A Spy in the Family

by Alec Waugh

  ‘There must be quite a number on your staff.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Over twenty.’

  ‘And most of them unmarried?’

  ‘Nearly all.’

  ‘Surely some of them must have looked at you with glowing eyes.’

  ‘Why should they? They’re grown women.’

  ‘What difference does that make? How do you live—each in a separate flat?’

  ‘More like in a college—a central sitting room and reading room and each with her own bed-sitter.’

  ‘Haven’t any of those twenty colleagues come tapping on your door late at night?’

  ‘I’ll say they haven’t.’

  ‘Not one, not the least littlest one?’

  ‘Not even that.’

  ‘I’m astonished.’

  ‘Astonished?’

  ‘When I think of the effect you’ve had on me during these last six days.’

  It had slipped out, without foreplanning. Ten seconds before, Myra had had no idea that she was on the brink of saying that. For an instant she would have given anything to have it back. Then mentally she shrugged. It was said and that was that. There was no retreat.

  Heather stared at her, with astounded eyes. ‘What are you trying to say?’

  Myra laughed. ‘You don’t need to be told that you are extremely photogenic. But that is only where it starts. You have one of the nicest natures that I have ever met. You’re a heavenly companion. You’re more fun to be with than anyone I know. Every day I’ve found myself liking you more, growing fonder and fonder of you. You’re a delight to look at. I love the way you smile, the way you frown when something puzzles you; I love your voice, it’s a deep contralto, and all the tones that come into it. Then in addition to all that—as if that wasn’t in itself enough.’ She hesitated. She was almost out of her depth. I could stop now, she thought. It isn’t too late yet; it will be in another minute. This is your last chance. But she knew, even as she warned herself, that she had no intention now of drawing back. The thrill of the chase had gripped her. ‘In addition to all that,’ she said, ‘you’ve got a perfect figure: a rhythm, a harmony of curves; every movement you made on the links was a delight to me—the way your muscles moved under your sweater; your shoulders, your breasts; your legs and hips—every part in harmony with every other part.’ She paused but this time not in hesitation. She knew precisely what she had to say. She paused, because she wanted to give the greatest dramatic value to it.

  ‘Going around the links day after day, I found it harder and harder to keep my hands off you. Indeed, I had quite often to hold my wrist behind my back in self-defence.’

  She put down her glass and took Heather’s hand. She undid the two buttons of the tight-fitting sleeve. She rolled back the silk and stroked her wrist. ‘Don’t look so terrified. I’m not going to try to rape you.’ She paused. ‘At least not right away,’ she added.

  Heather laughed at that. Thank heavens, Myra thought, that she can keep it light. But Heather’s face wore a dumbfounded look. ‘I can’t believe that you’ve said what I heard you say.’

  ‘I said it right enough.’

  ‘I can’t believe that you really meant what I feel you did mean.’

  ‘I meant it.’

  ‘But you’re a married woman.’

  ‘That makes no difference.’

  ‘You and Victor seemed so happy.’

  ‘We are. It’s a fine marriage.’

  ‘If it is, how can you, I mean if a wife is happily married, she doesn’t, well, how could she want more?’

  ‘Sometimes she does.’

  ‘Only when … not, I mean, a young couple like you and Victor. You look as though you were in love with one another.’

  ‘I think we are.’

  ‘Then how can you feel about me like this?’

  ‘It’s completely different.’

  We’re going round in circles, Myra thought. I must get this straightened out. She said, ‘Have you never been made love to by a woman?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’ve missed a lot. You’ll realise when you are just how different it is. There are things that only a woman can know about another woman, exactly in the same way that there are certain things which a woman needs that she can only get from a man—a man and a woman complement each other. I don’t know exactly what went wrong with your marriage, but you said your husband was insensitive. That’s why I thought you might find consolation with a woman, because insensitive is exactly what she wouldn’t be.’

  ‘Did you really believe I had … with a woman, I mean?’

