A Spy in the Family

by Alec Waugh

  Heather opened her eyes, blinked, shook her head. ‘Almost too pretty a picture. But all the same, if I were to …’

  Myra interrupted her. ‘Not “if,” “when”—when you have your first affair.’

  ‘Oh, very well then, when … I shall feel so awkward. I shan’t know, in spite of all you’ve been telling me, I shan’t know what to do.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that.’ Myra paused. Now, she thought, now’s my chance. ‘Darling, it’ll be very simple,’ she began. ‘The first time almost certainly it will be the other one who sets the pace, someone who is experienced, who has been watching you for a little while, waiting for you to make a sign, or for you to respond to some sign from her; that’s how it was for me. That’s how it will be for you. It probably won’t happen in your school at all. It’ll be somewhere private, a hotel maybe. She’ll simply say, “I’ll come to your room tonight, at half past nine.” And soon after quarter-past, you’ll be sitting waiting. You’ll be happy, tremulously happy. You won’t be frightened as a bride is on her first night. You’re not going to be assaulted, opened, hurt. It will be rapture, nothing else. You’ll watch the minute hand, impatiently. At last you’ll see the handle turn. The door will open. You’ll see her outlined against the light of the passage. Then the door will close; you’ll hear the lock click. She’ll be wearing a gown over her pyjamas. She’ll stand beside you. She’ll rest her hand upon your shoulder. Her fingers will stroke your shoulder. “I’m going to give you a bath,” she’ll say. “But I’ve already had a bath,” you’ll say. “I’m going to give you a special bath,” she’ll answer.

  ‘She’ll cross into the bathroom. You’ll hear the splash of water. “Come,” she’ll say. The room will be filled with a rich, heavy smell. She’ll have taken off her clothes. She’ll lead you by the hand. She’ll lift your gown over your head. Her hand will pass over your back in a long, slow caress. There will be a white scum on the top of the water, but underneath it will be blue. “So that you can’t see what I’m doing,” she will say. She’ll splash the water over you; then she’ll begin to soap you; and her hands will be so slippery and so smooth. You’ll feel that you’ve never had a bath before. The palms of her hands will roll around your breasts. She will lift first one leg out of the water, then the other. Her washing of them will be a slow caress. Her fingers will tantalise you as they draw nearer, nearer. As she dries you, she will hold you close, all the length of your body against hers. “Now I’m going to massage you,” she will say. She’ll lay you on the bed. She’ll sprinkle you with powder. She’ll start on your back. She will kneel across you. Your hips will feel the softness of her thighs. She will knead your shoulders, your neck, your back. “And now the front,” she’ll say. But now it won’t be only her hands and fingers. It will be her lips and tongue. Her kisses will wander over your face, your throat, your knees. She will bite the lobe of your ear gently, then a little harder, till it almost hurts. As her lips move from one breast to the other, her hands will slide over your stomach, and between your legs, dividing, opening, first one finger, then a second. You will writhe and squirm. There will be no hurry. With a man there is that vibrant urgency that has to be assuaged. It’s different with a woman. She can prolong, she can renew your pleasure. Her lips move from your breasts; they descend. Her head is between your legs; your thighs feel the softness of her cheeks. Her kisses linger as they approach. Your anticipation mounts. You can scarcely endure the delay. If only she would hurry, hurry. Yet at the same time you are terrified lest it will end, that it won’t last forever. And then suddenly the darting tongue is there. And that for a woman is one of the great physical sensations of her life. It is unique, as is the orgasm itself. Till she has appreciated it, she cannot know what it is. And she will remain forever grateful to whomsoever it is, male or female, who is her initiator. There’s no reason why it should not be a man. Perhaps it is better for her in the long run if it is, but with a man—this has to be remembered—all the titillations and sidelines of love-making are a prelude for what is for him l’essentiel. With a woman that isn’t so; for her the prelude is Vessentiel. That’s by the way. It will be for you, that first experience of a darting tongue, the opening of a whole new world. You will sigh and groan. Your fingers will close in her hair. You will feel simultaneously that you are about to die, expire or explode. Yet never have you been more alive; and then when the succession of sighs has at length subsided, her head will be beside yours on the pillows, and in love, in gratitude, you will have an overpowering impulse to repay the gift that has been made to you. You in turn will slide down the bed, lingering, your kisses playing with her breasts, your head between her knees; then your kisses mounting, and maybe you will feel an instant’s hesitation, a doubt, almost repugnance, but your sense of gratitude will override it; and when you have overridden it, you will feel—it’s impossible to explain precisely what you feel, it’s no doubt different for everyone, I can only tell you what it was for me. I had, for the first time, a recognition of what a woman is, of what I as a woman was myself—that lush, odorous dampness, and the vitality that it contained, the nerve cells and the responsiveness. There are bigger moments, but they are different moments. I am not even sure if they are bigger … but it’s unique.…’ She paused. ‘Don’t worry, darling. It’ll all be made very easy for you.’ She swung herself off the chair. ‘After all that, I’m for a swim,’ she said. She lowered her hand onto Heather’s ankle. She shook it, stroking the fine thin bones. ‘I’ll come to your room tonight,’ she said, ‘around nine-thirty.’

