Reckless

by William Nicholson

  ‘In which case,’ pursued the questioner, ‘what powers do we have to restrain the United States from provoking a nuclear exchange?’

  ‘We have hope,’ said Mountbatten, ‘and we have prayer.’

  Sir Norman Brook protested.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Let’s show more respect to our allies. They are as aware as we are of the catastrophic consequences of a nuclear war. We have excellent relations with the Kennedy administration. As for our own vulnerability, we rely, as the Chief of Defence Staff has made clear, on the effectiveness of our deterrent force. As of the Defence Committee meeting of early March, later approved by Downing Street, and established as the basis of Bomber Command’s strategic policy, we have a guaranteed second-strike capability to destroy fifteen of Russia’s largest cities. We believe that constitutes an unacceptable level of risk to the Soviet Union.’

  Mountbatten now returned to the podium.

  ‘You will understand, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘that we are in the land of faith. We must have faith that no commander, British, Russian, or American, would ever seek to be the first to launch a nuclear strike. As Chief of the Defence Staff I tell you plainly: Britain can never win a nuclear war. Our country is too small, and the bombs are too big.’

  After the briefing was over Harold Watkinson showed some irritation with Mountbatten.

  ‘I must say, Dickie, was it necessary to be so strong on the doom? I really don’t see how it helps.’

  ‘I’m not a politician, Harold,’ said Mountbatten. ‘I don’t have to tell lies.’

  Later, in his office with Rupert Blundell and his personal secretary Ronnie Brockman, he said, ‘Well?’

  ‘Not bad,’ said Rupert.

  ‘What else should I have said?’

  ‘That our possession of nuclear weapons makes us less, not more, safe.’

  ‘Well, damn it! I came pretty bloody close! I said we were in the front line.’

  ‘But not that we should give up nuclear weapons altogether.’

  Mountbatten sighed.

  ‘Oh, Rupert. You know the game as well as I do. There’s no going back now.’

  ‘You know what Oppenheimer called the first atom bomb test? Trinity. And you know what the Western church and the Eastern church fought over so badly, back in the eleventh century, that they split for ever? The Trinity. It’s a theological conflict.’

  ‘I don’t know that that follows, you know.’

  ‘That was the start of nine hundred years of schism. Nine hundred years of not understanding each other. Russia is steeped in Eastern Orthodoxy. They don’t think the way we think.’

  ‘Even so, Rupert, I don’t see what’s to be done about it.’

  ‘All we ever talk about,’ said Rupert, ‘is the hardware. It just frustrates me that no one ever asks the big questions.’

  ‘The big questions?’ Mountbatten turned to Ronnie Brockman. ‘Dig out my “Aim for the West” memo, Ronnie. Get Rupert a copy. How long ago did I write that?’

  ‘Must be three or four years, sir. When you were still at the Admiralty.’

  ‘Only a few thoughts that don’t get very far,’ said Mountbatten to Rupert. ‘Went down like a lead balloon, of course. But it might interest you.’

  *

  As Rupert left Whitehall at the end of that afternoon, his mind continued to tug away at the conundrum of deterrence. The committee members of JIGSAW argued over scenarios of war and survivability, but he was becoming increasingly convinced that the real question was philosophical, even religious. In Henry Kissinger’s book on nuclear weapons policy he had underlined a sentence that read: Our feeling of guilt with respect to power has caused us to transform all wars into crusades. Mountbatten had said it himself: ‘We are in the land of faith.’

  These thoughts were playing in his mind as he walked across St James’s Park, briefcase in one hand and a rolled umbrella in the other. He rarely thought of the image he presented to idle onlookers, but had he done so he would have accepted that he was the very model of a mid-ranking civil servant. Balding, bespectacled, besuited and middle-aged; wrapped up in his work, even if unable to explain exactly what that work amounted to; shy, unremarkable and unremarked.

