Only The Ruthless Can Play

by John Burke

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Muriel won’t know,’ he said. ‘She’s not expecting me back this weekend anyway. I don’t have to ring her — don’t have to do a thing. Except come to you. Isn’t that what you want?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Jessica. ‘But let’s try it and see.’

  ‘Not what I’d call a warm invitation.’

  ‘The invitation came from you,’ said Jessica. ‘As to the warmth … let’s see if it’s still there when we reach London, shall we?’

  Jessica hated his glib assumption that she would fall in so readily with his plans. Because it suited Andrew to climb into her bed this weekend, she was expected to agree automatically. Muriel wouldn’t know, so that made everything all right — almost respectable, one could have gathered from Andrew’s manner. The fact that he did not have to telephone her and invent excuses meant a lot to him. Naturally he would consider it normal and logical to take advantage of such a situation when it was presented to him.

  She wondered what she would say if David now asked her to go down to his home, even if only for an afternoon.

  The question did not arise. When they next met he said that he had been out into the town for a few drinks, meeting some of his father’s old friends in a pub and sounding them out. Jessica was alarmed. It would do him no good if it came to the ears of Partridge and others that he was asking awkward questions about certain Intersyn patents and trying to dig up secrets from the past.

  David reassured her. It was all right: he knew what he was doing. He was being cautious. It was a jigsaw puzzle and he needed a lot of pieces yet. But when he had assembled as many pieces as he could find, the shape of the missing ones might be more easily established.

  And as for her, what had she discovered? Hadn’t she got a lead for him yet? Surely, talking to Dampier, leading him on to reminisce …

  Jessica was unhappy at the idea of becoming a snooper and at the same time felt guilty that she should have done so little to help David. Then she revolted against the absurdity of his whole theory. It wasn’t just that she couldn’t help him: she had no business even to try, no business to encourage him in his lurid interpretations of Intersyn history.

  But when they were marking up the Course members’ record cards that evening, she held one out thoughtfully and said to Dampier:

  ‘I see there’s no mention of the accident on here.’

  ‘Accident?’ Dampier looked up, his pencil poised. ‘David Marsh’s father. His accident. There’s no record of it in David Marsh’s file.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Unusual, isn’t it? We usually have everything here.’

  ‘I imagine it was considered irrelevant. Nothing to do with the boy’s own ability, after all.’ Dampier seemed anxious to finish the conversation. He looked down again and slowly, meaningly lowered the pencil.

  Jessica said: ‘I’d have thought something like that in one’s family background was highly relevant.’

  Dampier was curt. ‘There must have been good reasons for the decision.’

  ‘There might come a time when someone trying to assess his suitability for certain jobs would turn him down for the wrong reasons. He might seem a bit brash, or a bit awkward — particularly if he was asked something about his views on personnel relations, pensions, family traditions in a firm, and so on. A note on the file would surely help any executive to understand his reactions at such a time.’

  Dampier pushed himself abruptly back in his chair. ‘You seem very interested in young Marsh.’

  ‘I was curious, that’s all. You know how used one gets to these records — and how anything out of the ordinary strikes one immediately.’

  As soon as she had spoken she realised that this was perhaps not the most fortunate way of putting things. It would be surprising if Dampier’s mind was not thrown back on to Philip Western and the suspicions they had had of him. She wondered if she dare hint, ever so obliquely, at David Marsh’s certainty that the watcher had been set on him. Dampier’s reaction would be terribly important. If he had killed Western, thinking himself pursued, and now learnt that Western had been shadowing someone else …

  But if she told Dampier this, she would implicitly be accepting the truth of David’s theories. Half of her mind accepted it already; the other half sought for modifications, for errors of reasoning.

  Dampier said: ‘We’ve always worked pretty well together, haven’t we, Miss Rogers?’ She was surprised by his suddenly friendly, appealing tone. And now he switched diffidently to her Christian name, as he had done only once or twice before. ‘Miss Rogers … Jessica … perhaps I may be allowed to show some — ah — paternal interest in you. Or shall we say avuncular, anyway?’ Dampier smiled rather coyly and began to tap his pencil against his left thumb-nail. ‘It is not for me to criticise any relationship you may have with young Marsh. Indeed, I am chary of even commenting on it, let alone criticising. If at some time … ah … no, let us not speculate.’

  He seemed to be nerving himself to say something, but had lost either the thread of his thoughts or his courage. It had happened several times today.

  Jessica said: ‘Is there something wrong?’

  ‘Wrong? No, nothing wrong. Not now. It’s all over — over many years ago.’

  Jessica tensed. She could hardly hope that Dampier would unload terrible secrets upon her. It was too much to expect. He wasn’t going to clear up the whole mystery, point the finger of accusation at Partridge, and then dictate a tearful confession.

  ‘Mr Marsh’s death,’ she prompted him. She waited a moment, then said: ‘The accident.’

  ‘It was no accident.’

  She heard an echo of David’s words ringing in her head. No accident, Dampier had just said. And she waited for him to say, as David had said, that David Marsh’s father had been murdered.

  Dampier said: ‘He committed suicide.’

  ‘But … that’s impossible.’