  11

  Well, and that’s that, she thought. It was Monday morning and she was back in Hampstead. Victor was on his way to Whitehall. The children were learning the alphabet from the au pair girls. The tape recorder was safely locked away. It was the first moment of complete peace that she had known for weeks. For better or for worse the thing was settled. It was too late now to consider rights or wrongs. She had behaved no doubt atrociously, but she was in the clear. Never again, she vowed. Never, never again. Though even as she vowed she thought as so often she had thought before, How could I have known? I didn’t start it. Where did I go wrong? The telephone bell rang. The voice was familiar, but she couldn’t place it.

  ‘It’s Gerald Armitage. There’s something I want to talk to you about. Could I come out and see you?’

  ‘Of course, yes, when?’

  ‘This afternoon?’

  ‘Fine. When? For tea?’

  ‘Can you make it earlier? You take tea with your children, I remember.’

  ‘How about three o’clock?’

  ‘Three o’clock is fine. Oh, and one other thing. I’d rather you didn’t mention to Victor that I’m coming out. You’ll understand why when I’ve seen you.’

  That’s curious, she thought—his wanting to come out at all, and then not wanting to have Victor know. If he hadn’t poured out his soul by the swimming pool, she’d have thought he had designs on her.

  He was wearing a dark blue pin-stripe suit, with a stiff white collar and a Vincent’s tie. It was the first time she had seen him in formal day clothes. There was almost a Treasury look about him. He handed her a medium-sized white envelope. ‘If you’ll look at the photographs inside that,’ he said, ‘you’ll understand.’

  They were in colour. The first one showed her entering Valentina’s boutique in Beirut. Her back was to the camera. The second was rather dim, but it was clear that the same woman who had gone through the door was being given a gift-wrapped package. The third showed her returning to the street, with the package under her arm. It was a very clear photograph.

  ‘Now,’ he said, ‘you’ll understand how I recognised you right away.’

  The fourth showed her at the Customs shed. The inspector had lifted the gift-wrapped package from her night bag and was turning it over in his hand. The fifth and last one was of her own street in Hampstead. It showed Mr. Frank coming out of her house, with his plastic briefcase under his arm.

  M
yra had been exposed to a number of surprises during the last six months. This was the greatest. She stared at Gerald. She could not think what to say.

  ‘Don’t be alarmed,’ he said. ‘You are not in any trouble.’

  ‘Whom do you represent?’

  ‘One of the more secret branches of the C.I.D. One of my jobs is to watch the drug traffic.’

  ‘Then why wasn’t I arrested at Customs?’

  ‘Because I believed that if we let you free, we should get more evidence against the people who employed you, as indeed we have done. We’ve been watching Valentina’s shop for quite a while. Then when we found out who you were, we watched your house. Frank was a man we’d had our eyes on. Now we knew. We’ve watched him over the last four months. The net is now ready to close. But there are one or two extra things I need to know, things that you can tell me.’ He paused. ‘You may have been surprised at my making you that long confession at the pool the other morning.’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘I had a purpose. I wanted you to feel completely at your ease with me, so that you would know that I was someone you could not shock. I want you to tell me your whole story, how you got into this in the first place, what they’ve made you do, what is your position now.’

