The Midnight Swimmer

by Edward Wilson

  The car continued to power through seemingly impossible walls of green water only to emerge in boiling white foam on the other side. Che continued to floor the accelerator and to shout Hasta la victoria siempre. Alekseev continued to aim his camera at a chaos of warm sea so unlike the waters of his native land. Katya moved her hand from Catesby’s thigh and put it between his legs where he was already throbbing with longing. It was the beginning.

  Havana was Catesby’s happiest assignment. The embassy was a cheerful relaxed place where everyone had started calling the Ambassador by his first name because he asked them to. The informality wouldn’t have been appropriate in Paris or Tokyo. ‘But,’ said Herbert, ‘this is Havana.’

  Catesby and Neville had also gone native to the extent of growing beards and not always wearing ties. Herbert didn’t seem to mind, but hoped they might shave them off if someone, like the PUS for example, popped over from London. But there would be plenty of warning. The US embargo meant that Cuba was no longer easy to get to from the UK.

  It was odd that everything was so relaxed, for everyone knew that a crisis was looming. No one yet knew what form the crisis would take, but it was definitely going to happen. Catesby was certain that it would come from America. He couldn’t imagine that Kennedy would ever accept the humiliation of the Bay of the Pigs – or that his generals would allow him to accept it. Every morning, after saying buenos días to the ceiling lizard, Catesby drew his window curtains expecting to see the US fleet looming in the offing. He knew, from the intelligence he had been cabling back to London, that there was no way the Cuban militias, no matter how brave, could defeat a full-scale US invasion. Unless? There was another option – and he didn’t know whether the Cubans should fear it or welcome it.

  But in a way, Catesby didn’t care as much as he should. Because, in a way, he was happy. The affair wasn’t everything he wanted it to be because she only wanted to satisfy him – and did so. Which is fine, he supposed, for a lot of men, but Catesby found pleasure in giving pleasure – especially when he was so fond of the other person. Maybe, he hoped, Katya would change and stop pushing him away when he tried to satisfy her. He knew the psychology of it. That part of her only belonged to her husband. It was her way of remaining faithful. He had to find a way to stop loving her. There were, after all, a lot of men on the island who envied his luck.

  But despite his lack of complete happiness with the affair, Catesby was still deeply disheartened when he decoded Henry Bone’s latest cable. The fact that the message was so urgent it had to be cabled rather then sent by the air bag was a bad sign.

  Return to London immediately for temp duty. Crisis involving CIA counter-intell. Angleton throwing things out of pram and headed for London. Not about you personally, as far as I can tell. Something naughty has happened on your old patch, allegedly. Paranoia rules. C, PM, JIC aware.

  The latest addition to the embassy car pool was a powder-blue Ford Fairlane that Neville had found in a backstreet garage. He paid twice what it was worth to one of the few Cubans who thought the revolution was mierda and Castro a culo grande. The suspension on the car was shot and the bottom scraped every time you drove over a pothole. The Ford, in fact, resembled the corrupt Batista government the garage owner preferred. But at least the Ford had the advantage of Cuban number plates rather than the conspicuous corps diplomatique CD. It meant that Neville and Catesby could move about with some degree of anonymity. It helped for meeting Katya too.

  The Soviet Embassy was in the leafiest and most exclusive quarter of Vedado. The Russians had taken over the neo-colonial mansion of a rum and sugar magnate whose family had lived there for two hundred years. The old-money rum tycoon preferred Fidel, whom he considered a man of some learning and cultivation, to the casino crooks and pimps who had ruled Vedado since the thirties. But he didn’t much like the disruption of the revolution and was content enough to relocate to Uruguay – where he could plot in splendid isolation.

  The Russians had done little to disturb the old-world ambience of the mansion, except to build bomb shelters. The high black iron railings that surrounded the compound were still covered in golden chalice vines with their goblet-sized yellow flowers. The porticos and balconies were heavy with wisteria and morning glory. The gardens were a barely contained tropical forest of palm and almond trees. Above the lush riot of vegetation Catesby could see Katya’s bedroom balcony. It was maddening in the night. The flower perfumes of evening confused the senses and each shadow suggested a place to embrace.

