‘Did you arrange to see her again?’ asked Nina.
‘No. She happened to mention where she lived, and I decided I could always find myself in the neighbourhood and drop in one afternoon when the Deputy-Director is snoring his head off in his office. But I didn’t say anything about that because I wanted to think things over in a more settled frame of mind.’
Nina put out her cigarette with a decisive twist. ‘That was it. She thought that having tried her you came to the conclusion you didn’t want her after all. I’m surprised at you, my love. You’ve probably spoiled your chances there for good.’
‘Just as well, probably. It would have been a lot to take on. But it’s a pity; I think she’s very attractive in an odd way.’
‘It’s odd all right,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Tremendous tits and starved-looking face. And that hair-cut, what’s the idea of that? If she wants to look boyish that’s not the place to start.’
‘Did she talk at all?’ asked Nina.
‘Oh yes, without stopping. Except when I… stopped her. All about her house and the visitors they keep having. She’s probably shy of anything approaching a throng. Or in awe of that hairy-faced husband of hers.’
‘Any children?’
‘She didn’t mention any, so I rather suppose not.’
‘I rather hope not.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘I don’t know. I’m just glad I’m not her daughter.’
‘How funny. I don’t go round imagining what it’s like to be the son of any chap I meet who happens to be about old enough.’
‘Of course you don’t.’
‘Of course? Is that because I’m a man?’
‘No, because you’re you.’
‘I don’t know what you’re getting at, but I can tell easily enough that it isn’t very friendly.’
Elizabeth had been listening to the latter part of this duologue with some impatience. Now she said, ‘Can we please not have a discussion of Alexander?’
‘I don’t see why you should object if I don’t.’
‘Who says you object? You adore any and every discussion of you. Some of the rest of us don’t share your passionate interest in the topic.’
‘If I’m going to allow you to go on coming here, Elizabeth, I must ask you not to dictate the conversation.’
‘Alexander!’ cried Nina.
‘What’s the matter? I was only-’
‘Have you forgotten already what mummy said to you?’
‘When I’ve just been told I’m in love with myself? Anyone would think-’
‘I’m going,’ said Elizabeth. She had turned very red. Nina caught her by the shoulders and remonstrated with her while Alexander said loudly that she could go where she pleased as far as he was concerned. It was soon clear that she would fight her way out of the room if necessary. At this point Nina released her and it was Theodore who barred her way.
‘If you go now you’ll find it very difficult to come back,’ he said quickly. ‘And you’re going to want to, in spite of how you feel at the moment.’
Within what might have struck some people as quite a short space of time Elizabeth had resumed her normal manner. She even smiled ruefully at Alexander, who patted her on the cheek. Nina took her hand.
‘Come with me,’ she said. ‘Three new frocks await inspection.’
‘Three!’
‘Three. You remember that woman in Towcester I went to in the spring? Well, it seems her daughter…’
The two girls disappeared into the bedroom. The men could hear them opening cupboards and drawers, chattering, giggling, Elizabeth imitating someone, Nina scolding. In silence Theodore brought out a small pipe and started to fill it.
‘That was good work,’ said Alexander.
‘Nothing at all. What is she exactly?’
‘She’s supposed to be hopelessly in love with me. I can’t think why; I’ve never laid a finger on her.’
‘Really? Pretty enough, I should have thought.’
‘Yes, but too confoundedly difficult. Imagine what she’d be like with a bit of power over you.
‘M’m.’
Theodore lit his pipe and sat back in his chair. He was staring at the ceiling now, but earlier his eyes had hardly left Alexander for several minutes on end, as Alexander was naturally well aware. After another half-minute Theodore said lightly,
‘What really happened out there?’
‘What? Oh, just what I said. Do you want details?’
‘No, no. Tell the truth – you fucked her, didn’t you?’
‘No. It looks as though I could have done, but I didn’t, like a fool.’
‘Very much like a fool. How old are you, Alexander? Nineteen?’
‘Twenty-one.’
