by Ann Bridge
He laughed. ‘Very well—I’ll do that. You both deserve it.’
‘Yes, don’t we? Where would the poor old Secret Service be without us?’ Julia said. Talking about concrete things like getting June home had done her good, taking her mind off her private misery—she cracked back at Antrobus almost without effort. But it was not without effort that she now said—‘And you’re being transferred, I gather?’
‘Yes. I was only laid on here temporarily, for this bank affair, because I know the people and the language.’
‘But did they know in London beforehand that Wright and Borovali were going to rob Mr. Thalassides’ numbered till?’ Julia asked, so startled that she again forgot her own unhappiness.
‘Not who, or how —no. But there was a hint that an attempt would be made to get hold of the blue-prints; that’s why I came out; and why you were able to accost me at Victoria!’ he said smiling.
Julia didn’t smile—she could no longer bear to recall that light-hearted moment. But her curiosity mastered her pain.
‘How on earth did Borovali come to know the account number? That seems so extraordinary.’
‘We don’t know. He comes from the Middle East, as Thalassides did, and practically everyone there is as crooked as a dog’s hind leg! There was certainly a leak somewhere—more likely east of the Piraeus than in London. But he did know the account number, and the lawyers’ names, and got hold of a faked death-certificate, and of writing-paper with their letter-head, and forged the signatures.’
‘Must have been a minor leak in London too, mustn’t there? Some trumpery underpaid clerk with a pregnant wife or a girl-friend with extravagant ideas, I expect,’ Julia said. ‘Poor toad! He was exploited just like June, no doubt. How I do hate and loathe the way international crookery plays on these silly ignorant creatures.’
He looked at her rather earnestly. ‘You really are always on the side of the angels, aren’t you? I like that,’ he said, with more warmth than she had yet heard in his voice that morning. But what good was it for him to like this or that about her, if he didn’t like her enough to mind going two thousand, or whatever it was, miles away?
‘Oh, I hope I am,’ she said, in her most casual voice. ‘No point in being on the side of the devils, that I can see, unless one’s a commie.’ And as he laughed—‘Where are all these mosaics? Istanbul?’
‘Yes. I’ve always longed to be there,’ he said, with the same eagerness that she had heard while he was telephoning.
‘I thought Ankara was the capital nowadays,’ Julia said, still using this protective disguise to her feelings. ‘Why won’t you be up there?’
‘Oh, so many things really go on in Istanbul still,’ he said, ‘in spite of the Cabinet and the Embassies being stuck up on the plateau. Of course one will be going to and fro—I believe the wild-flowers round Ankara are amazing: they say one of our Ambassadors, between the wars, found a new species, unknown to science, within a hundred yards of his newly-built Embassy.’
‘How nice,’ Julia said, rather tepidly.
‘Don’t publicise this,’ he added.
‘Oh don’t be absurd, John! Really!’
‘I apologise,’ he said at once. ‘That was stupid of me. What can I do by way of reparations?’
‘Well, as I don’t suppose I shall be seeing you again, you might tell me what those blue-prints are of,’ the girl said. ‘And don’t call me Fatima,’ she added hastily.
‘Do you dislike that? I didn’t realise. I suppose it was rather a silly joke.’
She couldn’t tell him that in fact she had greatly enjoyed his calling her Fatima, and that that was just why, now, the name had become unendurable.
‘Rather a moderate one,’ was all she said.
‘But why shan’t you be seeing me again? I shall be in this bed for at least a fortnight, that man Hertz says. I hoped you would be coming to bring me flowers, and cheer my loneliness.’
‘Hopes are nearly always dupes, whether fears are liars or not,’ Julia said. (Really, this was a little much.) ‘My pan is over-full of fishes as it is, and now that Colin’s job’s done, I must start frying away.’
‘What fish?’
‘Mrs. Hathaway, who overdid herself last night coping with bankers and policemen. I must concentrate on looking after her till she’s fit for the journey to England. And then of course shepherding June home. Goodness, I suppose we shall all have to travel in a bunch! Watkins will hate June,’ Julia said, suddenly visualising this very ill-assorted party. As Antrobus laughed, and before he could reply she said—‘Don’t ride off on side-issues, John. Pay me my reparations!’
