The Company of Saints (15 page)

‘Your father loved sitting out here,' Betty Graham said suddenly. ‘I did all the gardening, but he loved to look at it. He had a very good life, you know.'

‘I know he did,' Davina said. ‘Mostly thanks to you.'

‘It wasn't always easy,' her mother said. ‘We had ups and downs during the war. We were separated such a lot and he was an attractive man.' Her gaze was clear as she turned and looked at Davina. ‘But he always came back to me. And then, of course, there was Charlie. And Fergie. He adored Fergie.'

‘I'm not surprised,' Davina said. Ups and downs. But he always came back.… How little she knew of her parent's private lives, or her mother's strength. ‘He's a love,' she said. ‘Full of life and mischief. Mum, before James and Mary come, I think you should go back with them until the funeral. I'm going to suggest it. You will go, won't you?'

Betty Graham looked bewildered. ‘But what about Charlie and Fergie? Who's going to look after the house?'

‘I'll see to it,' Davina said. ‘But I can't stay on. I've got to go back to the office and I don't want to leave you here on your own. Charlie can stay and the little nanny says she is quite happy to move in and do everything for the next few days. I want you to go away, Mum. Please?'

‘I'd like to,' her mother admitted. ‘Just a break for a day or two. I feel very feeble, darling. I couldn't manage here without you, and Charlie won't stand on her own feet while I'm around to lean on.' That was a surprising comment, and Davina saw her mother smile. ‘I'm not a fool,' she said gently. ‘Your father was stone blind to Charlie's faults but I never was. Perhaps it'll help her to grow up now that he's gone. I'll go away with the Whites, if they'll have me. There they are now – old Toby's out there barking.' She reached out for Davina's hand and held it for a moment. It was very thin and had no grip.

‘I'll never forget how good you've been,' she whispered and then got up to go and meet her old friends.

Davina was sitting watching television. She looked up when the door opened, expecting to see her little nephew coming in to say good night. Charlie stood there, dressed in trousers and a cotton shirt. Davina noticed that she had put on make-up and done her hair with her usual skill. She looked extraordinarily beautiful and young. ‘Where's Mummy?'

‘She's gone back with James and Mary White,' Davina explained. ‘I thought it would do her good to get right away until the funeral. I looked in on you before tea but you were fast asleep. How are you feeling?'

‘Better.' Charlie came in and closed the door. She sat on the sofa on the other side of the fireplace. ‘But shattered. I just can't believe it. I can't believe that I'll never see him again. You sound as if you've arranged everything.'

There was no doubt about the hostility behind the last remark.

‘I fixed up the funeral and got Mum away,' Davina answered. ‘You can change it if you like. All the papers are on Father's desk over there.'

‘Just tell me when it is,' Charlie said coldly. ‘So I can be there.' Davina got up and switched off the television set. She didn't feel angry. It seemed such a waste of time to snipe at each other in the circumstances.

She poured a drink for herself and then said, ‘Charlie, do you want anything?'

Her sister shook her head. ‘No, I'm still full of dope. But do help yourself, won't you?'

‘I already have,' Davina answered. ‘Can't we try to put the past behind us, Charlie? Father's dead, Mum's going to need a lot of looking after if she's to get over this. I'll say it first, if you like. I'm sorry about everything that's happened to you. I'm sorry for both of
us
, because we've lost Father.'

Charlie reached into her bag and took out a cigarette. She lit it with a slim gold lighter. ‘You're not sorry, Davy,' she said after a pause. ‘I appreciate what you've said, but I don't believe it. You're not sorry you hounded John out of the country. You're not sorry you helped to break up my marriage and left Fergie without a father. You didn't see anything wrong or inhuman about what you did. Now you're trying to patch it up because Pa's gone and Mum's all alone, and you've got a bit of a conscience. But deep down you'd do it all again, and still be surprised that I took it so badly.'

‘There was nothing else I could do,' Davina said slowly. ‘John was a Soviet spy – he'd been in Moscow's pay for years. God knows how many people were killed because of him, apart from Ivan. You never considered that, did you? He tipped off the KGB where we were living. And you know what they did.'

