‘I’m finding it hard to keep up,’ said Dick to me. ‘My French isn’t quite up to it.’
‘It’s funny,’ I said. ‘These are exactly the same topics of conversation the diplomats chat about, but from an entirely different angle.’
‘Your friend is quite sure of his opinions,’ said Frances, who was sitting on Dick’s other side. ‘And they are a sight more left-wing than I would expect from an English gentleman.’
Dick smiled. ‘They certainly are. But he’s Irish. Sort of.’
Dick, Frances and I carried on our own little side conversation in English. I would rather have stayed listening to the others, but I felt sorry for Dick for his lack of French. It turned out Frances was a student at a New England college and was spending a year at the Sorbonne. She seemed nice. I noticed Dick thought so too.
‘Oh, I saw your husband today,’ Dick said. ‘At a restaurant in the Bois de Boulogne. He was—’
‘It can’t have been him,’ I interrupted.
‘Oh, it was. I didn’t speak to him, but it was definitely him. I don’t think they saw me.’
‘No. He spent the day in Le Havre.’
‘But . . .’ Dick hesitated.
I noticed. I wondered.
‘Was it him?’
‘Um.’
‘You said you were sure it was him?’
‘Yes. I thought it was him.’
‘With whom was he lunching?’
‘Two men,’ Dick said, after a pause. ‘Frenchmen, probably.’
The tips of Dick’s ears went red. ‘The tips of your ears have gone red, Dick,’ I said.
‘Have they? It must be the wine.’
I fell silent. We listened to the conversation, which had moved on to the German occupation of the Rhineland a couple of months earlier and whether the French government should have kicked up more of a fuss. Except I wasn’t listening.
Dick was lying.
Lying about what? About seeing Roland today? No. Why would he lie about that?
If he had seen Roland, then Roland’s lunch had not been above board. Two possibilities suggested themselves, both of which scared the hell out of me.
‘Dick?’
He tried to ignore me.
‘Dick!’ Louder.
He turned to me reluctantly.
‘Was there any chance that the two Frenchmen Roland was having lunch with were, in fact, German?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Dick. ‘Maybe.’ He seemed relieved by my question.
He was looking for a lead from me. One of the possibilities, prompted by my conversation with Colonel Vivian, had been that Roland had been lunching with German contacts at an out-of-the-way restaurant to give them secret information from the embassy, and that Dick had realized this and that was what he was lying about for some reason. But his uncertain response, and his relief that I was taking that tack, didn’t seem to fit that.
The other possibility seemed more likely.
Should I explore it? Shouldn’t I just let it go: pretend Dick had never told me what he had just told me? Dick would go along with that.
That’s probably what I should have done. It’s what a lot of other married women would have done.
But not me.
‘You said Roland was lunching with two other men. Did you really mean that he was lunching with one other woman?’
Dick opened his mouth. Closed it. Kept quiet.
Frances was watching us both. She understood what was going on. She turned away, out of politeness.
I considered forcing Dick to admit it, but he just had.
Roland had lied to me about going to Le Havre. Instead he had gone to a discreet restaurant with another woman, and Dick had seen him.
My husband was having an affair.
* * *
I had to get out of there. I pulled myself to my feet, apologized that I was feeling unwell and had to leave, and pushed through the door to the pavement outside. I took a deep breath. My emotions, as yet unidentified, were roiling. Rage. Shame. Embarrassment. Sadness. Despair.
‘Emma! Emma, I’m sorry.’ It was Dick. He had come out on to the street to follow me. He did indeed look desperately sorry.
‘Sorry you lied to me, or sorry you told me the truth?’ I said.
‘I don’t know. That I lied to you. No. Both?’
I touched his arm. ‘It’s not your fault, Dick. It’s Roland’s fault.’ I took another deep breath. ‘Did you know the woman?’
‘No.’
‘What did she look like?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Oh come on! If you saw Roland clearly, you must have seen her.’
