Wives at War (50 page)

Christy tottered to the rail beside her. He had bathed and shaved but was still hollow-eyed and gaunt as a cadaver in his shabby old reefer jacket and roll-necked sweater. He didn't seem to fit somehow, didn't seem to belong in this gay and spacious city where there were no tanks, no rubble and no refugees.

Polly scanned the quays for sight of Dominic. She was no longer reluctant to meet her husband. Her luggage had been brought up, ready to be off-loaded. Wrapped in a bath towel in her blue suitcase were the two dumpy bottles of VAT 69 whisky that Marzipan had left in her cabin. She had scattered her frilliest things on top in the fond hope that the Portuguese Customs officers might be too modest to trifle with a lady's undergarments.

‘Where's the stuff?' Christy asked.

‘In my case.'

‘The big case, the blue one?'

‘Yes.'

‘Who are you looking out for?'

‘My husband.'

‘He won't be there,' Christy said.

‘Are you sure?'

‘Sure I'm sure,' Christy said. ‘He'll be hiding out.'

‘Isn't Lisbon safe?'

‘Depends who you're hiding from, I guess.'

‘Are you going to tell Dominic about us?'

‘Are you crazy?' Christy said. ‘I don't want a bullet between the eyes.'

‘That isn't Dom's style.'

‘What is his style?'

‘I don't know,' Polly said. ‘It depends.'

‘On how badly he needs you?'

‘Yes.'

‘If he only needs what you've got in that blue suitcase, Polly, what then?' Christy said. ‘Do you really think he'll give us his blessing and Marzipan or some other guy in a tweed coat will whisk us off to live happily ever after?'

‘I didn't say that.'

He still smelled faintly of sick and of something else, something intangible. In the fresh morning sunlight he looked not only unglamorous but almost unwholesome. She wondered what she had ever seen in him. It hadn't been love at all, hadn't been anything like love, only another manifestation of her need to have any man she fancied, especially Babs's man, Babs's exotic stranger. Whatever happened in Lisbon, whatever Dominic said or did, Christy and she were fated to kiss and part and go their separate ways.

‘You have to tell him,' Christy said.

‘I'll do nothing of the damned kind.'

‘Even if it doesn't work out, I'll stand by you.'

‘Is that what you told your Polish girl?'

‘Jesus, Polly, that's harsh.'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘Yes, it is. I'm sorry.'

An ear-splitting wail from the
Tantallon Castle
's whistle made her flinch. She stepped back and looked up at the funnel as wisps of brown smoke coiled across the bridge and spilled down on to the decking.

Christy leaned against her. ‘I'm here if you need me,' he said. ‘I'll always be here if you need me.'

‘I'll remember,' Polly said and kissed him, just once, before Dominic reclaimed her.

*   *   *

Marzipan was true to his word. The Customs sheds were virtually deserted and Portuguese immigration officials seemed to have more urgent matters to attend to as Polly and Christy lugged their baggage down the gangway on to the quay. A little crowd of dock workers had gathered alongside the
Tantallon Castle
to admire the bullet holes in her hull. A jovial bunch, they conversed in French and broken English with the deck officers, who answered their questions courteously but with typically British phlegm.

Polly and Christy headed straight from the ship to the motorcar, a Mercedes, that was parked on the quay. Two uniformed police officers stood by the car chatting to a tall young man in a seersucker suit that seemed to have been painted on to his long limbs.

Catching sight of Christy, he raised an arm and called out, ‘There you are, you old son of a gun. I thought they'd tossed you overboard.'

‘Jamie!' Christy muttered. ‘I might've known you wouldn't be far away.'

Setting down his bags, he hugged his brother and introduced Polly.

Jamie Cameron shook Polly's hand, his grip firm and friendly.

The policemen watched impassively.

‘Where's my husband?' Polly asked.

‘He's waiting for you at the Avenida Palace Hotel,' Jamie Cameron told her. ‘We have one or two minor formalities to complete here, then we'll be on our way. I take it you haven't had breakfast?'

‘Breakfast?' Christy pulled a face. ‘I haven't eaten in a week.'

