They found Alistair’s brother Hugh in an immense house in Chelsea where he lived with Tamara, a bright-lipsticked brunette who worked as an account executive in an advertising agency. Hugh was writing a film-script, as he always had been since their student days. The films were never made. ‘I’d like to move to the country,’ he said gloomily, in the very smart drawing-room of the house, which belonged to Tamara’s father. There was a Corot on the wall. ‘But it’s Tamara’s job – she doesn’t want to commute forty miles a day.’
‘At least this house is free,’ Tamara remarked, with an edge to her tone.
‘So how was Moscow?’ Hugh asked. ‘Alistair said it didn’t last long.’
‘The old spy was warned off. I bought the T-shirt and left,’ Greg replied.
They talked of old friends briefly, but Tamara, who had not been at university with them, grew restless, so they departed.
‘He’s only a bird in a gilded cage,’ Katherine said of Hugh, in the cab back to Everton Gardens. ‘Their father took him and Alistair aside when they came of age and gave them a piece of sage paternal advice. Marry money.’
Hugging her to him, Greg said, ‘Very wise. Have you got money, by the way?’
‘Not a sausage. I have to live on my pay. How about you?’
‘My father advised me to do an honest day’s work for a day’s pay. That way I could always hold my head up high. I’m not sure that’s what I’m doing,’ he added.
‘Never mind,’ she said comfortingly.
Next day, in good spirits, Greg went off to his date with Sir Peveril. He entered the imposing portals of the Athenaeum Club with all the confidence of a man in love, or something like it at any rate.
The porter directed him to the dining room where Sir Peveril, a thick-set man, awaited him at a table. They shook hands and Greg sat down.
‘So good of you to come,’ Sir Peveril said.
‘Not at all, sir,’ Greg said. ‘It’s a pleasure to see the inside of this wonderful place.’ However, he felt wary of this old man, of his charm, of his experience, of attitudes Greg felt he could only guess at.
‘Tell me about your book,’ Sir Peveril requested.
When Greg mentioned Bruno Lowenthal he got the distinct impression that Sir Peveril found the name unpleasant.
‘I don’t remember very much about Bruno Lowenthal. I was away from London for most of that period, but I’d take what he says with a considerable pinch of salt. From what I heard, he was ever a romancer, something of a hanger-on too. However, even fantasists can be enlightening, if you sift what they say intelligently.’
Greg nodded assent, but thought that if both Pym and Sir Peveril suggested that Bruno was a liar it didn’t have to mean he was. Sir Peveril regarded him steadily from red-rimmed blue eyes. Plates were brought and taken away around them. The harsh, dry voice asked, ‘So you saw Pym? And did he seem well?’
‘Not really,’ Greg told him. ‘He’s a little weak. He says he’s ill.’
‘He’s not a man who ever looked after himself, to put it mildly,’ Sir Peveril said. ‘It’s a miracle he’s still alive, I’m inclined to think. Still drinking, is he?’
‘Yes,’ Greg told him. ‘He’s got a soldier looking after him.’
Sir Peveril smiled.
‘His message went,’ Greg went on, keeping his voice low, ‘and I quote him, “Tell Peveril he must get me back to England, with no charges against me. I have copies of documents from Russian sources relating to the whole period during which I was an agent for the Soviet Union. Individuals in Britain never before officially connected with the activities of the defectors are named in them.” He told me that with the situation as it was in Russia it had been possible to bribe someone from the old security services to obtain the documents. He said, sir,’ Greg reported uncomfortably, ‘that he would release this information to the press in Britain and the USA if you did not act to ensure his return to Britain as a free man. He said he’d also require money.’
Sir Peveril frowned. ‘Did he show you any of these documents?’ he asked.
‘He was going to do that on the following day. Of course, I couldn’t have read them. Actually, he was going to give me some pages to bring back, as proof. But then he was warned off. He cancelled our appointment and I came home. I had the impression he’s dependent on those in power in Russia for everything so I suppose he had no choice.’
‘He gave you no information about what he had in his possession?’
Greg shook his head. There was a long pause. Then Sir Peveril said, ‘Well, I suppose it shouldn’t be any surprise.’
