THE WINTER CITY

by MARY HOCKING

  ‘There is going to be a revolution,’ she said, when he stood in front of her. ‘And we give a cocktail party!’ She was shocked at what seemed to her a lack, not only of sensitivity, but of intelligence.

  ‘A ball, perhaps,’ Doyle said. ‘That would be a gesture. But not, I agree, a cocktail party.’

  She tilted her head back on the long white stalk of the neck, and her eyes met his boldly.

  ‘That sounds like third-rate Coward. But then, repartee never was one of your accomplishments.’

  He took her glass from her; then he placed his hands on her hips and drew her to him. She gave a little shudder, and as he felt her body cleave to his he realized that he had almost forgotten the intense, cold passion of which this woman was capable. Over her shoulder he saw a door open half-way down the corridor, but whoever came out must have gone the other way, for no one appeared to disturb them.

  IV

  Marshall Pickard leant against the corridor wall. He would have liked to have gone away, but his legs refused to carry him. He closed his eyes, but he still saw the two figures fused in an embrace which grew more symbolic the more he thought about it; there, in the reception room, Pluto ravished Persephone. The effect on Pickard was cataclysmic.

  A door shut and there was the click of heels along the corridor. Pickard flattened himself to the wall, but he need not have troubled for Rosamund saw nothing as she walked by. He had a glimpse of a white face and glittering eyes.

  ‘Strumpet!’ he whispered, as he watched her walk stiffly down the corridor. ‘Strumpet!’

  He went down to the lavatory and was violently sick. The reception room! he thought, as he pressed his hands to his temples. To indulge their pleasure in the reception room where anyone might see them. Sir Edward even. It showed a cynical disregard for all decent standards of behaviour, a contempt for the very things which Lady Hilton had seemed to personify.

  While he cleaned himself up he thought about Lawrence. Since he had discovered that the man was involved with a resistance group his fear had grown into an obsession. He had lain all night thinking of that remark which Lawrence had made to him: ‘If you feel so strongly about things, you should do something positive’. In the darkness, he had planned several manœuvres leading to the exposure of Lawrence, only to discover in the bleak light of day that he lacked the resolution to carry them through. But now the desecration of Rosamund had released a violent surge of hatred that demanded action.

  He went back to his room and considered the matter again. The strategies which had seemed so subtle the night before were, on a more critical examination, revealed to be unsound. Something better would need to be devised. Unfortunately, his physical desire for action was not matched by any mental agility and the afternoon passed without his having arrived at a satisfactory solution.

  He was supposed to be going to a concert at the Opera House that evening with a girl from the American Embassy, but at the last moment she telephoned to say that she was working late, Pickard was relieved at first, since he felt that he could not bear the thought of sitting through the concert. When he got back to the Hotel Kapitol, however, he found it almost deserted and after a wretched meal a frantic desire for the consolation of human companionship drove him to the Opera House. He arrived early and established himself at a table in an alcove off the bar. He had two quick brandies to settle his stomach, but in his over-excited state the result was not entirely encouraging.

  Alone at a table near-by, there was a melancholy man wearing gold-rimmed spectacles whom Pickard knew to be a police spy. After the second brandy, it seemed to Pickard that the man was watching him with an unusual degree of interest. Pickard began to feel acutely uncomfortable, and this feeling intensified as the minutes passed until he experienced an almost overpowering impulse to remonstrate with the man. To save himself from this absurdity, Pickard ordered a double brandy. As the brandy burnt his throat and he felt warmth spread like anger over his body, he thought again of Rosamund; he saw the rigid arch of her back, the white arms straining round Lawrence’s neck as though she never meant to release him. Pickard felt sick again. It was bad enough that so much that he had thought graceful and lovely should be besmirched; but it went deeper than that, it was almost as though a cornerstone of his civilization had crumbled.

  The man with the glasses had risen and now he strolled over to study a large, and indecorous mural on the wall behind Pickard. He looked incredibly melancholy and Pickard felt suddenly drawn to him; he would like to have talked to him about life, women. . . . The thought came quite naturally into his head that there was one thing, at least, which he could say that would be of interest to the man. He sipped his brandy. Perhaps it was fate, he thought; in which case, the opportunity of speaking would surely present itself. All he had to do was to sit back and wait.