‘Are you? Of course I’m twenty-eight, with that much more experience. But I should have thought anybody not a female or a child could have seen that Mrs Korotchenko was ripe for the plucking.’
‘Well I couldn’t, and if that makes me a female or a child that’s most unfortunate for me, but I can always call the servants and have you thrown out, but now I look at you I think I could probably manage it myself. Without much effort, in fact.’
‘Hold on!’ said Theodore as Alexander rose to his feet. ‘I was just trying to irritate you into admitting it. Come on, you old reprobate, you fucked her, didn’t you? You can tell me. I swear I won’t pass it on to anybody.’
‘For the very last time, I didn’t. And incidentally swear by what?’
‘That’s a very interesting point, but we haven’t time to go into it now. Do you swear you didn’t?’
‘Well of course I do, by anything you care to name. What’s this all about?’
‘Your only bad line so far, but we’ll let that go too. Do you swear by the honour of your country and of your regiment and of your family?’
‘Why not? I so swear.’
Theodore looked hard and very seriously at Alexander. ‘My profound congratulations and my heartfelt apologies. I’m truly sorry I had to do this to you.’
‘You’re mad.’
‘You can relax now. Not more than three minutes after you and Mrs Korotchenko had left the drawing-room, your mother asked your sister to fetch her sewing-basket from the room on the other side of the hall. I offered to go myself.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘I found the basket easily enough, but before I returned to the drawing-room with it I pulled back the curtain and looked out. Pure curiosity.’
‘Is that what it’s called?’
‘I didn’t expect to see anything in particular, but I saw… Well, you know what I saw.’
‘Yes.’
‘How did you come to be so insanely reckless? The two of you would have been out of sight if you’d walked another twenty or thirty metres. Couldn’t you have waited?’
‘I could, but she couldn’t, evidently. She literally grabbed me and I was quite unprepared. I had no time to think at all.’
‘I see. Why do you think she put on that annoyed look afterwards?’
‘Well, she told me she was going to do it so that her husband would think I’d made advances to her which she took amiss, but I wonder now if the explanation I invented a moment ago might not be nearer the mark only she was doing it on purpose. In other words, she intended to give the impression that she’d had expectations of me which I’d failed to fulfil. Which in turn would mean she must hate her husband very much. Well, we already have reason to suspect she may not be crazy about him. What are your congratulations for?’
‘For the ingenuity with which you disarmed the suspicions of two very inquisitive girls, and the fortitude that made you able to withstand my violent assault on your pride.’
‘Thank you. The second was comparatively easy. I wasn’t going to throw away at that stage what it had taken me so much trouble to establish. It was just bad luck for me that you looked out of that window when you did.’
‘Don’t worry, the secret’s safe with me.�
�� Theodore relit his pipe. ‘Did you in fact arrange to see her again?’
‘There’s not much point in denying it at this stage.’
‘You know, you’ve surprised me. Not by your sexual adventure but by your conduct since.’
‘I’ve surprised myself rather. But then I have a strain of low cunning which tends to come to my rescue when I really need it.’
Again Theodore stared at his companion. Then he said, ‘You’re an interesting fellow, Alexander. I’d like to have a real talk with you some time. The trouble is I have nowhere to invite you. My lodgings are vile, there are no restaurants nearer than Oxford…’
‘I know, I have the same trouble with girls, don’t you?’
‘Well, it looks as though I might start to, if things go my way.’
‘She likes you – I know that look of hers.’
‘And you approve?’
‘Of course I approve! My little sister and my old friend Theodore – a new friend who seems like an old friend. I’ve thought of something. Would it appeal to you to come out and dine at my mess one night?’ When he saw Theodore hesitate, he went on, ‘I can have you fetched and taken back, if that’s a problem.’
‘Oh… thank you, for the invitation too – I didn’t know civilians were admitted to guest-nights.’