  She told it from the very start, omitting nothing; he did not interrupt. But every now and then, in a half pause, he would encourage her with an ‘Ah yes, I see.’ Once he said ‘Now this is very helpful, I’d been wondering that.’ When she had finished he said, ‘You’ve filled in a lot of gaps. This rounds off the story. We can go into action right away.’

  He paused. ‘As to the recruitment of this new courier, you’ve got the tape with you still?’

  She had explained that she had carried out her mission, though she had not given Heather’s name. Perhaps he had guessed who it was.

  ‘When will you hand it over?’

  ‘I expect him to ring up tomorrow.’

  ‘Then what you have to do is this: delay the handing over until Thursday. Then I can make my plans. I’ll have him arrested as he leaves your house, with the tape on him.’

  ‘ What’ll happen to the tape?’

  ‘It will be used in evidence. It will be very useful evidence.’

  ‘Will the name of the person who is concerned come out in court?’

  ‘No, no. It will be heard in camera.’

  ‘She won’t have to give evidence?’

  ‘Not any more than you will.’

  ‘You mean that she’ll never know a tape was taken of her?’

  ‘Never.’

  Myra closed her eyes. The extent of her relief was the gauge of her previous anxiety. Heather would never know. They could meet again, with no sense of shame, no hatred, no shiver of betrayal. What a reprieve. What luck. What undeserved good luck.

  ‘Does this mean that as far as I’m concerned the case is over, that nothing’s going to happen to me, although I’ve broken the law, though I’ve smuggled drugs into the country?’

  ‘You’ll hear no more of this.’

  But even now she was incredulous: that she had got off scot free; that Heather would not suffer; that Heather would never know; that she herself had, in this final adding-up, proved to have done no one any harm. No need for a sense of guilt. ‘It’s a lucky break for me,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not denying that.’

  ‘It was lucky that you, and not someone else, was on the case.’

  ‘That’s possible. Another man might have had you arrested at Customs.’

  ‘Was it because I was Victor’s wife I wasn’t?’

  ‘No. I didn’t know then who you were. I simply felt that we hadn’t enough evidence to pounce. I wanted to get the big fish too.’ He paused. ‘One of the things I like most about this job is the knowing of secrets other people don’t.’

  ‘Is that what made you take it on?’

  ‘In part.’

  She looked at him questioningly. She had an idea that he wanted to talk about himself, an indulgence he could not allow himself very often in view of his devious amatory tastes and the secrecy essential to his job.

  ‘Do many people know that you work for the C.I.D.?’

  ‘Only two or three. Half my value lies in their not knowing. My golf and that commission job for the wine boys make a first-class cover.’

  ‘Did the C.I.D. fix you up with that?’

  ‘Indirectly. It’s not a very serious occupation.’

  ‘Heather worries about that. She wonders what’s going to happen to you when you stop winning tournaments.’

  ‘I know she does. Poor Heather.’

  ‘Do you get a kick out of posing as a playboy when you are really a very hard-working, serious-minded man?’

  ‘I must say I do, particularly where my brother is concerned. Have you heard about him?’

  ‘From Heather, just a little.’

  ‘What did she say about him—that he’s a pompous prig?’

  ‘That’s what it amounted to.’

  Gerald laughed. ‘I can see her thinking that. He’s not too bad a chap but he’s, oh, so worthy. The Malvolio type. He thoroughly disapproves of me. Why can’t I get myself a solid job? I chuckle to myself when he reads me lectures. He’s jealous too, of course. Because on the whole people like me; and I’m in the public eye. Then there’s my mother. I’m her favourite. That maddens him, because he does, in point of fact, love her more than I do.’

  ‘That surprises me.’

