by Len Deighton
I’d come back from radiography and was dozing over a cup of tea and plate of chocolate biscuits when I heard the door open.
‘Hello, iron-head!’
‘Gloria.’
She came swaggering into the room with a bottle of wine and a warm cardboard box smelling of toasted cheese. She put the box on the table by my bed and opened it to reveal two large slices of hot pizza.
‘I thought they might not be feeding you properly in here,’ she explained, while getting a corkscrew from her handbag and then throwing it to me.
‘You’re right,’ I said, remembering the miserable chicken salad I’d been served at lunch.
‘Open the wine then.’ She slung her brown suede coat over the armchair. Under it she was wearing a beige roll-neck, matching skirt and polished leather riding boots. She took one of the slices of pizza in its paper wrapper and started eating. Elbows out, she craned forward awkwardly, holding the pizza in one hand while protecting her sweater against drips with the other hand. Between swallows she said: ‘Two Spanish brothers do them in Marylebone High Street. They’re the best pizzas in London.’
‘It’s good,’ I said.
She took the two glasses that stood beside my allocated bottle of Perrier water and set them before me while I extracted the cork from the wine. ‘Hurry,’ she said impatiently. ‘I’ve got a cab waiting.’
‘Why didn’t you pay it off?’ I poured wine for us.
‘I’ve got things to do: work!’ she said scornfully. ‘I’m not checking into the ante-natal clinic.’ She grabbed the glass and swallowed some wine between bites at the pizza. ‘This is hot sausage with extra cheese.’
‘Not very hot sausage,’ I said.
‘Not very hot,’ she agreed.
I watched her as she loped across the room and looked through the get-well cards and sniffed at the tulips, while continuing to eat. She was tall, with long slender legs and slim arms, and she displayed the halting gawkiness of a young antelope. Yet she was never clumsy. She never actually dripped tomato down her sweater, she didn’t fall over when she was running for a bus in that ungainly way, neither did she ever drive truly dangerously – she just looked as if she was going to. Or was my concern for her parental and protective in a way that a true lover’s concern should not be?
‘Show me your war wounds, bruiser,’ she said. With her free hand she grasped my hair and pulled my head forward to see the place where my head had been shaved. I could smell the soap with which she’d washed her hands and her touch made me shiver. If she noticed the effect this physical contact had upon me she gave no sign of it: ‘It’s not much. How did it happen?’ She let go of my hair and bit into the pizza and licked a dribble of sauce that was about to fall.
‘What did you hear?’ I said, secretly hoping that it would be some awesome feat of arms.
‘Don’t say you really did dive into a drained swimming pool?’ she said. ‘I’ll bet you broke some tiles.’
‘Where is all that tender loving care you used to bestow upon the weak and weary?’
‘Spurned.’
‘Ouch.’ Oh, well. I held up the tumbler of heavy red wine to see the light of the window gleaming through it. Gigondas, a rich and heavy Rhone red. ‘This is beautiful wine, Gloria. It must have set you back a fortune.’
‘It’s from my father’s cellar. He said I could help myself to what I wanted.’
‘Ummm. Is your father all right?’ I doubted whether Gloria’s father would have approved us guzzling his carefully stored old wine with a take-out pizza.
‘We haven’t heard from him yet. It’s sure to take him a few days to settle down. I don’t want to fuss, and neither does Mummy, but she runs to answer every phone call. You can imagine.’
‘I hope it works out for him.’
She finished the last of her pizza and threw the paper napkin into the waste-bin. Then she licked her fingers. ‘Listen, Bernard. That was silly, all that stuff I told you the other night.’ I looked at her without responding. ‘I was drunk.’
‘You weren’t drunk, Gloria. I’ve never seen you drunk.’ She never had shown much liking for alcohol. Her wineglass was still more or less full.
‘I can hold my drink,’ she said sternly but, unable to sustain her serious face, she burst into a giggle of laughter. ‘I was worried about Daddy going away. I was silly.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Did I tell you, I’ve still got lots of your clothes? I was going to leave them at the office for you but I didn’t know who to leave them with. People gossip. And you know how the security staff get about unattended boxes and bags. They force them open if they think there might be bombs in them.’
