Was the lady with him Claudine, or was Claudine the more glamorous woman in Jamaica drinking with the Scudders? It was in 1970 I first learnt of Claudine in a letter addressed to her (as Mrs Graham Greene) from Cape Town. ‘I called in at the club yesterday … By subtle steering I learnt that you had forsaken the steamy parts of Africa and had married a really distinguished author … Being an author’s wife will be right down your street and I am sure you must be of enormous assistance to your husband.’ Nearly twenty years had passed since the blackmailing in Paris: the Other seemed to be settling down.
He goes: I follow: no release
Until he ceases.
Some years ago in Chile, after I had been entertained at lunch by President Allende, a right-wing paper in Santiago announced to its readers that the President had been deceived by an impostor. I found myself shaken by a metaphysical doubt. Had I been the impostor all the time? Was I the Other? Was I Skinner? Was it even possible that I might be Meredith de Varg?
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Copyright © Graham Greene 1980
First published in Great Britain in 1980 by The Bodley Head
First published by Vintage in 2002
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Ways of Escape Page 28