Spy Line (21 page)

‘So that’s why Dad hated Max,’ I said.

‘Max: yes, and Lange too. He didn’t have much time for any American after that. It was a childish reaction but he felt bitter and frustrated.’

‘Didn’t he want the inquiry reopened?’

‘Of course he did. Your father wanted that verdict quashed more than anything in his life. But the Department couldn’t permit the publicity that would have come with it. And the official policy, of both us and the Americans, was to avoid anything that might engender bad feeling between the Allies.’
He sat back. The memories had invigorated him for a moment but now their ghosts had invaded the room and he seemed not to know that I was there. I drank some of my lukewarm tea.

When Silas spoke his voice was strained. He said, ‘I think I’d better have some of that damned medicine. Mrs Porter knows how much to give me.’

‘I’ll go now, Silas,’ I said finally. ‘You must get some rest.’

‘Stay to lunch, Bernard.’

‘I must get back,’ I said.

He didn’t put up much argument. Now that his task was done all the energy was sapped from him, he wanted to be left alone.

‘I’m sorry about the elms, Silas.’

‘The oaks will look fine,’ he said.

I declined Mrs Porter’s invitations to stay for something to eat. I had the feeling that Silas wanted me to leave the house and go away, rather than have something by myself in the kitchen. Or was that my paranoia? Whatever the truth of it, I wanted to get away and think my thoughts to myself. At the quiet little church, on the narrow road that goes from Whitelands gates to the village, a line of parked cars gave notice of a service in progress. It was a funeral. Perhaps two dozen dark-garbed people were standing around an open grave, huddled under their umbrellas while the priest braved the elements, his vestment whipped by the wind and his face radiant with rain.

Crawling along behind a tractor, I was given a chance to study this solemn little ceremony. It depressed me further, reminding me that soon – very soon – Silas and Whitelands and all they meant would have vanished from my life. My mother was old and sick. Soon Lisl would be gone, and the hotel would be unrecognizable. When that happened I would no longer have any connections with the times that meant so much to me.

Perhaps Silas was right: perhaps a shelf in a museum,
with all the rubbish of our lives surrounding us, would be the best end of us all.

Suffering from this somewhat irrational melancholy I stopped at the next little town for a drink. No pubs were open and the only restaurant was full of noisy housewives eating salads. I went into the grocery store and bought a half-bottle of Johnnie Walker and a packet of paper cups.

I drove down the road until I reached the main road and a lay-by where I could pull off the road and park. The rain continued. It was the ideal sort of day and place and time to commit suicide.

As soon as the windscreen wipers were switched off the glass became a confusion of dribbling rain and there was the steady patter of it on the roof. I reached for the bottle, but before I took a drink from it I relaxed back upon the head-rest and must have gone straight to sleep. I’d known such instant sleep before, but always until now it had accompanied danger or great stress.

I don’t know how long I slept. I was awakened by the sound of a car pulling up alongside me. There was the buzz and slap of windscreen wipers and the resonant babble of a two-way radio. I opened my eyes. It was a police car. The uniformed cop lowered his window and I did the same.

‘Are you all right, sir?’ The suspicious look on his weathered face belied the courtesy of his address. I pushed the whisky bottle down between the seats but I couldn’t get it completely out of sight.

‘Yes, I’m all right.’

‘Mechanical trouble of any kind? Shall I call a breakdown service?’ The rain continued, the cop didn’t get out of his car.

‘I just thought I’d look at the map.’

‘Very well, sir, if you’re fit and well, and able to drive.’ They pulled away.

When the police car was out of sight I got out of the car and stood in the rain. It refreshed me. Soon I felt better. I got
back into the car and switched on the heater and the radio. It was tuned to the Third Programme: Brendel playing Schubert. I listened. After a few minutes I tossed the unopened whisky into the ditch.

I wondered if the policemen had been told to keep an eye on me but decided it was unlikely. Yet even the doubt was a measure of my distress; in the old days I would never have given it a moment’s thought. Perhaps there was something wrong with me. Maybe all these people who kept telling me I looked ill were right.

I thought about everything Silas had said. I was particularly disturbed by the idea of Fiona going to ground, so that the KGB would not realize that she had been working for us all the time. It would be difficult to arrange such a deception.