‘You were never cut out to play Popeye, kiddo. You even got sick on the Staten Island ferry,' Jamie Cameron said. ‘Look, all I need are your passports and thirty-day visas. I guess they're in apple-pie order?'

Polly slid her purse from her shoulder, fished out her passport and the documents that Marzipan had provided, handed them to Jamie Cameron, who handed them in turn to one of the policemen. The copper didn't seem in the least interested and the documents were returned with hardly a glance. He said something in Portuguese and Jamie laughed.

‘What did he tell you?' Polly asked.

‘He said that anyone so beautiful must be harmless,' Jamie told her.

Polly favoured the policeman with a smile and, a minute later, found herself seated in the back seat of the Mercedes. She watched Jamie and the policemen shake hands; no money, she noticed, changed hands. Christy stowed the luggage in the trunk and climbed in beside her. Jamie Cameron folded himself behind the steering wheel and started the engine.

The policemen bowed and waved like traffic cops and the car passed along the length of the dock, through a high wooden gate and out into the streets of Lisbon, heading, Polly assumed, for the Avenida Palace Hotel.

*   *   *

‘Is it far?' Polly asked.

‘Not far,' Jamie said, over his shoulder. ‘It's hard by the railway station, the Estacão Central, which is also known as the Rossio.'

‘Why is my husband staying in a railway hotel?'

‘Mainly because the Avenida Palace has elevators, central heating, an excellent restaurant and beds not hewn out of granite,' Jamie told her. ‘It also happens to be the number one spot in Lisbon if you're cookin' up a shady deal. Somerset Maugham couldn't have invented this place. Every sleazy type you can imagine drifts in and out of the bar. Austrian kids desperate to work in Hollywood, diplomats who've wriggled out from under the jackboot, gentlemen of fortune who can smell opportunity the way sharks smell blood. And women, rich women who can't get their hands on their funds and are looking to trade on the generosity of a male escort or two. Plus heaps of Americans who've lived in France for years and don't know how to get home again.'

‘The Avenida, is that where you're billeted?' Christy asked.

‘Not me, kiddo. I'm down the coast a ways in Cascais.'

‘How come?' said Christy.

‘The beach there is good, and you know how I like my morning swim.'

‘Sure.' Christy glanced from the window, then said, ‘I thought the British were playing nurse-maid to the Communist.'

‘Nope,' said Jamie. ‘I am.'

‘US Naval Intelligence?' Christy said. ‘Yeah, right!'

‘I'm officially on shore leave,' said Jamie. ‘Nuff said?'

‘Nuff said,' said Christy.

*   *   *

In spite of the early hour the lobby of the Avenida Palace Hotel was crowded. Polly had never seen such a conglomeration of different nationalities. The broad staircase that angled up from the lobby swarmed with men and women and there were queues at the reception desk. Elevator doors opened and closed noisily. Porters in odd little cut-away vests darted about calling for Senhora This and Senhor That. Any notion she might have had of making a grand entrance vanished immediately. She was caught up in the tide and swept from the open doorway into the middle of the lobby before she could take her bearings.

She looked behind her, searching for Christy.

Her luggage had been ferried from the car at the pavement's edge and was being steered towards the elevators. Outlined against the brilliant light of the street, she noticed Jamie Cameron directing operations with eloquent gestures. For a secret agent he certainly made himself conspicuous but that, she thought, might be part of his disguise.

She waited where she was, jostled by strangers.

‘Polly?' Dominic took her arm.

She turned on her heel and faced her husband.

‘Bedlam,' he said. ‘The Book of Exodus, minus Moses. Come with me.'

He held her by the arm, cupping her elbow.

She glanced over her shoulder, spotted Jamie Cameron heading for the elevators, Christy trailing after him. She wanted to call out, to let Christy know where she was, to keep herself safely positioned between the devil and the deep blue sea for just a little longer.

‘He'll find you, never fear,' said Dominic. ‘Meanwhile, we must give the captain time to do what he has to do.'

‘Don't I have to register?'

‘It's all been taken care of,' said Dominic.

‘My room…?'

‘Our room, darling,' Dominic said. ‘After all, we are still man and wife.'

