The Long Room

by Francesca Kay

  ‘I’m sorry about yesterday,’ says Jamie. ‘I was horribly bad-tempered.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter … I love you … You didn’t need to buy me flowers.’

  ‘But I thought you’d like them. And I thought we might go out for supper tonight, unless you …’

  ‘Well, there is that quiche we bought at …’

  ‘But that’ll keep. Oh come on. Let’s go out. I’ve had a hard day, now what I’d like is to look at my love by candlelight and thank my lucky stars.’

  Helen doesn’t say anything but she reaches towards Jamie, or perhaps Jamie holds out his arms to her. Stephen screws his eyes tight shut and blocks his ears to the sound of their embrace. To the breath, the kiss, the sound of curtains being drawn. To the sound the man makes: half groan, half sob. To the woman gasping yes. To Jamie singing while he runs a bath. Helen must be in the bedroom getting dressed; Stephen can no longer hear her but he can see her at her mirror, widening her eyes and looking upwards as she paints her lashes. It’s a clouded mirror; the reflection that it shows is soft and hazy.

  Later Helen and Jamie, having had a glass of wine, and chattering, elated, leave and Stephen is alone. The scent that Helen wears is lingering on the air. There will be a trail of it above the staircase she runs down. She has wrapped a cashmere scarf around her neck; when she takes it off and hands it with her coat to the waiter in the restaurant, the fragrance will catch in his throat like a memory of love and when he thinks no one is watching, he will bury his face in the soft grey wool to breathe it in.

  In the upstairs flat, someone has turned a television on too loud and the sound is registered. Stephen, in despondency, his head bowed, is still listening to the distorted noise when he senses a shadow falling across his desk. He looks up to see Rollo Buckingham in a dark-blue overcoat, a fine spray of raindrops still clinging to his shoulders, so that they seem silver-spangled. ‘Is it raining?’ Stephen says.

  ‘Drizzling,’ says Rollo. ‘Look, I’ve booked the Cube. We need to talk and we can’t do that in here. Meet me there in ten? I need to get a cup of coffee first; I’m gasping.’

  ‘Yes, all right, but I have to tell you that I’m still on Monday evening … It’s been manic in here, you know. Wouldn’t it be better if we were to talk later when I’ve caught up with yesterday?’

  ‘No, not really. I have to brief the trackers today.’

  ‘All right,’ Stephen says again, having no real choice. His heart sinks further at the prospect of incarceration in that suffocating cell. ‘Hurry back,’ Louise instructs. ‘You’re needed for CUCHULAINN.’

  Louise does not know how that name is said, Stephen says to himself. He does, though; he heard it spoken by an Irish poet who was lecturing in Oxford. He remembers the man lingering over the lyrical sound. Water flowing over rock, the sound was – mountain water, cool and clear. Stephen must have been studying Yeats, he supposes now, to have been at that particular lecture; yes, it was Yeats, the soft Celtic light, the myth-making, the lines that still come back to him at times.

  The lift, descending, stops at the first floor to admit three men, one of whom Stephen recognises as Sub-director Six. He is a tall man with a fine head of carefully combed white hair and a curiously girlish mouth. They are remote figures, at least to Stephen, these sub-directors, who make up the board of the Institute but, although Stephen is not known to him, this one nods in polite acknowledgement as he steps in.

  ‘Basement?’ one of his companions asks.

  This cannot mean they’re holding the case conference already, Stephen thinks, with a surge of panic. Louise had said that one was threatened but surely Rollo would have told him? Besides, listeners are not usually invited to take part. Could Rollo be springing a trap for him? Stephen has never had to argue a case with one of the sub-directors: when an investigation demands that level of attention, the group controller will usually represent the relevant listener. But perhaps PHOENIX is different? Louise knows nothing but its barest bones; she is not on the special list.

  Although it is only a matter of seconds before the lift and its passengers reach the basement, Stephen’s fear is rising fast. He cannot be locked into the Cube with Buckingham and these three men; he cannot make a coherent case for a continuing investigation, but he must. It is impossible to stop it now. He has had other cases which were brought to an early end when the operatives or strategists decided they were not productive, or when new information intervened. He has had to get accustomed to not knowing how a story ends. His caseload is like a ramshackle library, or the shelf of books that one might find in a lodging house or small seaside hotel. An entirely random collection: some books that come in a uniform edition, all the volumes lined up and complete, others torn and tattered, with unexpected gaps and pages missing. But this story, Helen’s story, this is different. This is a story in which he himself belongs. He’s not just a reader, he’s a part of it; she means much more to him than anybody else he listens to and he cannot lose her now.