  The rendezvous signal, a vase of mariposa silhouetted against the soft light of the bedroom window, was in place. Catesby checked the time and continued past the embassy. He then drove in an evasive way, tracking back on himself and checking the mirror, to make sure he hadn’t grown a tail.

  The pickup point, the Hospital Maternidad Obrera, had been chosen by Katya. The maternity hospital was the least likely place in Havana to meet Soviet personnel. Katya, her face hidden by a mantilla, was waiting near the entrance cradling an empty blanket. As soon as Catesby pulled up, she hopped in the car and threw ‘baby’ in the back seat.

  ‘Was it difficult to get away?’ said Catesby.

  ‘Not at all. Zhenka is very busy. He’s been called back to Moscow.’ Katya sounded breathless. There was something in her manner that seemed on edge.

  ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘I don’t know. Zhenka has been in a terrible mood – and everyone at the embassy seems very nervous.’

  ‘Was he called back suddenly?’

  ‘Yes. You usually don’t ask me about these things.’ Katya’s voice had a sharp edge. There was an unspoken agreement that intelligence and spying were to have nothing to do with their relationship.

  ‘I’m not prying,’ said Catesby. ‘I promise you that. But it’s just that I’ve been called back to London too.’

  Katya grabbed his arm hard. ‘Permanently?’

  ‘No, thank goodness.’

  She still clung to his arm. ‘Will you be away long?’

  ‘I hope not.’

  ‘Is it not unfortunate to lose one’s husband and one’s lover the same day?’ Katya let out a long sad breath. ‘I’m not a lucky woman.’

  ‘You haven’t lost us – unless Baba Yaga makes the planes crash into each other.’

  ‘Don’t make jokes like that, William.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  Something like that had, however, happened to a woman Catesby knew during the war. Her lover, an American pilot, blew up over Suffolk the same day her infantry officer British husband was killed in Italy. The American’s name was Joseph Kennedy, Jr., Jack’s older brother.

  ‘This does frighten me,’ said Katya. ‘It seems too much of a coincidence that both you and Zhenka are called back at the same time.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s nothing more than a coincidence.’ But he wasn’t sure. A dangerous symmetry was taking shape.

  Catesby was driving towards a beach on the outskirts of Miramar. The suburb gradually became less and less prosperous. All along the road were posters asking for volunteers to become alfabetizadores, literacy tutors. There were also posters featuring wizened workers and peasants with battered straw hats. The captions proclaimed: We shall read! We shall conquer! The campaign, initiated and directed by Che, was a fabulous success. In one year, illiteracy, which was forty per cent in many rural areas, had been reduced to four per cent and was still falling. It wasn’t a story that was well known on the churchy Main Streets of the USA. Maybe, thought Catesby, those white picket fence ghettos, needed their own ‘battle against ignorance’.

  Catesby parked between two weather-beaten coconut trees. It wasn’t a pretty beach, which may have been why it was so empty and lonely. The most beautiful beach in the region was at Varadero, sixty miles from Havana. The embassy once had a party there. It was a blissful day of snorkelling, Pimm’s and beach cricket. He longed to take Katya there for a midnight swim, but it was too far. Instead, they embraced for a long time with
out saying a thing. Then the ritual unfolded. Catesby blind with longing, but wanting something else too.

  Afterwards, they walked along the beach. The sea was serene, as if the hurricane season had left it spent and flaccid. Katya broke the silence which was weighing awkward. ‘There’s something I’ve never told you.’

  ‘Are you sure you want to?’

  ‘Yes.’ Katya looked closely at Catesby. ‘I would never see you again if I thought that you were using me to spy on my husband. But maybe you already knew that?’

  ‘I realise that. And I would never, never do it.’

  Katya smiled. ‘Then you’re not a very good spy.’

  ‘You told me that the first time we met.’

  ‘Would you betray your country for me?’

  Catesby didn’t answer. He wondered if Katya was playing the coquette.

  She smiled again. ‘A good spy would have said yes – and then used me to pass false information to Moscow.’

  ‘You obviously know how we do things in the trade. It’s not surprising.’