‘I didn’t, actually. She was facing away from me. She had dark hair and was wearing a cream-coloured dress.’ He hesitated. ‘That’s all I can say.’
‘How old was she?’
Dick shrugged. ‘I’m so sorry, Emma.’
‘Please leave me alone.’
He left me, on the street. Alone.
I walked the mile or so back to our apartment in the Rue de Bourgogne. I walked slowly. It was half past ten. The Paris streetlamps were throwing off their strange purple glow and, in the distance, I could see jags of light flashing from the Eiffel Tower. Roland would probably be home from Le Havre, or the Bois de Boulogne. I didn’t want to see him.
So my husband was having an affair. Was it possible? Of course it was. He was in his early thirties, he was good-looking, he was charming. Women found him attractive. And he was in Paris, for God’s sake, where everyone was supposed to be having affairs.
And it wasn’t as if everyone in England was faithful either, especially in my social set. I didn’t exactly have a social set; what I meant was my sister’s set, or Roland’s. Sarah was constantly telling me about affairs real or imagined amongst her and Tubby’s friends. Was Tubby at it too? Was she?
I had trusted Roland. I loved him. I had believed that he loved me. I had believed that he was different from other men.
And what grounds had I for that?
None.
I was a fool. An absolute bloody fool.
The tears came. A couple arm in arm, about ten years older than me, stared at me. I glared at them. They probably weren’t even married. Or they were, but to other people.
My pace slowed as I neared my apartment.
What if I was wrong? What if Roland had stayed in Paris, after all? What if he was lunching with another woman for a perfectly legitimate reason?
Maybe. Maybe.
I was clinging to this last desperate hope when I entered the flat. Roland was already in bed, reading.
‘How was Le Havre?’ I asked. My heart was pounding. Surely he would explain how the trip had been cancelled at the last minute.
‘Deadly dull. How was the Café de Flore?’
‘Interesting. But I’m terribly tired.’
I got into my pyjamas and slipped into bed. Roland moved towards me.
‘Not tonight,’ I said.
I closed my eyes tight. You see, not only was Roland hiding something from me. I was hiding something from him.
I was pretty sure that I was pregnant.
Seventeen
I was fortunate that I didn’t have to spend much time with Roland over the next couple of days. His diary was full, which was par for the course for a diplomat. The following evening he went to a reception at the Japanese Embassy, and the evening after that he was dining at the Paris Travellers Club with some British journalists.
Or was he?
I debated grilling Cyril Ashcott to verify Roland’s movements, but decided there was no point. Trying to keep tabs on my husband for the rest of our married life was not the answer. I had no clue what was.
The cold light of day didn’t bring clarity, just confusion. I supposed that countless women had found themselves in the situation I was in. But so soon after getting married? It was less than two years. I wasn’t even twenty-two yet.
What would Hugh have said? I had no ide
a of that either. Before he had died, I had felt with certainty I would know what Hugh’s opinion on anything was. But after the confusion of his death – his renunciation of all he believed in, all we believed in, that strange American woman, Freddie’s drunken speculation that Hugh was a spy – the strength and support he had always given me had dissipated. And then he had died.
Sarah was a better bet. She was a woman of the world, or at least this world of adultery and deceit. I considered telephoning her in London. Maybe I would. Maybe I should. But I held back. It was partly a question of pride; I was humiliated, and I didn’t want to share that with my beautiful, successful sister. I knew Tubby adored her; I knew he wasn’t unfaithful, and she would know that too.
The truth was, I didn’t know what to think, how to react. I couldn’t face talking to Roland about that or anything else, so I didn’t. I knew there was a risk that by ignoring him I might alert him to my suspicions, but that might prove in itself a relief. If he gave me a choice, forced me to decide between one path or another, it would be easier to make up my mind. I would avoid him, and hope in time things became clearer.
And then there was the baby, if indeed there was a baby. The thought filled me with an explosive mixture of happiness and dread. I had always wanted a baby. Since he had proposed to me at Boulestin, I had wanted a baby with Roland. But now? Now, I didn’t know. I decided to put off going to the doctor for confirmation. I would rather not be certain, at least not yet.
