‘Well, it was just a thought. Not a nice one in origin, but there.…’
Raikes smiled, a sudden warmth in him for this man. Greedy he might be, but for God’s sake what did that matter? They had worked together loyally for years, and those years had put them close, bound them into a relationship stronger in many ways than friendship. He said, ‘You just come flying in on that helicopter at the right moment and fire your little Very light. The stakes are higher than selling off a phoney business but beyond that there’s no difference. We’re just going to manipulate people as we did in the past. You and I—with a little outside help. Nobody can teach us anything about people.’
He left Berners and went to find Belle. They drove back to London having dinner on the way. They slept together that night and he stayed in London for another three days before going back to Devon. The day after he went back Belle learned that she was eight weeks pregnant.
She sat in the kitchen. On the table before her was an untouched mug of coffee. A dirty dun-coloured skin had formed on top of it. She dropped her cigarette end on it and the skin slowly collapsed under the weight disappearing like a closing parachute.
Good old Belle, she thought. Always something cropping up and, as usual, not something that made her want to dance with pleasure. Her first hope had been that because of all this Cunard business coming up she had been upset and put off her course. But after a few tests the doctor had been certain.
How could it have happened? Always she wore a diaphragm and, when she had time or warning, she used a vaginal jelly … Yet here it was. She was going to have a child. His child. No wonder, considering the way he came into her sometimes and worked at her. It was enough to knock anyone’s cap off. But what the hell did she do? Did she tell him? After all, he might want it, might even … No, he would never marry her because of it. They didn’t have that kind of code. He had some kind of love for her. She was sure of that. But not her kind of love for him. She had money now and he would leave her to carry the baby if she wanted to go ahead with it. But did she want it? She lit another cigarette and tried to see herself as a mother—unmarried—fussing around with a child … well, it would be a new role. And why not? Once you got over the first stages of thinking about it, of knowing that it was there inside you, then you could go on to think of the good things. A child. His child. Something of him, anyway, that she would always have when she had lost him. And she was going to lose him. No question of that. He was in this with her because he had no choice. But once this ship business was over he would be away. Lots of girls she supposed lost a lover and were left with his child as a consolation prize. Did she really want that? Something that would always remind her of him? When he went perhaps it would be better to have nothing. Get your head down, Belle, and begin to forget him. Make an empty space in your head and your heart where he had been and then fill it up with any old junk that came along.
She got up and walked through into the lounge. There was a copy of The Field lying on a table where he had left it. That was his life. It could never be hers. That’s where he was now. Down in his bloody Devon—and not a thought in his head for her. Hunting and shooting and fishing. The country frightened her. If she walked across a field and a cow turned a head towards her she thought it was a bull. Sometimes of an evening here, when he had had a few drinks, he would sit and talk to her generally about the country, about his river … but all the time she knew that he wasn’t really talking to her. He was talking to himself, reminding himself of what he really loved. And what he really loved didn’t include her. He took her body up here, enjoyed it, but he did it—she smiled to herself ruefully—like a mountaineer because it was there and he just had to get on top of it. And now she was pregnant. And only a month away was the time when she would go aboard the QE2. Miss Belle Vickers—unmarried mother to be (unless she got rid of it)—bound for New York, and sometime after midnight on the first night out she’d stand on one of the after-decks with a big handbag full of those damned canister things … and, if the job didn’t go smoothly, she’d walk forward dropping them here and there. She’d do it if it came to it because where he was concerned she had no will of her own.… Never had had. Always been told what she must do and doing it ever since she had first put her hand out for that two-bob tin of talcum powder or whatever it had been.… If she had any sense she knew what she should do right now. Pack up, while he was away, get right out of here, hide somewhere, find herself a cottage or a flat up North, forget this nightmare about the ship, and sit back and either have the brat or get rid of it. That’s what she should do. She had the money and the time. But she knew she would never do it. When the time came she would be walking aboard that ship, and she would be hoping, against a sure knowledge that it could never happen, that one day he would take her in his arms, holding her and not her body, and tell her that he’d been a blind, stupid fool and that she was the only one in the world for him. Bliss. Just like it happened in the bloody films. True love, after a shaky start and a bundle of Technicolor misunderstandings, shining through and filling the screen with a big close-up. Well, why not? For Christ’s sake, surely it did happen just now and again—and somebody had to come up with the winning number? Why not her? She could believe it one moment, reject it the next. But she could never reject it entirely. Hope springs eternal, Belle. And now here she was with his child under her belt, and the telephone not six feet from her and all she had to do was to put out her hand and be talking to him, telling him what had happened.… How did you know about other people? Maybe it would make all the difference in the world. He could be delighted and come rushing back to her with his arms full of flowers and his head full of happy plans.… Couldn’t she see it, just. Not on your bloody life.