  For a moment Myra hesitated, wondering whether to tell the truth or whether to excuse herself on the grounds that she had felt sure that an attractive grass widow, who had been put off men, who was a schoolmistress and a successful one, would almost certainly have accepted the substitute of another woman. That answer would provide an explanation that might serve an immediate purpose, but if you once started lying, you could not stop; one lie led to another. And she wanted to tell Heather the truth. She shook her head. ‘I was fairly certain that you’d never had an affair with a woman, but I thought that you’d be much happier if you did.’

  ‘You’re quite right on the first count. How did you know?’

  ‘It’s one of the things that you can always tell. Women who like women recognise each other. I imagine that it’s the same with men.’

  ‘Why do you think I should be happier if I was involved with a woman?’

  ‘Because, darling, you’re being wasted while you’re not.’

  She was still holding Heather’s hand. She stroked the thin bones of her under-wrist, kneading the soft flesh with her thumb. ‘You are so young. You are so warm. You shouldn’t imprison yourself. Don’t let your emotions shrivel; let them flower and blossom. Reread Shakespeare’s sonnets. They provide a parallel. They’re urging a girl to marry so that her looks shall be handed on to another generation. Your case is different, but there is a parallel. It’s an argument against waste, against shutting away your beauty. And there is this too, remember; people who restrain themselves when they are young become bitter and hard and harsh when they grow old. They never mellow. It would be terrible if that should happen to you.’

  She spoke slowly, soothingly, wooingly. She knew what she was doing. Heather had been exposed to a considerable shock. She must be cajoled back into a sense of safety. There was no hurry. A whole week ahead of them. Play it lightly. Play it slow, with calculated caution. And all the time the champagne was sending its message along their nerves, relaxing tension, making the blood beat faster.

  At length the last sip had been taken. Heather rose. ‘Time for me to pack up,’ she said. ‘It’s been a strange, strange evening.’

  Myra stood up too. She was a couple of inches taller than Heather. She stepped towards her. She raised her arms and took Heather’s face between her hands. How soft and cool her cheeks were. She raised Heather’s face and tilted it, then gently, slowly, she set her mouth on hers, letting it linger there, letting her lips part, letting the tip of her tongue play on Heather’s lips, insinuatingly, urging a breach, beseechingly, until at last in their turn they opened, and for a moment the tip of Heather’s tongue touched hers. With her fingertips, Myra was conscious of Heather’s trembling. I believe, she thought, it’s the first time she’s co-operated in a kiss.

  I’ve got to have her! Like a caged panther Myra paced her bedroom. Her heart was pounding. There was a thirst in her that must be slaked. The fever of the pursuit inflamed her, the urge to make a convert, to fill the role of the initiator, to join the select ranks of those able to meet the Naomis of the world on equal terms, to be a member of their inner lodge.

  How soft and cool those cheeks had been; how hotly they had flushed; that timid, emboldened tongue. To lead this exquisite creature into all the byways and paths of pleasure, the creeks and crevices of delight. How she would respond; how she would b
ecome transformed, transfigured. If I looked a different woman to Anna, how will she look to me. I must. I’ve got to.

  Yet even as she argued her own case, the indignant voice of outraged conscience was raised in accusation. You can’t do this, not to a girl like Heather. What a base betrayal, to hand her over to these blackmailers, these drug addicts; for that’s what you’re going to do. You know you are. You’re going to fit up that gadget in her room. She’s exactly the right person for their needs. She’d do anything to avoid having that tape handed over to her college. She’ll collect the drugs all right. Then she’ll recruit another courier. And how will she think of you, do you suppose? What contempt she’ll feel for you. What a low creature you have become. It’s not too late. You could still tell Victor. It might spoil your marriage and his career, but what is that compared with the ruining of this poor girl’s life? Don’t you despise yourself? You should.