I was fortunate that my mother rang that morning to postpone our promised luncheon for a couple of days, saying she was leaving Paris to see a friend. That nose of hers would have sniffed out trouble.
The second evening, I went out by myself to Shakespeare and Company, and a reading of difficult poetry by an Irish writer in a mixture of English and French. Sylvia, the owner, welcomed me warmly. Not only was I a persistently good customer, but I had joined the whip-round to stave off her bankruptcy the year before. It wasn’t just that, or even partly that. Sylvia liked me because I liked books, and I found that comforting. James Joyce was in the audience, dour in his eye patch beneath his glasses; I recalled the poet had been his secretary for many years. Present too were the French writers from the Café de Flore and Frances Piggott, the American student, who took a seat next to me.
‘Did you understand that?’ she asked at the end of the reading.
‘Some of it,’ I said. ‘Maybe. I still have a lot to learn about poetry.’
‘Hmm. Perhaps this guy does too,’ said Frances with an irreverent grin.
I decided to sneak out immediately after the reading, but as I was leaving, I heard a voice I recognized from somewhere.
‘Miss Brearton?’
I turned. It took me a moment to place the tall woman who was staring at me uncertainly from beneath thick, dark eyebrows.
‘Miss Lesser?’
She smiled. ‘That’s right. I was sitting right behind you, and I was sure I recognized you. Eventually I figured you were Hugh’s sister.’
I wanted very much to speak to this woman. Alone. ‘I’m just leaving,’ I said. ‘But I haven’t had supper yet. Would you like to dine with me?’
Kay Lesser hesitated. ‘Perhaps a drink?’
We found a small café around the corner from the bookshop. We ordered a carafe of red wine.
‘What are you doing in Paris?’ I asked.
‘Learning French. The only reason I went to London was to be near Hugh. After he died I moved here. I’ve found a job as a photographer’s assistant, but it pays next to nothing.’ Kay’s accent was distinctive; I assumed that Americans had regional accents just like the English, and this was what they sounded like in Chicago. Her face was distinctive also: long, uneven, odd angles of cheek, chin and nose. Intriguing.
‘I take it you like Europe then?’
Kay smiled. ‘I just love it. And I enjoy learning languages. Like Hugh. And like you, from what Hugh was saying.’
‘That’s true.’ I still liked the fact that Hugh talked about me to his friends, even this one.
‘What about you?’
‘I married a diplomat. You may have met him at Hugh’s funeral. Roland Meeke? Thin moustache?’ I almost said ‘dark complexion’ but something held me back from describing my husband that way. Was it shame at his Indian heritage? I didn’t like that idea. ‘Dark complexion,’ I added.
‘There were a hell of a lot of folks at Hugh’s funeral,’ Kay said. ‘I don’t recall many of them. But I do remember you.’
‘And I you.’
I sipped my wine. There was a question I had been dying to put to her for two years. I put it.
‘Miss Lesser. You probably don’t remember, but you told me that Hugh asked you to marry him. I asked you your reply, but you never told me.’
The tall American woman leaned back in her chair, studying me. Then her lips twitched into the hint of a smile. An unbending. ‘First off, call me Kay.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Kay. And I’m Emma. Emma Meeke now.’
‘I should never have told you Hugh did that. I haven’t told anyone else. I was upset, and I needed to tell someone, to tell his family, to tell you that he loved me.’
‘So did he ask you to marry him?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘And what did you say?’
Kay sighed. ‘I said “no”.’
I felt an absurd irritation that this woman had rejected my brother, mixed with a slightly less absurd relief that she had.
‘Why?’
‘See, I’m not sure I believe in marriage. I loved Hugh. But I wasn’t sure I loved him in a way that would mean I would never love anyone else. And one day he would have become Lord Chaddington and I would have become Lady Chaddington and that went against everything I believed in. Still believe in.’