‘I’ll send someone down to your home to collect them.’
‘There are dozens of shirts. And there’s that lovely old suede jacket. You always look great in that, Bernard. I loved you in that, you always looked so …’
‘Young?’
‘Don’t start that all over.’
‘We mustn’t start anything all over,’ I said. Perhaps I said it too hurriedly.
‘No. I know we mustn’t. I try to avoid making difficulties for you, Bernard, I really do. In fact the real reason I popped in, was to ask you if it’s okay about dinner.’
‘Dinner?’
‘Yes, I thought you wouldn’t know. The Cruyers have asked me to dinner next Saturday. And I know you are going to be there with Fiona. Would it annoy her? Me being there, I mean.’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think so,’ I said, although I felt quite sure that Gloria’s presence would in fact upset Fiona very much indeed. I was surprised that Dicky didn’t know that too. Or was this Dicky’s way of sowing trouble for me?
‘Daphne phoned me this morning. They have an extra man at dinner, and she wants to make the numbers even. It was Daphne’s idea.’
‘Won’t your boyfriend mind?’ I asked, clutching at a straw in the hope she would suddenly decide not to go.
‘Boyfriend? I haven’t got a regular boyfriend.’
‘Is it over so soon?’
‘What?’
‘Your driver. Your rally companion.’
‘You pig! We’re an all-woman team.’
‘Your driver is a girl?’
‘No, she’s a forty-year-old woman. Do you think I need a man to drive a rally car?’
‘No, of course not.’
A slow grin: ‘You were jealous.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
She was immediately angry. ‘Ridiculous?’
‘You know what I mean. It’s all different now.’
‘I know. Look, I’ll leave the trade card of the pizza bakery on the side-table. They’ll deliver if you phone them.’
‘Thanks, Gloria. That’s very thoughtful.’
‘Bernard?’ she stopped and gave me a fleeting grin.
‘What?’
‘It’s not true … about us being taken over by the CIA, is it?’
I laughed. ‘Who told you that?’
‘Or that we are being merged with the CIA?’
‘You can rest your mind on that one, Gloria,’ I said. ‘Who on earth have you been speaking to?’
‘Some silly girl in the Registry told me months ago. I didn’t believe it, of course. But then, when I heard that Mr Rensselaer was coming back to London, I thought there might be something in it.’
‘Bret Rensselaer? In London?’
‘He’s coming back to work in the office. Didn’t you know that?’
‘Are you quite sure? Who told you?’
‘That’s who will be the extra man at the Cruyers’ on Saturday. That’s who I’m to be with.’
‘Yes, but not living in London,’ I said with waning conviction. ‘Just a visit I should think. Or a meeting.’
‘No, he’s coming back to work for Dicky. He’s already got a place to live and there’s a secretary lined up for him. The problem is the office. There’s nowhere for him on the top floor, unless they turf your wife out and
give him his old room back. And Dicky Cruyer would never agree to that.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘Girls’ talk,’ she said. ‘Hang around in the ladies’ wash-room and you’ll find out anything you want to know.’
‘I’ll try it,’ I said.
‘So you don’t mind about Saturday dinner?’
‘I’m sure Fiona will understand.’ My head was throbbing again.
‘Daphne is in a state. You know what she’s like. She’s convinced that Bret Rensselaer is a vegetarian. She’s thinking of giving him tomatoes filled with bulgur wheat as a starter, and cauliflower cheese as the main course.’
‘No, not Bret. He wouldn’t like that.’
She leaned over the bed to kiss me goodbye, but stopped before doing so. Poised inches above me she said: ‘Can I tell her that, definitely?’
‘Daphne? Of course.’
‘Otherwise we might all be eating nut-rolls and great heaps of that bloody bulgur wheat and tabbouleh and all that muck that Daphne says is healthy.’ She gave me a kiss on the lips, and then wiped the traces of lipstick off my face with a spittle-moistened piece of tissue. ‘We don’t want your wife asking you awkward questions, do we?’
