Winter Garden

by Beryl Bainbridge

  It wasn’t usual for Enid to be asked to dance. She sniffed the burning fragrance of the man’s cigar and was annoyed that she herself hadn’t been consulted. She had hoped Bernard might have noticed the episode, but he was hunched over his plate, drawing something on the back of the menu.

  Olga Fiodorovna promised that in the morning they would go sightseeing; maybe there would be time to drive to the famous Ostankino Palace, notable for its botanical gardens and once the suburban estate of one of the wealthiest of Russia’s noble families. It was so beautiful in spring when the bird-cherry bloomed; they must all return in the spring.

  ‘Poor buggers,’ muttered Bernard, thinking how irritated he would be if someone commandeered his semi-detached in Wandsworth.

  Afterwards, continued Olga Fiodorovna, they would lunch at a very extravagant hotel, and in the afternoon they were expected at the studio of a famous artist who worked on the outskirts of Moscow. Between six and eight in the evening it had been planned that they should meet a famous metal worker at his home. The house he lived in, very old and prestigious, had once belonged to Count Nikolai Ergolsky. The following day they were to be guests at a luncheon given in their honour by the Soviet Artists’ Union. Perhaps in the evening they would like to go to the Bolshoi Theatre.

  ‘Mr Douglas,’ she said, speaking to Ashburner. ‘Do not think I have forgotten your suitcase. I shall make enquiries first thing in the morning.’

  ‘I have the utmost confidence in you,’ he assured her, and wondered if he ought to write his name down on a piece of paper for her to take home and learn by heart.

  He took little part in the discussion that followed, dealing as it did with artistic venues. When asked directly for his opinion he said it all sounded marvellous and he would go wherever anyone else wanted to go. He had a headache and it was difficult to hear what the interpreter was saying above the noise of the restaurant, though he gathered that Mr Karlovitch would be accompanying them to both Leningrad and Georgia. Mr Karlovitch, it appeared, was very fond of Tblisi; he liked nothing better than to lie on his back in the sun and make fancy sketches of the monasteries.

  On a rostrum a band was playing. The Chinese lanterns which hung from the invisible ceiling trembled at the blare of the saxophone. For some minutes a young man dressed as a Cossack sang, in English, a selection of ballads made popular by the Beatles. There was a particularly mournful one about a Nowhere Man which Ashburner considered was meant for his ears alone. Doesn’t have a point of view, knows not where he’s going to, crooned the young man, Isn’t he a bit like you . . . and me-e-e? Ashburner tried to tell himself that at home there were places similar to this, but he knew it couldn’t be true. He had been nowhere like it, not even as a young man on a motorbike. It was the people who staggered him, not his surroundings. They filled the cavernous depths of the dining room from end to end, behaving as though they were extras in one of those continental films his wife pretended to love, eating with such abandon, gesturing so exuberantly, rising from the tables to dance with such corybantic fervour that he felt half dead. They had only to look in his direction and he was transfixed, caught like a rabbit in the headlamps of a car, the little sugar cake he was on the point of devouring arrested in mid-air. What an immense advantage they have over me, he thought, being so totally at home.

  Ashburner left the restaurant before the others had finished their coffee. He was yawning so repeatedly from exhaustion and lack of oxygen that he had long expected Nina to make some withering remark. He told Olga Fiodorovna that he was worried about getting up in the morning. ‘I have no timepiece,’ he explained.

  It had been on the tip of his tongue to mention that his wife often woke him with a cup of tea.

  Olga Fiodorovna assured him she would leave a message with the night porter, who would arrange for him to be called at eight o’clock.

  ‘I’m only two doors along,’ Bernard said, helpfully. ‘Give us a knock and I’ll lend you my shaving tackle.’

  Ashburner thanked him and said goodnight. He was careful not to look at Nina. To his astonishment she ran after him and took hold of his arm as he was about to step into the lift.

  ‘You’re not huffy, are you?’ she asked.

  ‘Certainly not,’ he lied.

  ‘You’re not to come to my room, Douglas.’

  ‘I don’t know the number,’ he said stiffly. ‘Nor what floor.’

  ‘But I might come to your room,’ she said.

  ‘When?’ he cried, agitatedly. ‘What time? What if I’ve nodded off?’