‘I understand,’ I said. ‘At least you were honest.’
‘I’m always honest,’ said Kay. ‘That’s one of my many failings.’
Strangely, I felt myself beginning to like this woman, even though I couldn't begin to understand her.
‘In that case, please tell me: was Hugh spying for the Russians?’
Kay looked away from me, towards the street lights outside the café’s windows.
I waited.
She made her decision. She turned back to me.
‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘Hugh was a spy. But for the Comintern, not the Russians.’
Eighteen
It was a delightful party in a beautiful house – almost a palace – in the Rue de Grenelle, not far from our apartment: fabulous food, distinguished wine, an accomplished hostess and charming guests. And me.
Roland and I had been invited to a dinner for twelve given by the Comtesse de Villegly. It was part of a diplomat’s job to hobnob with the natives, to take the temperature of the host country, and Roland was very good at it. The comtesse had an agenda. Her brother had died in the last war and she wanted to make sure that there wasn’t going to be another one. To achieve this she cultivated the British and the Germans in Paris, in an attempt to bring them together. I suspected it went further than that: that the comtesse rather admired the way the Germans had subdued their unruly republic and brought it to order and that she thought France might have something to learn from them.
I had no doubt that Roland was right to engage with the comtesse and her salon, but it occurred to me that he should also have been in the Café de Flore, talking to the French poet and his acolytes. True, it might be difficult for a middling British diplomat to be accepted into that circle. For a moment it occurred to me that I might be the one to do it, and report back.
But I didn’t want to report back to Roland on anything.
To my confusion about Roland had been added my confusion about Hugh. The two men whom I trusted most in the world, whom I had relied upon, had turned out to be not at all who I thought they were.
Freddie had been correct after all; my brother had been a spy. An honest-to-goodness spy. A man who passed
his country’s secrets on to his country’s enemies.
A traitor.
It’s true that part of me was relieved to learn that Hugh had not renounced his communism after all. I assumed that had been an act for the benefit of the British authorities. I had asked Kay whether that was the case, but she had refused to confirm it, or to say if she knew anything about Hugh’s death, or indeed to say anything about him at all. She seemed overwhelmed by the barrage of questions I had flung at her, evading responses to them and quickly excusing herself.
I was grateful she had told me that much.
On the other hand, Hugh was a true communist, but was he a true Englishman? I could understand working towards a communist Britain, but helping a foreign power? I had a vague understanding that technically the Comintern was an international organization but, as far as I knew, it was headquartered in Moscow and funded by the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union was a possible enemy. That was a step too far, even for me. I was a firm believer that furthering the communist agenda was an act of patriotism – it would lead to a fairer, better Britain. But betraying your country’s secrets to a foreign power wasn’t.
I had thought that would be a step too far for Hugh too. I wished I had had the chance to talk to him about it. And I felt rejected. If Kay was right, Hugh had still deceived me, this time by including me among the people he had lied to about his changed political ideas. Deceiving my parents was fine, deceiving his new employer, the Conservative MP Sir Patrick Bettinson, was fine, even deceiving Dick was fine. But me? Couldn’t he have trusted me?
I looked around the table. There were three Germans there: Kurt Lohmüller, a banker named Schaber, and Otto Abetz, who was a Francophile like Kurt and a young man to watch, according to the comtesse. I was seated between Kurt and the comte, a gentleman who looked to be in his forties, but who acted much older. I liked him. Unlike most of the French aristocrats, who amused themselves with flirting with any Englishwoman they came into contact with, the comte was more interested in animals. Killing animals. A bit like my father, really.
Time to do my job.
‘I hadn’t realized that there were still wolves in France, Comte?’ I said. I had done my research on wild boar, wolves and bears in the American Library that morning. I was hopeless at returning aristocrats’ witticisms or simpering at their absurd flattery, but properly prepared I could talk to this man about dangerous animals. I was learning to be a good diplomat’s wife.
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