Reckless

by William Nicholson

  The president listened, swinging his legs, saying nothing. He turned his gaze on his Secretary of State, inviting his views.

  ‘We can’t launch an unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation,’ said Dean Rusk, ‘because of something they might do to us in the future.’

  ‘Fine,’ said McCone. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  ‘I hear you, John,’ said the president. ‘I don’t like this arms build-up any more than you do. But if we make a move against Cuba they’re going to retaliate. They’ll take Berlin. We can’t risk that.’

  ‘Can we risk letting them put nukes on Cuba?’

  ‘No. That would be unacceptable. But let’s be damn sure they’re doing it first.’

  ‘Then send the U2s out again, sir.’

  Mac Bundy shook his head.

  ‘You do that, they’ll shoot ’em down.’

  ‘Can they do that?’ said Kennedy.

  ‘It’s a risk,’ said McCone. ‘We believe they have at least eight SAMs at operational level.’

  Kennedy blinked at him. Slowly he pulled himself upright and rose from the chair.

  ‘You’re telling me there are operational Soviet missiles on Cuba?’

  He was imagining the newspaper headlines. ‘Anti-aircraft missiles,’ said McNamara. ‘Defensive, not offensive.’

  ‘This thing is moving too damn fast,’ muttered Kennedy. He crossed to his desk, grimacing at the pain in his back.

  ‘Send in the U2s,’ said McCone. ‘Then we’ll know what’s going on.’

  ‘And have a SAM knock one of our boys out of the sky?’ said Bundy.

  Kennedy was looking over his desk diary.

  ‘Aren’t you supposed to be getting married, John?’ he said to McCone.

  ‘August 30th, sir. We’ve planned a honeymoon on the French Riviera.’

  ‘Can I come?’

  Everyone laughed.

  ‘So what do we do?’ said Kennedy.

  ‘Maybe we should fire some kind of warning shot,’ said Bundy.

  ‘I’m with you there,’ said Bobby Kennedy. ‘We need to slow these fuckers down.’

  The president nodded.

  ‘Draft a statement. Show ’em we know what’s going on. Show ’em where we draw the line.’

  On September 4 the president’s press secretary, Pierre Salinger, released a statement to the press.

  Information has reached this Government in the last four days from a variety of sources which establishes without a doubt that the Soviets have provided the Cuban government with a number of anti-aircraft defense missiles. Further information will be made available as fast as it is obtained and verified. The gravest issues would arise if Soviet military bases are found on the island, or offensive ground-to-ground missiles, or any other significant offensive capability.

  Oleg Troyanovsky was with Khrushchev at the chairman’s dacha on the Black Sea when the statement came through. He read it out as he translated it, doing his best to speak in neutral unemphatic tones. Even so, he could hear from Khrushchev’s laboured breathing as he listened that the chairman was rattled.

  ‘They’ve discovered Operation Anadyr,’ Khrushchev said, smacking at his head, rubbing his brow.

  ‘There’s nothing in the statement to suggest that, Comrade Chairman,’ Troyanovsky murmured.

  ‘Read it to me again.’

  On the second hearing Khrushchev’s nervous panic receded. He realised that Kennedy knew nothing for certain.

  ‘He’s banging sticks in the forest in case there are wolves.’

  Still, that one phrase worried him: the gravest issues would arise. Soon now Kennedy would learn the truth. What would he do?

  ‘When will the R-12s and the R-14s come into full operation?’

  ‘Mid-October,’ said Troyanovsky.

  ‘Five weeks.’ He looked up at his adviser. ‘Do you think they’ll find them in that time?’

  ‘We have to be prepared for that possibility, Comrade Chairman.’

  ‘And if they do, will they invade?’

  This was precisely what Troyanovsky and others had feared all along. But Khrushchev would not thank him for saying ‘I told you so.’

  ‘We have to be prepared for that possibility also.’

  ‘Prepared how?’ Khrushchev jumped up and began to gesticulate. ‘You think the Cuban Army can fight off an American invasion?’

  ‘Perhaps Comrade Castro could make them a speech,’ said Troyanovsky.