‘You do understand that I’m only a messenger, sir. I still can’t see why he asked me to represent him,’ Greg said. ‘He could call you any time.’
‘He did. That’s why I rang you. But obviously what he originally wanted was to give you something to bring back here, which would make it absolutely clear what he had. He didn’t dare send it openly, in case it was intercepted. He gambled that you would not be searched. Of course, if you had been, you would have been in serious trouble.’
‘I doubt if I’d have agreed to carry any documents for him,’ Greg said.
‘He would have offered you something,’ Sir Peveril said calmly. ‘Something you wanted very much. For example, I take it that you’ll be anticipating the book you’re about to write will enhance your career. Pym might well have offered you some information, some details that you could not have found elsewhere. That would have been the arrangement – his information in return for your cooperation in carrying the documents. I just use that as an example, it would have been a possible tactic. Pym is a very clever man – they were all very clever. That is how they eluded detection for so long.’
Greg nodded in agreement but said nothing. He was beginning to feel uncomfortable about this meeting. He saw Sir Peveril as part of an old world governed by rules he did not know and did not want to know.
Sir Peveril instantly saw his mood. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘let’s eat. I hope your fish is good.’
‘Excellent,’ said Greg.
‘One more thing, though. I doubt if Pym let you go without some personal message to me.’
‘That’s so,’ Greg said awkwardly.
‘Spit it out, Mr Phillips. My back is broad.’
‘I’m afraid he said that you mustn’t think that you personally would escape unharmed if he released the documents in his possession to the world’s press.’
Sir Peveril took this in, though his expression did not change. ‘He’s an old man and he’s desperate,’ he said. ‘Russia can’t be a pleasant or comfortable place for a man in his position. The old regime owed him a debt. This one does not. Personally I doubt if he has anything important to communicate. It’s a weakness of old men to think the minutiae of the past will excite people. In fact, for a later generation there is nothing more boring than the details of old battles.’
His manner was so easy that Greg half believed him. But he couldn’t help thinking that if Pym had hard evidence from the Soviet side of wider involvements in pro-Soviet espionage by the great and the good of Britain – even down to Sir Peveril, a man who sat on many boards and public bodies, who had been a trusted adviser to a previous prime minister – then there was likely to be a big scandal. Pym and Forbes had fled in the fifties, Briggs’s early Communist affiliations and war-time work had been mentioned much later, just before his death. And he, Greg, had just heard Bruno Lowenthal say on tape that he thought Theo Fitzpatrick had been running Pym as a spy, which meant that he, Fitzpatrick, could have been acting as a double agent during his posting in Washington. It all sounded seedy and suspicious. Of course, it was all over, as dead as the Gunpowder Plot – but there had been a nest of spies at Pontifex Street, in a house owned by Sir Peveril. Sir Peveril’s girlfriend, whom Bruno had said later became his wife, had lived there during that era. If Sir Peveril had known nothing of the activities of his tenants he had been massively deceived. If he had known, and had chosen not to
say what he knew, then he’d been either stupid or a traitor. This, Greg concluded, was an affair over but not over. It could not be unimportant to everyone or he wouldn’t be here, having lunch at Sir Peveril’s invitation. He ventured a question: ‘Do you think in the end Pym will be able to return?’
‘It’s been discussed,’ Sir Peveril said. ‘It might be possible on purely humanitarian grounds. He’s a sick man, after all. And perhaps there have been enough old Nazis living here since the end of the last war to make an old Russian spy, in the present climate, seem more acceptable. History’s taken a new turn since Adrian Pym thought he could make a difference.’
‘Didn’t he betray a lot of people, though?’ Greg asked. ‘Whole networks were rounded up in Eastern Europe and he was responsible for quite a few deaths and deportations. Wouldn’t there be an outcry?’
‘The dogs bark but the caravan moves on,’ Sir Peveril remarked comfortably, yet he eyed Greg a little coldly.
Greg backed off. ‘I guess so,’ he said. ‘I guess now no one will care much.’
‘Of course,’ said Sir Peveril, ‘he may not get through the winter – I may not. We’re all in the hands of the gods.’ He smiled, but with no real pretence of friendliness. ‘All this is a far cry from Miss Bowles, eh? To whom you’re trying to get back. Tell me, have you fallen in love with her yet?’
