The Folks at Fifty-Eight (24 page)

“It doesn’t matter. I’m leaving anyway.”

“What about Princeton?”

“I don’t want it. I never wanted it. It was only ever your idea. It was never mine.”

“You could always defer. Someone could have a word. I’m sure they’d agree.”

He was clutching at straws. Mathew looked scathingly back at him.

“One of your old boy network, you mean? Dad, I don’t want it.”

Carlisle tried to convince him, but Mathew refused. When he talked of a career in the State Department, Mathew shook his head and said he wanted to make his own way. He said he’d never had any influence in the decisions that affected his life. He didn’t want to become like his father, sleeping with strangers in hotel rooms, married to someone like his mother. He vowed that everything in his life would change.

When Carlisle asked if he had discussed this with Emma, Mathew shook his head.

He said he was going to Europe, to forget and start a new life. He would find work and somewhere to live. He wanted to do something useful for a change. Maybe he’d even find a proper girlfriend. He’d already checked with airline reservations. There was a Boeing Constellation taking off for Paris at six. He would be on it.

It was gone eleven that night when Alan Carlisle returned to the house. He found her sitting up in the bed and reading. She turned to look at him, her eyes still red from crying. She appeared calm, but spoke in a voice that betrayed the presence of disturbed emotions.

“You locked the door. Why did you do that? Am I a prisoner in my own home now?”

He smiled weakly as he slotted the key back.

“Of course not. I just thought you were a bit overwrought.”

“Is that why you took my sleeping tablets from the dressing table?”

“Sorry. I didn’t want you waking up and doing anything stupid.”

She shook her head.

“I wouldn’t have done. I’m upset, and sad, and ashamed. I’ve been stupid and foolish, and you probably think I’m a terrible pervert. Maybe you’d be right, but suicidal is one of the few emotions I’m not feeling. Where’s Mathew?”

“Halfway to Paris. I wired ahead and asked them to look after him. He’ll be all right.”

He steeled his nerve and then asked the question he had to ask.

“Why, Angela? I need you to tell me why.”

She put down the book and looked at him with a tenderness he hadn’t seen for years. She said it was because Mathew had always been so gentle and vulnerable. She loved him so much. He would close his eyes, put his arms around her, hold her hand, kiss her cheek. He would do whatever she asked, without condition or question, and always with such gentleness and love.

Alan Carlisle spoke of his own confusion. He asked what physical pleasure she got from the affair. He couldn’t understand. He needed to know. He tried not to be bitter or defensive, but it must have shown, because she asked him to try to understand.

She admitted that being with Mathew heightened her arousal, and said that afterwards she would go to her bedroom and lock the door. She would recall a confused young man’s gentleness, and imagine herself making love with someone just like him. She would lie on the bed and touch herself until a climax arrived and released her from the torment.

Alan Carlisle felt the tears welling up as he watched the guilt and sadness in her. He said he could have done that for her. He could have been gentle and caring, tender and loving, if only she had asked.

She shook her head.

“You always used to hurt me whenever we had sex. I was afraid of you. I couldn’t take the pain. That was why I stopped sleeping with you. That was why I started sleeping in here.”

He looked at her in astonishment. So many years of misunderstanding, clarified with one simple announcement.

“And for all these years you never explained. You just let me go on thinking you were. . . that you didn’t have feelings, and didn’t want love; that you didn’t care?”

“What could I have said? I was afraid of penetration and I still am. It’s as sad and as simple as that. When you get aroused you lose control. . . It used to hurt.

“I’m not blaming you. It’s just the way you’re made. It’s not my fault either. I can’t stand pain. That’s why Mathew was caesarean. I thought you understood that. Maybe it’s different for other women. Maybe they’re built larger, or aroused easier. Maybe they’re able to take the pain. But I can’t. I can’t stand any form of pain.”

He sat on the edge of the bed, frightened to ask but knowing that he must.

“So why did you want Mathew? I mean, if it hurts; if you’re frightened of. . .”

