Reckless

by William Nicholson

  ‘I don’t see why,’ said Logan. ‘That’s what girls’ bottoms are for.’

  He gave a great hoot of laughter. Susie laughed too. Then they both looked at Pamela.

  ‘I don’t want a skill,’ said Pamela. ‘I want an experience.’

  Susie giggled a little and fell silent.

  ‘Good for you,’ said Logan.

  ‘How old are you, Logan?’ said Pamela.

  ‘Me? How old?’ For a moment he seemed at a loss. ‘I’m twenty-six.’ He turned to Susie. ‘Am I?’

  ‘Twenty-six,’ Susie confirmed.

  ‘And you’re Susie’s cousin?’

  ‘Well, in a manner of speaking,’ he said. ‘There is a family connection somewhere.’

  ‘Lucky Susie,’ said Pamela, speaking still in the neutral tone she was trying out. Her withholding of approval was having a gratifying effect on Logan. He could now hardly bring himself to meet her eyes.

  ‘So what are we going to do tonight?’ said Susie, clapping her hands together like a teacher calling a class to order. ‘Pammy, you’re the new girl in town. You choose.’

  Pamela allowed her gaze to float over the artists at their tables, intersecting here and there with their furtive looks. She watched the naked model rearrange her bored limbs.

  ‘Dinner?’ said Susie. ‘A show? Both?’

  ‘I want to go,’ said Pamela slowly, ‘to the place where the very smartest people in London go.’

  ‘Quite right!’ cried Logan. ‘Good for you!’

  ‘Where the film stars go,’ said Pamela, ‘and the millionaires.’

  ‘Crikey!’ said Susie. ‘I’ve no idea. What do you think, Logan?’

  ‘Well, bloody hell,’ said Logan, ‘I have heard of a place. But it’s a bit on the fast side.’

  Pamela gave him her unsmiling stare.

  ‘I think you’ll find I can keep up,’ she said.

  Just saying this gave her a secret thrill, but seeing Logan believe her, seeing him almost in awe of her, was blissful.

  ‘The place I’m thinking of,’ said Logan, ‘they have showgirls and so forth. They say Princess Margaret goes there. The only snag is, I think maybe you have to be a member.’

  At this point the man at the next table turned round. He was tall and slim, with a sweep of thick brown hair above a face that was both middle-aged and boyish.

  ‘That would be Murray’s, I think.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Logan.

  ‘You do indeed need to be a member,’ said the stranger. ‘Pops Murray has a very strict door policy.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Logan.

  But the stranger wasn’t looking at Logan, he was looking at Pamela. He now held out a business card.

  ‘Show that,’ he said. ‘They’ll let you in.’

  ‘I say,’ said Logan. ‘That’s awfully decent of you.’

  Pamela had now had time to take in the stranger and the sketch he had been working on. She found herself doubly surprised. The drawing was extremely good; and it was of the model’s face alone.

  ‘You’ve just done her face!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Of course,’ he said with a smile. ‘I love to draw people’s faces. I’d like to draw yours.’

  Pamela blushed deep red. Her pose of sophisticated indifference collapsed in the face of the stranger’s smile. It was such a direct smile, and so overwhelmingly confident.

  Logan was struggling with a different kind of worry.

  ‘So this club,’ he said, ‘is it a bit steep?’

  ‘They’ll sting you for a guinea on the door,’ said the stranger. ‘After that, it all depends on how much you eat and drink.’

  He was getting up, packing away his sketchbook and pencils, lighting himself a Senior Service from the stub of the last one, pulling on a pair of dark glasses.

  ‘Give it a go,’ he said. ‘It’s fun.’

  Then he went on his way.

  ‘Crikey!’ said Susie. ‘Do you think he was trying to pick us up?’

  ‘If he was,’ said Pamela, ‘he didn’t try very hard.’

  ‘A guinea on the door,’ said Logan, scratching his head.

  ‘Oh come on, darling,’ said Susie. ‘It’s Pammy’s big night on the town.’

  Logan looked up at Pamela. Now, at last, she unleashed her smile. He brightened under its impact. He sat up straighter. He laughed.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ he said. ‘Why not?’

  15

  Murray’s Cabaret Club was in a basement on Beak Street. As they entered, and were led to a small table near the back, a show was under way on the dance floor. Three elaborately costumed dancers were gyrating to the sounds of a small band. But it wasn’t the dancers who held Pamela’s attention. Behind them, in variegated poses, wearing enormous feathered head-dresses, stood twelve motionless showgirls. They were tall, slim, beautiful, and almost entirely naked.

  Pamela threw quick glances at the wealthy patrons with bottles of champagne on their tables, and it seemed to her that none of them were staring at the naked girls. And yet their presence changed everything. Beneath the cheerful beat of the band, and the chatter of voices, and the clink of glasses, throbbed the deep noiseless pulse of sexual desire.

  ‘Better keep this to ourselves,’ said Susie, bright-eyed and gaping.

  ‘It’s all tremendously respectable,’ said Logan, waving for a waiter. ‘The showgirls aren’t allowed to move.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Pamela.

  ‘That’s the law,’ said Logan. ‘I suppose so long as they don’t move they’re statues, and statues are art.’

  The dancers performing on the dance floor now began to turn cartwheels. It seemed an odd sort of display to Pamela, given that even she could turn a cartwheel. Then she caught sight of a man’s staring gaze and realised that as the girls turned, their skirts fell back and exposed their knickers. So this was all about sex too.

  The male patrons had female guests with them, their wives or girlfriends, presumably. How did they feel about it all? Did they mind their husbands or boyfriends looking at naked showgirls? Did it make them feel inferior by comparison? What was it men liked?

  She studied the showgirls more critically. Unlike the model in the café they all had slender waists and full firm breasts. Pamela imagined herself standing there, naked, with all the men’s eyes on her. The thought of it made her shiver with excitement.

  ‘Have you seen anyone famous yet?’ said Susie.

  ‘I’m not even looking,’ said Pamela.

  ‘I think the man at the table by the pillar is Mel Ferrer. Oh no, it isn’t.’

  ‘What do you think of the girls, Logan?’ said Pamela.

  ‘Very pretty,’ said Logan.

  ‘I wonder what they get paid. It’s not exactly difficult, is it, just standing there?’

  ‘Why,’ said Susie, ‘do you want to have a go?’

  ‘No,’ said Pamela. ‘Not really. Maybe just once, for fun.’

  Logan ordered champagne.

  ‘Let me know when you do it,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in the front row.’

  The atmosphere of the club was having its effect on Susie too. She leaned closer to Logan, and drew his arm round her bare shoulders, as if to stop him from straying. Even as she did so Logan’s eyes were on Pamela. But Pamela was no longer interested in exciting Logan’s admiration. He seemed to her to be very young and callow alongside the men at the surrounding tables. They were older, richer and more sophisticated; they were men who belonged in this club, men who … but here she ran up against the limits of her knowledge. She blushed at her inexperience. What did these men do? Whatever it was, it was more than getting married and living happily ever after.

  The cabaret show now came to an end. The dancers took their bow and filed off. The curtain was drawn across the statue-like showgirls. The band started to play dance tunes. A few couples took to the floor.

  ‘Want to take a turn?’ said Logan to Susie.

  ‘Do you mind, Pammy?’

  ‘Of course not,�
� said Pamela.

  She lit herself a cigarette and smoked and watched them dance for a few moments, then let her eyes stray to the tables. It seemed to her that there were faces she recognised. Then she realised that some of the showgirls, now dressed, had come out and were being bought drinks by male patrons. She watched their pretty smiling faces, and saw the way the men leaned in close to them, and spoke low, and touched their hands. Only a few minutes earlier these same men had been lingering over every detail of the girls’ naked bodies.

  Pamela sat very still and upright, and she shivered all over. She smoked her cigarette to the end and stubbed it out on the silver ashtray. Then she was aware a man was sitting down at her table.

  ‘Do you mind?’

  It was the stranger from the café, only now he was in a dinner jacket and looked impossibly glamorous.

  ‘No, no,’ said Pamela.

  ‘I’m so pleased you came.’ He offered her one of his own cigarettes. ‘How do you like it?’

  ‘Very much,’ said Pamela.

  ‘Quite a mixed crowd,’ he said. ‘You see the two over there?

  *

  They’re very successful criminals. And there … Oh, she’s gone. Jean Harlow was in earlier.’