‘Fiona has already been in. She was here before you.’
‘Yes, I know. I saw her in the office with your suit.’
‘She wanted to be sure I wouldn’t walk out of here.’
‘She’s clever,’ said Gloria, with admiration that was unmistakably genuine.
‘Yes, she’s very clever,’ I said.
17
I often thought that Daphne’s life with Dicky must have been unendurable. It wasn’t that Dicky was stupid or selfish; he was no more so than many people of his age, class and background. And I’m sure there were many husbands who had strayed far more often than Dicky had done, and done it more cruelly. It was simply that Dicky seemed unable to indulge in an extramarital fling, however fleeting, without Daphne discovering all about it. It may have been something in Dicky’s subconscious, some need for attention, that caused these lapses that betrayed him. It may have been deliberately done to cause Daphne unhappiness. But, whatever the reason, Dicky Cruyer’s character contained some flaw – or was it some virtue? – that made him quite unable to keep his indiscretions secret. Time and time again, a brave but tearful Daphne would be phoning Dicky’s secretary asking about Dicky’s recent evening appointments. To me such episodes only cast further doubt on the boundless confidence our masters had reposed in him as a custodian of the nation’s secrets.
And over the years Daphne had become more and more adept at recognizing the high-spirited deportment that he displayed when these intrigues were in full flood. It was not difficult. I had learned to recognize some of the symptoms myself. So when, that Friday morning, I found Dicky in his office singing, I guessed that his life had taken some new and exciting turn. I wondered who was the lucky girl, and whether there was a clue to her identity in the fact that he was giving an animated rendering of ‘You Ain’t Nothin’ But a Hound Dog’ accompanied by Elvis Presley trapped in a small cassette recorder on the desk.
‘Oh, Bernard,’ he said, and switched the machine off. ‘Come in. Head better now?’
‘Yes, thank you, Dicky,’ I said.
‘Sit down, sit down.’ He moved the cassette recorder to one side and tapped a finger upon the report I’d submitted about going to Pankow and talking to Fedosov. It said only that the elder Fedosov was a well-established contact I’d used for many years, and that I had visited him as part of my regular method of remaining in contact with informants. We’d had an argument, my report said, in which I was slightly injured. VERDI was not mentioned. Dicky knew it was nothing like the truth, but he wanted the whole episode to be forgotten as soon as possible, so he wasn’t about to sit me down and interrogate me about it. ‘There will be no repercussions in respect of your going off on your private errand seeing Fedosov the elder,’ he said.
‘Oh, good,’ I said.
‘Not unless something unforeseen happens.’
‘What sort of something?’
‘Well, you know … If there was some official complaint.’
‘About me being attacked and injured?’
‘Well, yes. That’s what I mean. Not very likely, is it?’ He moved my report an inch to one side and lined it up with a new digital clock that showed the time all around the world. Dicky bought it when he ‘got Europe’. ‘I’m pleased to say we’ve brought the D-G round to our point of view on the VERDI business.’
‘That’s good,’ I said. Not knowing exactly what our point of view was, I artfully added: ‘What did he say?’
‘He’s happy to leave it to me.’
‘That’s quite a change of mind,’ I said. ‘From what I was told, he was digging his heels in against it.’
‘No, no,’ said Dicky, ‘not at all.’ Then, deciding that such a disclaimer would deprive him of credit that was rightfully his due: ‘At first he was. Yes, that’s right. Very much opposed. But if there’s one thing I pride myself on, it’s being able to sort out complicated technical material so it can be understood by the layman.’
‘Yes, you have a mechanical mind, Dicky,’ I said.
‘So why didn’t you wind it up this week? Yes, I’ve heard that joke, Bernard. It’s time you got some new ones.’
Naughty Bernard: no coffee for you today. ‘And the D-G authorized the use of Werner Volkmann too?’ I prompted.