  Khrushchev burst into laughter. Castro’s interminable speeches were one of the jokes of the socialist world.

  ‘But seriously, Oleg Alexandrovich,’ said the chairman, ‘is it possible that we could lose Cuba?’

  ‘We have to be prepared—’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes. You and your have-to-be-prepared! Well, I’m not prepared to be fucked in the ass!’

  *

  Khrushchev summoned Marshal Malinowsky.

  ‘We must defend Cuba,’ he said. ‘If the Americans attack, will it be by air or by sea?’

  ‘Both,’ said Malinowsky. ‘First they’ll bomb the coastal defences. Then amphibious landings.’

  ‘Can they be stopped?’

  ‘Not by conventional means, Nikita Sergeyevich.’

  ‘Then by what means?’

  ‘Lunas. FKRs.’

  ‘These are nuclear weapons?’

  ‘Small battlefield nuclear missiles, Nikita Sergeyevich. The Luna has a range of thirty miles, and carries a two-kiloton warhead. The blast would wipe out a battalion and leave a crater over a hundred feet deep. The FKR is a nuclear-tipped cruise missile with enough power to destroy an aircraft carrier.’

  ‘How fast can you get such weapons over there?’

  Malinowsky referred this question to the logistics experts in the Ministry of Defence in Moscow. Khrushchev, meanwhile, had a courtesy visit to make.

  The eminent poet Robert Frost was in the Soviet Union, on a cultural exchange. He had let it be known that he would welcome a meeting with the leader of the socialist world. Khrushchev had not been inclined to interrupt his vacation, but now it seemed to him there was value in the meeting. The 88-year-old poet was even now resting in a hotel nearby.

  ‘Let us show the world that our intentions are peaceful. Does this poet write poems in praise of peace? Most of them do.’

  Out of respect for his fame and his venerable age, Khrushchev called on Frost in his hotel room, accompanied by Oleg Troyanovsky.

  The poet was lying on his bed. He sat up when Khrushchev entered, and extended a wrinkled hand.

  ‘This is an honour, Mr Chairman.’

  ‘The honour is mine,’ said Khrushchev.

  Their exchange, passing back and forth through Troyanovsky, was a model of goodwill. The old poet had thought long and hard about the rivalry of the two superpowers, and had concluded that for the sake of world peace there must be mutual respect.

  ‘Both countries must trust each other and speak honestly to each other,’ he urged Khrushchev. ‘Let there be rivalry, but let it be truthful, honourable rivalry. No deception, no propaganda, no name-calling. You hold great power in your hand. You have a duty to the world to use it responsibly.’

  Khrushchev listened politely, nodding his head. These were the kinds of sentiments out of which most Soviet homilies were built. He was happy to agree with every word.

  ‘You have the soul of a poet,’ he told the old man.

  Robert Frost was elated. He had achieved his goal. He had told the leader of the Communist world, face to face, without beating about the bush, what had to be done for the sake of the world, and Khrushchev had agreed with him.

  ‘You’re a great man,’ he told Khrushchev, exhausted by his efforts.

  Khrushchev returned to Pitsunda. There waiting for him was Mikoyan with a hand-delivered package from the Ministry of Defence listing the battlefield nuclear weapons that could be shipped to Cuba. The recommendation was that two divisions of Luna missiles be sent, and one FKR brigade, accompanied by a squadr
on of Il-28 light bombers equipped with twelvekiloton nuclear bombs of the type known as Tatyanas. This range of weapons was small enough to move into place quickly, but potent enough to destroy a beachhead in the event of invasion.

  ‘Can they go by plane?’

  ‘The Ministry recommends sending the warheads by sea. The Indigirka is ready to leave right away.’

  Khrushchev signed the secret authorisation that day. The Soviet freighter Indigirka was loaded in total secrecy with eighteen battlefield warheads, thirty-six cruise missile nuclear warheads, and forty-five one-megaton warheads for the medium-range ballistic missiles that had already reached Cuba.

  ‘These weapons are not to be used,’ Khrushchev instructed, ‘without my direct order.’

