by John Lawton
“However, we are lucky, we are privileged to have one of Vienna’s own step into Lavrenti Rodyonovich’s shoes. I might say at no notice, and we are, sadly, completely unrehearsed together, but be assured you will not be disappointed. Ladies and gentlemen—Méret Voytek.”
The applause returned with a bang, and suddenly it all made sense to Troy—it all fell into place … everything except the empty seat.
He’d not set eyes on Voytek since the day he’d stuck her on the ferry to Calais ten years ago. At twenty-four she’d looked older than her years, her hair prematurely, brazenly white after a year in the hands of the Nazis. Now, she had more flesh on her bones, she had dyed her hair back to its youthful black, no longer wearing white as her badge of suffering.
It wasn’t a happy face that looked out at her waiting, appreciative audience, but the habitual frown he had known had softened into a more neutral expression, as though the soul inside might be one prepared to give life a chance.
Her dress was pleasingly immodest. Skintight, up to her throat at the front, practically down to the crack of her arse at the back, the unbroken paleness of her skin in stark contrast to the concert black of the fabric—the only hint of colour was a single narrow strip following the seam from the right shoulder to the hemline, just above her knee, a line of crimson piping no wider than that on the cap of a London clippie, that spoke a defiance that might be visible from the moon.
She took her seat. Chertkov faced the orchestra, turned once to look at Voytek, nodded and raised his baton. The rhythm of the string section, almost syncopated, Troy thought, struck up with a deep murmur, a bass rumble of anxiety, apprehension and fear … a sudden drop into nothingness and nowhere—a dark, dark opening to any concerto.
Unless the conductor was a galloper trying to break the mood, a good two and a half minutes usually passed before the pianist was cued, by which time it could feel to the listener as though one had passed une saison en enfer. Most pianists sat with their spine straight, their hands in their laps, and let the sombre mood of the music dictate. At the first notes, Voytek had reached out a hand to the top of the piano and leaned her head on her arm. Within thirty seconds she had buried her face in her hands. After a minute she took them away and spoke to Chertkov. Neither Troy nor anyone else in the audience could hear what she said, but, with his baton in his right hand still conducting, Chertkov had turned to her, extended his left, and said:
«Ты можешь это сделать» You can do it.
Troy could guess at her reply.
Chertkov said, «Да, ты можешь. Ты игралa это и в прошлом сезоне.» Yes, you can. You played it only last season.
Her hands returned to her face. There were now only seconds left to her cue.
«Méret, ты же хорошо знаешь эту пьесу.» Méret, you know this piece so well.
Her left hand still clutched her chin, her right reached out to the keyboard and played the first delicate notes of Mozart’s melody. The left hand touched down and, for the next half hour, she put not a finger wrong, and whilst there might well have been people in the audience still wondering what the opening fuss had been about, they rose as one to applaud her.
Troy kept his seat for the interval. Just after the bell sounded the man he’d encountered in the Stephansplatz came out from the wings and handed him another envelope.
“We can’t go on meeting like this,” Troy said.
But the man merely smiled and said, “Entschuldigung.”
Inside was another concert ticket for tomorrow night, Mozart’s Twenty-seventh, and a handwritten note:
“Stay in your seat when the lights go up. MV.”
He grew impatient during the Sinfonia Concertante. More so during the symphony. The “Jupiter” was so well known as to be sing-along-a-Mozart and right now, for once in his life, he cared more about the mystery than the music.
The hall had emptied of all but cleaners by the time Voytek appeared, dressed in mufti—slacks and a duffel coat, clutching her music case.
She hugged him silently for a moment.
“If I say you don’t know how glad I am to see you, it’s only because you haven’t spent the last ten years in Russia.”
“That was marvellous,” he said.
“Victory from the jaws of defeat, eh?”
“What happened?”
“Oh, Kutuzov had a stroke less than forty-eight hours ago. Anatoli called me yesterday, pulled a few strings, got me the necessary papers, and I was on a plane by lunchtime today. No time to rehearse, so I studied the score on the plane. Unfortunately the wrong score.”
