune.