‘I did not mean to imply…It’s just that I cannot understand why you react so strongly to Consuela. It’s irrational. You’re a big girl out in the wide world, rubbing shoulders with socialites and politicians who are having affairs all the time. Surely you are above all that.’
‘You would say that, wouldn’t you? You don’t realize that while I have sacrificed myself for queen and country, along comes Her Royal Kentucky Highness, gets a baby boy out of it, and then, as the ambassador said, carries on with her high-society lifestyle as if nothing had happened. She’s free. She’s her own man – or rather, woman. Unlike me, she can be herself, have real friends. Have a life. I too could have had it all.’
‘You have friends.’
‘Only the cat, and he only thinks of himself.’
‘If working for the service was not for you, why ever did you join up in the first place?’
‘You want to know?’
‘Yes, of course I do.’
‘I was young, naïve. I was at RADA, the famous school of dramatic art in London, in my second year, with a promising acting career ahead of me, when out of the blue I received a letter saying I had the exact profile for a job that would help my country and save lives. How could I refuse to save lives? Besides, I thought it would be an exciting adventure, but apart from our Japanese junket, that has hardly ever proved to be the case. Now I’m stuck with accompanying boring old farts to conferences and receptions, without being able to personally exploit any situations that do open up. Unlike her.’
‘You have a top security clearance. That must mean something. Shows they value you.’
‘No, not really. That’s only to allow me to be privy to the secrets of top civil servants, cabinet ministers, generals, and admirals. Since I don’t analyse the material I dredge up, or any other material for that matter, I’m a mere dogsbody. I know it is sound policy to separate the spooks from the analysts and officers, but in my case I am only an operative like you, not a real insider, not commanding or managing anybody. I don’t see the overall picture. What’s more, I’ll soon be too old to play the naïve ingénue, and they’ll take that clearance away. Where will I be then? I’ve missed out big time.’
‘Maybe they will find you something more in keeping with your talents. More your age. Exploit your experience. You could be a trophy wife, an even better one than Consuela.’
‘That’s a joke. The service does not have the funds for that. Anyway, they would rather spend their money exploiting cheaper, eager-to-please ingénues like I once was. Apart from the first year in the service, I have not even evolved personally like I would have done as an actress.’
‘You had Claire.’
‘That’s my sole blessing, but I could have done so much more with my life had I finished RADA. Interestingly, the academy website quotes one of their alumni as saying,
My RADA training is the bedrock of my acting life. It allows me to change from one kind of person to another. There is not a job goes by when I do not rely on it.
Yes, RADA allows me too to seamlessly change from one person to another at the service's behest.’
‘So RADA was useful.’
‘Yes, but had I continued as an actress I could have proved myself. Had real adventures rather than pretend ones – for better or worse, really lived. Here in the service, one cannot risk anything personally; one only takes risks for them. Except for not having to get up at five in the morning, I feel like a nun – duty, duty, duty.’
‘You’re exaggerating. You can’t imagine, I am sure, what being chaste like a nun would be like.’
‘My looks would have taken me far, if not in film or the theatre, then with a younger version of Consuela’s husband. Whichever way it went, I would have had a real life, been living. As it was, I just stagnated and married you, with the service’s blessing of course. Not that they were at all concerned about what was best for me personally.’
‘So your relationship with me, all that innocence, was an act? A sham?’
‘Not exactly, though role-playing became so second nature that it would switch on automatically, even with you.’
Holt wondered just what parts, if any, of their relationship had been genuine. His whole life was crumbling. A couple of hours earlier, everything had seemed so rosy. Damn the Owl. Not only was he the lynchpin of his professional life, he was becoming the fulcrum of his private life.
Chapter 30
What If…?
Dinner had passed in virtual silence.
With Celia upstairs looking after Claire, Holt tried to gain a few Brownie points by doing the washing up, gulping down the leftover wine to ease his anguish. By the time she did finally come back down, his senses were so numbed that he failed to realize her mood had completely changed.
‘Hi,’ he said in a depressed tone of voice, surprised that she had taken his hand.’
‘Jeremy, don’t take it too badly.’
Her voice was quiet and soft, even tender. Another act?
‘I can’t help it. You mean – meant – so much to me.’
‘Trophy Wife stirred up feelings in me of what might have been. From what you say, Consuela really did have a hard time when young. Life for her was not always the bed of roses I imagined. She used you, though.’
Remembering how much he had enjoyed being used, Holt felt another twinge of guilt and did not quite know how to respond.
‘I’m sorry,’ he replied lamely as she released his hand and sat down on one of the wooden kitchen chairs.
‘Don’t be. I could have ended up like a crumb from a Warren Beatty table, with no baby, like so many. Take Diane Keaton. She had everything, and yet…’
‘Diane Keaton was more than a crumb. She was at least a crust for Warren Beatty – they had a full-blown, longish affair. She had romances with many other celebrities, not to mention Woody Allen and Al Pacino.’
