Letters for a Spy

by Stephen Benatar

  But then I remembered. What was the matter with me? Why did I keep on forgetting how recently she had lost the man she had become engaged to? Her anger at life clearly had to be channelled somewhere. And for the moment it was I who was handy.

  “All the same, Sybella, it was instinctive and I still value it, even if you’ve now decided to retract.”

  “Why did you come to Aldershot?” she asked, sharply.

  Just like that. Without preamble.

  Admittedly, I got the feeling that as soon as she had spoken she might have wished she hadn’t.

  “Oh, well,” I said. “It was on account of a cousin being transferred to the barracks here. He wasn’t looking forward to it and I thought that if I turned up unexpectedly it might give him a bit of a lift. But I got the dates wrong; it’s next week he arrives!”

  Even if it were justified I should never have been happy to award myself such credit. I hoped she wouldn’t comment.

  And she didn’t. She didn’t say anything. Not for a while. But shortly she appeared to rally. I admired her for this; admired her enormously. If I myself had lost somebody I was in love with, I believed it might have taken me weeks to recover, weeks, even months. To recover just the ability to cope; just the ability to get dully through the days. And yet here was she, maybe up and down a little, yes, but really doing her utmost to be brave—to be brave and to be buoyant. I found it very humbling.

  We left the park and visited the Prince Consort’s Army Library. This contained a large assortment of military books and maps and models. We also looked in at the Royal Army Dental Corps Museum. But after seeing the tooth-key allegedly used to extract the molars of Napoleon we decided that perhaps we felt a mite too squeamish to remain. A mustachioed attendant—almost certainly a retired military man himself—told us that soldiers had once required exceptionally strong teeth in order to make ready their muskets.

  “Having to bite right through them, don’t you see?” He was pointing out the paper cartridges and tapping insistently against the glass case.

  “Pretty bad luck,” I said, “for those whose gums weren’t up to it?”

  “Quite right, young man. Quite right. Which of course illustrates one of the many links still existing between dentistry and the Army.”

  “Still?” I exclaimed.

  Outside again—I didn’t know how it happened, it shouldn’t have happened, either in Sybella’s situation or my own—we succumbed to a fit of the giggles. Not because of anything truly funny: only because of the attendant’s Lord Kitchener moustache and military bearing and the parade-ground satisfaction with which he had articulated, “Quite right, young man. Quite right.”

  I thought my own impersonation passed muster but he’d have been an easy man for anyone to imitate. We both added increasingly unlikely scraps of dialogue, plus an adoring wife and goggle-eyed daughter (Happy Families: Colonel and Mrs and Miss Honoria Musket), and by the time we stumbled out of Evelyn Woods Road our giggles were recurrent. Our only possible hope, we reiterated firmly, lay in a pot of really good strong tea.

  Or even in just the thought of one—for by the time we eventually arrived at Daphne’s (or arrived back, in my own case) we were behaving a little more like adults.

  The manageress welcomed me as if I were a favourite customer; and as this morning I had drunk not merely one, not merely two, but three cups of her definitely odd-tasting coffee, perhaps I was.

  “No, please don’t try to be amusing,” cautioned Sybella, when I quietly mentioned this. “To be amused right now is not what I require.”

  To me there was an ambiguity here which I found instantly sobering, although I was well aware it hadn’t been intended. While we waited to be served I asked at what time her train left.

  “Or aren’t you going by train? Or aren’t you going tonight?”

  “Oh, yes, by train,” she said. “But I was thinking I mightn’t travel now until the morning. Stay on at the barracks. Nobody minds.”

  “In other words—because of me—you’ve lost a full day of your leave?”

  “That isn’t quite how I’d have put it. I’d have said that—because of you—my leave began a little earlier than anticipated.”

  “That’s kind,” I said.

  “Not at all.”

  I had to steel myself.