  ‘What if communications to Moscow are cut, Nikita Sergeyevich?’ said Mikoyan. ‘What if an invasion is under way, but General Pliyev can’t reach you?’

  ‘Then he must use his own judgement,’ said Khrushchev. ‘I will not allow Cuba to fall.’

  The Indigirka sailed for the Caribbean on September 15, with an expected journey time of twenty days. It was carrying over twenty times the explosive power of all the bombs dropped on Germany in the entire Second World War.

  *

  While the Indigirka was at sea, a CIA agent in Cuba reported suspicious activity in the area round San Cristobal. Soviet soldiers were guarding a fifty-mile stretch of the main road from Havana to Pinar del Rio. Local people told stories of large trailer trucks carrying tarpaulin-covered cargoes that were knocking down telegraph poles as they negotiated tight corners in village streets. At the same time, Senator Keating had renewed his attacks on President Kennedy for allowing the Soviet arming of Cuba.

  In the light of the latest information, the Executive Committee agreed that they had no choice but to resume high-level reconnaissance flights. There was a real risk that a U2 pilot would be shot down over Cuba, but it had become vital to gain accurate information about developments on the ground. The president authorised the Committee on Overhead Reconnaissance to resume U2 flights, with special attention to the San Cristobal area.

  A successful mission required clear visibility from the ground all the way up to the U2’s flying ceiling of seventy thousand feet. It was now hurricane season in the Caribbean. For the next few days the skies were overcast.

  29

  Dr Edward Sugden’s waiting room in Half Moon Street, Mayfair, was strange and a little frightening. The walls were lined with glass cases containing snakes and lizards. At first Pamela thought they were stuffed. Then one of the lizards opened a yellow eye and stared at her, giving her a small silent shock. She told herself that the lizard could not have any opinion of her, but she felt the cold chill of its indifference.

  There was one other woman in the room. She was expensively dressed, in her thirties, inattentively reading a copy of Vogue. She was called before Pamela, by a male voice through a half-open door. Within five minutes she was out again.

  ‘Miss Avenell?’

  The man at the consulting-room door was older than she had expected, and balding, with wavy curls of white hair on the back of his head. His face was puffy and lined.

  ‘Come in, come in. Tell me what I can do for you. Tell me how you heard of me.’

  He indicated that Pamela should sit down on an upright wooden chair, while he took his place behind a wide desk, and opened up a new file. She told him that Christine Keeler had recommended him, and that she needed to be ‘fixed up’.

  ‘Quite right,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t do for young girls to be having babies they don’t want. One day the government will wake up, and you’ll be able to do this on the National Health. Lovely girl, Christine. How is she?’

  ‘She’s fine,’ said Pamela, thinking how odd it was that this old man should know all Christine’s intimate details. And her own, soon enough.

  ‘So let’s take a look at you.’

  Following his instructions, she partially undressed and lay down on the examination couch, a blanket over her lower body.

  ‘If you’re a friend of Christine’s,’ he said, ‘I don’t expect you’re shy. Flex your thighs, please.’

  He eased a pillow beneath her buttocks.

  ‘I’m going to conduct a simple examination. One finger, that’s all.’

  She closed her eyes and tried not to think about what was happening. She felt his probing finger. For what seemed like a long time, his finger moved inside her, but he didn’t speak.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ she said.

  She had no idea what she meant by this question, except that suddenly it seemed important to know.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. Then, with a faint note of surprise, ‘Not sexually active yet?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘A wise virgin, I see. Not many of those about these days. I wish all girls were as sensible as you.’

  His finger continued to probe.

  ‘You’re in luck,’ he said. ‘Not much in the way of a hymen.’

  ‘Is that normal?’

  ‘Perfectly normal.’

  He withdrew his finger.

  ‘You’d be surprised how many girls ask me that. “Am I normal down there?”’

  He laughed as if this were amusing. But Pamela realised this was exactly what she wanted to know.

  ‘Here’s something that should help you,’ he said. ‘A lot of girls don’t realise how their body’s put together. Give me your hand.’

  He took her right hand and guided it beneath the blanket.

  ‘Vagina is Latin for sheath, you know? Like the sheath for a sword. So which direction do you think it goes inside your body?’