She patted the music case with her free hand.
“What were you expecting?”
“The Twenty-first.”
“And you were expecting me?”
A smile, concealing more than it revealed.
He didn’t press the point.
“I asked Anatoli to have one of the stage hands find you. So pleased he did.”
Troy gestured at the row of seats.
“Found me, but not the other chap, eh?”
The same flickering smile.
“Oh, just a friend I thought you might like to meet. A no-show, as it happens. Deeply unreliable person. Still, I’ve invited him to tomorrow night’s concert as well, so perhaps …”
The sentence trailed off in air.
“I’m flying out tomorrow. Amsterdam next stop.”
“Stay, Troy. Please. It’s important.”
“I … er …”
“Whatever it is, get out of it. For me, Troy. Do this for me.”
Troy didn’t believe a word of this.
§61
Predictably, Rod was furious. He hid it well in front of his wife and children, but he spoke through gritted teeth.
“You’ve been trying to fuck this up all along, haven’t you?”
“That’s unfair. Consider that I’ll owe you one. Next time I’ll go anywhere you like, and I’ll pay—but I have to stay on here for a day.”
“Just for a day?”
“Maybe two.”
“Well, if you can’t make your mind up there’s no point in me offering to reschedule, is there? So I’m off to Amsterdam, Freddie—and fuck you.”
“Rod. This can’t be helped.”
“No, but it could be ameliorated. You might at least tell me why you have to stay on. But you’re not going to do that, are you?”
Troy said nothing.
“Fine. You keep your trap shut. Say nothing. Drop me in it. Leave me alone with the mad sister from hell!”
“You’re far from alone. You have all your immediate family with you. And you have Masha.”
“She’s no bloody use! What’s that phrase you use for them? One dreadful woman with two bodies, isn’t it? Masha’s just a time bomb that hasn’t gone off yet.”
§62
Again, seat D17 was empty. Voytek’s unreliable friend was still unreliable. Troy didn’t care. The mystery was not the empty seat, it was the woman herself. She’d sent a stage hand to find him and deliver yesterday’s ticket—how had she even known he was in Vienna?
None of that mattered a damn while she played. She’d send him back to London with a mission to lock himself away and listen to Mozart’s Twenty-seventh with fresh ears.
In the interval, the same stage hand appeared, smiled faintly at Troy, as though embarrassed by the routine, handed Troy another envelope.
“Wird unser Freund auch mitkommen?” Troy asked. Will our friend be joining us?
Again all Troy received by way of reply was “Entschuldigung.”
It paid to know nothing.
Inside the envelope was another of her notes.
“Come to me after the Brahms. Dressing room #3. MV.”
Brahms? He’d not even asked for a programme. Brahms? What Brahms?
But when the first notes, the descending and ascending thirds of what Troy thought might be the most haunting allegro in
music, struck up, he knew it was the Fourth Symphony, and that the mystery of Voytek could be set to simmer while the mystery of Brahms burned.
§63
Backstage in a theatre always reminded Troy of being “backstage” in a police station. All pretence vanished. The art of illusion ceased at the frontier. No more red, no more gold, no more velvet. Nobody was wasting so much as a threepenny bit on paint or fabric. The walls were always two tones of faecal misery in high gloss, divided by a black line.
He picked his way through pockets of men in tailcoats, all smoking and laughing, as though in need of comic relief after the passacaglia angst of Brahms’s last movement.
There was laughter coming from dressing room #3 as well.
He tapped at the door.
Voytek yanked it open, a glass of red wine in her hand, hugged him, kissed him.
“So glad you came. Mmm.” And kissed him again.
A fat bloke in what looked like a fake beard was sitting by the illuminated dressing table, framed by twenty unshaded light bulbs, knocking back the wine.
“You remember Sir Roderick Spode, don’t you, Troy?”
The unreliable friend at last.
“No,” said Troy. “I’m afraid I don’t.”