  ‘I can ring you,’ she said. ‘There’s a list of numbers pinned to the wall above the telephone. I’m not promising, mind.’

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ he admitted. ‘I’m not awfully keen. I feel pretty tired.’ But the very second the lift doors had closed and he was borne upwards away from her he was wide awake and pitifully anxious to see her.

  His room, which he now saw clearly for the first time, having earlier been in too distressed a condition, was small and meanly furnished with a single bed, a utility desk and a worn armchair. On the wall hung a picture of some trees in autumn. He didn’t know if the hotel was purpose-built or yet another stately home that had once belonged to a nobleman; if the latter, he must be occupying the serf’s quarters. The shower didn’t work and he was unable to open the window. Since childhood he hadn’t gone to bed with the windows closed. He pressed his nose forlornly against the glass and saw below him a broad, deserted street, the snow scored with the tracks of cars, and beyond, a great expanse of darkness unrelieved by stars. I should never have come, he thought, and taking off his trousers, shoes and jacket, he fell into bed.

  He was asleep when the telephone rang. It took him valuable moments to locate the light switch.

  ‘Hallo, hallo,’ he called, even before he had picked up the receiver.

  A man’s voice, accented and excited, bid him welcome to Moscow.

  ‘Who is this?’ asked Ashburner.

  ‘I am your brother,’ shouted the voice. ‘It is Boris. Listen to me, please. Tomorrow night there is an exhibition of Zamyotov’s work in the People’s Institute behind Bolotnaya Square. You will go there. I have fixed it all. Do not listen to them when they tell you something else is specified. Tell them to jump in the lake, yes? Beforehand there will be a lecture. Unfortunately I myself cannot be there until later. You will like the etchings, I think. Have you understood?’

  ‘Who am I speaking to?’ asked Ashburner, bewildered.

  The line went dead.

  It occurred to Ashburner, briefly, that he might have been the victim of a practical joke perpetrated by Bernard, perhaps at Nina’s instigation. But then, recalling the pitch of Bernard’s voice and his slightly flat vowels, he felt it wasn’t possible: the man was an artist, not an actor. Catching sight of the one item of luggage that still remained to him, he absentmindedly took up his fishing rod in its canvas case and placing it against his shoulder began to parade up and down. He hadn’t cared for the stranger’s tone of bullying confidence. You will go there . . . I have fixed it. Only last week there had been a report in the Guardian about an innocent bystander from Manchester who had gone to some meeting or other behind the Iron Curtain and disappeared for three days. Ashburner’s step faltered. Had he in fact been given a message in code? Was there not something sinister in the phrase, Have you understood? ‘Steady on, old man,’ he said aloud and throwing his fishing rod on to the bed put on his overcoat.

  The corridor was empty. The buxom lady who had given him his key when he came out of the lift had evidently gone home. He knocked heavily and repeatedly on the door of Room 409. After an interval he heard a female voice, speaking in a foreign tongue, raised enquiringly. He ran back to his own room and locked the door behind him.

  When he had gathered his wits he realised that Bernard must have meant Room 405. Consulting the list of telephone numbers that Nina had spoken of, he dialled the appropriate one.

  ‘It’s no use,’ said Bernard
, angrily. ‘I’ve just about had it.’

  ‘It’s Douglas,’ Ashburner said. ‘Look here, something pretty odd’s happened to me. I’d like your advice.’

  ‘She’s told you, has she?’ asked Bernard.

  ‘It wasn’t a she,’ said Ashburner. ‘Listen, I don’t think we should discuss it over the wire, if you take my meaning. I’ll come to your room.’ When he went out into the corridor again the buxom woman had returned and was sitting at her desk.

  ‘It’s four o’clock in the morning,’ said Bernard. ‘This isn’t Chelsea. They don’t like you wandering all over in the middle of the night.’ Despite the hour, he was fully clothed, though he was without his shoes and socks. He listened to Ashburner’s account of his mystifying telephone conversation and seemed unimpressed. In his view it was probably a wrong number.

  ‘You think it was meant for you?’ exclaimed Ashburner. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. There was, of course, that reference to etchings—’

  ‘It couldn’t have been my brother,’ said Bernard. ‘I’m an only child.’ At the sight of Ashburner’s naked legs, incongruously showing beneath his winter overcoat, he started to laugh.