  He felt very comfortable and his head was beginning to drop forward when he saw the brunette, Mona, coming up the stairs with a man from the American Embassy. She looked solemn and was obviously drunk. Her escort moved in the direction of the bar, but Mona was separated from him by a trio moving towards the cloakroom. She peered around her vaguely and then caught sight of Pickard.

  ‘Darling, why so alone and palely loitering?’ She swayed across to him and put her hand on his sleeve. The man with the gold-rimmed spectacles was standing quite near, so that Pickard could afford to talk confidentially and still be tolerably sure that he would be overheard.

  ‘Some allegations,’ he said, pronouncing the words distinctly in case the man’s English should be a little rusty. ‘Serious ones, very worrying at this time.’ It was now quite apparent that the man was listening; Pickard’s sense of propriety was upset, he would have preferred that it was done less obviously.

  ‘Really?’ Mona opened her eyes wide; Pickard was glad to see that they were glazed and quite uncomprehending. She patted his arm. ‘Never mind. Tell Mona the story of your life, darling.’

  ‘It’s Doyle Lawrence. It seems that he is mixed up with a revolutionary group here.’ As he relieved himself of these words, Pickard experienced a sensation of peace and well-being.

  ‘Doyle Lawrence?’ Mona put on a phoney Irish accent and said: ‘Ah, but he’s a broth of a boy, to be sure!’

  ‘He is a very dangerous man. One couldn’t really blame the authorities here if they ordered him to leave the country at once. In fact, it is probably the best thing they could do.’

  The lights over the bar had gone out; the last stragglers were moving into the auditorium. The man with the glasses went towards the stairs leading down to the foyer; Pickard watched him with a feeling of detachment, what happened now was no affair of his. Mona’s escort had come back from the bar and was inclined to be annoyed.

  ‘Where did you get to, anyway?’ he demanded.

  ‘Darling, I got caught up with poor Marshall. He’s so sad about something, but I can’t quite understand what. You tell him, Marshall.’

  ‘Things have been bad at the Embassy,’ Pickard said. ‘But it’s best not to talk about it.’

  ‘Quite right,’ the other man agreed. ‘You have to be careful here. The place is lousy with informers.’

  V

  Doyle had supper at Kate’s flat that night.

  ‘I didn’t see you at the Embassy today.’ Kate frowned as she poured out coffee. ‘And I kept a look-out for you.’

  ‘We must have missed one another, because I was there,’ Doyle said, and added: ‘I was flirting with Rosamund.’

  Rosamund had prevailed against his better judgment. He was beginning to feel guilty, a sensation with which he was not familiar, and he would have been prepared to accept Kate’s strictures. Kate, however, did not believe him and continued to pursue her own train of thought.

  ‘You’re the strangest journalist I ever met.’ She handed him his coffee with a disapproving look. ‘Why does Paul Daniels have to spend so much more time over his work than you? He doesn’t strike me as being backward.’

  Doyle, spared th
e burden of confession, eased his shoulders against the cushions on the couch and stretched his legs out in front of him.

  ‘Well, in the first place, journalism is something that matters a great deal to him; one might almost say he has a vocation, only that sounds a bit monastic for old Paul; whereas, to me, it is merely a means of seeing places at someone else’s expense. Secondly, his paper expects regular reports from him and uses them. Finally, what he says is important; he believes that the dissemination of news is vital to a free country and that the journalist has, therefore, a considerable responsibility, he must weigh his words . . .’

  ‘But you believe all this, too. What was it you said the other day, about pumping news into people until it flowed “like the blood in their veins” . . .’

  She stopped speaking abruptly. For the moment she had forgotten the context in which the remark had been made, but the flicker of alarm in Doyle’s eyes jolted her memory. The lines of laughter disappeared; his face, stripped of its gay, devil-may-care mask, was older and harder. She seemed to see him at a great distance, so far away that nothing which she could say at that moment would reach him. He picked up his cup.