‘I wonder why you want to know so much,’ he said, looking at her speculatively.
‘Never mind. I just do. Come on—tell. What are those container things?’
‘You do really realise that I’ve no business to tell you this at all, and that you must keep it a deadly secret?’ he said.
‘Oh yes—and I do really realise that but for me they’d be in enemy hands by now, and therefore that much deadlier. You seem to have forgotten that.’
‘I shall never forget that,’ Antrobus said. ‘Neither your hunch or inspiration or whatever it was in snatching that bag, nor your resource in securing the papers afterwards.’ He paused. ‘Couldn’t you bring that chair a little nearer?’
‘No—it has lead in its legs,’ Julia said, making no attempt to move the light wicker construction. ‘No one can overhear you—don’t stall. Tell.’
‘Well, old Thalassides was a bit of a genius in his way; at least he had the gift of looking farther ahead than most people. And with the Middle East the way it’s going, he thought that nuclear-powered submarine tankers would be a much better way of moving oil about than over-land pipe-lines, with grasping little oil-less States demanding exorbitant transit dues, or blowing up the pumping stations if they happened to lose their tempers.’
‘Sound enough,’ Julia commented.
‘So he conceived the idea of having submarine pumping stations on the sea-bed, off-shore from these coastal oil-producing places like Bahrein or Kuwait, with underwater pipe-lines leading into them from the land, and nozzles and so on to make the connection with the in-take tubes from the tankers. I’m not an expert in these things, but roughly, that’s the idea. Just a junction, you see.’
‘Oh yes—and then frog-men with aqua-lungs go down and operate it when the nuclear tanker has anchored itself alongside. How ingenious.’
‘Exactly. I believe they’re to be made of Perspex, to let in as much natural light as possible—though I fancy there will be electric lighting too. But of course the whole thing is immensely complicated: the doors and valves for ingress and egress, and so on.’
‘Oh, like the Schnorkel thing in submarines?’
‘No, dear; that’s the mistake everyone makes. Like the Davis Escape Hatch is what you mean. But you’ve got the general idea. Anyhow old Thalassides and his experts got the whole thing worked out, and drawn out; I believe they even experimented with one in the Mediterranean, where there are next to no tides, of course, to pull things crooked. And if Russia gets too much of an ascendancy in the Middle East, as she shows every sign of doing, it might save the life—or at least the mobility—of the free world if these things were in operation. That’s why you really must keep all this completely dark.’
‘And that’s why Frau Dortmund, and all our other enemies, wanted the blue-prints so much. Well, I think I ought to have the D.B.E.,’ Julia said briskly. ‘Which of all these old Dames, Civil Servants or professional do-gooders or what have you, have done anything more useful than June and I have?’
‘None of them; nothing like so important. You’ve rendered a major service. But you won’t get it, and I shan’t recommend you for it.’
‘Why not? “For Services rendered Abroad” sounds very like the Honours List, to me.’
‘No. It’s all much too serious. Anyhow, what on earth do you want to be a Dame for? “Dame Julia Probyn”�
�at your age, you’d look a fool!’
‘Yes, I suppose I should,’ Julia agreed candidly. ‘Still, I think I might have something. What about the Order of Merit? “Julia Probyn, O.M.”—I don’t think that sounds at all bad. Surely I measure up to some of the people who get it?’ She rose as she spoke. ‘I ought to be getting back to Mrs. H. Do you need soap or gaspers?—or some paper-backs? And do you want anything fetched from your hotel?’
‘As a matter of fact I do—I made a list, hoping that someone would be a ministering angel.’ He reached for his wallet on the bed-table, grunting again with the pain of the movement, and took out a sheet of paper. ‘There—it’s rather a lot, I’m afraid.’
Julia scanned the list.
‘Oh, I can do that quite fast—I’ll have the things from the shops sent in. But are you going to keep on your room at the hotel, or do you want everything packed and brought round? I can’t do all that today.’