She went to the sideboard, reached for the brandy and then changed her mind and poured a large glass of gin. Mother’s ruin. But the moment she held it towards her mouth she put it back. It would just make her tight and give her a hangover. That’s the way it would be with her.
She flopped back into an armchair, nursing a gentle misery and then within minutes it was gone. That was the damned trouble with her. Although there was more black than white, she couldn’t look too long on the black side. Maybe she had got the whole thing twisted up and didn’t really understand him. Perhaps until this ship thing was out of the way he was deliberately not showing her what he felt for her—except when they were in bed, and wasn’t that barometer enough? In the height of passion he said things to her, nice things, crude things, but always things she welcomed. Maybe when all this was over.… She drifted away in a daydream. He had another house down there that he was going to move into. Why shouldn’t she go with him, with their child? There was nothing wrong with her. She could learn to like the country. She dressed well, and, for Christ’s sake, she didn’t speak and act like a tart. She could mix. She could be whatever he might want her to be. Church on Sundays, a good mother, a good hostess. She could learn to play bridge … ride a horse (Oh, God, perhaps not that) … be a good wife. And anyway, there was this. If he married someone else then it would be a woman who would never know anything about this ship business. But who knew whether some time in the future things might not break badly, trouble come rushing up to the doorstep? It wouldn’t be fair to do that to another woman. Have her discover that her husband wasn’t all he looked to be … break her heart. But, she, Belle, wouldn’t mind. She would be with him, stand by him. No shock to her. It was something they would share together for the rest of their lives and be ready to fight if bad luck brought the police. Wasn’t that something he must eventually see, even if he hadn’t seen it now? He had to, surely? Surely from the moment she had walked into his house with Sarling’s note Fate had meant them for one another, sealed the contract that meant they always had to be together for better or for worse? That, for sure, would be something he would come to understand? Of course it was.
Cheerfully, she got up and poured herself a glass of brandy. You’re just too gloomy, Belle. Always l
ooking on the dark side.
She raised her glass, sipped and silently toasted herself. Here’s to a long life and a happy one with the right man. But as she turned away from the sideboard, as though she had moved from a warm room into a cold one, draught billowing through an open window, she felt the glow of optimism begin to fade.
There was almost a month to go. He had no reason to return to London until a week before the ship sailed, unless something came up from Benson or Berners and then Belle would telephone him.
The country closed around him and no effort was needed to forget what lay ahead. The thing was fixed, planned, awaited only execution. There was no need to go over and over it in his mind.
He dropped back into the way of life which long ago he had known and which, soon, would become permanent with him. He fished the Taw, the Torridge and the Tamar. On the Torridge one cold and dry day, with the water in perfect condition, he took three salmon, the largest sixteen pounds, all of them with sea-lice still on them. Spring was rushing in. The blue-tit belled in the bank growths. Kingfishers, bright-coloured meteors against the young green bud-burst, flashed up the waters and the courting dippers bobbed and curtsied in haste to one another on the river boulders. Standing still in a Tamar pool one evening he had a mink swim by within two feet of him, a sleek, miniature seal. Coming home in the fading light later a dog otter crossed the gravel drive ahead of him, stopped, sniffed the air towards him, and leisurely moved away through the rhododendrons.