  “Nevertheless, I feel I ought to try to make it up to you. You see, I have a troublesome conscience. And—perhaps what matters more—I also have two theatre tickets for tomorrow night.”

  I barely paused.

  I tried to keep my tone as casual as I could.

  “It’s for something called Strike A New Note. George Black’s Strike A New Note. It’s playing at the Prince of Wales.”

  18

  She hesitated.

  I knew, of course, why she hesitated.

  Should she say she had already seen it—or should she lie, in order not to spoil my pleasure?

  “I’d love to go with you,” she said.

  “You hesitated.”

  She laughed. “A girl should never sound too eager.”

  I answered rather slowly.

  “I thought you might have seen it?”

  She sighed. There was a pause.

  “I have. You’re remarkably astute. Or else I’m just a rotten actress. But perhaps I shouldn’t be saying that—not to you, of all people?” She nodded towards her handbag. Laura was in her handbag.

  God, I felt so tempted to scotch that silly story—right here and now—and simply see what came of it. Obviously I couldn’t.

  Yet I told myself I would. Somehow. Before I left England.

  Giving me just three days! Less than three whole days!

  “I’d truly be as happy to settle for something else, Sybella. Please. Tell me the name of whatever you’d like to see.”

  “Strike A New Note,” she answered, firmly.

  Now it was I who hesitated. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. I really like Sid Field.”

  “Me, too.”

  I went on quickly—fearing she’d ask what I had seen him in. “Whom did you go with?” I said.

  “A friend.”

  But her tone made it clear she didn’t wish to add to this.

  “I’m sorry. Why should I even assume you went with anyone?”

  “Fairly natural. Not many women go to the theatre alone these days. Or maybe ever did.”

  “Was it long ago you saw it?”

  “No.”

  “I suppose your stage manager had to double up on that occasion, too?” My smile was meant to suggest jokiness.

  “Our ASM,” she corrected me. “Assistant stage manager.”

  At least I had the common sense to let it drop. A moment afterwards, in any case, the waitress brought our tea.

  “Look,” Sybella said, when the woman had departed with her tray, “maybe this isn’t such a very good idea.”

  “What isn’t?”

  “The theatre. Our meeting when we get to town.”

  I had to be careful to conceal my disappointment. “All right. If that’s the way you feel. I do understand.”

  “Do you?”

  For about ten seconds she appeared to concentrate on stirring the contents of the pot.

  “Exactly what, Oliver, do you understand?”

  “Well—naturally—that you feel your boyfriend wouldn’t like it.”

  “Boyfriend?”

  “Yes, don’t you have one? I’m sure you must have.”

  She poured our tea. I cut my toasted bun in half. Waited for her to start on hers.

  “No, actually,” she said, “I don’t have any boyfriend.” There was a further pause, while she replenished the teapot with hot water. “Not any more,” she said.

  “But this fellow who took you to the Prince of Wales?” I sensed it was all right now to help her out, so long as I was gentle.

  “Or again,” I added, “perhaps I’m only jumping to conclusions?”

  She shook her head.


  “No. The thing is, however…”

  I heard the tremor in her voice. I waited, feeling uncomfortable—uncomfortable for myself, unhappy for her. I stared down at the tablecloth, at the Shippam’s paste jar with its little bunch of daisies.

  “The thing is…,” she repeated.

  And then she managed to say it. “That fellow you talk about is dead.”

  I had been dreading this moment: doubting my ability to appear natural. But when I looked up again, just the stricken quality of her expression dispelled my self-consciousness.

  “Oh God, I am sorry.” And this time it was my hand that reached out to touch hers. “I am so very sorry.”

  She said, “Please don’t. I’d rather not. Let’s talk about something else.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  I withdrew my hand. I wanted to respect her wishes, I truly did. And the present atmosphere of chattering activity and cheerfulness, with people all about us tucking into their toasted buns or scones or thinly iced fairy cakes, only served to confirm my inclination. Very clearly, that atmosphere stated, these were not the right surroundings in which to be speaking of bereavement.