But there was something terribly familiar about both the name and the man—the thing was … they just didn’t go together.
The fat bloke stood up.
Pulled off the fake beard.
“Fooled ya!”
Burgess.
Guy bloody Burgess!
“Well, say something, Freddie. Or I might get the idea you’re not pleased to see me.”
“I’m not. It really is a gun in my pocket.”
Burgess corpsed. A fit of the Guy-giggles that sprayed red wine everywhere.
For a fraction of a second Troy felt annoyance with Voytek, but he knew all along she was setting him up for something, so what did it matter now he knew?
She ducked behind the folding screen for a quick change from stage black to mufti. It seemed to Troy that she’d put off the moment till he was there—never leave a Burgess alone, they’ll just break something.
Burgess was offering Troy a drink. He took it, sat down.
“It’s been a while,” Burgess said. “When did we last—”
“You know damn well when. You know exactly how long it’s been. To the minute, I’d imagine. So stop faking.”
“I’ve missed you.”
Plaintive and wry at the same time.
Troy said nothing.
“This is where you say you’ve missed me. According to the social code.”
“I haven’t and you don’t give a fuck about the social code.”
This just brought on another fit of the giggles.
Voytek emerged in her duffel coat and slacks.
“I shall leave you boys to it. I have ordered sandwiches, and another bottle. The room is yours until midnight. Then they boot you out.”
The look she gave Troy told him nothing.
And then she was gone.
“You came from Moscow with her?” Troy asked.
“Yes. Last minute sort of thing … wanted company … once she’d … as it were … stepped up to the podium.”
“Too many hesitations, Guy. You’re lying to me. Let’s start again. Méret didn’t ask you to come with her, at the last minute or any other, so why are you here?”
“To see you.”
“No lie?”
“No lie whatsoever.”
“I’m listening.”
There was a badly timed tap at the door. The same stage hand who’d carried messages for Voytek came in and set down a tray for them. An open bottle of red wine. A plate of beef sandwiches.
Burgess swallowed a sandwich almost whole.
It gave Troy a minute to weigh him up. He looked grey, his neck sagged, his fingers and teeth were coppered with nicotine. His suit was filthy, but then it always had been. He’d aged fifteen years in half that time. Troy tried to remember how old he was. Perhaps three or four years older than he was himself, which still put him under fifty.
As his hand reached out for another sandwich, Troy said, “I’m still listening.”
Burgess paused. A visible if momentary hesitation in his eyes.
The plate changed direction in mid-air.
Troy took the proffered morsel.
“I want to come home.”
“Yes,” Troy said softly. “I’d guessed as much.”
“I miss it all. I miss London. I miss the clubs. I miss the pubs. I miss the Dog & Duck. I miss the Salisbury. I miss the Reform. I miss the RAC. I miss the Gargoyle. I miss that bloke in the pub in Holborn who could fart the national anthem. I miss Tommy Trinder. I miss Max Miller. I miss Billy Cotton. I miss Mantovani. I miss my mother. Oh God, I miss my mother. I miss my flannelette stripy pyjamas. I miss the weather. I miss fog. I miss drizzle. Who would ever think anyone in their right mind could miss drizzle? I miss Penguin books. I miss the pelicans in St. James’s Park. I miss the blow jobs in St. James’s Park. I miss the News of the World. I miss the Daily Mirror. I miss sniffing the fresh inkiness of the late edition London evening papers. I miss the The Beano. I miss Desperate Dan. I miss Wilfred Pickles and Mabel. I miss Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh. I miss Kenneth Horne. I miss Stinker Murdoch. I miss Arthur Askey. I miss Mrs. Dale’s Diary. I still worry about Jim. I miss Pathé News. I miss Bob Danvers-Walker. I miss the Proms. I miss Malcolm Sargent. I miss Pomp and Circumstance. I miss the Gang Show. I haven’t had a “ging gang goolie goolie wotcha” in years. I miss nipping down east for jellied eels and a bit of rough. I miss the circle jerks in