‘No, I’m keeping the room—if you could just throw what I’ve listed into one of the suit-cases and get it round here it would be a great help. I should like to be able to shave!’
‘Right, I can manage that. But telephone to the hotel to authorise them to let me take away your property.’
‘I’ll do that, of course.’
‘And what shall I do with the car? Leave it outside the door here, or what?’
‘I think you’d better keep it while I’m laid up,’ he said, after a moment’s consideration.
‘Oh, that’s absurd,’ Julia said, thoroughly taken aback.
‘Why? I can’t use it, and I should have thought you might like to take Mrs. Hathaway for some nice drives.’
Julia was silent, considering in her turn. It would of course be absolutely lovely to be able to drive Mrs. H. up the passes and round the two lakes in the Porsche, so swift and smooth—but as things were, she couldn’t be under any obligation to John.
‘You might even slip down occasionally to cheer me up,’ Antrobus added, before she had spoken.
‘No, I don’t expect to have time for that. I think “No” all round—though thanking you for the kind thought,’ Julia said, as lightly as she could. ‘Tell me where to leave it, and when I’ve brought your things round here I’ll go back on the bus.’
‘I think you are making the wrong decision,’ he said, after studying her face. ‘In fact it would be very useful for you to have a car, not only to get about here, but to go over to Bellardon to collect your wretched little June and take her to the train at Berne. You could turn it in there; it’s where I hired it. I shan’t be able to drive a car myself till long after I’ve gone home, Hertz says. Personally I think you’ve earned a free car for two or three weeks, just as we both think you deserve a D.B.E. You can’t have that—you can have this. I wish you’d take it.’
Again she was silent, thinking. How quick he was to guess her reason for refusing—disconcertingly so. But then he was quick. She stood irresolute, torn between the delightful prospect of driving Mrs. Hathaway about—and it would be madly convenient for fetching June, of course—and her reluctance to accept anything from John, now. On the other hand she didn’t mind what she accepted from the Government, if it was on them—certainly she had earned something from the Welfare State, which lived, or rather moved, on oil, if she had helped to secure its future supplies. And was it much good trying to safeguard her personal position, with someone as astute as John, by standing on her dignity? Was it ever, really, all that important to safeguard one’s personal position, even if it were possible?—which in this case it almost certainly wasn’t.
She moved over again to the window, and stood looking out on the military array of vegetables while she wrestled with this new idea. Men didn’t worry about their personal position: Geoffrey Consett hadn’t, Steve hadn’t, Hugh Torrens hadn’t; they had all simply thrown their personal positions away, thrown them at her, openly imploring. She suddenly remembered, with a curious twisted pang, how Colin up at Glentoran—was it really only five weeks ago?—had remonstrated with her for leading men on and then rubbing them off—especially Torrens, to whom he was devoted. And now she had been led on and rubbed off herself! Oh, but for women it was different, at least by convention; very few Englishwomen, at any rate, were Clare Clairmonts, shamelessly pursuing their Byrons to the point of running from one villa beside Lac Leman to the other in their nightgowns, across the dew-grey meadows. She giggled a little at the picture; she had always thought Clare a funny phoney. And accepting the use of a Government car for a fortnight was hardly on all fours with running about in one’s nightgown to pursue a lover.
‘What are you laughing at?’ Antrobus asked from the bed.
‘I thought of something funny.’
‘May I know what?’
‘No.’ Suddenly she found that she had taken her decision. ‘And it’s “No” to the car, too,’ she said, quite gently—’ though it was sweet of you to suggest it. Must I drive it to Berne, or can I leave it at the garage of your hotel here, after I’ve brought your things round, and let them cope?’
He looked at her rather fixedly.
‘My dear, why not use it?’
‘You must answer my question before I answer yours. Can your hotel cope?
‘Yes, of course. But I still don’t see why not.’
Julia went over towards the bed.
‘You’ll have to learn to understand a lot of things before you’re through,’ she said lightly. ‘Goodbye. Don’t forget about June’s passport.’ And ignoring his outstretched hand she walked out of the room.