‘No, sir, I haven’t.’
‘Biographers generally end up loving or hating their subjects, so they tell me.’
‘I wonder which is best?’ Greg said, and sensing that Sir Peveril was bored with him, he finished his meal, declined coffee and stood up.
Sir Peveril saw him down the steps of the club and Greg headed for the Mall then into St James’s Park. There were few people about and he stood under a tree looking out towards the lake. Sir Peveril had gone back for coffee, brandy and then, if Greg knew anything, to make a few strategic phone calls in the matter of Adrian Pym.
‘A far cry from Miss Bowles,’ Sir Peveril had said, and Greg hoped to God it was.
He did not know that he was standing under the same tree where, so long ago, back in 1943, a girl and a soldier had been alone together for the first time.
Chapter 37
They sat on Eugene’s greatcoat under the tree, looking up at the stars, the weaving beams of searchlights, the huge white barrage balloons moving gently in a warm, early summer breeze.
‘I’ve never been so conscious of the skies,’ Sally said.
Eugene propped himself against the tree. ‘Well, here I am leaning against a mighty British oak.’
‘I think it’s a beech,’ Sally said.
‘I’m from New York, how would I know? Right. A mighty British beech, at the heart of the great British empire, with a very pretty girl.’
‘Now you’re in, we’ll win,’ Sally said.
‘I wouldn’t be too sure,’ Eugene told her. He was a clerk on a US Army base in Norfolk. ‘They sent us five hundred left-foot boots last week. It looks like we’re planning to surprise the enemy into surrender by hopping into battle.’
‘I don’t think you should be telling me these military secrets,’ Sally said.
A drunken soldier fell over Eugene’s foot, got up and said, ‘Sorry, mate.’ He peered at him. ‘I couldn’t see you in the darkness,’ he added, and went off laughing.
Eugene said to Sally, ‘I wish you people wouldn’t keep on saying that. At first it has a certain charm, then it gets tedious.’
‘It’s true I can hardly see you,’ said Sally.
‘I can see you,’ said Eugene, looking at her.
‘Well …’ said Sally.
‘OK,’ said Eugene, taking her hand. ‘Tell me about yourself.’
‘You first.’
‘Eugene Clark Hamilton, named Clark after my late uncle, my mother’s only brother, who suffered an ugly fate in Georgia. We live in Harlem, in New York. I have a brother and sister. My father is a historian and my mother trained as a singer, but gave it up when she married.’
‘What did you do before you started collecting left boots in East Anglia?’
‘I was an artist. I keep the rent paid by illustrating books, mostly children’s books.’ He added, ‘I’m twenty-eight and unmarried, though I’ve had my moments. And you?’
‘I’ve had my moments too,’ Sally admitted. ‘Quite a few.’
‘That’s strange. I thought night-club singers led quiet lives.’
‘I’m in love with a man who’s a hero,’ Sally declared.
‘Where’s the hero now?’ Eugene asked calmly.
‘No one knows. It’s too secret.’
Eugene laughed.
‘Don’t mock,’ Sally cried, off her guard. ‘Everybody always laughs.’
‘Who laughs?’
‘The people I live with. They’re all very brilliant people in intelligence.’
‘Well, I only deal with the stores,’ said Eugene. ‘Your story’s turning into one of those complicated British ones, which you’re supposed to understand by being something brilliant in intelligence. Does it get any clearer, or shall we find a place to have coffee?’
‘It’s so nice here. I wish they’d bring it,’ said Sally, standing up. ‘Still I suppose it’s a bit damp. I’m a Communist, by the way. Do you mind?’
‘Some of my best friends are Communists,’ said Eugene.
‘Did you know Harry Saunders?’ asked Sally.
‘Sure. He wanted to marry my sister,’ said Eugene.
‘No!’ Sally exclaimed. ‘I met Harry in Spain.’
They began to walk out of the park, still hand in hand.
‘What were you doing in Spain?’
‘I wound up trying to nurse. I was hopeless at it, though.’
‘Like you are at everything?’ Eugene asked her.