  The voice of her conscience and the voice of her blood thundered against each other. Was she really ruining Heather? Had Naomi ruined her? Had she not once felt grateful to Naomi, for opening to her a world of new sensations and, incidentally, revivifying her marriage? Ah, but that had been before she had learned the second part of the price demanded of her: the recruitment of this second courier. What would Heather think of her when she found that out? Well, when it came to that, what did she herself think of Naomi, now that she knew the whole story, that she could put herself in Naomi’s place? Poor Naomi, what a bad time she has had. Wasn’t that how she felt for Naomi? Why should Heather feel any differently from her?

  Wasn’t that, in the last analysis, what hard experience taught you, sympathy for others? ‘Suffering with’ was the correct translation of that word. You couldn’t judge people if you understood why they had behaved in such a way. If her own actions were set down in black and white and put before a jury, she would be condemned as somebody beyond redemption. Yet that was not how she felt about herself. One thing had led to another. She was in a mess and must get out of it. Here was a heaven-sent opportunity. Why argue with herself? Either she ruined Victor’s career or got some confession on the tape. Why not Heather? Why not in heaven’s name? It had been done to her.

  At the same time she pictured self-accusingly the look that would come into Heather’s face when this wretched pimp of a man arrived with his miserable box and began to play back to her a record of the most private moments of her life. Oh damn, oh damn. If only she and Heather could enjoy to their heart’s content the enshrined week that lay ahead.

  Myra had practically a full week at her disposal—she was due to return to London on Saturday. That gave her five nights. She remembered Naomi’s discussion of that South African. ‘He’ll probably make his pounce three days before he leaves. Three nights is what you need for that kind of a romance.’ On that principle, she should try to bring things to a head on Wednesday. That South African. What a long time ago that seemed.

  Wednesday; that meant two quiet days. She must be careful not to frighten Heather. She must lull her into calm, get her off her guard, yet at the same time she must whet her curiosity, tantalise her, set her imagination working, implant prurient ideas.

  Much of the time they spent by the swimming pool. It was a good place for private talks, as she and Gerald had discovered. Because, at any moment, you were liable to be interrupted, because you were free to take a swim or order a cool drink, you did not have the feeling ‘We’re here for an appointment. We have to break it up in half an hour; we have to compress all we have to say within a certain time, to get the essential said.’ There was no sense of pressure. The talk drifted from one subject to another, cosy, friendly talk, but always sooner or later swinging back to this one subject, this omnipresent problem.

  Heather could not ask too many questions and Myra fed her curiosity. ‘How did you start?’ Heather asked. ‘How did you find this out about yourself?’

  ‘I found out very early. I think I was lucky. I was only fourteen. I was at a summer school. There was a girl four years older. She looked at me in a funny way. I seemed to guess.’

  ‘Weren’t you very surprised?’

  ‘Not really. Her being older made it seem all right. It was all so natural. She wasn’t embarrassed. Why should I be?’

  ‘And you enjoyed it?’

  ‘You bet I did. You don’t know what you’ve missed.’

  Myra asked Heather questions too. ‘You’ve got to be very careful when you’re with your pupils. I see that. But surely when you’re with one of the other mistresses, don’t you feel attracted, don’t you want to touch her?’

  ‘It’s something that hasn’t occurred to me. I never imagined that I could be that kind of person. I assumed that I should fall in love and marry and have children. I was only twenty when I married. Then …’

  ‘Tell me about your marriage.’

  Heather told her.

  ‘Oh, my poor sweet, my darling.’ She put her hand over Heather’s, stroking it.

  ‘After that I found everything to do with sex repugnant. I resented … Oh, how can I explain? All that part of my anatomy disgusted me.’

  ‘So that you never … After all, most girls experiment with themselves.’

  ‘I know they do. I never did; as a schoolgirl, I mean. I thought it would be bad for me on the playing fields, that it would put my eye out. I could wait till marriage. I’d enjoy it more for having waited. I could look forward to it as a reward.’ She laughed, a bitter little laugh. ‘A fine reward indeed.’

  ‘And since then … haven’t you felt inquisitive, enough anyhow to try?’