  ‘Don’t think for one minute,’ Ashburner said, ‘that I’m unaware of the opinion you and Nina hold of me. I even understand it. We come from different worlds, after all. I’m a shy man, I haven’t had the advantages of a bohemian education. In the company of such people as yourself I play possum.’

  Bernard was alarmed. ‘Look, mate,’ he said. ‘I didn’t intend—’

  Ashburner held up an authoritative hand for silence before thrusting it inside the revers of his coat. Propelled by introspection, he walked napoleonically back and forth in front of the curtained window.

  ‘Normally,’ he said, ‘I feel more or less at ease with myself. I’ve never been burdened with those complicated subtleties of thought that constantly assail Nina and others of her ilk. I find reality quite stimulating enough for my own needs. But I do bear in mind that everything depends on other factors. Why for instance does one sprawl on the grass in summer?’

  ‘Search me,’ said Bernard.

  ‘Simply because it is summer,’ explained Ashburner. ‘It’s a seasonal sprawling. I mean, if I were to run into the street now and lie face downwards in a snow drift, it would be considered eccentric.’

  ‘Have you been out?’ asked Bernard.

  ‘It may interest you to know,’ declared Ashburner loudly, ‘that I can conduct a perfectly intelligent conversation with people in my own walk of life. I don’t wish to sound offensive, but if for some reason you found yourself rubbing shoulders with colleagues of mine, it might be you who would be thought something of an odd ball.’

  Better hang on, thought Bernard. The poor bugger is obviously beside himself with rage. It was all Nina’s fault; she’d kept him dangling like a broken yo-yo since morning.

  ‘Moreover,’ shouted Ashburner, ‘I happen to belong to a profession in which the words Tell them to jump in the lake could be of particular significance.’ Having rid himself of this enigmatic statement, he leaned wearily against the window and closed his eyes.

  Bernard could think of nothing worth saying. He sat on the edge of his bed and lit another cigarette. He wondered whether Ashburner sold outboard motors. Or was it possible that Nina had taken up with an undertaker?

  ‘Made a night of it, did you?’ asked Ashburner suddenly.

  ‘Yes,’ confessed Bernard, taken aback. ‘We did have a few drinks.’

  Ashburner frowned. ‘I didn’t think Nina was into drinking. Not tonight.’

  ‘Who mentioned Nina?’ said Bernard, recovering. ‘I was with Enid.’

  Ashburner removed a paisley dressing gown and several carrier bags from the armchair and sat down. A small bottle of pills fell to the carpet. He twitched the hem of his coat to cover the tops of his white knees and sighed heavily.

  ‘You’re absolutely right,’ he said. ‘I’m a fool. I’m out of my depth.’ He attempted to grasp the bottle of pills with his navy blue toes. ‘I suppose in Nina,’ he admitted, ‘I got more than I bargained for.’

  ‘You could say that,’ said Bernard.

  During what remained of the night, Ashburner received four more telephone calls. The first was inconclusive because the moment he spoke the line was disconnected. The other three, commencing at a quarter to five and occurring at forty-minute intervals, acquainted him with the time.

  9

  The problem of Ashburner’s missing suitcase threatened to take up most of the morning. There wouldn’t be time to visit the Ostankino Palace as Olga Fiodorovna had originally suggested. Mr Karlovitch was unfortunately detained at the office and it wouldn’t be advisable for the group to travel unattended. They would have to accompany her while she made her enquiries.

  ‘You like to have a veto on where we go – is that it?’ asked Bernard mutinously, though at this particular moment the only place he wanted to go was back to bed.

  ‘You are quite free to visit any place you wish, Mr Burns,’ said the interpreter, looking at him calmly. ‘Without prior notification from the Soviet Artists’ Union, or a similar body, you are equally free to spend all your time queuing for admission. It is minus twenty-three degrees outside. Please put on your hats.’

  Neither Bernard nor Ashburner possessed a hat. Frowning, Olga led them out into the street in search of the car. They followed several paces behind, mincing along the slippery pavement and clutching at each other for support.