‘That’s true, but recently I read she told People magazine that she regretted not having married. I remember her exact words: “…I really wish I had bought myself a man! A good man who would be a great father – I really do. I think it’s a better way to go.” Like I did with you, Jeremy. Marry a good, simple man.’
‘I’m not that simple.’
‘I meant it in the sense you’re unpretentious and lead a simple life, not a glamorous one, like those celebrities in the limelight she was so beholden to. Like her, I had – have – the choice of many men with my looks. I admit it did not work out too bad for the two of us. You might not be rich, but at least you’re highly intelligent.’
‘Life,’ replied Holt, regaining confidence, ‘is like a railway train. Someone flips the points, and off you go on another track, with getting back on the original line well‑nigh impossible. Just think, had the Owl not found out I had forewarned the government about the Nelson thing, I would have passed the initiation test and be still working undercover, with even less a life of my own than you have with your à la carte escorting. I could never have risked meeting up with you, let alone taking our relationship further!’
‘And to think I played a key role in your getting rumbled.’
‘I must say, you played the hotel room maid to perfection. At one point I was worried you would overdo it.’
‘Five minutes of real action in a four-year career! I felt I was really living – and you there into the bargain.’
‘Having had your five minutes, why don’t you pack it in and return to proper acting? We can easily get by on my salary.’
‘Who would protect you then?’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Many in the service and beyond resent you being the intermediary in dealings with the Owl, as it cuts them out and enables Sir Charles to keep them at bay by telling them only he, via you, can interface with him. Many are convinced the wily bird turned you in the course of those interrogations and you are a double agent, wittingly or unwittingly. What’s more, they also say the freedom Sir Charles grants you to roam at will – as was
accorded to the genius spy-in-the-bag cryptologist – means you could compromise yourself and embarrass us all, just as he did.’
‘I was aware of a negative undercurrent but didn’t realize it was that strong.’
‘I protect you by submitting reports on what we do together so they do not start thinking you might be playing away, getting your pleasures in situations where you could be compromised. I show that there is not much chance of you participating in quirky sex and having a double life.’
‘It’s pretty obvious I don’t.’
‘More importantly, I keep them abreast about what you are thinking. Or so they believe. That is why they retain you, despite your hobnobbing with the Owl. Knowing you had a baby with a woman who once worked for him would cement their suspicions. They could use that info to finish you off. That is not to say you don’t have your powerful supporters who share the Owl’s view that radical action is needed and think the country has gone to the dogs.’
‘In future dealings I’ll try not to appear so friendly with him, but he makes it difficult, demeaning us in front of others by insisting we address him as Your Wisdom.’
‘Of course,’ continued Celia, ‘I edit the things I tell them about you.’
‘That’s some consolation, but to whom do you report?’
‘The security wallahs, of course. Sir Charles occasionally, who by the way refers to you as if you were his son, despite your faults or perhaps because of them. Sometimes even Blackwell.’
‘The Snake. How could you?’
‘No big deal really. I found out that he keeps details of everyone’s sexual peccadilloes to himself to use as ammunition to protect his own position.’
‘But why give him any ammunition at all?’
‘For fun partly, and to keep him sweet. I have to tell him something anyway, and winding him up is one of the few pleasures I have – his contorted face as he imagines what we are getting up to is something to be seen, especially when I drag it out, with the ups and downs, like some shaggy dog story.’
‘You’re joking – the ups and downs, I mean.’
‘That was just a figure of speech, like you saying I was in the back of your mind when you were screwing…’
Having left the sentence unfinished, she picked up her glass – untouched since the toast to the new baby – and took a couple of sips, before carefully putting it down as if she were weighing up what she was going to say next.
‘Jeremy,’ she said, leaning towards him.
‘Ye-e-e-s,’ said Holt, afraid that a faux pas issuing from his lips would result in another dramatic outburst.
‘What if…what if…half of what I told Blackwell were true?’
‘What did you—?’
‘You were proactive in bed. That really got him speculating as to what that meant.’
‘It would. Even makes me wonder.’
‘Of course, we both know it’s not true, but let’s just suppose you started showing me the zing and zip you must have shown undercover with Consuela when you were doing your duty for queen and country, and your life – or so you thought – was at stake. If you did, we too could end up with a little boy. Time to really spice our sex life up, don’t you think?’
‘Christ. Whatever happened to Miss Innocent?’
‘Who?’
‘The Miss Innocent I married. The virtuous mother of my daughter. The one the Snake said was the Virgin Mary for the likes of me.’
‘You mean the one in the Maldives who told you it was better for having waited?’
‘Yes, that one!’
‘She never existed.’
‘What!’
‘Playing her was fun, though. Proved I could have been a serious actress.’
‘Couldn’t you be serious, honest with me just this once?’