He was more social now, went out to dinner with his friends, let this life close around him, drawing strength and comfort from it. Mary was back but he met her only once at a friend’s house and they were pleasant with one another, but it was clear that nothing remained between them as far as he was concerned. He was grateful to her that she had done for them what he knew in the end he would have forced himself to do.
All the work at Alverton Manor was now finished, but he knew that he would not move into it by himself, knew, too, that he would do nothing about any other woman until after the bullion lift.
Sometimes of an evening when Mrs Hamilton had gone, Belle would telephone him. Usually she was reluctant to ring off and he let her chat away without impatience.
Then in mid-April when she rang one night she said, ‘Berners wants to see you. When can I tell him you’ll be up, Andy?’
‘The day after tomorrow. Tell him I’ll meet him in the R. A.C. for lunch.’
‘You’ll be coming here?’
‘Yes, of course. We’ll go out to dinner.’
He went up on the morning train and met Berners for lunch. To his surprise Benson was there, too. From Berners he learned that a dummy run had been carried out at night with the helicopter with an adverse wind on the outward leg of the flight, but even so there had been an ample margin of fuel.
Benson said, ‘I came along to tell you that from now on neither Mr Mandel nor I will be in England. Berners is coming back to France two days before the ship sails. If anything goes wrong this end or if you want to get in touch you can use the Applegate number you’ve got. Also, to put your mind at rest, we’ve checked at least three City gold dealers and there will be consignments aboard of well over a ton. We’ve arranged a weather check when you get to Le Havre. We’ll check it in the Brest area and Miss Vickers will receive a direct radio telephone call aboard ship from Berners. He’ll talk generally for a few moments and then she will ask him how her aunt is. If Berners says she’s much the same, that means the operation is on. If he says she’s much worse than she was, then the operation is off. If between the time of the ship leaving Le Havre and midnight the weather gets too bad for the helicopter then it won’t show up and, since you won’t get any Very light signal, you won’t go into action.’
‘And I’ll be on my own. Aboard without a ticket.’
Benson shrugged. ‘Well, that won’t be very serious. You can say you couldn’t bear to leave Miss Vickers and offer to pay for your passage.’
After lunch Raikes walked up to Mount Street and stopped on his way at a flower shop in Berkeley Square. He went into the flat carrying a bunch of crimson carnations.
The flowers were too much for Belle. It was the first time he had brought her any and, as she held them after he had kissed and greeted her, she could not stop herself from thinking that the recent days of separation had forced upon him some recognition of what she meant to him; that he had truly missed her and wanted her to know this, not with words but with the show of flowers. This fantasy of thought on her part, and she knowing it was fantasy though half-believing it was not, broke her down.
She went into the kitchen and came back carrying the flowers arranged in a vase and put them on the table. She stood behind them and smiled at him and the news she had not meant to give him came from her, stumbling and awkward.
‘They’re lovely, Andy.… It’s like, almost, as though something might have told you.… Well, you know, that it was just what … well, what we both wanted. Say it with flowers.’
Raikes went towards his bedroom to put away his overnight case. ‘My father used to grow carnations in his greenhouse. Grew them for years and then he and the gardener had a flaming row about them.… God knows what about. But they were always quarrelling with one another about plants. Anyway there were no more carnations.’
She followed him to the door, knowing that he had heard nothing pertinent in her remarks. For a moment she hesitated. She could let it go or persist. Damn it, he had to know. For both their sakes he had to know. All right then, for her sake most. Perhaps this was the one thing that was needed to make him see what he felt about her.
‘Andy …’
‘Yes.’ He turned.
‘Do I look different?’
‘Different?’
He looked at her. He was used to her now and there seemed nothing different about her. Not even when she changed her hair style or wore a new dress was she ever more than Belle, the woman who was there, had to be there because that for the time being was the way things ran with him.… Belle with the loose auburn hair, that long Burne-Jones face, not pretty or beautiful but not unattractive.… Belle, long-legged, well-fleshed on the breasts and buttocks, slim-waisted, all familiar, well-known in love-making, but just Belle Vickers who at times with her Andy and her supposes and well, yes, buts could make him clench his teeth with suppressed irritation.
