Spearfield's Daughter

by Jon Cleary

  “I wasn’t going to, Jack. What is it?”

  “Dorothy St. Martin has just died. I thought you’d like to know. Do you want me to order flowers or something?” He was willing to run errands, do anything for her.

  “Please. I’m sorry to hear about her death. I suppose she gave up after Rose died. I believe that often happens with old people when someone dies whom they’ve loved—”

  Not only old people. But he was old; or anyway felt it. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, thank you. And you?” They were as formal as he and Emma had been.

  “As well as can be expected.” He couldn’t resist that. Then abruptly, before he spoiled everything, he said goodbye and hung up.

  Cleo sat with the dead phone against her ear for a moment, then she slowly put it down. She picked up her gold pen, the one the St. Martin sisters had given her, and looked at it with guilt. She had neglected both sisters: a couple of short letters a year and a card at Christmas were not enough for what was owed to friends. Her life, she realized, was full of debts, small and big; she had never thought of herself as selfish, but she was. She had not given a thought in years to Pat Hamer, the actress who had told her of the story in the St. Martin sisters, the story that had started her career in London. Was Pat still playing the maid in French farces, still showing off her boom but still dreaming of playing Lady Macbeth? Did Mr. Brearly, the features editor on the Examiner, and Roy Holden and Simon Pally on Scope ever feel that she owed them something? She felt ashamed: she never thought of them at all. She had never trodden on anyone to get to where she now sat; but she had never looked back to thank any of them. Suddenly she wanted to rush across the Atlantic to be at Dorothy St. Martin’s funeral; then she would go looking for all the others, invite them to a grand reunion of the Cleo Spearfield Progress Association. But the thought was as ridiculous as it was quixotic. And there was no guarantee any of them would appreciate her gesture.

  She was only sorry that she could no longer reach Dorothy and Rose.

  Two days later Jack went to the funeral. The service was held at the Farm Street church; Jack sat in a rear pew and listened to the priest’s eulogy. There was no mention of her as a reformed sinner; the Jesuits were worldly, they knew there were more ways to Heaven than the straight and narrow. There were only a few mourners; Jack recognized some doddering old men as clients from the old bordello days. Emma sat in her wheelchair in a side aisle, her housekeeper by her side. When the service was over Jack walked up the aisle and shook hands with Emma.

  “Are you going out to the cemetery?”

  “No,” she said. “Cemetery paths were not made for wheelchairs.”

  She hadn’t meant to stab him; but did. He winced inwardly, then said, “Will you have lunch with me?”

  She hesitated, then smiled. “Only if you take me to the Ritz.”

  It was where he had taken her when he was courting her. He was not plunging headlong back into the past, it was creeping up around him. He went out to the street, told Sid Cromwell he would ring him from the Ritz when he wanted to be picked up, then joined Emma in her Rolls-Royce. They drove to the Ritz and once there he took the handles on the back of the wheelchair and steered her himself into the dining-room.

  They were almost ceremoniously polite to each other, though he had the feeling she was secretly amused. It is not easy to talk to a wife of long ago; some intimacy remains but it has become saw-toothed. So they talked round themselves, like diplomats at a peace conference held in an arsenal.

  At last Emma said, “And how is Cleo? Dorothy used to tell me how well she was doing in New York.”

  “That’s all over. I mean between her and me. Yes, she’s doing well.”

  “Too well, you mean? You should never have chosen a career woman to fall in love with, Jack.”

  “I fell in love with you, remember?” He wondered if they could ever become reconciled. But the wheelchair would always come between them. He had slowed down, but he still felt the need for sex; she would not be able to give it to him and he would go off looking for it. She would never countenance that: he knew how much pride she had.

  She ignored the memory he had revived. She turned away and looked out through the great window across Green Park. Stallions’ manes of white cloud flared in the upper sky; in the park itself trees were green balloons of summer. Lovers walked hand in hand (how times had changed, for the better: she and Jack had never walked hand in hand in public) and a young father played with two children (she could hear their silent laughter in her head, like a pain). She had never really got to know London; city pavements were no better than cemetery paths for the passage of wheelchairs. She stopped thinking for the moment, not wanting to show any self-pity in front of him.