‘The regimental mess is pretty well sacrosanct except for an occasional dignitary from London or Moscow, but in the week we eat at the squadron, just half a dozen of us. It might amuse you, the food’s not bad and afterwards we can slip away on our own; that’s more or less expected. Now next week’s orders aren’t out yet – would tomorrow night be too soon? I’ll get in touch with you at the Commission about the details.’
Soon afterwards Nina and Elizabeth, the latter now in possession of all the relevant facts about the new frocks, returned to the room. Both turned looks of unfocussed but keen suspicion on the two young men. Nina said that they should all return to the drawing-room.
‘I should be going altogether,’ said Theodore.
‘Not before you’ve played us something,’ said Nina.
‘Dear God, I thought I’d got out of that.’
‘People don’t get out of things with Nina,’ said her brother.
‘It’s a family characteristic,’ said Elizabeth.
When, at the dinner-table an hour earlier, Mrs Tabidze had called for the brandy-decanter, Alexander had felt very much inclined to pour the whole of its contents over her, with the option of going on to set light to them. It was not that he resented her calling him a young whippersnapper (she was far too old and ugly for him to care one way or the other what she thought of him); the feeling aroused in him, though violent, was much more impersonal than that. The moment came back to him now because the last piece of dialogue had induced the same hostility, even though he had contributed to it himself. What was it that he found so distasteful? Something to do with style, something to do with intention, something to do with being taken outside life and into… a funny story? A parlour game? But why should that matter? For almost the first time in his life, Alexander sincerely wished he knew more and could think better.
In the drawing-room the card-game had just ended, with Korotchenko and Mrs Tabidze dividing the spoils with winnings of about £10,000 each, enough for a bottle of good-quality spirits and a packet of five cigarettes. Much to Alexander’s surprise, his mother and Mrs Korotchenko were in animated conversation; perhaps his extempore patter about shyness in a company of any size had happened to come somewhere near the mark. Nina clapped her hands for silence and announced that Mr Markov would play and sing some of the English songs he had come across in the course of his researches for the Cultural Commission.
Theodore duly offered half a dozen pieces, all short, under two minutes. He showed himself to be possessed of enough, or more than enough, skill and imagination for what he saw as the deceptively simple keyboard writing and also of a pleasant light baritone voice. Quite by chance, the piano had stayed free of damp and so was not grotesquely out of tune. Of those who noticed that it was not in tune (both Korotchenkos being tone-deaf), some, like Nina, thought this was pleasingly congruent with the outlandish material, while others, like Elizabeth, supposed Theodore to be somehow distorting the pitch on purpose for greater effect. All the songs were well received but by common consent the last of the set was best. Although the structure again was simple, two related strains each repeated once, Theodore brought out a blend of vivacity and melancholy in the music that proved, to this Russian audience, recognisable even if unfamiliarly expressed. Cries of approval as well as handclaps followed the final triumphant chord.
‘Most enjoyable,’ said Mrs Tabidze. ‘But could you explain it a little, Mr Markov? I’m afraid my English is far from what it should be. What does it mean, locked ‘em in the Old Kent Road?’
‘Actually it’s knocked ‘em, ma’am, struck them, hit them. The words are obscure, they’re largely slang, or more accurately argot. My theory… but you don’t want me to expound my theory at this time of night.’
His hearers assured him that they did.
‘The composer and lyric-writer was a certain Albert Chevalier. Now the French community in London was never very large; it was mostly confined to the catering trade. But it seems to have been cohesive, never assimilated by the traditionally xenophobic English. I take this song to be one of defiance, an assertion of French pride and independence in the heart of a foreign land, in the old, historic, quintessentially English road to Kent.’
‘But it’s an English song,’ said Elizabeth.
‘It became one. The English always imported or naturalised large parts of their culture, right to the end. During the Patriotic War of 1941-5, when they and the Hitlerites showed great hostility towards one another for a time, a hostility that as you know erupted more than once into armed actions like the bombing of the London docks and the Dieppe raid, the English translated and took over a German song called “Lilli Helene”. Musically speaking, too, the song I’ve just performed could never have been an English product. Not… not sufficiently direct.’