*   *   *

The table was situated in a window corner protected by a Moorish screen. There were several such shoulder-high screens in evidence throughout the dining room. Behind them lurked elderly men in high, starched collars and morning suits, very stiff and formal, chomping on egg and steak and dabbing their moustaches with thick linen napkins while they received visits from faded women of a certain age or smooth-cheeked young men in expensive lounge suits.

‘Who are they?' she asked.

‘Bankers,' Dominic said.

‘Jews?' Polly said.

Dominic's soft brown eyes never left her face. He looked different, leaner, his sallow complexion darkened by exposure to the sun.

‘Certainly not Jews,' he said. ‘Austrians for the most part, some French, a few Swiss. They claim to have access to confiscated bank accounts in German-controlled territories.'

‘Do they?'

Dominic shrugged. ‘Probably not. Some sort of note will be signed, promises made, accounts opened and the money…' he fanned his fingers, ‘well, the money will vanish in a welter of paperwork and after a month or so the banker too will vanish and another white-haired crook in a claw-hammer jacket will appear and more desperate supplicants will throw themselves on his mercy.'

Thin slivers of white fish bathed in an egg sauce were on his plate. He toyed with them, breaking down the slivers into small flakes with a heavy silver fork.

He didn't eat, though, not one mouthful.

He said, ‘Fin Hughes would make a killing here.'

‘Fin, I think,' said Polly, ‘is doing all right at home.'

‘Did you do what I told you to do?'

She had eaten more than she'd eaten in months and drunk coffee that tasted like coffee. She glanced down into the street, a broad avenue lined with café tables, at trams fitted with huge cow-catchers nosing round the corner and vanishing behind a plain brick wall that she fancied might be the gable of the station. A waiter tapped a forefinger on the frame of the screen and at Dominic's signal stepped round the screen and removed the plates. He went away again, sliding sinuously through the crowded tables.

Dominic poured coffee from a silver pot and lit a small cigar.

He looked more like himself now, sipping coffee, smoking.

‘Well, Polly,' he said, ‘did you?'

‘I put forty thousand pounds in my bank account,' she said. ‘The other stuff is hidden in two whisky bottles in my blue suitcase.'

‘Which,' Dominic said, ‘Jamie Cameron is checking out right now.'

‘Oh, is that what he's doing?'

‘Of course.'

‘Is he really going to marry our Patricia?'

‘So he says.'

‘Don't you believe him?'

‘Patricia certainly believes him.'

‘Is she in love with him?'

‘Madly,' said Dominic, without a smile.

‘The children will miss her.'

‘I wondered when you were going to ask about the children.' He slipped a hand into his vest pocket, brought out a sheaf of photographs and placed it on the tablecloth. ‘The children are thriving. They're happy, that's the main thing.'

‘Don't they miss me?'

‘No, Polly, I don't think they do.'

‘Why did you take them away? Were you punishing me?'

‘Punishing you?' Dominic said. ‘For what?'

It was on the tip of her tongue to say ‘Tony' but she still couldn't be sure if he knew about her affair with Tony Lombard or, for that matter, her fling with Fin Hughes, though fling was hardly the word for it. And Christy – she didn't dare confess that she had allowed the American into her bed.

She might offer excuses for Fin and Christy, might plead that he, Dominic, had run off with Patricia and had left her free to do as she wished but this was hardly the time or place to begin balancing accounts.

She said, ‘You escaped, didn't you? You fled?'

‘Under the circumstances,' Dominic said, ‘I had very little choice.'

‘Why didn't you tell me you were leaving? Didn't you trust me?'

‘I'd no reason to trust you, Polly.'

‘You trusted me to manage things at home, though. You went out of your way to arrange it so that I would do exactly as you wanted me to.'

‘Not exactly, no,' Dominic said.

‘Is it because I'm Frank Conway's daughter that you don't trust me?'

His eyes widened in surprise. He placed the cigar in an ashtray and watched smoke rise up towards the ceiling for a moment, then said, ‘You aren't to blame for that any more than I'm to blame because my father's Carlo Manone. I gave you a chance, Polly. I gave you a choice, much the same sort of choice as I've had to make.'