  She looked back at him and said out of the blue of her mind, “You’re getting on, Jack. What are you going to do with all your money when you die?”

  The question shocked him, though his will was already neat and tidy, if a little out of date. But he did not want to be reminded of death. “You’ll be looked after, I’ve seen to that.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of myself—you’ve always been fair to me. In that way,” she added, for she could never entirely forgive him. “Have you made any provision for Cleo?”

  He hesitated, then nodded. “Yes. I hope you’re not going to object?”

  “On the contrary. If she made you happy for so long, she deserves to be remembered in your will. But I’d like the rest of it.”

  “What?!” It was a loud bark; people at nearby tables looked at him. He tugged at his moustache in embarrassment, suddenly aware of the surrounding stares . . . Dammit, Emma was just like Cleo: they could both make him feel awkward. He lowered his voice: “What would you do with it?”

  “I’d set up a charity trust.”

  “I was going to do that anyway.”

  “Not call it after yourself, I hope?”

  “Why not?”

  “Jack—” His naïve ego made her feel affectionate towards him. “One doesn’t name a charity trust after oneself. Let me do it. Leave everything to me and then I’ll announce that you had expressed a wish for it to be used for charity. I’ll set up a trust in your name and you’ll lie there in your grave smelling of roses, as they say.”

  “Jesus Christ,” he said softly. Then he saw the beginning of a smile on her lips and all at once he burst out laughing. People looked at him again; an Arab sheik wondered what had happened to the manners of the English. But this time he didn’t care: “Can I trust you?”

  “You can always come back if I doublecross you. I’m sure you have the British rights to resurrection.”

  He shook his head in wonder. “You sound just like Cleo. She was always taking the mickey out of me.”

  “I should have done it years ago, Jack,” she said brusquely, not wanting comparison with Cleo or any of his other women. “Give Cleo something worthwhile and let me handle the rest. We’ll make everyone happy. The women of Britain will be smugly pleased to see you had not forgotten your neglected wife after all and the Left wing politicians won’t be able to call you a hard-hearted capitalist. Which you are.”

  “There you go—” But he smiled, pleased that she seemed almost as calculating as himself. He always looked for the worst in people: it was his easiest way of complimenting them. “Would you like some champagne?”

  “That would be nice. Ask them if they have a Taittinger ‘61—that’s what I always drink at home. I’m a simple country girl at heart.”

  She smiled and he laughed, all at once glad he had invited her to lunch. The nearby diners looked at them again and thought how sweet it was to see two elderly people enjoying each other’s company so much.

  That afternoon he sent her a single red rose. He knew better than to overdo things.

  V

  “This region has always been a headache,” said Roger Brisson. “It will always be, even when the Arabs run out of oil.”

  “I suppose Richard Coeur de Lion
said that, too.” Tom Border’s French grated on Roger’s ear, but the latter nodded in agreement. He was pleased that Cleo had sent Tom with him; he now had to start building up contacts amongst newspapermen and it was safe to start close to home. They were sitting in the lobby of Shepheards Hotel in Cairo watching the passing parade, a suggestion made by Tom. “If you’re going to understand foreign affairs,” he had said; Roger had confided to him the reason for his trip, though not his ultimate ambition, “I wouldn’t rely entirely on what they tell you in embassies and chancelleries.”

  The correspondent from Al-Asrah who had interviewed Roger in his suite had said the same thing. “Everyone is here in this town right now, General. I think it must be like Lisbon was in your war.”

  Roger didn’t tell him he had missed World War Two by six months. He had glanced in a mirror to check how old he looked and decided that the Egyptian must be suffering from the local disease of glaucoma.

  Now he looked across the lobby and said, “There’s Colonel Baskerville—that tall bald-headed man. I wonder what he’s doing here? He was one of the British officers at NATO HQ. I thought he’d retired.”