‘Fascinating,’ said Nina.
When the guests left, Alexander looked in vain for some signal from Mrs Korotchenko to confirm their arrangement for the following Tuesday, but he already knew enough about women not to be cast down by this omission of hers. He was tired and heavy-eyed and yet had no desire for sleep, or so he told himself. Should he have a last glass of wine? Unable to think of any arguments for or against the proposition he nevertheless returned to the drawing-room, which had the desolate look of all newly-emptied human resorts. While he was gazing inattentively at an opened bottle his father came in.
‘Ah, there you are, my boy. Are you away early tomorrow?’
‘Not especially, papa.
‘Commissioner Mets is coming to breakfast to discuss general policy. I though you might care to turn up as well.’
‘With anything particular in mind?’
‘The Commissioner might be interested to hear your views; you know some of the problems better than I do. It was just a thought.’
‘A very nice one. I’d love to come.’
‘Excellent. Eight o’clock. Try not to be late. Oh -Alexander…’
‘Yes, papa?’
‘You… you and Mrs Korotchenko and your turn in the gardens. I take it you, you DID, eh?’
Alexander had had fully ten seconds’ notice of a question on these lines, long enough to think things out as follows. There could be no point in shocking his father, who all the same appeared so far from shocked by the idea that it would be strange if he were to be much shocked by the fact, though on previous form, that of a sort of liberal puritan, some shock, unthickened with reproaches, was to be expected. That left the scales about level; what tipped them was the thought that it was too late at night for another elaborate exercise in dissimulation, especially for such trivial stakes. And there might well come a time when paternal possession of the fact in mind would be vita
l. Promptly enough to stand to win a couple of extra marks for supposed fearless honesty, he said, ‘Yes, I did.’
Petrovsky gave a great laugh. ‘I knew it! You young devil!’
‘How did you know, papa?’
‘Because I know you, that’s enough. Fancy that! I tried to get old Tabidze to take a bet, but he wouldn’t.’
‘What did you say to him? How did you put it?’
‘Put it? I just said to him, out of the Korotchenko fellow’s hearing of course, I said, “What do you wager there isn’t a spot of kissing going on outside at this moment?”, and as I say he wouldn’t take me. He said, “I wouldn’t stake ten pounds against that young spark doing anything in that line you care to name.” You see, he knows you too.’
Alexander took his turn to laugh and his father soon joined in. The pair of them went on for some time, like people in a play.
They did a lot of laughing in that house.
4
Shortly before eight o’clock the next morning a large blue motor-car was making its way through the surrounding park by means of a roughly-made road lined with strong young elms. At the sound of its approach the children from the lesser houses, those occupied by the lesser functionaries of the district administration, came running out to watch it pass, as their great-great-grandparents would have done at their age. Its passenger could not but be a person of unusual celebrity.
Commissioner Michael Mets was such a one, though he would have been rather embarrassed at the description. He was forty years old, strong and active, with a sharp nose and alert brown eyes behind spectacles. A brown imitation-leather dispatch-case lay beside him. Actually there was a second passenger: on the folding seat diagonally across from Mets there sat a young soldier in uniform with a pistol at his hip. The weapon was not loaded; the original necessary edict laying down armed escort for all notables had been retained in a period when that escort’s most strenuous duty was likely to be the carrying of parcels.
The car swept round a curve to the left, entered the court below the west front of the Controller’s residence and pulled up by the steps. Mets got out and ran his eye over the façade, adjusting his short belted jacket and student’s cap. There was an inscription below the roof, somewhat defaced but still legible. ‘Hora e sempre,’ he said aloud. Presumably archaic Italian, meaning ‘now and always’. Unless there was an accent on the second word, which would make it ‘now is always’. He took a few steps backwards to see better, but was unable to settle the question. Anyway, he ought to have known, just as he ought to have known whether the stylised lions on the roof were of stone or of some synthetic material.
Russian Hide-and-Seek Page 4