  ‘Because you are seeing me in terms of what Heather told you, and I am a devoted son to my mother. What is more, I’m an exceedingly good one, perhaps the better for not being too absorbed in her. Where one loves too much one becomes tyrannical, possessive, jealous; one gives so much that one demands an equal return. It’s much easier to be kind to somebody one likes. I’m a very, very good son. I make her very happy. I pretend to be dependent on her. She loves that. Sometimes I borrow money from her.’

  ‘Money that you don’t need.’

  ‘Of course. But it makes her so happy to feel I really need her. I’m terribly grateful to her, so abject, and so contrite. I vow I’ll never get into debt again. She says, “There, there, don’t worry, darling. What’s money for if I can’t help my children with it?” I’ll bet she never tells my brother. He would get self-righteously indignant. He’s so proud of his independence. Always stood on his own feet, paid his own way. I put the money I borrow in trust for his eldest son. I hope my brother outlives me so that he can have the shock of reading of that legacy in my will. Not that it will do me much good on the other side.’ He chuckled again. ‘This will make you smile,’ he said. ‘I’m quite high up in this job of mine. Last summer they wanted to put me on the Birthday Honours List, an M.B.E. for public services. I would have loved that, just to see the look on my sainted brother’s face. But I had to refuse it—for my mother’s sake. She’d have felt so cheated if she learned that all the time I’d had a solid job and didn’t need her money. She’d be miserable if she couldn’t go on thinking of me as the weak and charming little boy who needs her.’

  ‘Perhaps in twenty years, when she’s no longer here, they might offer you a knighthood.’

  ‘They might at that. The spy who came in from the cold, and sat as chairman of the board.’

  ‘You’ll be able to cock a magnificent snook at your brother when it does. You must get a good deal of inward chuckling in your job.’

  ‘I’m going to get a very pleasant chuckle the day after tomorrow when I inform your husband that owing to some very valuable information that we have received from one of our agents we are at last in a position to round up a ring of dope smugglers.’

  ‘How on earth will you come to be telling Victor that?’

  ‘He sits on one of our committees. He’s the Treasury’s representative to see that we don’t spend too much.’

  ‘This is a day of surprises for me all right.’

  For a moment she did not speak. She was following a new thread of thought
. ‘He won’t of course know who the agent is?’

  ‘Of course not. We never reveal our sources. We simply tell him how much we’ve spent on them.’

  ‘I see.’ Again she paused. ‘Where do you hold these meetings? In his office?’

  ‘No, in ours. We have a discreet flat in Knightsbridge. We meet there every other Wednesday.’

  Knightsbridge. The Brompton Road. It was on a Wednesday that Kitty had called her up. That was how Kitty had come to see Victor from the top of a 14 bus. She burst out laughing. ‘No, I’m not going to explain,’ she said. ‘This is my own, my very private joke.’ And what a joke it was! None of this need have happened. If she hadn’t felt jealous about Victor, she wouldn’t have needed sleeping pills. Her doctor would not have recommended her to take that trip to Malta, If she had not gone, she would never have met Naomi.… None of this need have happened, none of this would have happened. But if she hadn’t gone to Malta … Was not her marriage better, fuller, because she had been to Malta? Had not she had doors opened for her that she had not known existed? Did she regret that she had been to Malta? … No, heavens no, she didn’t. Now that the consequent penalties had been removed.

  ‘One day I’ll tell you why I laughed,’ she said. ‘It is a very private joke, but one that … Well, I think you are the one person in the world who’d see the point of it.’ She rose. ‘Is that all?’

  ‘That’s all.’

  She held out her hand. ‘This has been the most extraordinary afternoon of my whole life.’ She paused. ‘I may not ever see you again, but … I would like to say this: I like you very much.’

  He smiled. His fingers folded round her hand. ‘I, too,’ he said. He turned to leave, then checked. ‘I’ve an idea,’ he said.

  ‘What’s that.’

  ‘This recruitment of another courier … it was very much a secret-service mission. You carried it out extremely well. May I ask you this … forgive me please if I seem impertinent … but after all, as that highwayman in The Beggar’s Opera said, “We know enough about each other to hang each other.” We’ve let down our hair. So tell me, this recruitment of a courier, the actual work involved, was it repugnant to you?’