  ‘I have to hand it to you, Kate. You really can make coffee.’

  A gust of wind rattled the window pane and looking up Kate saw drops of rain shining on the glass. She went to the window; moisture glimmered on the branches of a tree and the light from dim street lamps was reflected on wet pavements. She opened the window and leant out. The bitter cold had gone and the damp air was gentle against her face.

  ‘It’s still raining, Doyle,’ she said. ‘The river will be unfrozen by now, surely.’

  At the street corner children were playing, jumping over puddles, just as they did back home.

  ‘I wonder how this will end,’ she said softly.

  Doyle moved uneasily on the couch.

  ‘People think too much about how things will end. It chokes and stultifies them. The present is all that matters.’

  She came back to the fireplace. She was conscious that she had said the wrong thing again, and that he was unusually vulnerable tonight; but she persisted because it was in her nature to persist.

  ‘But you have to think of the future, surely? When action is involved you must think of the consequences.’

  ‘Why?’ He made an airy gesture with his hand.’ “Take what you want from life, says God, take it and pay for it”.’

  ‘You must be running up quite a bill!’

  ‘Don’t fret. I have reserves in the bank, Kate; I shan’t run into debt.’ He was laughing, but there was an edge to his voice and he sounded defensive.

  She was sitting on the footstool in front of the electric fire. Hunched there, her hands round the coffee cup, the golden glow from the fire reflected on her earnest face, she looked like a young girl at bedtime.

  ‘You’re such a mixture, aren’t you?’ Her voice was wistful. ‘Sometimes I am afraid I shall never understand you properly.’

  He was touched by her simplicity and this put him on his guard.

  ‘Away with ye!’ I’ he said, assuming an exaggerated brogue. ‘I’m a plain, straightforward man. Name one contradiction in me character.’

  She puzzled over that for a moment or two, while he watched her in amusement. When she spoke it was without ill-feeling.

  ‘You’re a liar and a braggart.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’re thoughtless, unpredictable, immoral . . .’

  She paused, frowning into the fire, and then went on in the rather lecturing tone which she was apt to adopt when she was serious:

  ‘And yet, you are one complete person and I think you have integrity. I don’t know why I think that, Doyle, but I do. And integrity is a very important thing.’

  There was silence; the fan of the electric fire hummed and the mock flames flickered deceptively. Doyle stretched out his hand towards her, checked the movement, and said lightly:

  ‘Thank you, madame. But I didn’t like the bit about my being a liar and a braggart. When have I ever lied to you?’

  The electric light, which had gradually been dimming, flickered suddenly and went out. Kate pushed her fists against her face.

  ‘In the daytime I’m not frightened. I think it is all rather exciting. But in the night . . . in the night I start wondering what is going to happen next, and what is already happening that is hidden from me. I really don’t think I am going to like it very much when the trouble starts.’

  Doyle lit a match and looked round the room. The remains of their meal were stacked untidily on a near-by table.

  ‘Come, Kate. I’ll help you with the washing-up. We can break just as many plates in the dark as in the light.’

  The light was on again when they had finished. Kate produced a bottle of cheap local wine and they settled down one on either side of the fire with the bottle on a stool between them. Doyle was beginning to be uneasy. He had a light-hearted affection for Kate; he enjoyed their encounters, which were boisterous and not unduly sentimental, and it amused him to frustrate her naive attempts to reform him. But tonight he began to suspect that there was more depth to her feeling for him than he had realized.

  ‘What is the time?’ he asked.

  ‘Ten o’clock.’

  ‘I shall have to get back to my attic and finish my scribblings soon; even my editor expects something now.’

  Kate sipped her wine. ‘Why don’t you move into the Hotel Kapitol with Paul and the others? Dr. Van Hals’s wife is coming to join him and he has taken the flat above ours; you might be able to get his room. It would be better than living in that dreadful hole.’

  ‘I don’t care about rooms.’ His voice was impatient. They are just four walls to me, and a roof over my head. But my room has a view, right across the city with the mountains beyond. I couldn’t live in this place without that view.’