  Yet—against this—if she really thought it better not to see me in London, I decided that I absolutely had to remain focused. There was simply nothing else for it. Being too scrupulous over the niceties was a luxury that no one in my position could afford. I said: “You must have loved him very much.”

  And immediately despised myself for having said it—partly because it was such a cliché, a line I must have heard in upwards of a dozen movies, and partly because, at such a moment as this, I should actually be thinking about its being a cliché.

  But it had come to mind before anything else; no—almost shockingly—in place of anything else. You must have loved him very much.

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I did.”

  Silence.

  She added: “And he was going to be my husband.”

  Maybe only a minor amplification. But definitely a major sign of hope.

  “I’m sorry, Oliver. I honestly didn’t mean to spring it on you like that. About his being dead. About his being my fiancé.”

  “You didn’t spring anything.”

  “Because I’m not normally the type who discloses things which … Things which…”

  “Hurt?”

  “Yes. I’m not normally the type who discloses things which … hurt. I think that somehow you must bring it out in me.”

  “Good,” I said.

  “Good?”

  “Yes—nowadays, the psychologists lay great stress on the dangers of our bottling up emotions.”

  “Do they?”

  “You must know that they do.” I briefly touched her hand again. “So what was his name?”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “No particular reason. I’m only aiming to help out the psychologists.”

  “Bill Martin,” she said. “Major Bill Martin. Of the Royal Marines. They tell me he died a fortnight ago yesterday. Dear God! Only two days after we had been to see Strike A New Note!”

  I said: “I can’t imagine how you carry on. To get up in the morning—brush your teeth—walk out on stage. Make conversation. You’ve got more courage than I would ever have.” It was merely a repetition of what I’d been thinking in the park.

  “Huh!” she exclaimed. “Courage, you call it? Only look at me now!”

  Her eyes had begun to water again. Inevitably, mine did, as well.

  “I am looking. Tremendous courage.”

  “Don’t,” she repeated. “Please don’t. We must talk of something else! It’s only because … Well, of all the things on the London stage at the moment, you just happened to pick out the very show which…”

  “I know,” I said. “I know. It was cruel.”

  I wondered whether—if I’d kept my mouth shut—this might have rendered me less of a hypocrite.

  Yet, on the other hand, fate was cruel. Even without my own connivance.

  Was it really such hypocrisy?

  I said, “I remember how my father was, after my mother died. Dear Lord, I don’t need to remember how he was. I remember how I was.”

  She gazed at me, momentarily, with all the compassion I’d been directing towards her.

  “One slight difference, though. You were just a boy.”

  “Sometimes boys are more resilient.”

  We had started on our teacakes. But Sybella was doing scarcely more than play with hers.

  “In any case,” she said, “I wouldn’t call it courage. Carrying on with your job is possibly the best way—the only way—that someone can survive. When I’m on stage, you see, I actually almost forget.”

  She had now cut her bun into quarters. She seemed to be thinking of making still further divisions.

  “Except, of course, it all comes back. And then I sometimes wish it hadn’t gone away—well, partly gone away. But that’s ungrateful. In the end I’m sure it will prove beneficial. And everyone’s been wonderful; wonderful. Even a total stranger like yourself…”

  I looked down at my plate; stabbed a few crumbs with my forefinger. I would have liked to say, I don’t feel like a total stranger, please don’t see me as such, but then it appeared she even felt some need to underline her assertion—as if actually meaning to remind herself of something. “A total stranger,” she repeated.

  She had said it very quietly, whilst gazing at the chequered blue tablecloth. And it then occurred to me she could possibly have guessed my thoughts; was wanting to emphasize, as kindly as she could, the utter foolishness which lay behind them.

  The foolishness of feeling wistful about any future that could possibly connect the two of us.

  Any future, that was, beyond Wednesday.

  She looked up.