  He followed the path alongside the lake, past a crowd of ducks round an old lady who was scattering bread, and so approached the bridge over the narrow waist of the lake. By the bridge, sitting on a park bench, was a young woman wearing a headscarf. Ordinarily Rupert would not have paid any attention to a stranger in a park, but as he came near she happened to look up and meet his eyes. He was struck by the simple perfection of her face, a face so pale and unadorned that it seemed to come from an earlier age. But it was the look in those wide brown eyes that stopped him in his tracks. It was a look of pure unhappiness. Only a moment, but in that moment he saw, or believed he saw, her undefended and truthful self. This look penetrated the private world of his thoughts, and found an echo within him. It was no cry for help, he understood that: it was a glimpse of a resigned but despairing spirit.

  She looked down again at once, frowning a little, perhaps annoyed with herself for having given so much away. She wore a long grey woollen coat buttoned to the chin, and sat with gloved hands clasped. Her face was now hidden from him again, blinkered by the headscarf. It was quite clear to him that he had caught her unawares, that she had had no intention of letting him see so deep into her. But for that fraction of a second she had met his eyes without the expectation of any human contact, like a lost soul.

  Rupert continued over the bridge, pondering what he had seen. The girl on the bench, or woman – she must have been twenty-five at least – had succeeded in touching a buried part of himself. Who was she? What was the cause of her sorrow? A boyfriend or husband who had abandoned her? A job lost? She had the look of one who had been sitting in the park for a long time.

  As he traced his familiar route home across busy Victoria Street, down drab Rochester Row, he pondered the meaning of that pale staring face. There were many lost souls in the city. Why should this one concern him? No doubt because she was young and, in an old-fashioned way, good-looking. But there were far more beautiful women on the streets of London every day, and he barely gave them a second glance. The girl on the bench had possessed something unusual that had made a strong impression.

  Beyond the despair there lay innocence.

  A face glimpsed for a moment: ridiculous to presume to know so much. He told himself he was projecting his own fantasies onto that blank screen. A lost soul, innocence transfigured by suffering: it was all of his own making. It was, comically, his own secret picture of himself.

  So, saved by self-awareness, mocking his moment of romance, he crossed Vauxhall Bridge Road and turned into the street with the Italian market where he had his lodgings.

  There was a letter waiting for him, hand-delivered. He knew from the writing on the envelope it was from his sister Geraldine. His heart sank.

  Please come and see me at once. I have a proposal to discuss with you. I will be in all this evening.

  He phoned her.

  ‘I’ll come at the weekend,’ he said.

  But of course she was having none of that.

  ‘Come now, Rupert. You must.’

  So he ate a hasty supper, and set off to Victoria tube station. As always in the evening the trains were slow to come. From High Street Kensington it was a short walk to Campden Grove, and the big empty house where his sister lived.

  Geraldine greeted him at the door, immaculately groomed, elegant as ever. She showed no signs of panic. This was a relief. After the failure of her marriage she had suffered a serious breakdown, from which she had never fully recovered.

  ‘Rupert, darling. Sweet of you to come.’

  He followed her into the gloomy drawing room. The house had belonged to her husband, Larry Cornford, and to his widowed father before him. Geraldine had changed very little in the furnishings and decoration. It remained a masculine house.

  ‘So what’s th
e big crisis?’ he said.

  ‘Oh, no crisis at all! What a silly idea. Why should there be a crisis?’

  She was putting on her playful kittenish voice, which Rupert found so trying.

  ‘It all sounded rather urgent.’

  ‘Tell me how you are first. How is the great Earl Louis?’

  ‘Same as ever.’

  ‘And your beastly little digs in Pimlico?’

  ‘I’m very happy in Pimlico.’

  ‘You can’t be, Rupert. No one can be happy in Pimlico. I was talking to Mummy about it and we agreed. You only live there out of masochism.’

  ‘We don’t all have houses in Kensington,’ said Rupert.

  ‘That’s what I want to talk to you about, actually.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’ve finally decided to move.’

  Rupert had been trying to persuade her to sell the house ever since the divorce.

  ‘Have you seen anything of Larry?’ Geraldine said.

  ‘I bumped into him a few weeks ago, I suppose.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Same as ever.’

  ‘And what about her?’

  This meant Kitty, Larry Cornford’s second wife.

  ‘I haven’t seen her for ages.’

  ‘I feel so sorry for her.’

  Geraldine had convinced herself that Larry had been trapped by Kitty, and would leave her and return to his true wife, who was herself. Rupert had heard this many times, and was weary of it.

  ‘Kitty and Larry are fine, Geraldine. And so are their boys.’

  ‘The children, yes. That’s how she did it. Now poor Larry’s caught. But they’re growing up. Soon he’ll be able to break free. If she doesn’t kill him first.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake.’

  ‘She killed her first husband. Everyone knows. She made him so miserable he jumped off a cliff.’

  ‘Geraldine, please. You know this is all nonsense.’

  ‘Well, never mind. Time will tell. God moves in mysterious ways.’ She gave him a knowing look. ‘Let’s talk about the house.’

  ‘Yes, the house. It’s far more than you need.’

  ‘That’s perfectly true.’

  ‘And it’s not good for you. It keeps you stuck in the past. I’ve been saying this for ages.’

  ‘The house is my marriage, Rupert. This is where Larry and I live. I can’t possibly leave here. I’m keeping it for Larry’s return.’

  ‘The marriage is over, Geraldine. You’re divorced. Larry’s not coming back.’

  ‘The law may say the marriage is over.’ Again that arch look. ‘Does God say the marriage is over? I don’t think so. And I think I must take God’s word over the law’s.’

  This was the sort of talk that drove Rupert to distraction.

  ‘Please, Geraldine. Just tell me why I’m here.’

  ‘Well, I’ve had this wonderful idea. As you say, the house is more than I need. It’s so obvious really. You must come and live here with me.’

  ‘But Geraldine—’

  ‘No, let me explain. You could be quite independent. You could have the side door as your own entrance. We would convert the second floor into a self-contained apartment for you. There’s already a bathroom up there, and a dressing room. You know it’s where Larry’s father lived. It would be the easiest thing in the world.’

  ‘It wouldn’t work.’

  ‘I expect you’re thinking, what will happen when Larry comes back? But you see, you’re only renting your flat now, aren’t you? You save on the rent for all the months you’re living here. And then you go back to renting.’

  He looked at her sadly. Her pale face was shining with eagerness.

  ‘It just wouldn’t work, I’m afraid.’

  ‘But why not? We wouldn’t even need to see each other, except when we wanted to. And you know, Rupert, really you and I are very alike. We both find we’re called on, for now at least, to live our lives alone.’

  She could have added, ‘and we’re both unloved.’ Rupert shook his head, doing his best to control his mounting anger. This always happened when he visited his sister. She presented him with a reflection of himself as he might be, as perhaps one day he would be: lonely, bitter, half-unhinged by unhappiness. In panic flight from this future, he was capable of small cruelties.

  ‘I’m not going to live here, Geraldine,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to, so stop asking me.’

  She looked away, and gave a small lift of her shoulders.

  ‘Well, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do in this great big house all on my own.’

  ‘You know what I think. I think you should sell the house.’

  ‘I couldn’t do that. Not unless Larry wanted to sell it.’

  ‘Geraldine, it’s your house. He gave it to you.’

  ‘And have you ever asked yourself why, Rupert? He gave me the house to keep it in trust. This house is our house.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry. I don’t want to have anything to do with it.’

  ‘You think about it,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you’ll see I’m right. It’s so silly, both of us moping about alone. And Mummy agrees with me. She thinks you need bringing out of yourself.’

  She caught a flush of anger on Rupert’s face.

  ‘Don’t be unkind, Rupert,’ she said, touching his arm. ‘You shouldn’t blame me for asking. I do sometimes get a tiny bit lonely, you know.’

  ‘Yes, well,’ said Rupert. ‘We all have our cross to bear.’

  As always when visiting Geraldine, he left more disturbed than when he had arrived. He decided to walk back, through Knightsbridge and Chelsea and then along the river. It was a long walk, but he wanted to wear himself out so that he would sleep.

  He was ashamed of himself, because he knew he was running away from his sister’s unhappiness. He feared contamination. There was a kind of madness in the way she clung to the memory of her husband, and refused to believe that he had abandoned her.