“Mathew wasn’t like that. He wasn’t aggressive and uncaring. He was gentle, and I was in control. Even if I hadn’t been, Mathew would never hurt me, no matter what.”

He asked her about other men. She laughed.

“There were plenty who tried, in the beginning, when we were arguing so publicly. Some of your so-called-friends were the first to offer their sympathy.”

When he asked about Morton Simmonds, the contempt returned to her eyes. Was that all that worried him? He said he had to know. Did Morton Simmonds try to sleep with her?

“No, Morton didn’t even try, unlike some. Anyway, I couldn’t do something like that.”

“I don’t see why. If another man could excite you, arouse you. I would. . .”

“Alan, stop it. When I said I was afraid of penetration, I meant petrified.”

He hung his head. He hadn’t realised. He felt so foolish.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t understand.”

She said it didn’t matter; they’d had eighteen years to deal with it. She paused for a moment and the colour rose in her cheeks.

“I did try it with a woman once.”

“What?”

“Remember Sarah, Sarah Pearson, from about six or seven years ago?”

“Of course. She used to be your best friend. You mean that you and she. . . ?”

He spluttered his shock and saw her smile. Suddenly the tension dissolved.

She said it had happened when they lived in Georgetown. Sarah Pearson lived in the apartment downstairs. She often popped up for coffee. They would talk for hours. Angela would talk of her problems with Alan. Sarah would talk of her problems with husband, Archie. The conversations would often include details. The details would always be intimate.

“Mathew was away on summer camp, and I was feeling miserable. I met Sarah for coffee that morning and told her how I was feeling. That afternoon she came up to the apartment and brought a bottle of wine with her. I think it was French. Sarah said it was expensive. She said Archie had been up to his old tricks again and she was punishing him. I assumed she meant that she was punishing him by drinking his wine. God! I was so naïve.

“Anyway, we drank the wine, and I got a bottle of cheap Riesling from the cupboard. We drank that, too. Then, for some reason, I started to cry.

“She was comforting me. She put her arms around me and held me, and suddenly we were kissing. I don’t know how it happened. It just did.

“I always thought that kissing a woman would repulse me, but it felt beautiful; soft, and gentle, and wonderfully erotic. I closed my eyes and pretended she was a man. I let her touch me, too, in fact I think I even encouraged her, but then she spoke, and that was that.”

Alan Carlisle had found the story disturbingly erotic. He tried to look nonchalant, but wanted to know more.

“What did she say?”

“Oh, Sarah was so sure of herself, so domineering. She said she’d been waiting to ream me since the first time she saw me. I’d never heard that expression before.”

“It put you off?”

“No. You see, it wasn’t the coarseness. It was the voice. It told me I was with another woman. I had to stop pretending. I had to open my eyes, and return to reality.”

“So, what did you say?”

“I just wanted to curl up and die. I called her a filthy dyke and told her to get out. She turned and fled. It was the last time I saw her.”

“And do you still wonder? About other women? Do you think, maybe. . . ?”

“Of course not. It’s disgusting and perverted; it’s just plain wrong.”

Her interruption had been a little too fervent. He noticed, but was too tired to press. He changed the subject. He’d had enough of confessions. He asked what they should do now. Angela said she’d expected a lecture; she’d expected divorce. He scoffed. He did want her to take more interest in his work, though.

“I thought you couldn’t discuss your work?”

“Maybe I’m just sick of all these meaningless secrets. Maybe I don’t see the point in all of this cloak-and-dagger crap, not when the nation’s really important secrets are leaking through a sieve. Maybe I just need someone who tells me the truth. Then there are the receptions and social events and that; they’re difficult when your wife’s never there.

“I don’t want to lose you, Angela. I love you. You’re beautiful. I like people to see how proud of you I am. They don’t have to know we don’t. . . but that still leaves Mathew.”

She gave a weak smile and nodded.

“I’ll write and tell him I’m sorry, promise it will never happen again, tell him we’ll always be there for him. . .