  ‘Yes,’ she lowered her voice, ‘and that’s why I was aware of what Andreas was trying to do.’

  ‘But he loved you.’

  ‘I think so, but he also loved money.’ Katya’s eyes flashed. ‘I hated it when he tried to use me to spy on Zhenka. Hated it.’ She smiled. ‘We had an awful argument when I found the camera. I made sure he never brought it again. Each time he visited, I stripped him and went through every stitch of his clothing. I made sure he was only seeing me for love.’

  Something big and loud dropped in Catesby’s brain. It sounded like a steel girder landing in an empty ship’s hold. Andreas hadn’t told him the whole truth.

  ‘But something awful happened.’ Katya had placed a hand on her mouth as if trying to stop the words. Her face had turned pale. ‘One day he stole one of my letters. I didn’t realise it at first, but it must have been him.’

  Catesby turned away. He didn’t want her to see the deceit lines on his face. ‘Was it an important letter?’

  ‘The most important letter.’

  Catesby didn’t pry further. He didn’t need to. He’d already read it.

  Henry Bone looked at Catesby with a wry half-smile. ‘Are you going through a D.H. Lawrence phase?’

  ‘Okay, I’ll shave it off. I’ve come straight from the airport and haven’t had time.’

  ‘Well, it does suit you. But at the moment a more conventional appearance might be preferable – particularly when we meet the Americans.’

  ‘Your annoyingly urgent cable suggested that the cousins are having a fit about something. Any chance of a cup of tea?’

  ‘Will ordinary workmen’s tea suffice?’

  ‘Of course, I am an ordinary workman.’

  ‘Please don’t start singing the Internationale, Catesby, it’s too early in the morning.’

  ‘I can sing in it Spanish, if you like?’

  ‘No, not even in Spanish. There’s still a bag of Lapsang Souchong left.’

  ‘Ordinary char will be fine.’ Catesby was a bit shocked to see that Bone was making ‘bag’ tea. He also noted that the barely satisfactory Burleigh service had been replaced by vile-looking cracked mugs. One mug had a handle missing. He had never known Bone to fall so low in the tea service league table. He must be in danger of relegation.

  ‘Help yourself to milk.’

  ‘So what’s the situation with the Americans?’

  Bone sighed. He looked tired and annoyed, as if he had been asked to explain something tedious for the tenth time.

  ‘Okay,’ said Catesby, ‘don’t tell me.’

  ‘No, you’ve got to know. It’s almost as serious as it is ridiculous. The Americans, especially Angleton and his goggle-eyed acolytes, are now in the land of the Great British Conspiracy. They think that Albion, at her most perfidious, has just stabbed Washington in the back.’

  ‘Pity it isn’t true.’

  Bone looked at Catesby with one eye. ‘For the foreseeable future can you learn to be perfidious and keep those views private?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘The Americans claim to have received numerous intelligence reports, all supposedly confirmed and corroborated, that a high-level meeting took place in either Poland or East Germany between a high-ranking British politician or UK government official and the Soviet leadership. The Americans, of course, don’t know – or won’t say – what this meeting was about. They prefer letting the pot of wild speculation boil over. Is Britain planning to leave Nato and join the Warsaw Pact? Is the Queen, wearing hammer-and-sickle earrings and a Red Army tunic, about to announce the Sovietisation of the United Kingdom? The Americans love this sort of thing. It somehow justifies their self-righteous xenophobia.’

  ‘Are C and the PM in the know?’

  ‘Very much so. On the surface at least, Macmillan is very blasé about it. He shouldn’t be.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I like your wide-eyed curiosity, Catesby. You haven’t been in England for some time. While you’ve been swanning about on your Caribbean idyll, there’s been a time bomb ticking away beneath the government – which is why this secret meeting nonsense comes at a most awkward time.’ Bone paused. ‘You love scandal, don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t really. You’re confusing me with Kit Fournier.’ Catesby remembered the crude way Kit used to refer to scandals as ‘cum stains on cassocks’. The expression probably said a lot about his strict Catholic upbringing.