  ‘But no Princess Margaret.’

  ‘Not tonight.’ He gave her his hand. ‘Stephen Ward.’

  ‘Pamela Avenell.’

  ‘As it happens, I’ve met Princess Margaret,’ he said. ‘I’ve done her portrait. She has the hardest face to draw I’ve ever attempted. Something about the nose.’

  ‘Is that what you do?’ said Pamela. ‘Are you an artist?’

  ‘Not really. That’s more of a sideline. I’m an osteopath. I sort out people’s backs and knees and so on.’ Seeing the surprise on her face he added, ‘Yes, I know, it does seem improbable. It just turned out I was good at it. I did Churchill’s back once, and I’ve also done Gandhi’s. Churchill asked me if I’d twisted Gandhi’s neck the way I was twisting his. I told him yes, I had. Too little, he grunted, too late.’

  Pamela burst into laughter. Ward flashed her a bright smile.

  ‘You really are delightful,’ he said. ‘Do let me draw you.’

  The combination of easy humour and famous names was more intoxicating to Pamela than the champagne.

  ‘I don’t think I should agree to anything at all,’ she said. ‘I’m quite sure a girl could get into a lot of trouble here.’

  ‘Oh, it’s all very innocent really,’ said Ward. ‘Just bored people looking for fun, and a few lonely people looking for love.’

  ‘Which are you?’

  ‘I like making new friends,’ he said. ‘I find it exciting.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Pamela.

  ‘So will you let me draw you?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Pamela. ‘What if you abducted me?’

  ‘Well, I suppose I could.’ He narrowed his eyes and expelled cigarette smoke, seeming to consider the pros and cons of the idea. ‘But it would be much more fun if you came of your own free will.’

  ‘Came where?’

  ‘I rent a cottage on the Cliveden estate. Lord Astor’s a good friend. I go there for most weekends. It’s not very comfortable, but it’s very pretty, and right by the river. I usually have an amusing crowd of friends along. Do you know Philip de Zulueta, Macmillan’s private secretary? He’s got one of the other cottages on the estate. Macmillan shows up from time to time. So you never know, you could be having tea on the lawn with the prime minister.’

  It was all too much for Pamela. Lord Astor. The prime minister. It didn’t have the ring of the white slave trade.

  Susie and Logan returned. Ward rose, pressing his card on Pamela as he did so.

  ‘By the way,’ he said to Logan, ‘don’t worry about the bill. I’ve seen to it.’

  He returned to his own group of guests. He was sitting with two extremely pretty girls.

  ‘What an amazing chap!’ exclaimed Logan. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘He’s an osteopath,’ said Pamela. ‘He wants to do my portrait.’

  ‘Do take care, Pammy,’ said Susie.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Pamela. ‘He’s done Princess Margaret.’

  16

  ‘Consider this scenario,’ said Ted Lovell. ‘A CIA spyplane is shot down over the Urals.’

  ‘Another Gary Powers.’ Ian Shaw, the War Office man, spoke languidly, without looking up from doodling on his pad. Nothing ever surprised Shaw.

  ‘It’s happened once,’ said Lovell, irritated. ‘It can happen again.’

  The Joint Inter-Service Group for the Study of All-Out War was in session in Room 302 of the Old Admiralty Building. This was a meeting of advisers, not chiefs. Rupert Blundell stood by the window looking out over Horse Guards Parade, only half paying attention.

  ‘A spyplane is shot down,’ Lovell repeated. ‘The Russians have gone on record saying the next time they’ll not only shoot the intruder down, they’ll destroy the base from which the flight originated.’

  He looked to Jim Shipman, the Foreign Office man, for confirmation.

  ‘More sabre-rattling than policy,’ Shipman said.

  ‘In my scenario,’ said Lovell, ‘the sabre does more than rattle. The Soviets hit Eielson Air Force base in Alaska. How do the Americans respond? Do they go like for like, and hit Pevek or Anadyr? Or do they activate SIOP?’

  Ah, thought Rupert by the window. How the committee loved this sacred monster: SIOP, the Single Integrated Operational Plan, the ultimate blitzkrieg. ‘Wagnerian!’ his friend John Grimsdale called it. He too was on the JIGSAW committee, representing the Joint Intelligence Council.

