by Pirate Irwin
Sebastian felt he was floating on a cloud as he drifted through his mother’s drawing room chatting to the various guests. They looked at him admiringly, honoured to be close to someone in power, and their gazes of fawning sycophancy didn’t differ too much from those Germans he had seen closeted in the same room as members of the Nazi regime. I’m sure they would be delighted to know that mused, Sebastian drily. They would probably know about his past soon enough anyway, then he would be lucky to have one person in the room and what his mother would suffer in loss of face almost made him want to admit it right there and then. “Sorry Mum, can’t get married, in fact forget about the grandchildren, I’m off to be hanged for treason, don’t you know.” That’s what he would have liked to have said and emptied the room of all those freeloaders and ersatz friends, but of course he couldn’t. He hadn’t given up hope yet that he would once again experience another remarkable piece of escapology; surely his luck wouldn’t desert him now. He was in turmoil and had been keen to cancel his invitation but had decided company would be better for him rather than spending the night alone back in his house. Limited as it was, there were a few interesting and amusing guests, a backbench Conservative MP and his charming wife and the woman whom his mother had lined up for him was actually very attractive. She was a war widow called Kate Gibbs and had the dirtiest laugh Sebastian had ever heard and that was quite something when he thought of Victoria’s, but she also possessed a decent sense of humour and with long blonde hair and sparkling emerald eyes plus a decent-sized bosom, she was most pleasant company and as different physically to Victoria as he could dream of. She flirted outrageously during dinner, using her fingers as much as possible to slip the prawns into her mouth and allowing the sauce to drip suggestively from her lips down her chin before rolling her tongue lasciviously round her cherry red coloured lips. Sebastian enjoyed the show as it took his mind momentarily off Cartwright and his indecent proposal, and he started permitting himself thoughts of how she would be in bed and whether he could persuade her to share a ride home that night, because heaven knows when was the next time he would be able to enjoy such pleasures. His fantasies were interrupted as the ladies withdrew, a custom he found antiquated and derogatory to the women as who was to say that men had any greater sense than they did, and he was left with six other men, five of whom were the bad side of drunk. The only one who wasn’t was the backbencher, a good fellow called Francis Smithers, but judged too much of a maverick to be trusted with ministerial responsibilities – if they only knew, Sebastian thought darkly. Smithers and he quickly ignored the other male members and over cigars and brandy chatted about the current state of affairs which had the Conservatives already embroiled in the Suez Affair, which had cost them Anthony Eden as leader, and things looked scarcely better under Macmillan as they stumbled from one crisis to the next. “Do you fancy a run for the leadership, Sebastian?” asked Smithers, to which Sebastian laughed uproariously believing him to be joking but realized he was being deadly earnest.
“Me? I don’t think so, somehow. Too young, too green and way too flamboyant for that. In any case, it isn’t the way we should be speaking as Mac for better or for worse is already in place and there are many other candidates better versed in the ways of the men in grey suits and how they select the leader for me to start getting involved,” chortled Sebastian.
Smithers waved away his objections. “But that’s just it, Sebastian. You are what we need. You are young, vibrant, charismatic and intelligent. Eden was already past his prime while Mac, well, he is in theory relatively young but he was old before his time, and the only reason he connects with the people is because they regard him as an avuncular old fogey,” said Smithers.
“Hush, Smithers. I know that under me you would be a minister because we are of a similar cloth, but I would urge you to restrain your enthusiasm for my cause and not actively seek support for your views. What you speak at the moment is treasonable talk and that is not a good thing to be saying to a minister of the government, even one sympathetic to your views,” said Sebastian, and almost added: I would know a lot about the word treasonable. Suitably chastened, Smithers changed the subject and the party broke up an hour later. Sebastian sought out Kate and was upset to find that she appeared to have already left, her flirting was of no use when only in the company of women evidently. However, his search turned up trumps as he found her loitering in the hall, her fur coat draped over her slender arm, and he sauntered up to her and asked her casually if she would like a lift back.
“I live in Chelsea, which is not on your way,” she said coolly.
“It could be,” he replied tartly and she smiled. “Mm, I don’t know. I thought I might walk as it is a rather lovely evening,” she said.
“Very well then,” said Sebastian nonchalantly, though he was feeling a wee bit more upset at being rebuffed than he let on. He turned to return to the drawing room but stopped in his tracks as he heard her silky voice float over him.
“On the other hand, these heels are darned hard to walk in, even on a carpet. So perhaps you could be so kind as to give me that lift, that is if it is still on offer.” Sebastian smiled, told her to wait a minute while he said goodnight to his mother and collected his coat. His mother bore a look of triumph on her wrinkled but still beautiful face, her face creased in a smile as she bade him farewell. Sebastian vowed to retain that memory forever, because pretty soon she would have little to smile about.
