by Alec Waugh
‘I must confess it wasn’t.’
‘Then this is what I’m thinking. Somebody like yourself could be of extreme value to the C.I.D. There are a number of chinks we have to fill. I’m wondering whether in extreme circumstances if I found what seemed to me exactly the right assignment for you, you might undertake it.’
‘It’s worth considering.’
‘If I’m not being indiscreet, it’s the feminine angle that appeals to you.’
‘It certainly does.’
‘You wouldn’t be badly paid for this.’
‘That’s an inducement.’
‘What I suggest is this—we put you on a retaining fee, and the great advantage of money paid through the secret service is that you don’t declare it on your tax return. It’s yours and that is that.’
‘I can see nothing against that.’
‘And then when a special assignment comes your way, you’ll have all expenses met, taxis, cocktails at the Ritz, cosy little luncheons, then an ample bonus; and you would know it was all in a noble cause.’
‘You can guess what a difference that would make to me.’
They both laughed at that. ‘Still, it is nice to have your conscience clear,’ he said.
‘That’s something I’ve got to learn about.’
‘I’ll put it up at the next meeting; that’ll be next Wednesday.’
He called her shortly after four. ‘It’s settled,’ he said. ‘For the next three years you will be paid twenty-five pounds a month. It will be sent to you in notes in a registered envelope. You are a member of the Ladies Carlton, aren’t you? It’ll be sent there on the first day of every month. And when you have a special assignment—which I hope you will have quite soon—there’ll be an appropriate honorarium.’
‘It all sounds highly satisfactory.’
‘And your subversive friend is due to call tomorrow?’
‘At ten o’clock.’
‘I’ll see that he is properly received.’
Victor was back soon after six. He looked as immaculate and unperturbed as he had on that March evening when Kitty had seen him in the Brompton Road from the top of a 14 bus—as she would have seen him today had she been on one. ‘Had a good day?’ she asked.
‘A day like all my days.’
‘Nothing special?’
‘The daily round, the common task.’
Nothing to show that unbeknown to him the family finances had been improved annually by the endowment of three hundred untaxed pounds. How she would chuckle every time she opened that envelope. It gave her a cosy sense of superiority to have a secret from him. It also endeared him to her. ‘All the same you do look tired. I’ll mix the martinis for a change.’ She put on Sibelius’ Valse Triste. It was old and it was sentimental. But it had memories for them both. She was in the mood for it. It heightened, stimulated her already fevered mood. How close music brought them, and their shared love of it would hold them when this other immediate bond that held them now had lost its power. But that, thank heaven, was a long way off.
She watched him fondly as she listened. I really love you, she thought, love you as I never thought I could. At the start I didn’t know you. I was flattered. I was excited by your being attracted by me. What can he see in me, I’d think. I didn’t know you then. But now I do. I love you for your traits and habits; for your formality that I’ve broken down; for your secretiveness that I’ve eluded; for the quirks that nobody but me suspects. You’re mine and you’re staying mine. There’s no other woman in your life. I know that now; and there isn’t going to be one, because there isn’t anything that you could ask from another woman that you can’t ask, that you shan’t ask, from me. You’re mine, you’re staying mine.
She drained her cocktail in a quick deep gulp. ‘I need another,’ she said, ‘and so do you. Finish that one off.’
The cold bite of the martini fired her blood. An idea occurred to her that fired it even more. This might be the night for that. ‘Yes, you really do look tired. I’m going to give you a hot bath later on,’ she said.
She poured the blue essence into the steaming water. The scent of it filled the bathroom. ‘What does that do?’ he asked.
‘It takes away your aches and pains. In addition you can’t see what I’m doing.’
‘I see.’
Her hands moved upwards from his knees. ‘I had a friend who worked in a hospital. When she was bathing a man who attracted her she would say, “Would you like me to wash you here?” I am going to wash you here.’
It was the first time that she had bathed him. Bathing Heather had been exciting. But bathing Victor was more exciting. The effects were so much more tangible. The result of her efforts showed above the water like a mushroom. He smiled at the sight of it. ‘The sturdy uncapped hermit.’
‘That sounds like a quotation.’
‘It is.’
‘What from?’
‘A poem called “The Enchantment” that’s attributed to Byron.’
‘I’ve never heard of it.’