  ‘Why is it impossible?’

  She struggled for common sense in the middle of this new fantasy. ‘Why should he have committed suicide?’

  ‘People do.’

  ‘Not when they’re working hard at something and within sight of success. No scientist, no writer, no painter, getting that close and knowing he was close, would give up.’

  ‘So that’s the story you’ve been told, is it?’ said Dampier gently. ‘He died just before he could reach his goal — and someone else claimed the fruits of victory.’

  Jessica did not correct him. She did not say that the fruits of victory had been snatched by a murderer. Instead, she said again:

  ‘Why should he have committed suicide?’

  ‘Because he had failed,’ said Dampier; ‘or thought he had failed.’

  ‘What? But he hadn’t. We know ‘

  ‘We know,’ said Dampier, ‘that the team was on the right lines and that the final breakthrough came only a few days later. It’s tragic, but things do happen like that. Richard Marsh had been overworking, he was in a highly nervous state — I knew him tolerably well, and you can take it from me that he was very highly strung … a very unstable person. He was brilliant in his own field, but there was always the danger of his cracking up. He couldn’t stand setbacks. Dr Schroeder will tell you how jumpy and hysterical he became when he was frustrated by some small detail, some little failure.’

  ‘It’s not often I hear you quoting Schroeder with approval,’ said Jessica wryly.

  Dampier acknowledged the thrust with a nod and went on: ‘Towards the end the tension was too great for him. He felt that he was on the wrong track. The whole team was on the wrong track — that’s how he saw it. They tried to cheer him up, but he wouldn’t listen. He killed himself. And the reason that there is no mention of the accident on the file is that we don’t like to falsify records.’

  Except Western’s, she thought sceptically. When you’re powerful enough and you want something done, you can falsify as much as you please.

  ‘It wasn
’t an accident,’ said Dampier. ‘It was suicide. Quite a few of us know it but we don’t talk about it. We never mentioned it to anyone outside, because we wanted to spare the widow and the boy. The Company has looked after both of them very well — and neither of them knows the truth. Perhaps I ought not to have told you, but I feel you should know something about the young man’s background. I trust you won’t pass this story on to him or to his mother. It’s best to let the generally accepted story stand.’

  One had to admire the cunning of it. For the general public and fellow workers who had known Richard Marsh only slightly there was the story that it had been an accident. For those less gullible there was a more subtle and doubtless well-authenticated tale of suicide. In this way the more sophisticated, flattered by being in the know, could feel sorry for the man and at the same time indulge in that comfortable contempt with which all good Intersyn types regarded those who couldn’t stand the pace.

  She wondered if Dampier had any glimmering of that third, deeper truth. She doubted it. If he had been in on the murder he would have been able to advance his own Intersyn career rather more than he had done — or else he would have suffered another unfortunate accident along the way.

  Perhaps only two or three men shared the secret. Perhaps just Partridge and Western. Which left only Partridge now.

  It was ingenious. But if David succeeded in what he had set out to do, the secret wouldn’t last much longer.

  Ten

  Andrew awoke on Sunday morning and stared at sunlight shivering on the wall. He moved his head cautiously on the pillow and looked at his watch. Even that slight movement was enough to wake Jessica. He lay quite still. Although their bodies were not touching he could almost feel the shape of her warmth. Somehow he did not want to turn towards her and look into her face.

  It had been an edgy, unsatisfying weekend so far. He couldn’t see how it would change now into anything else. He stared at his watch and wondered how long he must allow before he could decently get up, dress, and go out for the papers.

  Jess never had newspapers delivered. ‘They’re such a drug,’ she had once told him. ‘Headlines screaming at you, and trivialities blown up into significance.’ He had thought how odd she was and how wise at the same time. ‘I buy them when I feel like it,’ she had said, ‘and when I don’t, I go without. And on Sundays I like to go out in the morning and buy them on the corner anyway.’ And he had thought how sensible she was and what an inner tranquillity she had and how original, how very special, how unlike Muriel she was.

  Now he lay there and wished that there could be newspapers thumping through the letterbox on to the hall floor. Then he would have an excuse for fetching them and establishing the beginning of a new day. But since they weren’t going to come he must wait for the fingers of his watch to move round until they reached the spot when he could reasonably say it was time to go out and get the papers.

  A walk in the cold morning would be rather agreeable. A walk on his own. There was a smoky chill in the air that he enjoyed. It would be good to stroll round the corner, collect The Observer, The Sunday Times and News of the World and come back to find Jess getting breakfast ready. She would read The Observer over breakfast. That was the one she always read first. Once they had tossed extracts to and fro aloud, reading and laughing and saying, ‘Oh, this is wonderful, you’ll never believe this one’. Now he hoped she would read silently.

  He was wide awake. She knew it. Her hand crept up and rested on his hip.

  Andrew forced a yawn. He twitched as though startled by her touch.

  She said: ‘Andrew.’

  He heaved round in bed to face her. Her breath was hot and sour. He supposed his own was the same. Her eyes were wide open and serious. There had been a time when she kept her eyes half closed like those of a kitten basking in adulation. Now she was staring unwaveringly at him. He looked away, and at once saw her pale shoulder, speckled with a swift rash of goose pimples where the sheet fell away from it. He pulled the sheet up again.