‘I’m not sure you’ll like it. The whole truth, I mean.’
‘Try! What can there be left for you to tell me?’
‘For starters…that His Wisdom sent me a message too.’
‘You’re having me on!’
‘Not in the least. It was here waiting for me when we got back from the beach.’
‘Seems we can never get away from him. He’s up there watching over us, like God.’
‘No, not God, but he would make a great godfather. You see, he suggested I have another baby. Hopefully a boy, and that you had something important to tell me. That’s why I insisted so much.’
‘One would have thought being the country’s godfather would be enough for any man, assuming of course he is a man.’
‘Godmother…is fine with me.’
‘Either way,’ contended Holt, ‘a godparent is usually someone you expect might be able to help the child in the future, someone of substance.’
‘The Owl must surely be someone of substance, great substance. Besides, I think he has a sweet spot for us, another requisite for a godparent, don’t you think?’
‘You are changing your tune. I thought you owed your allegiance to the service.’
‘In a way, but as I said before, I am not really an insider, not an officer, expendable.’
‘I would have to agree with you there, though they do not seem to be writing you off just yet.’
‘Promise me one thing, Jeremy. If you ever do think you recognize the Owl by some turn of phrase or otherwise, don’t ever let on.’
‘That’s crazy.’
‘If you do, no one will thank you – most of what he wants is what we all want. If his identity is revealed, with him having to be arrested, Sir Charles will lose his leverage, Giraffe may be closed down, and where will you be? Sir Charles’s enemies will have a field day, and you will go down with him.’
‘I hadn’t thought of that.’
‘Now hear this! I’ve definitely decided to take your advice and resign from the service. Strike out for better or worse. Be myself.’
‘You can be sure I’ll do my best to support you.’
‘To do that, you will have to avoid doing anything silly and keep your powder dry, and not wind up the Snake just for the kicks. I’ll be having a hard enough time and don’t want it made more difficult by my husband moping about his demotion, not to mention his reduction in salary.’
‘You’re making me nervous. Ever since that unforgettable night at The Loughty, I’ve worried that I might end up there myself if things went tits up.’
‘Just imagine…’ said Celia, her face lighting up.
‘The tits?’
‘No, you fool. A washed-up spy doing the washing up.’
‘Better,’ retorted Holt, ‘than the fate that so often befell those parachuted into France in World War II. Gestapo and all that.’
‘Actually, Jeremy, in this business it has always been two different worlds – the operatives on the one hand, and the officers, either with diplomatic immunity or sitting in London, like Philby, orchestrating operatives and informers at no risk to themselves.
‘You yourself, Jeremy, took a great risk going undercover like that. You were not to know the Owl was relatively benign. How could you?’
‘I suppose so, though to be honest I did it partly for you, Celia – maybe because of you.’
‘Thanks for saying that, though I presume you also had some higher motive?’
‘That did figure in it, but how much, I’m not sure.’
She stood up, looked at Holt endearingly, and kissed him on the cheek.
‘Jeremy,’ she muttered, almost as if speaking to herself, ‘it is great to have a husband one can respect as if he were a James Bond, even if he does not rise to similar heights in bed or in high society.’
‘Point taken,’ admitted Holt ruefully, wondering what the future held once Celia branched out and started meeting a whole new range of people. He tried to express his concern without making too much of it.
‘You will be starting out on a new life as an actress, meeting people in all walks of life. You will inevitably meet someone much more glamorous than me.’
‘S
top worrying about that. I’ll be too busy climbing the acting ladder and…with luck looking after our next baby. You, Jeremy, will have to deal with the Owl again.’
‘I don’t think,’ Holt replied, looking at her with a half smile, ‘he will do anything grandiose like Tower Bridge again.’
‘No?’
‘More likely he will target individuals and organizations. He must have built up quite a list. Would be great if it included incompetent school teachers that our Claire might soon have to suffer. They could be exiled to the Falklands, together with the families of the teachers’ union officials protecting them so those officials’ children would end up being taught by them.’
‘You’re joking? That could never come about.’
‘Yes, sorry, I am beginning to sound like the Owl. He did suggest the Falklands be used as a kind of dumping ground for those wrecking the country.’
‘Let’s hope that at least thanks to him the country will one day deserve to have Nelson back on his column.’
Holt’s face turned serious.
‘Celia, I need to anticipate what fanatics might do – the ones that will stop at nothing. That’s my real mission. Make a difference that would have made my parents really proud and save lives.’
Almost for the first time ever, Celia looked straight into his eyes with no hint of artifice. No play-acting any more. She would keep acting for the stage or film set.
An exception might be made were the service to come to her asking her to play a particularly challenging one-off role.
Acknowledgements
Peter George, the officer in charge of our language course in the RAF and author of the novel Red Alert, on which the film Dr. Strangelove was based, inspired me to try and write a similar novel.
LONDON ALERT Page 26