‘You wouldn’t have. It’s never appeared in print, as far as I know. It’s handed down by word of mouth from one generation of schoolboys to another.’
‘Did you memorise it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Please,’ she said.
With his hands clasped behind his head, he proceeded to recite. ‘I’ve forgotten the first few lines,’ he said. ‘You must imagine the narrator looking through the window of a chalet on a summer’s afternoon. This is what he sees:
“A youth and maid were in the room,
Were each in youth and beauty’s bloom.
She seemed in age about sixteen,
He full three summers more had seen.
And from the way they hugged and squeezed
Each seemed with other highly pleased.
Their garb was very light, for she
Was only clad in her chemise,
While he, the youth, did also lack,
All but one garment on his back.
And there the youth and beauteous maid
Still kissed and hugged, and hugged and played.
At length his free hand wandered o’er
The charms beneath the garb she wore.
Till warming more he bade her lift
Up to her slender waist her shift;
The which she did and there displayed
The loveliest limbs that e’er were made
To Lover’s kindly eye presented.
But he the youth was not contented,
But bade her straightway cast aside
The garb which did her beauties hide.”
Victor checked. ‘I never bothered to learn the lines describing her less essential charms, shoulders, breasts, navel, legs. It then goes on:
“All these he saw, but fixed his eyes
Most on the part below the thighs.
The only entrance to her heart
Lay like a rosebud set apart.
And this unlike to other girls’
Was yet unhid by shady curls,
But by a down as you might find
Upon the peach’s luscious rind
And still its coral lips displayed
Undimmed by this capillary shade.
A tempting prize, yet which to name
You, dear, would say it were a shame.
But still there’s many a blushing miss
Whose fingers try its path to bliss
And in their teens to show their shrine
Will lift waist high their crinoline
For some fair youth to fill with joy
With his easily erected toy
And in return some inches get
Between her open pantallette.
But to my tale: the youth was left
Still gazing at the open cleft
To which his fingers soon did fly
And raised his passions there so high
That casting off the garb he wear
He, too, stood naked
like the fair.
And with one arm around, intwined
Felt every part, before, behind.
Nor was she idle for her hand
Grasped something that it nearly spanned
And as it rose she took the dart
Which sometimes almost reached her heart;
And when she did her grasp resign
Her fingers opened love’s new shrine
To which with meaning full intent
The sturdy uncapped hermit went.
But in the rosy gates he lingers
Detained by her encircling fingers
Till with sensation dear to wives
Deep in the welcoming cavern dives,
And through and through triumphant goes
Right through the centre of the rose
Till with one last convulsive throe,
She feels love’s burning lava flow.”
‘There are a few more lines, but I never learned them.’
‘And I suppose you used to recite this to boys you had designs upon, to get them into the right mood?’
‘I never thought of that.’
‘You should have done. It might have been most effective. Byron—didn’t he like young sailors?’
‘That’s what they say nowadays.’
Pensively she moved the head of the uncapped hermit above the water. ‘You remember that novel we both liked, Consider the Lilies!’
‘Yes, very well.’
‘You know what was meant by the Italian way.”
‘Naturally.’
A half smile flickered on her lips. ‘It’s something we’ve never tried, you know.’
She knelt forward on the carpet, her head pressed against a cushion. She recalled that first night with the secret weapon, when Victor had knelt between her knees, and she had drawn a special thrill out of his subjection to her authority. Here was the process in reverse, in her abject surrendering to his caprice, irrespective of any pleasure that it might bring to her. There was a curious pride in the utterness of her submission, a sense of peace in her discomfort, of superiority in her abasement, of power in her thraldom.
‘Well?’she asked.
‘Well?’
‘Was it all that wonderful?’
‘Not all that wonderful.’
‘But I’m glad we tried; aren’t you?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘It may be better a second time, or a third,’ she added.
An acquired taste. She wondered if she could ever acquire that particular taste of Anna’s. Not with Victor. That would lead to jealousy, as Anna had foreseen in her own different case. Nor could she picture it with Heather and some such man, as Anna had described. She could not see herself as an initiator in this issue. It would have to be with somebody like Anna whose special thing it was. Why not after all with Anna? She mustn’t lose touch with Anna. Lena would not last forever. She sighed. It was good to know there were experiments ahead. One day soon she would leave a smouldering cigarette: one day, very soon.