“So tell me about your former husband,” asked Sebastian as he lay back smoking a cigarette in Kate’s large double bed after a bout of passionate lovemaking where he had taken her from any position imaginable and she had come all over him, before licking it off his chest and then spat it into his mouth. She had raked his back with her long nails and squealed in delight as she drew blood before licking that and having another orgasm in the process. Sebastian wasn’t in quite so much ecstasy, as his back hurt like hell and while he had been excited by the lovemaking, he was just a little uneasy at having regular doses of it as he didn’t relish looking like some sailor from the 18th century after a good session with the cat o’nine tails. However, lying back on the soft feather mattress his back felt better and drawing on the cigarette eased the pain. She stayed silent for quite a while, her naked body spread out over the bed, legs splayed and Sebastian noticed that she hadn’t stopped playing with herself and once again had her fingers in between her legs. She came a few minutes later and then flipped over onto her side looking down at Sebastian, her golden hair draped round the sides of her face and the tips virtually touching his eyes. From the light that filtered in through the curtains, Sebastian could discern she was crying and the tears started to moisten her hair as they got caught on the way down. A few drops splattered onto his chest like warm summer rain, and he raised his hand and stroked her face gently. “I always do that in his memory after I’ve had sex,” she said suddenly pointing down to her bush. “It kind of levels it out between us, that I have betrayed him but he is always the last man I think about when I have my fingers between my legs,” she said proudly. Sebastian winced at the sadness she must feel inside and the burden of the loss she was still carrying with her even over 10 years after the war ended and God knows how many since he was killed. He had met many women of all ages, whether through his constituency work or his social life, who had been widowed during the war and while some had remained single, the majority had remarried though one had to feel for their second husband in that he could never possibly match up to the first one, but Kate belonged in a different category as she still believed they were together and every time she slept with someone it was a betrayal. Oh, oh, Sebastian felt the alarm bells go off, this is way too complex for me, one-night stand fine but no more than that.
“So,” he said softly still stroking her hair and relaxing amid the odour of their sex, “what happened to him?” She reached over him and pulled a cigarette from a silver mug and lit it by striking a match off his chest, which made him recoil in
agony. “He died in a prisoner of war camp, apparently killed by another of the prisoners because they believed he was a spy for the Nazis, at least that was how it was so delicately phrased to me by one of his former inmates,” she said bitterly and started to cry again. “Can you imagine what that felt like, not only going through his being taken prisoner, then being told he was dead and the final blow that he had been murdered, they of course claim executed, for being a German plant. Telling the children their father was killed because of those suspicions was a real joy, I can tell you,” she said sarcastically. Sebastian’s throat had gone dry and he felt like running straight out of the elegant three-storey house from the top floor if needs be. He rose instead and padded up and down the room, his hands running through his hair relentlessly, saying to himself it can’t be, it can’t be possible. She hunched up in the bed and stared anxiously at the sudden change in Sebastian, wondering whether she had sparked off some kind of nervous breakdown. “I’m sorry if I brought back bad memories, because I know you were in a far worse place than Mark,” she said soothingly.
“Christ, was his name Mark Macready?” whispered Sebastian.
“Yes, yes, it was. How on earth do you know that?” she asked, looking surprised.
“Because I was in the same bloody camp as him and I tried to save his life. Oh Lord, stop these demons coming back to haunt me!” cried Sebastian and held his head in his hands.
“What do you mean you tried to save his life?” she said, her voice quavering. Sebastian couldn’t answer, simply shaking his head as if he was incapable of speech. It was all coming home to roost now, first Cartwright then her in a matter of hours, it was as if all protection had been removed from him and he was now being thrown to the wolves to repent for his sins.
“I asked you, how did you try and save his life? For God’s sake, you owe me an explanation,” she said angrily, the timbre of her voice raised several octaves higher. Sebastian started shivering despite the warmth of the room and the breeze blowing through the window. He staggered back to the edge of the bed and stared towards the window with his back turned to her. She remained where she was, lighting one cigarette off another, hands shaking waiting for him to answer.
“He was no agent, your husband,” Sebastian finally said, his voice shaking and tinged with emotion. “I have to admit I didn’t like him very much, solely for reasons that only affect you when you are thrown together with people forcibly and have to live days of frustrating deprivation and knowing you could all be there for eternity. A bit like public school really,” he laughed darkly. “Anyway that’s all irrelevant to the main part of the story. Basically he was part of an escape cell in the camp and then one day this elderly, smooth intelligence officer called Johns wades into the party and blows it wide open. Son of a bitch!” he said angrily. She sighed at this outburst, another bit of male angst, so boring, she mused. She waited for him to carry on, this great minister of state and potential Prime Minister cowering at the end of the bed of a war widow and top class hooker, whose only love had been murdered by his own comrades. “So anyway, this bastard Johns convinces Grosvenor, the one-eyed Oates and the other fellow, whose name I always forget as he was the taciturn type whom you didn’t really notice, that your husband and an amiable German guard were in cahoots together and had been placed in the camp to reveal escape plots. And they decided to murder them without so much as asking your husband whether any of it was true, based solely on Johns’ intelligence which as I learnt to my unending cost was false,” he said soberly.
“So who did it, was it you?” she asked icily. He shook his head and having regained some of his composure he felt able to turn to her and hold out his hand, but she did not reciprocate.