“And then I guess we’re going to carry on. You’ll continue sleeping with every promiscuous little tramp in Washington, and I’ll try to be kinder and more supportive, and pretend not to notice. I still care for you, whatever I said earlier. I don’t want to make love. Not with you, not with anyone, and I know that must seem unfair. But I do still care.”

He felt a little guilty at that. Much of the problem had been his fault.

“I think that lets me off rather lightly.”

She looked sadly back at him.

“Do you think so? Somehow, I don’t think it lets either of us off all that lightly.”

So why was he feeling depressed?

The answer, of course, was the girl; he couldn’t get her out of his head. When he’d broached the subject with Allum, his new State Department boss had simply hung up the phone. He didn’t expect to get much more from Carpenter or Carlisle, but he had given the girl his word, and that meant a great deal to him. And then there were his feelings for her.

In Dessau, he had convinced himself that he was falling in love with her, but back in the hustle of Washington he wasn’t so sure of his feelings. She was so young, and he was in love with Emma, or was he? Perhaps his feelings for the girl had been a product of the danger and the tension and her obvious vulnerability; and she was beautiful. One thing he was certain of. He had to protect her from Kube. The only question was how?

“You can go in now.”

He found Carpenter sitting at his desk, puffing on an oversized cigar. The pompous bureaucrat smiled and offered his congratulations. Bleary-eyed and single-minded, Hammond ignored that. He asked about the girl. Carpenter said it was none of his concern. Hammond shook his head. He had given the girl his word. He always kept his word. He asked again.

Carpenter said he didn’t know. When Hammond asked where they had taken her, Carpenter said he didn’t know that either. Even if he had known he couldn’t tell Hammond.

Hammond decided that, for once in his life, Davis Carpenter was telling the truth. In that case, he needed to speak to Carlisle.

Carpenter doubted that Alan Carlisle would know. It seemed the State Department’s proverbial rough diamond wasn’t his favourite person. He said Carlisle was merely a functionary, and not an especially bright one. When Hammond insisted on speaking to Carlisle, pomposity became belligerence. He said Hammond must make his report first.

Hammond, equally belligerent, refused. He had rescued the girl as ordered, but Carpenter clearly didn’t know what was going on. He would make his report to Carlisle.

Carpenter wanted to know more. Hammond explained angrily.

Carpenter had sent him to Magdeburg to find a girl and get her to Frankfurt. He hadn’t said that she also happened to be the Soviet Union’s public enemy number one. He hadn’t said that he’d be going head-to-head with Beria and Paslov. He hadn’t said that he’d be taking on the Red Army. He hadn’t said that she was the daughter of one of Reinhard Heydrich’s closest friends. He hadn’t said that she had been the sexual chattel of another Nazi war criminal, a man officially listed as dead, but in truth still alive. He hadn’t said that this same Nazi war criminal had an unhealthy amount of pull around the State Department.

Carpenter looked stunned. He tried to deflect Hammond’s anger with a familiar lie. He said it was better for Hammond that he didn’t know too much. Hammond didn’t buy that for a second. Carpenter hadn’t said, because Carpenter hadn’t known. Now he intended talking directly to Carlisle. A sullen-looking Carpenter mumbled that Carlisle wasn’t there. He was up in New York, meeting with Marcus Allum and Conrad Zalesie. Carpenter said he had no idea when he was due back. Hammond would have to wait.

Carlisle returned later that week. After explaining all that had happened, Hammond told him of Paslov’s offer to defect. Carlisle seemed less than enthused, but, when Hammond told him of Paslov’s offer to name Beria’s agents in the State Department and The Poplars, his attitude changed.

“Are you certain he said The Poplars? Could he have said something similar?”

“No, it was The Poplars. He was clear on that. Why, is that important?”

“Of course it’s bloody important. Where the hell have you been for the last three years?”

Despite his dislike of Carlisle, Hammond had kept his self-control. Now that was gone and he was furious.

“I was in Europe for most of it; fighting a war, preserving our freedom and our way of life, and all that crap. I was out there with the others, risking our lives, while cowardly bastards like you stayed here in Washington screwing the wives we left behind.”