There was another way for the Department to achieve the same objective; by killing Fiona while she was still working over there. It would be simple enough to arrange, there were plenty of Thurkettles around, and it would be complete and effective. Even if the KGB detected the hand of the Department in such a killing, that would only ‘prove’ that Fiona’s defection was genuine. Expedient demise. Such a ruthless solution would be unthinkable and unprecedented but Fiona’s unique position was just as unthinkable and just as unprecedented.

I didn’t go in to the office that day. As I drove back from Silas Gaunt’s farm the weather got worse until, near London, I found myself driving through a spectacular electrical storm that lit the sky with blue flashes, made the car radio erupt static noises and provided long drumrolls of thunder. I went straight home. It was early evening. The house was cold, empty and dark, a chastening reminder of what it would be like to live alone. The children were eating with friends. I lit the gas fire and sat down in the armchair and watched the flame changing colour until the whole grid was red. I dozed off.

I was wakened by Gloria’s arrival. She switched on the light and, although she must have noticed the car outside, she raised a hand and gave a little start of surprise at seeing me sitting there. It was a very feminine reaction, contrived perhaps, but by some magic she could get away with such childish posturing. She was very wet. I suppose I should have gone to the station and collected her but she didn’t complain. ‘There’s only frozen
Székelygulyás
,’ she said as she took off her soaking wet raincoat and got a towel to dry her hair.

‘Only frozen
Székelygulyás
,’ I said reflectively. ‘What a colourful life we live.’

‘I didn’t get to the shops,’ said Gloria. I heard a warning note in her voice.

‘We can go to Alfonso’s or the little Chinese place,’ I offered.

‘What has made you growly tonight, teddy bear?’

‘I’m not growly,’ I said and managed a convincing smile to prove it.

‘A soft-boiled egg will do me,’ she said.

‘Me too,’ I agreed.

She was standing in front of the mirror combing her wet hair. She looked at me and said, ‘You say that, Bernard, but when I give you just an egg you always end up at bedtime rummaging through the larder and opening tins or having Shredded Wheat.’

‘Let’s have the frozen
Székelygulyás
,’ I said, having suddenly remembered that it wasn’t some new packaged line from the supermarket; it was her mother’s Hungarian home cooking. Criticizing such a meal could lead to a tangle in the psyche that only a Freudian gourmet could hope to unravel. ‘It’s my very favourite! Is that the chicken in sour cream?’

‘It’s pork with pickled cabbage,’ she said angrily, but when I pulled a face at her she grinned. ‘You are a bastard! You really are.’

‘I knew it was pork and cabbage,’ I said.

‘Or there’s the new fish and chip shop, the one we haven’t tried.’

‘What kind of wine goes with
Székelygulyás
?’

‘You hate Hungarian food.’

‘No I don’t.’

‘You said the caraway seeds got in your teeth.’

‘That was my other teeth.’

She knelt down beside my chair and put her arms round me. ‘Please try, Bernard. Please try and really love me. I can make you happy, I know I can, but you must try too.’

‘I really love you, Gloria,’ I said.

‘Is Silas very ill?’

‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘One moment he seems on the point of collapse and the next moment he’s shouting and laying down the law.’

‘I know he means a lot to you.’

‘He’s old,’ I said. ‘We all have to go sooner or later. He’s had a good innings.’

‘Is it something I’ve done then?’

‘No, darling. You’re perfect. I give you my word on that.’ I meant it.

‘It’s this house isn’t it? You’ve hated this house ever since we moved here. Is it the journey? Your other house was so central.’

She kissed my ear. I held her. ‘The house is fine. It’s just that I’m trying to work out a few problems at work. You’ll have to make allowances for the growly factor.’

‘Dicky Cruyer, you mean?’

‘No. Dicky is the least of my worries. Without me to do ninety per cent of his work, he’d probably be shifted off somewhere where he could do less damage.’

‘But?’

‘A lot of people would like to see Dicky booted out of the German Desk. Deputy Europe for instance. He detests Dicky. If getting rid of me meant getting rid of Dicky too, Gus Stowe would do it and throw a party to celebrate.’

Gloria laughed. The idea of a celebratory party given by Gus Stowe was not easy to imagine. ‘Let me put the food into the microwave,’ she said. The way she chose to say let me, instead of using some more assertive syntax, was the essence of our relationship. Despite what others may think, my love for her was not of any paternal sort: but what was the nature of her love for me? ‘And I’ll bring you a glass of wine.’

‘I’ll get it.’