  He only breathes again when they reach the basement and the sub-director and his myrmidons veer off toward the garage. Stephen, waved through by the security guard, finds Binks. Today she has on a short black skirt and a purple jumper. She gives no sign of recognising Stephen. When Rollo arrives he pats her on her bottom.

  ‘Now look here,’ Rollo says, without preamble, as soon as he and Stephen are locked in. ‘Frankly, I’m getting a bit worried. Things aren’t quite adding up. We’ve been running this for two months now and I’d like to hear what you think is actually going on.’

  ‘Yes, but the thing is, as I keep telling you, I am shut out of half the case. I can tell you everything that you might want to know about the man – what it sounds like when he shits, what he eats, what time he goes to bed, how much he cares about the Test Match, but not what he does every hour of the working day. If you’d let me …’

  ‘That’s just not possible. I have made that clear before. Where we are is where we are. We have to do what we can with what we’ve got. So, what have we got, in your opinion?’

  ‘Not a lot, I must admit. And if we’d been having this talk last week, I think I would have had to say: nothing at all. But things do look a bit different now. Although as yet as clear as mud. You know, there was that odd thing on Sunday evening? Did you get anything from your trackers after that?’

  ‘No. You know there were no trackers on him during the weekend. And since then there’s been some massive drama in Department Four which has hogged all available resources.’

  ‘Yes, I know all about it. But it’s a shame. Because that means there are still two hours unexplained.’

  ‘What happened on Monday? Did the wife say anything?’

  ‘No, well, she was evidently upset. I can’t tell you what went on between them when he got back so late on Sunday night; she was in the bedroom.’

  ‘Which is of course completely out of range?’

  ‘Yes. But, judging from her tone on Monday morning, she was agitated. I guess he refused to tell her where he’d been. She may suspect he’s having an affair. Could he be? Would that account for where he was that evening?’

  ‘I suppose. But have you any evidence of that?’

  ‘Basically, there’s no real evidence of anything. Except, on Monday, when he got home, he tried to make amends. He must have been feeling guilty. He bought flowers.’

  ‘Was she pleased?’

  ‘Not really. I’d say that his doing something so out of character – I mean buying her a bunch of roses – merely deepened her suspicions. But she’s a very nice woman. Well, she seems nice. She accepted the flowers with good grace and didn’t say anything else about the night before and nor did he. They went out to dinner. A spur-of-the-moment plan. You didn’t give me time to finish that tape so I can’t say what happened when they got back. Probably, if it was late, they just went straight to bed. And, as I say …’

  ‘The bedroom.’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Is there a t
elephone in there?’

  ‘Yes. Beside the bed.’

  ‘It’s not really on, you know, bugging a chap’s bedroom.’

  ‘Well no, of course, it’s not. But …’

  All through this exchange Stephen has kept his eyes squarely fixed on Rollo’s. Now he notes the look of speculation in them. But Rollo soon dismisses the thought.

  ‘I doubt I’d get authorisation. It would need an extra clearance. Let’s just get on with what we’ve got, at least for the time being. The question is: do you think that PHOENIX is up to something?’

  ‘Yes. I do. But I don’t yet know what that something is. I just have an instinct that he’s not playing straight. There’s something slippery, evasive; if I were his wife I would not be sure that I could trust him. I mean, she does come across as quite a trusting person, but I’m getting the feeling that things are not going well for them; there’s a bit of distance, they don’t really seem to talk.’

  ‘That sounds about par for a married couple. Not that I would know.’

  ‘Nor me. But my sense is that he is holding something back.’

  ‘You mean, there’s something he is keeping to himself?’

  ‘That’s exactly it.’

  ‘And what do you think that something is?’

  ‘Well, there you’ve got me. I can’t tell. You know, it would really help if you could give me some idea of what it is you think he’s doing. Whom he may be contacting, at least.’

  ‘I can’t do that, I’m sorry. But I can say that my other avenues of investigation are not really producing anything very useful either. My sub-director is gunning for a full case conference. He is concerned that by keeping our sights trained on PHOENIX we might be missing something else.’

  ‘Do you want my advice, for what it’s worth? I mean, you’re the operative but one does develop a sort of sixth sense as a listener. And my sense is that he’s getting quite wound up. He’s jittery; he can’t sit still. Sooner or later he’ll get careless. And then, if there’s anything, I’ll know.’