‘You haven't any proof,' protested Charlie. ‘It sounds good, that's all. But if he did do it, then you got your own back through Fergie and me, didn't you?'

‘If you think that,' Davina said, ‘then why the hell didn't you follow him to Moscow? Maybe he wouldn't be killing himself with drink if you'd joined him! But that's not your scene, Charlie. I don't blame you, it's not mine either. But wouldn't it help to be honest? You were right to turn your back on him, but you're not right to blame me for what happened. And to turn Father against me like you did. I haven't been in this house for nearly two years because of you.'

Charlie put out the cigarette – she had hardly smoked any of it. ‘What's the point of arguing?' she said. ‘I haven't got the energy. Did Peter Vereker phone?'

The change of subject took Davina by surprise. Under the lamplight Charlie looked grey in spite of her clever make-up. ‘Yes,' she said, ‘he called twice. I told him you'd get in touch when you felt up to it.'

‘When are you going back to London?' She had leaned back and closed her eyes. ‘If you've fixed everything up, there's nothing for you to stay on for now.'

Davina said quietly, ‘You'd rather I went? Don't you mind being alone?'

Charlie opened her eyes. So large and grey, so skilfully emphasized by liner and mascara. The hatred in them beamed at Davina. ‘I shan't be alone,' she said. ‘Peter will come down tonight and stay with me. So there's nothing to keep you.'

Davina finished her drink. ‘He seems a decent kind of man,' she remarked. ‘He'll look after you. Someone always has. I'll see you at the funeral on Wednesday.'

She went out of the house without seeing her sister again. She drove steadily up to London, and imagined that she saw Charlie's car speeding down the motorway towards Marchwood. Peter Vereker hurrying to take over where every man who knew Charlotte Graham had left off including her own father. To cherish and protect her. It wasn't because he was exiled and disgraced that John Kidson was committing slow suicide in his lonely Moscow flat. He still loved his wife. Davina drove into the private garage which served the block of flats. She walked up the stairs – it was an effort to mount each shallow step. When she unlocked the door of her flat the lights were on. Tony Walden came towards her. ‘Oh, my darling,' he said and took her in his arms. ‘My love, I rang the office. I'm so sorry.'

It would have been easy to let him hold her. Easy to grasp at the comfort he offered. Part of her wanted to cling to him, to put off the confrontation and convince herself that, to hell with it, it didn't matter. He loved her, he'd be able to explain it all if only she shut her eyes for just a little while. She didn't have to turn the knife on herself so soon. But she was pushing him away before the temptation won.

‘Davina, darling, what's the matter?' said Walden.

She walked into the sitting room, leaving him to follow. The flat seemed very cold. She noted that symptom in herself. Shock or emotional stress always made her body temperature drop. Walden came up to her. ‘What is the matter with you? Why won't you let me touch you?'

‘Let's sit down, shall we? I've had a pretty gruelling couple of days. Give me time to collect myself, please.'

He frowned. He was very suntanned, but there was colour creeping up under the brown. ‘If that's what you want,' he said. ‘Can I get you a drink?'

‘No thanks,' she said quietly. Why did he have to appear at that moment? Why couldn't she have been left alone to sleep and heal. Charlie had inflicted the wound. Charlie, with her relentless hatred and her blame.

‘Well,' she heard Tony Walden say, ‘I can do with one. I fly halfway round the world to see you, and you behave as if you hate the sight of me.'

Davina watched him pour a big splash of whisky and drink it neat. She said, ‘I'm not grieving because my father's dead – he never loved me, and I couldn't feel anything much when he died. That's upsetting in a different way, Tony. The lack of grief is worse than grieving. Can you understand that?'

‘No,' he said. ‘No, I can't. It's a bit too Anglo-Saxon for me.'

‘I suppose it was a silly question. You love your family, and you're all very close.' She sounded weary, flat.

He came and sat beside her. He put his arm round her and she didn't move. ‘Yes, we are. My poor darling, you look absolutely dead beat. I didn't mean to be difficult.' He kissed her tenderly.