Gallantly, he said, ‘ You look as lovely as ever.’
Pleased, she said, ‘Perhaps that’s it. You were all eyes for me. You should have listened to what I said, Andy. I said we, Andy. We were happy to have flowers from you.… Oh, Lord, do you want me to spell it out? I’m going to have a baby. Your baby.’
He said nothing. He just stared at her. Curiously he was unsurprised. Not because it was something which, even in a passing thought, he had imagined could happen. He had never given it a thought. But in these few moments now he saw that this was how it had to be, this was part of the irony of life which had begun to operate from the moment months and months ago when he had put a red ballpoint tick against a fishing rod in a catalogue. From a position of strength and security, the future planned the way he wanted it, everything had to sway and tremble, threatening collapse, only to be held together by his own unyielding determination. For months he had been doing that … was almost on the point of restoring things the way he wanted them. And now this woman was carrying his child. He stood there, not thinking of her, but of Mary. Mary should have been the one, not this underbred, market hack. Christ—the thing he wanted most was held by her … an unfamilied slut, fumbled with by her own stepfather (Oh, yes, in the aftermath of passion one night she had lain and told him about herself, pouring it out), mucked about by boy-friends in shared flats, used in hotel rooms by some salesman crook … used by Sarling like a willing or not housemaid in a top attic spreading her thighs for the master … yes, used by him, too. But only for use. Not for carrying his seed. Not in her. He saw her lips tremble, knew the stupid, weak irresolution in her …
supposing he might be angry … wondering was it all right … and he knew exactly what she was going to say, and heard her say it.
‘Oh, Andy … I thought … well, I supposed that you would be pleased. I’m sorry about it … but, well, I did always wear a thing. It was no cheat and I swear—’
He went to her, put his hands firmly on her shoulders and cut off her words with a quick smile and a kiss.
‘Stop getting worked up. Of course, I’m pleased.’
‘Oh, Andy, are you? You really and truly are?’
‘Well, of course I am. But it’s come at an awkward moment hasn’t it? It just depends what you want to do about it. If you want to keep it, well that’s fine. It doesn’t make any difference to all this ship business. But if you want to get rid of it—’
‘Get rid of it?’
‘If you want to. It’s for you to decide. But, if that’s what you want, we can’t risk having it done before this trip … there might be complications. You might not be fit to travel.’
Her voice trembling with anger; Belle said, ‘Why don’t you say you don’t want me to have it? Is that it?’
‘Belle … it’s nothing to do with me.’
For the first time, out of her disappointment and unhappiness at his response, she lost her temper with him.
‘Listen—you put it in me. It’s everything to do with you. Do you want it or not? I’m not asking you to make an honest woman of me. I’m just asking you whether you want it or not?’
‘Be sensible, Belle. This is your decision, not mine. I’ve always been frank with you. I’m very fond of you. In a way, if you like I’ve a kind of love for you.…’ He was picking his way delicately now because he knew that somewhere he had handled her wrong. ‘But I’ve always made it clear that I wouldn’t marry you. We’ve been thrown very close together in all this business and what has happened is what would happen between two normal people. But when it’s all over we’ve got our lives to live separately. If you want to keep it, then naturally, I’ll be financially responsible for it. I’ll be happy for you to keep it, but you’ve got to think of yourself. Some other man will come along and there you will be with my child. Other men don’t go too readily for that kind of thing. You must see, it’s your decision not mine.’ As he spoke he moved up to her, put his arm round her and drew her against him. ‘Now come on, calm down. You’ve been waiting here to tell me this and now you’ve done it you’re all worked up. But I’ve got to be honest with you. At least I love you enough to be that. If you want to keep it, then I’m happy for you, and happy for me. But if you want to get rid of it, then I can understand that. Whichever way, though, it’s got to be your decision. Damn it all, Belle—it’s your future. Now come on, simmer down.’ He turned her face up to his and kissed her.
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