  ‘Well,’ said Bone, ‘I have to tell you in any case. It isn’t just tittle-tattle. It’s a crisis that’s going to bring down Macmillan’s government. I suspect that the Americans already know about it – at least Kennedy does. I suspect the secret meeting in East Germany nonsense is something the CIA is concocting to discredit a future Labour government as Moscow stooges.’

  ‘They’ve interfered this way before, Henry. It’s outrageous.’ Catesby was referring to the CCF, the Congress for Cultural Freedom. The CCF was a CIA front organisation that tarred left-wing Labour MPs as ‘undercover communists’.

  Bone smiled. ‘I certainly know which buttons to press to get you going. Meanwhile, let’s get back to the other business.’ Bone picked up an A4 size envelope and passed it over.

  Catesby pulled out the photographs. The undressed cabinet minister was the one with whom he had shared a lift to the Ambassador’s residence on US election night. He hadn’t seen the girl before.

  ‘What do you think?’ said Bone.

  ‘She’s very pretty and sensuous – in the way young women from my social class often are. Your toff friends don’t know what joys they’re missing.’ Catesby gestured at the photo. ‘He looks embarrassed, as if he can hear the camera clicking. She looks bored.’

  ‘There are more photos.’

  Catesby shook two more out of the envelope – than sat up as if he had been stung. ‘Good god, I don’t believe it.’

  ‘You recognise him?’

  ‘It’s Ivanov.’ Catesby laughed. ‘They weren’t a threesome, were they?’

  ‘No, fortunately, but the fallout could be just as bad.’

  ‘Is this still going on?’

  Bone shook his head. ‘Five told Brook, Brook told the PM and the PM told the minister to stop slumming it.’

  ‘I resent the last comment.’

  ‘You have, Catesby, got very tetchy since we sent you to Cuba. Fine, the woman’s social class is not a factor – nor is an extra-marital affair. After all, the PM’s wife is still having an affair with Boothby, who, interestingly, shares his affections with Ronnie Kray. And the PM, as you know, has a close relationship with Eileen O’Casey. Meanwhile, the Leader of the Opposition is enjoying a long-standing affair with the wife of a former SIS colleague – the one who writes those Bond books. In fact, Catesby, the ruling class’s attitude to sex and sexuality is a refreshingly open and liberal one that the rest of the country would do well to emulate.’

  ‘Except,’ said Catesby holding up the photo
of Ivanov in his birthday suit, ‘you don’t share a mistress with the Soviet military attaché?’

  ‘It’s never a good idea. I was there, by the way.’

  ‘In the bedroom?’

  ‘Don’t be silly. No, I was at Cliveden when, apparently, the affairs got going. Billy Astor invited some of my friends and they dragged me along. It was a splendidly warm weekend, the warmest of the summer, so the action centred around the pool. The young woman must not have packed her swimming costume – not that it mattered. The garden sculpture was also resplendent with female nudes.’ Bone sighed. ‘You know, it was a little vulgar – especially the topiary. Catesby, in the unlikely event you ever own a stately home, avoid topiary at all costs. It’s the sign of a parvenu.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.’

  ‘In any case, what with the lovely sun, the still heat and the splendour of Cliveden, there was a sense that anyone could get away with anything. It was only natural that the minister and the Soviet military attaché should have a swimming competition. It was very close. I’m not sure who won – but it must have been our lad for he got to have the girl first.’

  ‘Did you behave yourself, Henry?’

  ‘Impeccably. In fact, I had a quiet word with Five about what went on, on the following Monday. Which is odd.’

  ‘What’s odd?’

  ‘That it took Hollis so long to get on to the Cabinet Secretary about what happened. Hollis has to watch his back. There are some unsavoury characters in Five who are out to get him. In any case, you’ll see for yourself. We’re all having a big powwow about this secret summit that allegedly happened someplace in East Germany. Utter paranoid nonsense.’

  ‘Who’s going to be there?’

  ‘Hollis, a pair of his poisonous underlings, Dick White, Chairman of the JIC, myself – yourself, of course, since you’re still officially Head E.Eur.P – Angleton and at least one other American. You must understand, this meeting is meant to be a sop to Washington.’