‘You sit there and take it easy. When dinner is ready, I’ll tell you the latest about Dicky. It will make your eyes pop.’

‘Nothing Dicky could do would surprise me,’ I said.

She brought me a glass of chilled wine. There was no scotch. No gin, vodka or anything else. We’d run out of such stuff and she’d never bought more. She wanted to
rescue me from hard booze. I sat back and drank the wine and took it easy while listening to the electronic squeaks of the timer on the microwave. The oven was her newest toy. I’d overheard her talking to the cleaning lady about it. She’d boasted of cooking delicious braised liver in it, although in fact the liver had exploded and covered the inside of the oven with a garlicky film of pulverized goo. She’d ended up in tears.

But now I could hear her singing quietly to herself and I knew I’d done the right thing in choosing her mother’s Hungarian cooking, prepared by Gloria in her new machine. It gave her a chance to play at housekeeping. The particular pleasure she got from it was demonstrated by the elaborate way she’d arranged on the table our tête-à-tête meal. There were candles and even a long-stemmed rose, albeit an artificial one.

‘How wonderful you are,’ I said when I was permitted into the kitchen to eat.

‘I’ve forgotten the pepper mill,’ she said, reaching for it hurriedly. There was a nervousness in her voice, an anxiety, so that sometimes her earnest desire to please me made me uneasy. It made me feel like a tyrant.

‘Tell me your news about Dicky.’

‘I don’t know how Daphne puts up with him,’ said Gloria. She liked to begin with a preamble that set the mood. ‘Daphne is such a clever woman. You know she’s painting leather jackets?’

‘Painting leather jackets? Daphne?’

‘She’s an artist, Bernard.’

‘I know she went to art school.’

‘Same thing.’

‘On leather jackets?’

‘Dragons and psychedelic nudes. You haven’t seen them? I know you’d love to have one, darling.’

‘Having a psychedelic nude, even on a leather jacket, might prove a bit too much for me these days.’

‘They take hours.’

‘I would imagine.’

‘Stop it!’

‘What?’

‘I’m serious. Daphne works very hard and Dicky doesn’t understand her.’

‘Did he tell you that?’

‘Of course not. I wish you’d listen instead of trying to be so smart.’

‘I like this pork and cabbage. A bit too much salt but it’s very good.’

‘Last time you said it was tasteless. I put the extra salt in.’

‘It’s delicious. So what about Dicky?’

‘He’s going to Berlin on Friday. He’s booked a suite at Kempinski’s; he’s taking a girl with him. Poor Daphne. If she ever finds out…’

‘What girl? Someone from the office?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said.

‘Where did you hear these rumours?’

‘They are not just rumours. He’s got the suite booked.’

‘Did Dicky’s secretary tell you?’

Gloria took a moment to swallow her cabbage and then drank some wine too. It gave her time to consider her reply. ‘No, of course not.’

‘She has no right to be gossiping about such things.’

‘You wouldn’t tell Dicky?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘of course not. But it’s stupid of her to gossip like that.’

‘Don’t be stuffy, teddy bear,’ she said pouring more wine.

‘Suppose there was no woman,’ I said. ‘Suppose Dicky was waiting for an agent coming through the wire? Suppose that agent’s safety depended upon everyone keeping their mouth shut.’

‘Yes.’ She thought about it and said, ‘Suppose it
was
a woman; suppose it was your wife?’

‘Impossible,’ I said.

‘Why impossible?’

‘Because Fiona is one of theirs! Damn you, I wish you’d get that simple fact into your thick blonde Hungarian head!’ I saw the sudden alarm in her face and only then realized that I was shouting and banging on the table.

She said nothing. I could have bitten my tongue off as soon as I’d said it. But once it was said, there was no way ever to unsay such a stupid gratuitous insult.

‘I’m sorry, Gloria. Forgive me, please. I didn’t mean it.’

She was crying now, the tears running down her flushed cheeks as if they’d never stop. But she managed a hint of a smile and said, ‘You did mean it, Bernard. And there’s nothing I can do to make you see me any other way.’

‘Let’s go and sit in the other room,’ I suggested. I poured the last of the wine.

‘No. It’s almost time for me to go and collect the children, and I must throw some clothes into the spindrier before I go.’

‘Let me collect them,’ I said.

‘You don’t know where it is, Bernard. It’s all ill-lit one-way streets: you’ll get lost.’

She was right. She usually is.