‘How are your family, Tony?'

He sounded surprised. ‘I haven't had any news since I went away.'

She looked at him. ‘I have,' she said. ‘Your sister's fine, and your brother-in-law's just been promoted to deputy head of his department.' She got up and walked away from him. ‘Why did you tell me a pack of lies, Tony? Why did you make up that story about the KGB arresting him, and your mother and sister being terrorized? Why didn't you tell me the real reason they were blackmailing you? It wasn't difficult to find out.'

He didn't answer for a moment. A long moment, it seemed to Davina, while she watched him deciding what to say. He looked up at her, cradling the empty glass.

‘I should have known you'd check up,' he said. ‘I didn't want to lose you and I couldn't let them expose me. I tried to have it both ways, because I happen to love you very much.'

‘How could making up that story help you? What did you expect me to do?'

‘I thought you'd give me bits of information that didn't matter. So I could feed the bastards and keep them happy. I thought if you felt sorry for me and thought my family were being persecuted, you'd go along with it. I knew I'd lose you if you found what they were really holding over me.'

‘I see,' Davina said slowly. ‘You say you love me, Tony. You wanted to keep me, and hold off a Russian blackmail. With my connivance. It's a funny kind of love that would try a trick like that.'

‘I don't expect you to understand,' he said. ‘That's why I didn't consider telling you the truth for a moment. I knew you wouldn't sympathize with that.'

‘For a fraud involving half a million? Setting up your own business with clients' money, salting funds away in Switzerland, committing fraud? No, Tony, I don't have much sympathy with that.'

‘Everyone's smuggled money out,' he protested. ‘The bloody Swiss banks are stuffed with billions of illegal funds from all over the world. I have my family to help out in Poland. That's how the Russians got on to me. They traced the money back. But it was my business that was threatened! And I'm going to remind you, Davina,
why
I got fired from the American company and faced losing everything I'd built up over twenty years of fucking sweat and tears! Your boss James White wrecked my deal with the Saudis – remember that little incident? Because of you. He ruined me, and I had to do something pretty drastic or go bust and start from scratch again. I wasn't going to do it. I wasn't going to lose everything I'd worked for and built up, when all I needed was time and the money was there!' He slapped his hand down on the side of the chair. ‘There, in the bank! I used it, I set up my own agency and I made the bastards a profit.'

She said coldly, ‘And what would have happened if you'd failed? What lie would you have told the people whose money you had been using for yourself?'

He stood up and said harshly, ‘You've no right to judge me, Davina. I've taken chances to survive. I don't regret them. I don't regret trying to keep you and keep my business at the same time. If you were a different kind of woman, you'd understand. Take a good look at some of the things you've done, before you sit in bloody judgement on me.'

‘I didn't do them for myself,' she said. ‘That's the difference. I suppose you never gave a thought to what my position might have been if I gave you bits of information that didn't matter. Christ almighty!'

‘I was prepared to gamble,' he said. ‘Everything I wanted was at stake. You, and my business. I've gambled all my life, that's what the world is all about. I did think of the risk for you, darling, but I thought we'd get away with it.'

‘You said if I resigned, you'd marry me,' she reminded him. ‘What would you have done, Tony, if you'd come back from Australia and I'd taken you at your word?'

He didn't hesitate. ‘I'd have thanked God,' he said. ‘If you were out of the bloody Secret Service, I wouldn't be any use to them. I could have done some kind of deal over the money going into Poland and they'd have dropped the whole thing. It was my connection with you that set them after me. I would have welcomed it, Davina. I'd have paid off Hilary and settled down with you for the rest of my life. I still will, if you love me enough to put this behind us and start again.'

‘Tony,' Davina said quietly, ‘Tony, I really think you mean it.' She saw the hope flame up in his face. Yes, he does love me. If that's the deal that gets me and keeps his agency at the top of the heap, he'll jump at it, and never look back. He'll take me by the hand and we'll walk off into the sunset and live happily ever after.

‘I think you'd better go,' she said. ‘You're right, I am dead on my feet.'