  But am I any better? What foolish dream do I cling to, against all the evidence of my life? The dream that I won’t be alone for ever. The dream that one day I’ll be loved.

  Regaining the safety of his digs at last, he rediscovered, as if it had been waiting for him, the memory of the girl on the park bench. The memory was of her pale face, and of the feeling it had triggered within him.

  She saw me, he thought. She knew me.

  14

  The coffee bar was on Queensway, and was called the Brush and Palette. Susie was already at a table, in the company of a youngish man with sandy hair called Logan. Susie jumped up and waved eagerly as Pamela entered, and then made a quick twirl so that Pamela could take in the smart new dress she was wearing. Susie was short and round and pink-cheeked, with the kind of looks that made older men say, ‘You look good enough to eat.’

  ‘It’s heavenly,’ said Pamela, immediately aware that her own frock looked dowdy in comparison.

  ‘This is Logan,’ Susie said, presenting the youngish man with the same proud ownership as she displayed the dress. ‘He’s a sort of a cousin.’

  ‘Hello, sort of cousin,’ said Pamela, shaking Logan’s hand.

  He held her hand a fraction longer than necessary, and his gaze lingered over her for a moment before he spoke, so that Pamela understood he found her attractive.

  ‘Hello, Susie’s school friend,’ he said.

  As she sat down at the small table, Pamela looked round and took in for the first time what was going on. At every table the customers were at work with sketch pads and pencils, and they were all intently drawing the same subject. In the middle of the café, raised up on a small platform, sitting on a bentwood chair, was a nude model.

  ‘Good lord!’ exclaimed Pamela.

  ‘Isn’t it fun?’ said Susie. ‘You can draw her too if you want.’

  Pamela looked round the tables. All the artists bent over their sketch pads were men. She and Susie and the naked model were the only females in the café. She wanted to laugh out loud, but the
atmosphere was rather serious; so instead she gazed at the naked model. She was sitting demurely, legs crossed, one arm draped over the seat back, head a little to one side, gazing in a bored away into the distance. Her breasts were heavy and hung down almost to her stomach, which bulged a little over her raised thigh. Not a beauty, but there was something powerfully physical about her appearance. Certainly the male artists were gripped.

  ‘Logan thinks art’s a waste of time,’ said Susie, glancing at Logan and smiling.

  ‘Well, bloody hell,’ said Logan amiably, ‘when a girl takes off her clothes I can think of better things to do.’

  ‘You behave yourself,’ said Susie. ‘You’ll shock Pamela.’

  Pamela turned her gaze onto Logan. Susie smiled all the time, so Pamela chose not to smile.

  ‘Yes, you will,’ she said.

  Logan stopped grinning and went a little pink.

  ‘I hope you don’t really think art’s a waste of time,’ said Pamela. ‘That would be so stupid.’

  ‘Oh, well, you know,’ said Logan. ‘Not my kind of thing and all that.’

  ‘Logan likes fast cars,’ said Susie.

  Logan now produced a packet of cigarettes and they all took one. The waitress came up and they ordered coffee. Pamela let Logan light her cigarette. The not-smiling was having a noticeable effect on him. Most girls simpered and giggled like puppy dogs asking to be petted. Pamela was experimenting with a different approach.

  ‘So what do you think of the model?’ she said.

  This was the first time in her life she had seen a grown woman fully naked, but she made her voice sound bored, as if she appraised models all the time.

  ‘I wouldn’t strip off if I looked like her,’ said Susie.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Logan. ‘I should hope not.’

  ‘Pammy’s going to study art.’

  ‘Ah.’ Logan turned apologetic eyes on Pamela. ‘I’m not really such a philistine as I sound. But I expect you’ve already made up your mind that I’m a bit of an ass.’

  ‘Naturally,’ said Pamela; and still she didn’t smile.

  ‘I really envy you,’ said Susie. ‘I have to go to this wildly boring secretarial college and do typing all day. I know I’ll die before I learn to touch-type. But Mummy says I have to have a skill to fall back on.’