“He was killed while I was scouting the local town to find out details for the officers who wanted to escape, because I spoke fluent German and they didn’t. That was when I was captured, thanks to Johns being in reality a Gestapo officer and it gave me no pleasure that I was right all along that your husband was no agent,” he said sadly. “I am truly sorry for what happened, but I did defend him. I really did,” he whispered, conveniently leaving out the part of where he agreed finally to the execution. She looked at him coldly and again refused to take his outstretched hand.
“Normally I charge for my services. Well you know, a war pension is not exactly sufficient to pay for three children,” she said acidly. “However, in your case I will make an exception, because it would be like taking blood money from a guilty man trying to appease his soul and that I am not willing to aid.” She climbed out of bed and strode to the bathroom to fetch her dressing gown. When she returned, Sebastian was still sitting on the bed, his head held in his hands. “Don’t expect any sympathy from me, Sebastian Stuart. You are a murderer and I can’t believe I have just slept with one of my husband’s executioners. How dare you use me to expiate your guilt, you piece of shit!” she said viciously. Sebastian was quite frightened by the change in her tone and tried to calm her by waving his hands up and down telling her to lower the volume, but it only served to provoke her into a more frenzied state. She was literally wringing her hands and tearing at her hair as she came to terms with what she had done.
“Listen, I did not know who you were and did not seek you out as you think I did,” pleaded Sebastian. “If I could have changed things I would have done but it was too late. They were four and I was one and I was also threatened with the same fate. What would you have done in those circumstances, when your life is at stake?” he demanded. It was no use, she came charging at him scratching at his face and kicking him in the balls, which glanced off and struck his groin, all the same leaving him doubled up in agony on the floor.
“What’s going on, Mummy?” came a boy’s voice from behind him. “Is this man hurting you, Mummy?” he asked. Kate stood up and pulled down her dressing gown into a more orderly state and tried to push back her hair from her tearstained face.
“No, Tom, it’s all right. This man has already hurt us enough. Come here and stare into the eyes of one of your father’s executioners,” and she motioned for him to come over.
Sebastian tried to look away, but she wrenched his head back and forced him to look up into the eyes of the boy whose father’s life he had taken all those years ago, thanks to his nemesis, Johns. The boy looked the spitting image of his father, though given he was around 15 he probably never enjoyed many moments with him. The boy looked at him with a mixture of sympathy and contempt before shuffling off and out of the room. Sebastian having recovered from the knock to the groin got back up and collected his things, dressing as quickly as he could while Kate, her frenzy abating retook her hunched pose on the bed, puffing on a cigarette and saying nothing. He didn’t feel like there was much to say either and took the stairs two at a time so he could escape before she wound herself up once more, which came just as he was leaving the house and was accompanied by her shrieking down the stairs: “You weren’t any good in bed anyway! Murderer!”
Sebastian realized that the lucky stars that had carried him sailing through so many scrapes and crises of conscience had deserted him and now it was down to him to sort out the mess, for that to put it mildly was what he was in. Once again he had been plunged into a life or death situation and while he believed that he was not totally to blame for taking a decision all those years ago to save his life by changing sides, he could see how it would read to his compatriots let alone the political fallout that would ensue. For a government that had plunged from one disaster to another since reassuming power, it could prove the final straw for the weary electorate. They could just about handle the disaster over Suez, when deserted by the Americans both they and France had been humiliated but the illness of then Prime Minister Anthony Eden, plus his honourable record as Foreign Minister during the Second World War had held enough credit to get them through. Macmillan replacing him had provided a boost but the revelation that a serving Minister had actually fought with the most evil regime to have graced the bloodied
pages of the history books could bring the whole party crashing down. Sebastian contemplated going to Macmillan as he enjoyed good relations with him but on reflecting on it decided that it would be to no avail – the old boy might even offer him a pistol to end it, something which he would not be willing to acquiesce to. No, he was going to face up to the consequences for once in his life, he owed it to so many people, Eric, the Baron, himself and not least the little Macready boy, whose expression of hatred and disbelief had burned a permanent imprint on his brain. No, Mr Cartwright, you are not going to get what you want, and more to the point, you are not going to find your way out of the country as those other Communist agents Anthony Burgess and Donald Maclean did – it is going to be life for life, thought Sebastian.
Thus it was that Sebastian greeted Cartwright in his office the next day armed with this new almost crusader like resolve to seek redemption and finally free himself from his demons, regardless of whether it led to the gallows or not. Cartwright ambled in looking as smug as he had done the previous evening, and it only goaded Sebastian on more to disappoint him. He had had half a thought to arrange for the security services to be there and arrest him on the spot but then he opted out, reasoning that perhaps Cartwright was bluffing and they could work out a deal, whereby the matter was dropped. His visitor had clearly had a liquid lunch judging by the fumes emanating from his mouth, but it didn’t stop him from striding to the drinks cabinet and helping himself to a large Scotch, Sebastian declined his offer of filling him a glass. Cartwright settled himself into one of the chairs round Sebastian’s desk and surveyed his prey’s features, which he noticed bore the signs of a fight. “Getting in to another scrap, Minister?” he smiled, which Sebastian ignored.