  ‘I might have, I suppose, in time, but … well, I had an odd experience. I was taking a shower. It was one of those gadgets with a long tube. I was spraying myself like crazy—I’ve always enjoyed showers—when suddenly I began to feel an altogether new sensation. I was standing up. I began to sway, to move my hips, like a hula dancer. My heart began to pound. I wanted to scratch, to scream, and then … well, you don’t need telling how I felt.… I slid back into the bath. I lay there gasping. So this is what they talk about, I thought.’

  ‘And now you’ve learned?’

  Heather laughed. ‘I look for bathrooms that have that kind of shower.’

  ‘You take them often?’

  ‘As often as I can, when I’m not playing serious golf.’

  ‘You must have enjoyed your shower on Saturday after you won the match.’

  ‘I’ll say I did, a long, long shower.’

  ‘I wish I’d been there.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have had one if you had.’

  ‘Don’t be so sure. You might have enjoyed it more, if I had brandished the spray.’

  They laughed again. Myra was still managing to keep it light.

  ‘What do you think of when you take these showers?’ Myra asked.

  ‘Nothing. Only of how much I’m enjoying it; how long I can make it last.’

  ‘When I used to experiment,’ Myra said, ‘I’d always think of someone, some special person. I’d hold my pillow in my arms and whisper to it.’

  ‘Was it a man or girl you thought of?’

  ‘Depends upon which was most upon my mind. But perhaps,’ Myra admitted, ‘it would be hard to think of somebody under a shower.’ She paused. ‘Surely,’ she went on, ‘you must sometimes have found some woman especially attractive.’

  ‘I’ve had special friends.’

  ‘Nobody, though, that you wanted to touch and hold?’

  Heather shook her head. ‘It’s never occurred to me to do that kind of thing.’

  ‘You’ve read about it?’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘But it never occurred to you to connect yourself with anything like that?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘I’ve an idea that you’re going to feel grateful to me one day.’

  For two days their long colloquy meandered from one confession to another. In a way it did not seem that it was headed anywhere. There was a constant reiterat
ion of earlier-expressed points of view; it was a covering of the same ground, over and over again.

  On neither Monday nor Tuesday night did they have a final nightcap in Myra’s suite. On Monday they went to a cinema; on Tuesday they stayed in the bar. They did not appear to have made any progress since the Sunday evening when Myra had made her first avowal. No reference had, indeed, been made to that avowal, yet in actual fact Myra had been conducting a subtle courtship. She had insinuated into Heather’s mind the idea that she should take the first step that counts. Heather had become accustomed to an idea that on Sunday had appeared to her not only impossible but outrageous. The idea of it had begun to fascinate her.

  ‘Do you really think it would make me happy?’ she asked Myra.

  Myra smiled. ‘You remember that couplet, “You will die unless you do / Find a mate to whisper to”; one needs in one’s life one friend who is more than a friend. And you need—we all need—love-making in your life. You as much as anyone, you who are so healthy and so human. Every psychologist will tell that. Seventy years ago doctors used to believe that if you couldn’t express sex in a normal marital relationship you should sublimate it in work, in athletics, in a career. We know better now. You can’t.’

  Heather sighed. ‘I envy your having started all this so young. It’s late for me.’

  Myra shook her head.

  ‘Maybe you’ll be glad you waited. You didn’t eat unripe fruit.’

  Already Heather had begun to toy with an insidious prospect. That was on Tuesday, over a final drink after dinner. Yes, she had travelled quite a distance, Myra thought. Tomorrow was Wednesday. With three days left: Naomi’s programme.

  In the morning Heather played a round of golf. But in the afternoon once again the two were lying out in deck chairs by the swimming pool. They had returned to the familiar topic. ‘Think,’ Myra was saying, ‘of the most attractive woman on the staff. Not necessarily the one you like the best—it’s funny but sometimes one doesn’t terribly like the person one’s in love with—no, think of the most attractive one. Now close your eyes. Picture her. Wouldn’t you like to hold her in your arms, to caress her, to be caressed by her? Forget this swimming pool. Forget all these people around you. Think of her, think of the two of you together, in the dusk, “tendrement enlacées”. Isn’t it a pretty picture?’