  “He works for a British oil company now. He’s always been an expert on the Arabs.” Tom had early realized that Roger had done no leg-work as a foreign affairs expert.

  A party of American Express explorers came trooping in from their bus, tired and dusty, glad to have seen the Pyramids before they were bombed to rubble. Arab and European and American businessmen sat round in small tight circles, their heads poked into the spoke-holes of their low-voiced conversation. Two whores sat demurely in a corner; being businesswomen, they knew when not to interrupt businessmen. Cleo should be there, Tom thought, the old Cleo and her column, giving the needle to all and sundry.

  “What a mixture,” said Roger, waist-deep in hoi polloi. He was enjoying life as a civilian, he didn’t miss the protocol of army life at all. In a luxury hotel, when you sign in as General, they give you the protocol anyway. “It would be interesting to know who and what they all are. Some terrorists, for sure.”

  “Possibly. But I don’t think they hang out in places like this.”

  Nor did they. In an apartment overlooking the river four Iranians were having a heated argument with an Italian from the Red Brigade and Rosa Fuchs. She and Poncelli had arrived in Cairo yesterday by way of Beirut. There had been a conference in Vienna of several groups and it had been decided to send two emissaries to Cairo and then on to Teheran to offer any help that was wanted by the Iranian revolutionary movement. Unfortunately, the Iranians they had contacted did not want any help.

  “Get it through your thick heads—we don’t need you!” The leader of the group had spent two years at Berkeley in California and had come to have contempt for all foreign revolutionaries. They all seemed to think that sex was some part of the revolution. “Least of all we need a woman!”

  Rosa Fuchs wore a black wig to hide her blonde hair; she had thought it would make her less conspicuous amongst the dark heads she had expected to be working with. She wanted to tear off the wig now and throw it in the face of the leader.

  “We want no whores in the Islamic revolution—”

  Rosa knew she should not have worn the sleeveless sundress with its low-cut front; the weather was hot and she had thought herself modestly dressed. She had not expected to be confronted by someone from the Middle Ages.

  She swore in German and hit him hard across the face. He gave her a medieval whack in return. Poncelli, still infected with Italian gallantry and other bourgeois failings, hit him. The fight was only the culmination of the argument that had gone on for over an hour; brotherly love is no more endemic amongst revolutionaries than it is amongst the ruling classes; Poncelli, an Italian realist, knew that. The four Iranians, not burdened by gallantry, attacked Rosa and Poncelli without favouring one or the other and threw them both out of the apartment. Rosa had lost her wig, but the leader threw it out on to the landing after her like a scalp that he did not want. She picked it up and put it on, felt her bruises and cuts and swore loudly in German, screeching at the top of her voice.

  “Stai zitta!” Poncelli cautioned. “Be quiet! We don’t want the police here—”

  But it was already too late. The neighbours had heard the fight and called the police; for once the Cairo police were on hand immediately. They came rushing into the lobby of the apartment building as Rosa and Poncelli came down the stairs. Doors were opening and heads were popping out; curiosity has killed many a Cairene, but south and east of the Mediterranean there is none of the inhibitions of Rosa’s Germans; everyone wants to know what is going on. Poncelli was several steps ahead of her and suddenly she slowed, letting him go on down. She had no idea what he had in mind; perhaps he was going to try and bluff his way past the police. She paused by the half-open door on the landing she had reached, looked at the middle-aged woman and the young man who were peering out. She smiled at them, then took the Luger from her handbag and pushed them ahead of her into their apartment. She closed the door behind her and gestured at them with the gun.

  “Sprechen sie Deutsch?”

  “Ja,” said the young man. “A little. I work for Lufthansa out at the airport. I am a mechanic.”

  “I shan’t harm you if you remain quiet. Is this your mother? Tell her just to be quiet and she won’t be hurt. I want to stay here till the police are gone.”