that gents in the Holloway Road. I miss the randy guardsmen. I miss the sexy sailors. I miss chopped liver at Bloom’s. I miss egg and chips in Endell Street. I miss the soufflés at Boulestin’s. I miss breakfast at the Ritz. I miss lunch at the Caprice. I miss tea at the Café Royal. I miss cocktails at the Criterion. I miss crawling round all the bars on the Circle Line. I miss getting tipsy at King’s Cross. I miss getting legless at Sloane Square. I miss pissing off the platform at Liverpool Street. I miss the number 19 bus. I miss Eccles cakes. I miss Mars Bars. I miss Walnut Whips. I miss sherbert fountains. I miss licorice allsorts. I miss Bertie Bassett. I miss the enamel golliwog you get if you save enough marmalade labels. I miss the little blue bag of salt at the bottom of a bag of crisps. I miss Ovaltine. I miss HP Sauce. I miss chips with mushy peas. I miss the tickle in the nose when you first slosh the vinegar on the peas. I miss steak and kidney pud. I miss spotted dick. I miss apple charlotte. I miss custard with everything. I miss toffee apples and brandy snaps. I miss pork scratchings with a pint of mild. I miss roast beef and brussels sprouts—”
“You’ve missed out tripe and onions.”
“Noooo!—I get all the tripe and onions I can eat. Russia is the world capital of boiled offal.”
“Guy, I don’t wish to sound heartless, but what do you expect me to do about it?”
“Ask, Freddie. Just ask. Just ask them back in Britain. In the absence of an honest broker, be the honest copper. Just … ask them.”
“Them?”
“You know everybody.”
“I don’t think I do, Guy.”
“But you could ask your brother.”
“Let’s leave Rod out of this, shall we?”
“Then … there’s that pal of yours at the embassy.”
“My, but you have done your homework. You’re referring to Gus Fforde, I take it? What took you so long? Why do we have to get through brussels sprouts and drizzle before you bring up Gus’s name?”
“You will ask him?”
“I could. I could walk around to the embassy and report this meeting. But you could do that for yourself.”
“No … no … I couldn’t. Honestly, I couldn’t. This needs to be done … properly.”
“Is that what the Russians have told you? Is that their condition?”
Burgess shrugged.
“Leaving was a cock-up. Who’
d want my return to be as cack-handed?”
The logic was obvious. Troy didn’t need to ask. Burgess would stay on neutral ground until some kind of political or legal safety net was in place. He could imagine the conditions—immunity from prosecution in return for a full confession, which would, in the end, be anything but full.
“Guy, if I do this, there’s one thing you need to assure me of or we’re both wasting our time.”
“What’s that?”
“That Russia really will let you leave.”
The hands flapped in the air, as though inviting contradiction that would never be made manifest.
“Well … they’ve let me get this far. I even have a British passport in the name of Spode. Fake, of course, but a good one.”
“You realise, Five will want to de-brief you?”
“Of course.”
“And the KGB are happy about that?”
“As I said … they’ve let me get this far … and whilst I don’t know who or where, they can hardly be far away even as we speak, can they? There’s nothing happening they don’t know about.”
That was too true to be anything but painful. Paranoia was its own reward. Without a doubt, someone would be following Burgess, and if they were following Burgess they were now following Troy.
It required little thought, but Troy thought it as well if he gave the appearance of thought.
“OK. I’ll do what I can.”
“Splendid.”
“Yes, I am.”
That brought a smile to his face. Burgess’s mood lightened. Troy thought he might get the giggles again. Instead, appetite restored, he swigged red wine and wolfed sandwiches and asked a thousand insignificant questions.
“Do you see anything of the old crowd? Y’know … Guy Liddell … Goronwy Rees … I don’t suppose you’ve seen anything of my brother, Nigel …”
And the list went on and on.
Troy was patient.
Midnight could not be far off.
§64
In the morning Troy called on Gus at the British Embassy.