  None of them wanted SIOP, of course. No sane person could want it. But it excited them. They loved to dwell on its awesome horror.

  There must be something lacking in me, Rupert thought. All it represents to me is the appetite for bullying writ large. Isn’t there enough misery in the world already?

  He recalled the look in the eyes of the girl on the park bench. So much loss, so much loneliness.

  ‘In my scenario,’ said Ted Lovell, ‘the Americans go for the big one. It’s their only option. Here’s why.’

  Lovell proceeded to spell out the familiar chain of thinking that underlay all current nuclear strategy. The Americans have massive nuclear superiority. Therefore they have the greater chance of victory with a first strike. The Soviets, knowing this, can only survive by getting their strike in earlier: what might be called first-first. Therefore it was imperative that the US anticipated the moment of crisis and ‘retaliated in advance’: first-first-first.

  The logic works, if not the grammar.

  ‘In my hypothetical scenario,’ went on Lovell, ‘the US has been attacked. Only a limited attack, but nonetheless they must respond. Not to respond is to show weakness. We’re talking about national prestige here. What range of response is open to them? At this point they ask themselves, what are the Soviets thinking?’

  What indeed are the Soviets thinking? thought Rupert. It plays out so very like a game between lovers. Does she love me? Is she cheating on me? Why doesn’t she answer my calls?

  It amused Rupert to think this way. In the game of love the West played the feminine role, the Soviets the masculine role. The Russians so impenetrable, so crude, so frightening. Please show us love. Please hug us in your bear-like arms.

  ‘Here’s what the Soviets are thinking. They’re thinking, we’re now in an actual state of conflict. It’s started. The top brass of Strategic Air Command all want SIOP. They may not go right to it, but it’s coming. Better get our strike in first. That’s what the Russians are thinking. And the Americans know they’re thinking it. So you’re the president. What do you do?’

  ‘This is all standard war-game stuff, Ted,’ said Shaw. ‘This just takes us back into relative survivability calculations.’

  Rupert watched the people and the cars passing down Horse Guards Road and thought of the lonely girl on the bench. Why, when human beings
have the capacity to bring each other happiness, do they wreak such untold destruction?

  ‘I’m not done yet,’ said Lovell. ‘This is where it gets interesting. In my scenario, the Soviets have prepared for just such a moment. Their missiles are widely dispersed and well protected. Their leadership is safe in a bunker deep in the Urals. So – the Americans launch SIOP. It devastates the Russian homeland. But, crucially, it leaves a small part of the Soviet nuclear force intact. Give me a number, Geoffrey.’

  ‘Two hundred missiles,’ says Geoffrey Unwin, the hardware man.

  That’s the JIGSAW game, thought Rupert. Dress up a fantasy with hard numbers and people start to believe it.

  ‘Now,’ said Lovell, becoming animated. ‘Here’s the twist. Everyone assumes the Soviets will retaliate with everything they’ve got. They don’t. They launch only half their surviving armoury. A hundred missiles. They destroy a hundred American cities. The United States is crippled. Its days as a major power are over.’

  ‘Ditto the Soviet Union,’ interjected Shipman. ‘Russia’s a wasteland.’

  ‘A wasteland,’ said Lovell, ‘with a hundred nuclear missiles in hand. And what do they do with them? They target the rich West. They demand aid for Russia, and refuse aid to the stricken US. Under threat of annihilation, the West rebuilds Russia. Within thirty years, the Soviet Union dominates the planet. The United States is history.’

  ‘And the UK?’ said John Grimsdale, smiling because he knew the answer.

  ‘Wiped out.’ Ted Lovell made a contemptuous gesture with one hand. ‘To the Soviets we’re just another American missile base. We’re the first to go.’

  No one dissented. It was one of the curiosities of JIGSAW that they all took for granted their own nation’s impotence and irrelevance.

  ‘Not bad, Ted,’ said Edgar Anstey, the Home Office psychologist. ‘I think you may have come up with an original wrinkle.’

  At this point the tea trolley came clinking into the conference room. A polite scuffle ensued over the chocolate Bourbons. Alan McDonald poured the tea. Ted Lovell looked pleased with himself.

  ‘What do you think, Rupert?’ he said.