  She could hear the hubbub out on the stairs; she thought she heard someone shout Rosa! She could hear Poncelli yelling in Italian, then his voice was lost in the general pandemonium. She waited for shots to ring out, but the Iranians evidently were not prepared to fight their revolution here in Cairo. Boots clattered down the stairs and within five minutes all was quiet again.

  She nodded to the young man and his mother, put the Luger away in her handbag and thanked them for their hospitality. Then she let herself out of the apartment, went carefully down the stairs and out into the street. There was a small crowd in the street, attracted by the incident and still discussing it; she skirted the crowd and walked down to the corner and hailed a taxi. She went back to the small hotel where she and Poncelli had checked in. She debated whether to wait and see what happened to him, if he might return, then decided she owed him no loyalty, even though he had defended her against the Iranian pig.

  An hour later she was at the airport catching a plane for Beirut. She would be back in Vienna tomorrow, safe once again amongst those who believed women had a place in all revolutions.

  Next day Tom had a call at Shepheards from the press secretary at the US embassy. “Weren’t you once involved with a girl terrorist named Rosa Fuchs? Well, she’s here in Cairo somewhere, unless she skipped out overnight. The police picked up some Iranians yesterday, along with a guy named Poncelli, who’s a wanted Red Brigade man. The leader of the Iranians evidently doesn’t like women—he put the finger on Rosa Fuchs. She appears to be the only one who got away, which means he probably hates her even more now.”

  “Where can I get more on the story?”

  “Try Inspector Habib at police headquarters. Mention my name.”

  Tom put down the phone and went along to Roger’s suite. He had only a small room for himself, but he was still living and travelling better than the Courier had ever allowed him to do in the past. It paid to be the husband-to-be of the editor, to be in first class.

  “Our girl friend Rosa Fuchs has surfaced again. She’s here in Cairo.”

  “Do you think she’s here looking for me?” A threat to one’s life doesn’t diminish one’s ego.

  “I don’t think so. Evidently she was here to see some Iranians and got the bum’s rush from them. I think there might be a story. I’m going over to police headquarters. Will you be here when I get back? I can tell you what I’ve found out over lunch.”

  “I’m lunching with President Sadat.”

  Ah well, Tom thought, there’s always a class above first class.

  19

  I


  THE IRANIAN leader was willing to talk to Tom and in between propaganda for the revolution in his own country he made a scathing attack on interfering foreigners, especially heathen women. Poncelli would not talk at all, but looked extra sullen when Tom tried to question him about Rosa Fuchs. Then the interview had to end. Inspector Habib, doing a favour for his friend in the American embassy, had broken rules to allow Tom to see the prisoners. Other correspondents, learning of the favouritism, clamoured for the same privilege. Tom went out by a back door and the front door was closed. Tom had an exclusive.

  He wrote it, cabled it and Joe Hamlyn, on Cleo’s insistence, ran it on Page One: he was favoured everywhere. Within twenty-four hours Rosa Fuchs in Vienna had had every word of the story read to her; the international terrorist network is as good as any newspaper wire service. Tom’s story did Rosa a lot of harm with her own group. They did not blame her for being a woman and a heathen, but she was condemned for abandoning Poncelli. He was top brass in the network and, as in any war and any army, the brass should never be left to take care of itself. She should have died to help him escape.

  Rosa, the spoiled only child of middle class parents, went away to sulk. Tom stayed on with Roger in Cairo for another four days, then the two of them flew back to New York. Cleo, using some of the political skill she had inherited from her father, knowing the value of numbers, invited both men to the news conference the day after they got back.

  Roger gave his impressions. “I don’t think we should be blind to the Shah’s faults and mistakes. He’s finished. Somehow or other we have to make an accommodation with the Ayatollah.”

  “That’s out of the question,” said Alain, aware at once that he was going to be a minority of one.

  “I think it may well be,” said Cleo, already an antagonist of the Ayatollah Khomeini for what he was doing to women in Iran. “I don’t think we have to embrace him. We should try to stay objective. Have you read that editorial I sent you, Roger?”