  Pamela had never in her life asked herself this question.

  ‘I expect you think it goes upwards.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Pamela.

  ‘Well, feel for yourself.’ He guided her finger. ‘Do you feel it? It goes front to back. That’s worth knowing. Not up and down at all, but front to back. Can you feel that?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Pamela.

  ‘Have a good rummage around. Get to know the lie of the land.’

  He moved away from her. She heard clicking and clattering noises.

  ‘This is what you’ve come for,’ he said. ‘I’m going to fit you with something called a diaphragm. It’s an awkward little bugger, but you’ll get used to it.’

  He returned to her side. Pamela opened her eyes. Teddy Sugden was holding up a large saucer of beige-coloured rubber.

  ‘You may have heard of it as a Dutch cap. Basically it just sits inside you and puts a stopper on the whole works. Very simple, and very effective. You can put it in up to eight hours before, if you want.’

  It seemed to Pamela’s alarmed gaze to be far too big.

  ‘I’ll show you first,’ he said. ‘Then you have a go.’

  He squeezed the saucer in his hand and the sides bent inwards, turning it into a narrow scoop.

  ‘A little blob to help’ – he added something from a tube – ‘not Vaseline or anything made of petroleum jelly, because it rots the rubber. This is a spermicide, and it does half the work.’

  She felt his warm hand between her legs. Then there came a brief cramp of pain. Then it was in.

  ‘Can you feel it?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Good. Now see if you can get it out and put it in again yourself.’

  Pamela fumbled with her right hand. It wasn’t at all easy. She got hold of it, but it wouldn’t come out.

  ‘You have to squeeze it,’ said Teddy Sugden.

  She squeezed it, and managed to get it out, but as soon as it was free the sides sprang open, and it jumped out of her hand to the floor.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, retrieving it. ‘You’ll be chasing it all over the bedroom often enough. Just give it a clean.’ He wiped the cap and gave it back to her. ‘Now see if you can get it in.’

  It was quite a struggle. She managed in the end, but the effort left her tense and trembling.<
br />
  ‘There has to be a better way,’ she said.

  ‘There’s condoms. But not all girls trust their boyfriends on that front.’

  After several attempts she found she could insert the cap, and remove it, but the whole process dismayed her. It was not at all sexy. Very much the opposite. To add to the burdensome nature of the process, she had to take in details of spermicidal jelly, and what to do if her lover had multiple orgasms, and how many hours to leave the cap in place afterwards, and how to wash her hands every time she touched it, and how to clean it every time it jumped onto the floor.

  Then he asked her for ten guineas, and she burst into tears.

  It wasn’t just the money. It was the passing of the dream. She knew very little about lovemaking, but she had imagined it as a more intimate, more thrilling version of kissing, which in turn was the physical expression of mutual desire. Scenes in books and films had led her to expect a mysterious and uncontrollable crescendo of excitement, in which beautiful bodies, lost in a trance of passion, experienced sensations of bliss. There was no bliss, no passion, in this clumsy precalculated jelly-slicked act of self-protection. In her dreams of lovemaking there had been no physical details. What was to happen down there was to take place spontaneously, urgently, in obedience to natural instincts. Now, for the first time, she was faced with a very different reality. Sex was dangerous, and embarrassing, and expensive.

  Christine didn’t much like sex, Stephen had said. A lot of women don’t, he had said. Mandy did it with Peter with her back to him, as if she couldn’t bear to look at him. Why? Why did any woman do it? Because it’s what men wanted, presumably. Sex was the price women paid for love.

  ‘Here,’ said Teddy Sugden, giving her a tissue. ‘Dry your eyes. Tell me how much you can afford.’

  ‘I’ve got five pounds,’ whispered Pamela. ‘Christine said that would be enough. I haven’t told my parents.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I understand. We’ll call it five pounds, then, shall we? Better that than you coming back to me in a few months’ time with a far bigger problem.’

  She put her clothes back on and gave him the five pounds she had borrowed from Stephen Ward. He packed up the cap in its box together with a tube of cream, and gave it all to her in a brown paper bundle.