There was a ring at the front door. She looked at the clock. Ten. That would be Mr. Frank. She went down to the front door. He was carrying his plastic briefcase.
‘All shipshape?’ he inquired.
She nodded and led the way upstairs. She had the tape waiting for him on the desk. She handed it across. ‘You’ve got my tape?’ she asked.
He nodded. ‘But I’d like to hear some of your tape first. I have to be sure it’s what we want.’
‘It’s rather long.’
‘We’ll hear some selected passages.’
He started at the beginning. Myra heard herself saying, ‘I recognise that you have to be very careful in a school like Annandale.’
‘Particularly someone like myself, who’s the symbol of health and fitness and propriety. If I taught history or modern literature, I wouldn’t need to be so strict.’
Mr. Frank let the tape run for a couple of minutes, then switched it off. ‘Excellent, excellent. There’s no mistaking who she is. Now let’s try a little action.’
He ran the tape through quickly; then once again he switched it on. Heather again, but in a very different voice. ‘Oh yes, oh yes, it’s wonderful.’ Myra closed her eyes. She could feel Heather’s fingers in her hair. Once again Mr. Frank let it run for a couple of minutes, then switched it off. ‘You certainly know your stuff.’
God, what a loathsome little man, she thought.
Again he ran the tape through quickly. Then once again there was Heather’s voice. ‘Don’t look so sad, darling. It’s I who should be sad, not you. I’ll be alone: you won’t be.’
This was the last morning. Heather had come into Myra’s suite for breakfast. Myra had wished she wouldn’t. There was confusion with the children. There had been no real chance to talk. Her heart was heavy. It was all over now. In an hour’s time she would be on her way to London, with the tape tucked in her suitcase. She would never see Heather again. And within two weeks Heather would be hating her, Heather whose eyes were now aglow, whose voice had taken on a deeper, richer tone. ‘Don’t be depressed,’ Heather was repeating. ‘We’ll be seeing each other again, so soon, so very soon.’
The machine clicked off. ‘No need to hear any more,’ said Mr. Frank. ‘You’ve done a fine, fine job. Here’s your own tape. I’ll leave the sound-box, as a souvenir. No sore feelings anywhere, I hope.’
He fitted the new tape into his briefcase.
‘You can find your way out, can’t you?’ Myra said.
She wanted to watch what happened from the window.
She heard the front door close, not with a slam, but firmly. She watched him step out onto the pavement, look to the left and right, then prepare to cross the street. As he did so, she saw a tall, powerful man walk up behind him; from lower down the street another powerful man walked forward; a third tall powerful man began to cross from the other side. The two men on the pavement each took one of his arms; a largish car drew up beside the kerb. Its door was opened by the man who had crossed the street. Mr. Frank was bundled into the car before he could make any move. The third man followed them inside; the car drove off.
It had not taken twenty seconds. That’s that, she thought. He’s a rat and he deserves it. Then she thought, who am I to call anyone a rat? I might have been arrested at the airport. She shrugged. She turned back into the room, the tape that Mr. Frank had brought lay on the table beside the sound producer. She fitted it in the box and turned it on. She heard her own broken sighs, her gasps. She heard Naomi pleading, ‘Darling, now you to me, please, please.’ She switched it off. What a lot had happened since that night. She was a different woman. She had discovered tastes, potentialities in herself that she had not suspected. Victor was a new husband. He must be happier in this new avatar.
Should she be ashamed of the woman that she had become, or should she see herself as doing the things, as being the person that forty women in a hundred would do, would want to be, if they had the chance? … How much fuller her life was now; how much more there was to look forward to. Heather—she would certainly be seeing her again. Not for long probably. Heather would need more than she could give, a woman to whom she could devote herself. The mate to whisper to.’ Herself she did not need that. Victor was that for her in a relationship that she could embellish and enrich. But there were delicious bypaths. She was now in receipt annually of three hundred untaxed pounds. What might that not lead her to?
She drew a long, slow breath into her lungs, she thought of Mr. Frank on his way to Wormwood Scrubs. She shrugged. He had been out of luck; but she was in. Someone had to pick up the good hand in every deal.
I’m going to enjoy the next ten years, she thought.
This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader
Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP
Copyright © 1970 by Alec Waugh
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ISBN: 9781448200610
eISBN: 9781448201938
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