  She looked at him in surprise. ‘Doyle, how poetic!’

  He gave an exaggerated groan. ‘Poetic! Good God, woman, mountains aren’t poetic. They are a necessity.’

  ‘Not to me. They’re just ruddy great lumps of rock to me, and terrifyingly lonely.’

  ‘But that is what is so sublime about them! The utter freedom from all the petty traps of life and the querulous demands of other human beings.’ He laughed. ‘Man can be God on a mountain, Kate.’

  ‘Does it mean so much to you, to be free from other human beings?’ Her face looked suddenly pinched.

  Doyle, impatient at having betrayed himself into serious argument, said hastily: ‘For pity’s sake, you’re not going to take that personally, are you?’

  ‘I didn’t know I was in love with a god,’ she answered stiffly. ‘You’ll have to give me time to get used to the idea.’

  ‘Really! How absurd women are.’

  She got up and went to the table to fetch cigarettes and he watched her; the bright golden hair and the young, strong body. He put down his glass. As she came past him he reached out his hand and pulled her down to him.

  ‘Why so serious, Kate, my girl? Leave all the introspective nonsense to others; it doesn’t suit thee and me.’

  ‘I don’t want you to touch me.’

  ‘That makes it all the more exciting.’

  She struggled, but he held her close, pressing his lips against hers. After a moment, she ceased to resist and lay slack in his arms. He tilted her head back, his fingers caressing the line of her throat; then he turned her face to him and began to kiss her cheeks, her eyes, the hollow of her throat.

  ‘Come now, that’s better, isn’t it?’

  She was quite still.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ he asked angrily.

  ‘May I go now?’

  ‘You can go to hell!’

  ‘I rather think I’ve just been there.’

  She jerked away from him and ran out of the room. She stood in the kitchen, one hand between her breasts, her eyes closed. He followed her, angry, but defensive.

  ‘H
ow like a woman to run away!’

  ‘You could get all you want from a prostitute.’

  ‘I could certainly get it a damn-sight quicker.’

  ‘I’m sorry to have wasted your time.’

  They stood close, glaring at one another. Her dress was black, severe and figure-fitting; it contrasted oddly with her round, homely face with its fresh colouring and slightly roughened skin. It occurred to him that she looked like a girl from a small Canadian town, self-conscious in her Sunday best. He began to laugh.

  ‘I fail to see anything funny.’

  Dignity only added to her quaint absurdity. He put his hands on her shoulders and said:

  ‘Kate, darling, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I’ve done, but I’ll do anything, however abject, to redeem myself. Just tell me my penance.’

  ‘You say that kind of thing too easily, Doyle Lawrence.’

  ‘Do I?’ Some of his arrogance returned. ‘Just name it and see.’

  She stood scowling up at him for a moment, then she said deliberately: ‘Very well, then. Tell me how far you are involved in any resistance movement here.’

  His mouth tightened. She shrugged her shoulders. ‘You see? You never think before you speak.’

  He took out his cigarette case and offered it to her.

  ‘That is a fair criticism. Let’s sit down.’

  Her fingers were shaking as she held the cigarette to the flame. He, on the other hand, was very much in possession of himself. They sat on either side of the small kitchen table. He drew on his cigarette and then began to talk quite calmly, but as though she were a stranger to whom he was reading a prepared statement.

  ‘I am telling you this, not to satisfy your curiosity, or even to save you from unnecessary alarm; but because I think I have probably been indiscreet, criminally indiscreet. I expect, too, that I have given you far too colourful a picture of my activities. I believe I talked about a freedom radio? That was all nonsense; you must forget about it. The truth is much less exciting.

  ‘I am a journalist, and although you may think me a singularly unproductive one, it still means that I have a freedom of movement which is denied to most people here. I have been able to use this freedom to make contacts which would be impossible for them; contacts in other parts of this country, and in other Iron Curtain countries. I have acted as occasional messenger; it’s really as simple as that. The messages are delivered with my newspapers. I have no direct contact with the people themselves.’ He looked at her steadily. ‘Will you remember this?’