Chapter 16
Interlaken—Bellardon
It was a good thing for Julia that after taking this knock there was so much to be done as to leave little time for thought. On the other hand going into Antrobus’s room at his hotel, and collecting and packing his more intimate accessories, like sponges and pyjamas and shaving-things, was strangely painful. All this might have become part of a common life with him; now it wasn’t going to. Nevertheless, his list in hand, methodically, she went through the job, and then rang for the valet to take the suit-case down and put it into the car. In the hall she told the porter that she was shortly bringing the Porsche back to be garaged—‘Herr Antrobus will give further directions himself.’
‘How goes it with der Herri the porter enquired solicitously. ‘I hear that he was wounded in an affray in the Aares-Schlucht. What an affair!
‘He is going on well,’ Julia said.
‘The Fräulein has seen him?’
‘Yes, just now. He is recovering. Quite soon I bring back the car.’ She hurried away from the kindly man, who obviously doted on Antrobus—well, didn’t she?—made the purchases of books, cigarettes, and lighter-fuel that were also on his list, and took everything round to the Clinic. The nurse who answered the bell said—‘Der englische Herr wished to see the Fräulein when she brought his luggage. He asked this most urgently.’
‘Tell Herr Antrobus that I regret it very much, but it is too late,’ Julia said, looking at her watch. It was late; she would barely have time to get the Porsche back to the hotel and catch her bus—but everything between her and John was too late now. She helped the woman to carry in the suit-case, dumped her purchases on the small table in the hall, and drove away very fast.
At the hotel there was a further delay. The manager came out, washing his hands in the traditional hôtelier manner, and asked if Herr Antrobus desired to keep on his room? And what was to be done with the rest of his Gepäck? And with the car?
Julia was suddenly exasperated by all this.
‘In God’s name, ask him!’ she exclaimed. ‘He has the telephone by his bed in the Justus-Klinik.’ Really, John might have telephoned before now to save her this final worry.
‘Verzeihung!’ the manager said, with a polite bow. ‘But as der Herr is ill, and as das Fräulein came to pack some of his effects, I thought it right to ask her.’
‘No; ask Herr Antrobus himself. And can you get me a cab or a taxi? I
am afraid I shall miss the Beatenberg bus.’
‘Ah, the Fräulein is at Beatenberg? A charming spot. My chauffeur is here—allow me to let him take you to the Bahnhof-Platz.’
The drive up to Beatenberg was long, hot, and wearisome. Julia found a seat at the back—she didn’t want to talk to der Chrigl, who, as so often, was at the wheel; even the little tune on the horn was a burden, like King Solomon’s grasshopper. In fact between her various exertions—beginning with von Allmen at breakfast-time—and her private misery she was tired to a degree most unusual for her. But there was no respite; she had hardly sat down to lunch with Mrs. Hathaway—late, anyhow—when the good Hanna came to summon her to the telephone. Dreading Antrobus’s voice, she walked along to the Kleine Saal, but it was Colin who spoke.
‘I thought I’d just let you know that everything is perfectly all right. I got in so soon that we were on the doorstep at H.M.’s Personal Representative’s as the postman walked up!—so no fuss at all. Everyone here is delighted, naturally.’
‘Good—I’m very glad.’ At once she thought of June and her passport. ‘Look, could you talk to “Philip”, whoever he is, and arrange about a passport for our little friend?’ (Could she count on Antrobus for anything, now? Not with any confidence.) ‘He can check with John,’ she nevertheless added.
‘That will hardly be necessary. They’re all so madly pleased with what you’ve done—I told them everything—that I rather fancy it will be “ask and have”, where you are concerned.’
‘Splendid. Well do ask—I’ll ring Jean-Pierre and get her home address, date of birth, and so on, and send it. Can she sign the form? She’s only 18.’
‘I must look that up—hold on.’
Julia held on. Quite soon Colin was on the line again.
‘Here you are—between the ages of 16 and 21 “children” must have individual passports, but the application must be signed by “a parent or guardian”, it says.’