  Her lips twitched, her eyes dilated. In the warmth of the bed her hand attacked him suddenly and shamelessly.

  ‘Now, wait,’ he spluttered, trying to make it a laugh.

  ‘I don’t want to wait.’

  ‘We ought to be getting up.’

  ‘Why?’ she said savagely. ‘It’s early. We’re not going anywhere.’

  Her fingernails and her warmth and her anger lashed him on. His desire grew at the same pace as his resentment against her. He buried his head in her shoulder and tried to annihilate her: but it was not Jess, it was someone else, someone he had not yet encountered — he was loving a woman who did not yet exist.

  Jess rose against turn as usual, at the moment he could always calculate — the moment he planned for both of them. In the last moment he drew his head back and looked at her. Now was when she closed her eyes, now the time when she snorted in that frightening paroxysm of hers.

  But she made hardly any sound, and she was looking at him with those coldly questioning eyes. Silently she said: Well … is this all … just this, nothing more?

  When they had drawn apart again they lay there for some minutes in silence. It was as though she knew the exact moment when he began to wonder again whether he might reasonably get out of bed now.

  She said: ‘Well, that wasn’t much, was it?’

  ‘It can’t be good every time,’ he said.

  ‘It never is good now, is it?’

  He drew a deep breath. For some reason he groped for her hand and held it tight. She responded. It was a firm, incongruously friendly clasp.

  ‘Jess … ’

  ‘It’s over,’ she said.

  ‘No, don’t say that.’ But he spoke very formally, knowing what he was doing, hearing every inflection as false and knowing that he meant her to hear the same. ‘We’ve both had a pretty trying time,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t want you to come here again,’ said Jessica.

  He was conscious of a great relief, flooding over him. And in the flood were splinters of protest. It wasn’t up to her to decide when the thing was over. In any case it wasn’t over yet. He wouldn’t have come here and she wouldn’t have wanted him to come if it had all died. But the relief washed warmly over him and he already knew what was going to happen. They would get up and he would fetch the papers and they would have breakfast and there would be sporadic bursts of rather too offhanded conversation. She would not be as interested as she claimed to be in Kenneth Tynan’s review; and he would not find the story of the Jamaican under the bed as funny as he made out. They would go for a walk and have a drink in the usual pub, and the more eagerly they talked the more certain it would be that this was indeed the last time. Jessica might cry. He might push his plate away while they were having their belated lunch (not before the pub closed) and say that it was ridiculous, that they couldn’t just finish like this. But he knew that this afternoon he would leave this flat and never come back.

  The weight would be lifted. The strain would ease. He would be free from Jessica’s demands and from the guilt that her reproaches, spoken or unspoken, caused him.

  He would be left with the drabness of life with Muriel.

  There would be somebody else. He knew this. He didn’t know who it would be but he knew it would happen. Faceless, silent and disembodied as she was at the moment, he already felt a tingle of anticipation. He would start all over again. He knew what it would be like. It came back to him — the pleasure of those first few weeks when you were receptive, when someone appeared, when you were obsessed by some woman’s face and voice and the promise of her body. There was nothing to be done about it now: you didn’t go out looking for someone, it never worked like that, but when you were in this mood someone always came along.

  And this time, this next time, he would organise it better. He would find someone like himself who would take it seriously and passionately yet without commitments on either side. That had to be made clear from the start. If both of
you knew where you stood, you could both be happy and relaxed.

  That was how he had meant it to be with Jess.

  Next time it would work. Next time he would have it all organised.

  He said: ‘We ought to be thinking of getting up.’

  *

  When he had gone, late on Sunday afternoon, Jessica sat by the window and read all the bits of the Sunday papers which she normally neglected. She went through the editorials and the political notes and an article about what was wrong with Ireland, feeling sure that she had read this article before; but it was probable that what was wrong with Ireland now was what had always been wrong with Ireland, so of course all newspaper articles on the subject would be the same. She read the financial columns. There was a mention of Intersyn. A good employee would memorise it and quote a few lines tomorrow just to show willing.

  Andrew had gone.

  She could do what she liked, go to bed when she liked, meet anyone she liked, go to parties and let her imagination roam instead of keeping it on a tight rein.

  She wondered if she would be asked to any parties. It was a long time since she had last accepted an invitation.

  Andrew had gone. He had left before — several times — but neither of them had believed in the parting. It had never been serious before. This time she knew he would not come back.

  Her mind and body felt empty and sick and tired. She was glad to be alone and she hated him because she was alone.

  She wondered what David was doing this weekend and why he hadn’t said a word to her.

  The telephone rang. It was too much of a coincidence. All she had to do was think of David and there he was, ringing. It was too pat, too funny.

  She lifted the receiver. ‘David.’ She was so sure that it would be him.

  ‘Vincent 5155?’ said the hard woman’s voice.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘I have a call for you.’

  There was a sequence of clicks and whistles, a faint far-off sighing, and voices that whispered in earnest but unintelligible conversation along some phantom wire. Then there was a clatter in her ear, and, ‘Go ahead, please.’