  “And talking of forgetting,” she said—and this was now in her more normal tone, one pitched again at conversation—“I can hardly believe that it was me who was giggling so imbecilically when we left the museum…”

  “Oh, but—good heavens—you weren’t alone in that!”

  “…even if I do think now it may have been a little closer to hysteria than to genuine amusement. Which isn’t to say,” she added tactfully, “that your take-off wasn’t amusing. It just wasn’t all that amusing. Was it?”

  I said: “What nonsense! Of course it was all that amusing.”

  She may have been caught slightly by surprise. At any rate, she laughed. Not simply out of politeness; her laughter was spontaneous.

  “And please don’t tell me that that was closer to hysteria, also?”

  “No, I won’t,” she said. “You’re right. I suppose that, little by little, the darkness really may be lifting.”

  She still seemed puzzled, though.

  “But—do you know—in a way I don’t even want it to. I don’t want to start forgetting him … not if that’s what it would mean to have the darkness disappear.”

  “No, you’re not going to forget him—of course not—not ever! Yet there are bound to be some days easier to get through than others. And I’m only glad if today may have proved to be one of the easier ones.”

  Yet I had a reservation … and she quickly realized it.

  “Something’s struck you! What is it?”

  I thought she sounded anxious but even so I paused.

  Afterwards, I was aware, I might regret saying this. But at the same time it was a concern I felt I had to express.

  “You’ve told me how it helps to be on stage. Therefore I’m worried that if you take a few days off—”

  She had relaxed. Relaxed to the extent that inadvertently she now broke in on what I was saying.

  “Do you know—you’re very nice. You really are very nice!”

  “Am I?”

  “Yes!”

  “Thank you. So are you.”

  “I’m sorry if I sounded surprised.”

  I laughed. “Even vaguely defiant?”

  “Oh dear, did I sound defiant
? The truth is: I may have felt slightly prejudiced. I suppose I thought anyone who worked in the film industry—on the business side of it, I mean—might turn out to be a bit of a hotshot.”

  “If that means successful or important—oh, I’ve never been one of those!”

  She may have thought I was angling for compliments. I went on hurriedly, “Believe me, I don’t care how surprised or defiant you sounded.”

  “If it helps at all, I knew right from the start you weren’t some Hollywood hotshot.”

  “Nor even an Elstree one? Well, I’ll happily give up all thoughts of being a hotshot anywhere—if that still means you think I’m nice.”

  Suddenly, however, I felt unsure of how to continue. Therefore, as if running back to it for refuge, I returned to the question she had so gratifyingly interrupted—whether or not, at present, she should be going on leave.

  She considered it for a moment. “I believe I really do need to take time off,” she said at last.

  “Yet nevertheless…”

  But this was no longer a case of my being wayward. I had realized by now that she would surely have thought about these things—probably been given lots of counsel on them.

  “I mean, will your flatmates be able to spend much time with you—presumably they both work? Will they have the chance to be quite so supportive? Diverting? Just two women as opposed to…” I shrugged. “Well, upwards of a dozen.”

  “I’m not too sure at the moment I even want to have diversion … Does that sound ungrateful?”

  “No. I can appreciate that, too.”

  “You see, perhaps what I really need to do is to look back. To look back and relive.”

  “To mourn Bill properly?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right,” I agreed.

  We were silent for a short while.

  “And I truly don’t mean to put pressure on you. But don’t you believe, in that case, that coming to the Prince of Wales might actually start to fulfil those functions?”

  “It might.”

  And it was now with a feeling of suspense that I waited for her fully to make up her mind.

  “If you thought that you could stand it?” she said.

  Having answered that I thought I probably could, I dabbed my finger once more amongst the crumbs—the crumbs, this time, of what the menu described as Daphne’s Iced Dainties. Sybella emptied our tealeaves into the slop basin, whilst complaining, not very forcibly, about the uselessness of the strainer; then poured us each a second cup.