  ‘Good man,’ says Rollo. ‘I think that does make sense. I think I’ll try for that extension. As they were always drumming into us on the Advanced Training Course, one should listen to the listener! Let’s ring the bell for Binks to get us out.’

  After Rollo has thanked Binks and said goodbye, he and Stephen stroll to the lift together. Waiting for it in the basement lobby with him, Stephen offhandedly, as if reminded for some reason of something unimportant, says, ‘Oh by the way, do you have a photograph? I’ve been meaning to ask.’

  ‘Of PHOENIX?’

  ‘No, of his wife. Of Helen.’

  Helen. It is the first time that Stephen has said her name out loud to another person. Rollo looks at him if he has gone mad.

  ‘The wife?’ he says. ‘Of course not. Why the hell would you want a picture of the wife?’

  *

  That afternoon, that Wednesday, a sudden storm of hail whipping against the windows of the long room, the taste of dust, a scum of cold tea in the bottom of a mug, the hiss of the machines, and Stephen with fear still roiling in him. It had been simmering all day, since his miserable morning and his interview with Rollo. Meanwhile Helen and Jamie have returned from dinner, in even higher spirits than before. Helen has declined a nightcap. There has been some play on words about nightcaps and nightdresses but Stephen did not catch it. There will have been a trace of Helen’s scent still in the air when she went to bed, and Jamie with her. Would she wear the same scent in the morning?

  She awoke, then it was Tuesday, yesterday. Stephen was quickly catching up with her: she went to work; she never even noticed Stephen’s absence. While she was at work there was not time to keep watch over her domestic realm, to listen to the birdsong and the rain. OBERON, on a whim, decided he would go home to Jamaica, see his children, catch some sun. He booked his flight in person at a travel agent’s; Stephen has had to pay him more attention than he usually does in order to discover when he’s leaving. There’ll be no point keeping his telephone tapped while he is away. OBERON has been on the telephone, arguing with the mother of his sons. He wants to bring the elder of them back with him to London; there are good schools here, he tells the woman, but she protests. He is only nine years old, she pleads; if you take him I’ll be very sad. The possibility that she might come to London too does not seem to have occurred to her or OBERON. Maybe there are other children, other men.

  VULCAN’s health is worsening. What a pity he can’t go with OBERON to that village near Montego Bay: a couple of weeks of sunshine would do him the world of good. Stephen thinks of VULCAN in the raw damp of a Clydeside winter, coughing up his lungs in his unheated tenement flat. Thick strings of phlegm and mucus clagging in his mouth. Please God they are not streaked with blood. What would VULCAN make of Caribbean beaches, white sands and turquoise seas? Sea, to VULCAN, would be grey and surly, snapping at his feet on a rare day out. He’d enjoy a paddle in warm water, the small waves gently lapping round his old, thin ankle bones. But, of course, he’s never met OBERON, has no idea he exists, wouldn’t know him from Adam. The only link between the two of them is Stephen. It’s a pity.

  Once OBERON’s travel plans have been established, there is work to do for the Group II listeners. Now it transpires that yesterday’s alarm may not have been false, or at least not quite as false as everybody hoped. But the crucial source of information has gone missing. Department Four’s operatives and go-betweens are still rushing in and out of Group II’s room wearing worried faces; Stephen has been given three more tapes to scan. Yet again he is trying to keep his head above the flood of directions, instructions, requests and messages that swirl through that taxi firm in a town beside the border. There is a moment when he thinks he may have heard something significant. A man’s voice, calling in, a voice rough with the unsaid, asks if the boss of the firm is in. The woman who fields the calls says he is not and can she take a message? The male caller hesitates. ‘Just tell him I have the woodwork done.’

  Harriet, asked by Stephen to listen to the call, does not know this particular subject of interest and cannot comment, except to say that it would be sensible to share it with Martin in Group II. Martin is much too busy to drop everything and come round to Stephen’s desk. Stephen will have to wait until Martin has finished the report that he is writing now, or go to all the bother of flagging up the tape before removing it and taking it round himself. Strictly speaking, he can’t do this in any case, as no tape is ever to be transferred from hand to hand without being checked and registered by Muriel. From time to time Security carries out spot-checks of Muriel’s register to see that the rules are being kept. They arrive in pairs: one to look at the register, the other to tally what it says with the tapes that are at the specified desk. They perform other inspections too, at intervals and unannounced. There are penalties for anyone caught in breach of the rules, and some of them are harsh. You can be fined, you can be demoted, you can even be dismissed. Blinds must be drawn in every office that could possibly be overlooked, if only by someone with a telescope, before a single light goes on. Pockets, bags and briefcases can be searched at random as staff are leaving the building. Every cabinet door and every drawer in every desk is checked each night to make sure that all of them are either empty of material or correctly locked. Stephen, working late, has heard the steady tread of the inspectors making their slow rounds, opening office doors and closing them behind them, rattling the metal drawers, the keys they carry with them jangling like a convict’s chains.