‘Sort of.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
They walked through the silent streets, looking for a taxi. Eugene was staying in a low-grade hotel near Paddington Station. But when Sally invited him back to Pontifex Street he said no, he had to start back at five a.m., adding, ‘I don’t think I’m brilliant enough. I might walk in and they’d challenge me to a game of chess.’
In Piccadilly Circus Sally ran into the road to stop a cab, but the cabbie, looking from Eugene to Sally and back, refused to take them. ‘He’s over here to help us, you know,’ Sally told him indignantly.
‘Help himself to our women,’ the cabbie said, and drove off.
‘You bastard!’ Sally cried after him.
‘I guess I’ll walk,’ Eugene said.
‘Are you sure you don’t want—’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s been a pleasant evening. I hope we’ll meet again. Look, there’s a taxi. Get in and go home.’
Sally did, feeling stronger and more hopeful than she had for a long time, though the feeling ebbed during the next few days. She did not see Eugene for a month and then, one day, he was at the club again.
Chapter 38
When she came in that night Briggs, Pym and Bruno were sitting with Sir Peveril Jones – and at the table with them, looking quite at ease, was Eugene. She stepped straight up and struck a pose, hip out, ‘Salut, les mecs,’ she growled.
‘Et merde à tout le monde,’ Pym growled back, louchely. He stood up unsteadily and they moved to the space in front of the band, which was tiredly playing a Latin American number. It was as if they were all asleep. Pym and Sally swung into an Apache dance. Pym, with the genius of the drunkard lifting his stride in the part of a Paris gangster, flung Sally about with skilled abandon, pushing her away then hauling her to him in a firm and sexual embrace. The band livened up and moved into a more suitable tempo.
Briggs looked on, his face expressionless. Bruno glanced at Eugene, who was smiling.
On the dance floor Pym swung Sally right round and then clasped her to him, where she remained, body to body, as if glued there. Then he staggered and nearly fell over. ‘That’s me done for. Besides, people will start
talking,’ he said. Then he put his face close to hers and said, ‘What are you playing at, dear?’
Sally snapped at his nose, which was dangerously close, and he reared back in alarm. She laughed.
Back at the table Sally said, ‘Hello, all – hello, Eugene. What are you doing here?’
‘I came to see you,’ he said.
‘That’s awfully nice of you,’ she replied crisply. ‘But I’m afraid I’m working. I’m on in about two minutes.’
‘I guess I can still watch you.’
‘That’s what they pay me for. Well – here I go.’
She went to the stage. As she sang, more people began to drift in. Cora came over and said to Pym, ‘I hear you got the sack, dear. Bad luck.’
‘I’m fixed up again now. Thanks.’
‘That’s right, dear. I’m sure you’ll always bob to the surface like a cork.’ She turned to Eugene, ‘You’re an American soldier, are you? Jolly good. What do you do?’
‘I’m making a fortune selling off Army stores,’ he told her.
‘You’ll soon be in action, dear,’ she encouraged him. ‘You look able-bodied enough to me. Gawd,’ she said, ‘Sally’s rotten tonight, though. I thought we’d touched bottom months ago, when she was so depressed, but this is worse.’
It was true, alas, that Sally’s voice had deteriorated even further than usual that night and her manner was both lacklustre and aggressive. Even her timing was off.
Where music and art were concerned Briggs was a man of sensitivity. Now he agreed, wincingly, with Cora that Sally did not seem to be on form that evening. ‘Something on her mind, perhaps,’ Cora said. She turned to Eugene. ‘I suppose you’ve heard the best, really. Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, the trumpeter fellow.’ What had carried Cora through fifty years of successful meetings with all kinds of people was natural good nature and a brilliant, erratic capacity to pick up information and apply it socially. Eugene appeared to understand her. He said ‘I’ve heard some of them, yes. This is a different style, cabaret. I don’t know too much about that.’
‘Well, you won’t learn it here, tonight,’ Cora said bluntly. ‘And the other girl, Vi, she’s off because her little brother’s got chicken-pox. I ask you! Oh,’ she said, standing up, ‘excuse me. There’s Hugo de Belvue. I’ll bring him over. He needs cheering up. They’re very stiff, these Frenchmen.’
After the Cabaret Page 16