‘I told him that we would have to use people with a special knowledge of Berlin. I mentioned you and Volkmann and a few others, and I gave him a list of people on an official memorandum so he won’t be able to say he didn’t know afterwards. Volkmann will be coming over next week for a briefing. Yes, we’re pushing ahead.’ Dicky picked up a small sheet of memo paper. ‘From the desk of Richard Cruyer’ was printed along the top in ornate Saxon lettering. Upside-down, from where I was sitting I could see a typewritten list of names, with pencil marks down the margin. He put the paper at his elbow where he could refer to it.
‘Is that why you wanted to see me?’ I said. He had sent Jenni-with-an-i down to find me and get me to his office urgently.
‘Ah, yes. No, that was in connection with staff changes. I thought you should be informed early that we’re bringing Bret Rensselaer back into the office.’
‘Really,’ I said politely, injecting surprise, gratitude and on-going interest into my reaction.
‘Yes. I’m not sure quite what we’re going to do with him, to tell you the honest truth. You’ve seen him recently, Bernard. Off the record: what’s he like?’
‘You know what he’s like, Dicky. He used to work here on the top floor.’
‘Don’t be stupid, Bernard. I mean what sort of shape is he in now? What’s his health like?’
‘Perfectly fit from all I could see. He does twenty miles on an exercise bike before breakfast every morning,’ I said, improvising a story that perhaps went a little too far.
‘Well, I know that’s not true,’ said Dicky, with a stifled chuckle that revealed his exasperation. ‘He’s been very ill.’
‘He was shot,’ I said. ‘Yes, I was there. But wounds heal, Dicky. He’s in fine shape.’
I could see from the crestfallen look on his face that my appointed role in this discussion was to provide Dicky with quotes that he could take elsewhere and prove that Bret was quite unsuited for a job anywhere in the organization.
‘Fine shape? That’s really your opinion?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you’re not medically trained, Bernard. And I am inclined to believe that a man who was taken to one of the best hospitals in Berlin, and given up for dead – and that’s not long ago – is hardly suited for all the stresses and strains of day-to-day work here.’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that, Dicky,’ I said. My own unspoken feeling was that there were quite a few senior men working on the top floor whom I had long since given up for dead.
Dic
ky bit his lip and reminisced soberly: ‘Bret’s brother Sheldon came barging into the Steglitz Clinic in Berlin, and carted him off to Washington DC on some special plane that accompanies the American President on his journeys and is kept on call in case he suddenly needs top-flight emergency medical treatment. That’s the kind of pull Bret’s family has in Washington.’
‘I was there,’ I said, in case Dicky decided to relate the whole of that long saga from his own very personal viewpoint. ‘I was at the shooting; I was at the Steglitz Clinic when they rolled him out.’
‘But that kind of influence cuts no ice in this Department. Not now that I’ve got Europe,’ added Dicky with Napoleonic self-assurance.
‘What is the arrangement going to be?’
‘About Bret? We’ll probably find out what he has to offer over dinner on Saturday night. He’s coming to dinner; did I tell you that?’ I nodded. ‘But I can’t play favourites, Bernard. Bret knows he can’t expect me to push Fiona out so soon after her appointment.’
‘And before yours is confirmed,’ I said.
‘What?’ He permitted himself a sly grin as if surprised that my mind could be as devious as his. ‘Yes, and before I’m confirmed. That’s right.’ He stood up and posed with his hands on his hips. ‘This has all happened before, hasn’t it?’
‘What has?’
‘It’s déjà vu,’ he said, ‘seen before.’
‘Yes, I have a little French,’ I said. ‘But I thought it meant something you only imagined the first time.’
‘Bret Rensselaer hunting through the Department to find a place to build a nice empire for himself.’
‘You must have thought of some job for him.’
‘It’s not sensible,’ said Dicky. ‘Sending a senior man like that over here, when it’s obvious that I can’t use him. No one checked with me. No one asked me if I wanted the fellow.’
‘They couldn’t make him German Stations Controller without your approval, could they?’
‘He couldn’t manage the German,’ said Dicky. And then, less sure of this: ‘Does he speak good enough German?’