  ‘It’s not all that cold,’ boasted Enid, who was wearing a swagger coat which had belonged to her mother and a cap with ear-flaps which she had bought at the Army and Navy Stores when she was a student. ‘Sometimes,’ she lied, ‘it’s worse than this at home.’ Before going to sleep at night, she often read for pleasure Cherry-Gerrard’s chilling account of the worst journey in the world, the dreadful polar trek north when it had blown so cold that the breath of sledge-hauling men froze to ice on their lips. In her warm bed she had shivered. Now she wondered if there hadn’t been some exaggeration.

  Olga Fiodorovna gave her a lecture on the differences between island and land masses. ‘Your country is surrounded by water. If the temperature drops severely, you know about it quickly. Here it can appear deceptively mild until a complete stranger rushes up to you and pulls your nose because he can see it is getting frost bitten.’ She turned and gripped Enid’s nose between thumb and forefinger.

  ‘Gracious,’ cried Enid, and she fell back behind Bernard, her eyes smarting.

  They had found the car and settled into it when Olga Fiodorovna uttered a moan of despair and ordered them out. For an instant they feared she had commandeered the wrong car or that the engine was about to explode, but it transpired that the interior was badly polluted; the driver had been smoking again. They huddled together at the kerb, waiting for the nasty smell to blow away. A party of infants, roped together for safety, enormously rotund in padded snow suits and scarves and woolly hats, tottered along the sidewalk. Enid chose to distribute sweets among the rear of the column. The children at the front, checked in their wandering stride, lost their balance and sat abruptly in the snow; keeling over like nine-pins, the kindergarten fell into disarray. The stricken toddlers, tangled in their guidelines and stoically silent, thrust mittened thumbs to their mouths and stared cheerfully at the sky.

  ‘You’ve a way with children,’ observed Bernard, as the car drove off.

  Ashburner hoped he was being driven to the airport. He had stopped apologising for upsetting everyone’s plans. The contents of his suitcase, previously despised, had become precious. Wretched in yesterday’s shirt, he had attempted to buy various toiletry articles at the visitors’ shop on the second floor of the hotel. Though lights blazed above the counter and at least three women lounged behind it, he had been turned away empty-handed. Worse, Nina hadn’t come down to breakfast. He had telephoned her frequently from the lobby, without success. Enid had knocked at the door of her room but receiv
ed no reply. She’s said that Nina couldn’t be all that tired; they’d both gone upstairs to bed shortly after he himself had left the restaurant. Ashburner hadn’t liked to pursue the matter further. Knowing that Enid had spent most of the night with Bernard, he could hardly ask her if she had heard Nina moving about in the room next door. Olga Fiodorovna, when told that Nina couldn’t be roused, had said it would be best if Mrs St Clair stayed where she was. There was no point in disturbing her; they weren’t going anywhere important. Inwardly, Ashburner disputed this. Nina could be lying seriously ill. To his shame, he was far too exhausted and unwashed to make an issue of it.

  They drove through the white city, hurtling along avenues so broad that the pedestrians on the distant pavements swirled like black flecks in the snow.

  ‘Stop,’ shouted Bernard, suddenly.

  He had glimpsed in the narrow gorge below the citadel the outline of a swimming pool. Steam puffed above the blue water and drifted into the trees. The driver, deprived of nicotine, accelerated and the car leapt on the icy road. Bernard, too choked for words, swivelled in his seat and pounded on the leather upholstery. Olga Fiodorovna gazed at him placidly and played with the knot of her silken headscarf.

  ‘He had a bad night,’ volunteered Enid.

  Ashburner was comfortably dozing; now and then as the car bounced in its tracks a little snort of tiredness broke from his open mouth.

  ‘I’ve got to get out,’ said Bernard. He took hold of the handle of the door. ‘I’ve got to use my bloody legs.’

  Olga Fiodorovna looked anxiously at Enid, who explained that Bernard probably needed exercise on account of his funny hip.

  Olga Fiodorovna leaned forward and placed her arm round Bernard’s shoulder. She talked soothingly to him. She would make her phone calls to the airport and, while she did so, he and the others were at liberty to walk in the open air. Everyone must avoid gaining entrance to buildings, however historical and enticing. He personally must give an undertaking to be good and remain outdoors.