  Martin eventually appears, has a quick listen and recalls that the owner of the taxi firm has commissioned a crib from a local joiner. The unidentified and hesitant voice must belong to him. A crib? Yes, a doll’s crib, Martin thinks; it’s a present for his little girl at Christmas. A surprise. That would account for why the caller was reluctant to give details.

  All afternoon, then, sped away, and it is not until he gets to the second of Tuesday’s tapes that Stephen remembers Hel
en is going to a play. She comes home simply to put her school books down and change her clothes; she does not lay a finger on the piano or sing a single note. There’ll be another night without her: after the theatre she is going on to dinner, she’s going to get home late. It’s desolating, another night alone.

  *

  Coralie was sitting at the table in her unused dining room and picking through the box of Christmas decorations that her son had fetched for her last Sunday from the loft. She had made an appointment with herself to do that this Wednesday afternoon. Every Sunday evening, after she has waved good-bye to Stephen, she lists the things that she must do during the coming week. There are things on the list she would not forget to do even if they were not written down, but she likes to write them in any case: they lengthen the list and make it look more purposeful. The house can seem quite empty of a Sunday evening. Coralie says each entry aloud as she makes it:

  Monday. Pay milkman (eggs)

  Tuesday. Change sheets on S. bed. Telephone Sheila

  Wednesday. Sort out Christmas decorations

  Thursday. Order taxi

  Friday. Bank. Pay gas bill. Hair appointment (12.15)

  The box is just a cardboard box that once transported Fyffes bananas. It’s getting a bit battered now but it’s holding up surprisingly well given the age of it and the fact that it spends eleven months of every year in the damp and cobwebby loft. At least, she supposes there are cobwebs; it’s been some time since she dared mount the rickety loft ladder that folds into the access hatch and has to be pulled down with a special grappling hook. All sorts of things are up there: an ironing board, an old tin bath, a clothes horse, the Hoover she bought when she got a pay rise, in the days when Hoovers were a luxury, which had kept on going with the odd repair for years and years until suddenly one day there was a smell of burning rubber and a shower of sparks. The man in the shop had said it would be almost as expensive to repair as to replace, which was a pity. It’s not as if those appliances were really cheap. There are a good many cardboard boxes, in case they’re ever needed, probably even the box the Hoover came in. Stephen’s playpen and his cot. He went straight from his cot to a proper bed; there was no sense having a child-sized bed when you would have to buy a bigger one before you knew it. Children grow so fast. Coralie smiles when she remembers Stephen standing in that cot, clutching the bars and shaking them, for all the world like a little monkey in his cage. And for quite some time the little monkey, entranced by the freedom of the bar-less bed, just wouldn’t stay put in it after she had tucked him up. No sooner had she left the room then she would hear the patter of tiny feet skittering on the lino and a small voice calling from the top of the stairs. Mummy, Mummy, I’m thirsty. Mummy, Mummy, I can’t sleep. Her uniform from the FANYs must be up there somewhere in the old suitcase. She’d looked so neat and tidy in it, Lance Corporal Coralie Platt, that khaki skirt and belted jacket. His uniform as well? No, now she came to think of it, he must have taken it with him or she had thrown it out. Though would she have thrown away an army greatcoat? That wouldn’t have been like her, not then, not now, a waste of good hardwearing wool – what were they called? – oh yes, the officers’ variety, the British Warm. A nice name that, British Warm: toasty, bedsocks, Ovaltine, nicer than the British upper lip in all its stiffness or the proverbial cold shoulder. Epaulettes. That’s what they were. He’d looked handsome in his coat, she had to say. She used to make her own clothes then; lots of women sewed and knitted, more than they do now. Rationing, of course – you had to learn to make and mend. Her old dummy for dressmaking must be in the loft, still shaped to her statistics when she was a girl. The vital ones: 34 and 24 and 37. A little creepy, actually, to think of that silent wire figure watching over all the jumble of a life. If jumble was the word. Which it wasn’t, quite. It’s just that you can never tell when a thing might come in useful. Stephen had wanted those old saucepans when he got his flat. Waste not, want not – another forgotten virtue.