Brian Freemantle - Comrade Charlie

Why the hell hadn’t Moscow better advised him what the observation of Charlie Muffin was all about in the first place, thought Losev, the temporarily subdued anger surging up again. He was being held back by unfair and unnecessary restrictions. There was only one course that he could take: the only course he ever seemed able to take these days.

He had to report to Moscow and seek guidance.

As Charlie trudged the street — actually shuffled better described his progress — he thought back to the hobby he’d had when he was young, collecting train engine numbers. Proper trains they’d been then: steam engines that spat out grit and embers so you had to be careful you didn’t get bits in your eyes. They’d all been graded then, into classes and models, all with important-sounding names. Not like the diesel and electric rubbish today, all the same, like identical items on a supermarket shelf. Would train number collection still be a kids’ hobby today? Maybe, he thought, although he couldn’t remember seeing any youthful collectors during any trips he’d recently taken. Maybe not, then. Charlie didn’t think it would be as much fun today, with trains like there were around.

Before he went back to the hotel he went to his bank.

‘What was Edith like?’

‘I told you, in Moscow.’

‘Not really,’ contradicted Natalia. ‘Just that you’d had a wife and that she had been killed. Not about her: what she was like.’

In the darkness Charlie felt Natalia pull slightly away from his shoulder, against which she had been lying, and knew she was looking at him, waiting. He said: ‘Blonde. Not very big: quite slight, actually. She had a funny way of changing expression, very quickly. One minute she could be laughing, the next very serious. When that happened her face changed, like she was two different people.’

‘Pretty?’

Charlie hesitated, seeking the proper reply. ‘Not pretty pretty, the way some women are: not cute or actress pretty. I thought she was beautiful.’

‘Do you still miss her?’ Natalia had been unsure about initiating the conversation, not wanting to offend him, but she told herself that they were going to be married and that she had the right to know. Charlie didn’t sound upset, although she couldn’t see his face, and she was glad now she’d asked.

Again Charlie hesitated. ‘Yes, I suppose I do,’ he said honestly.

‘I don’t miss Igor,’ Natalia disclosed. ‘I thought about him quite a lot just before I came here but that was because I was comparing him to Eduard. But I haven’t missed him for a very long time: maybe I never did. I guess yours was a different sort of love.’

‘Perhaps,’ conceded Charlie. ‘There’s a lot of regrets.’ He’d never admitted it before but didn’t feel embarrassed to talk about it with Natalia.

‘I don’t understand what you’ve just said.’

‘I didn’t treat her like I should have done,’ conceded Charlie, in further admission. ‘Behaved badly. Took a lot — too much — for granted. I regret that now.’

‘Is that a clumsy way of telling me you had affairs?’

‘Some. Not a lot.’

‘Are you going to have affairs when we’re married?’

‘No.’

‘You’d have hardly confessed it in advance, would you?’ It was a light remark, not accusing.

‘Why’d you ask then?’

‘Just wanted to hear what you’d say.’

‘I won’t,’ said Charlie. ‘Ever.’

‘Did she know what you did?’

Charlie nodded in the darkness, momentarily forgetting she couldn’t see the gesture. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s how we met, in the department.’

‘How do your people feel about department romances?’

Charlie paused yet again. Then he said: ‘I don’t know that there’s a department policy. It happens, but not a lot.’ As far as Charlie was aware it wasn’t a subject upon which Harkness had issued an edict: he supposed the man would get around to it, some time.

‘It’s practically encouraged in the KGB,’ revealed Natalia. ‘Particularly in the First Chief Directorate, if an officer is going to follow the diplomatic route by being assigned to embassies or to consulates. When they’re posted abroad the husband or wife goes as well and it puts two operatives in place rather than one. Cuts down the chances of seduction by a counter-intelligence plant, too.’

‘Very practical indeed,’ agreed Charlie.

‘Did she worry? Did Edith worry?’

‘I suppose so…’ started Charlie, and stopped. ‘No, that’s stupid. Of course she worried. She just didn’t talk about it a lot.’

Natalia noticeably shuddered. ‘It must have been horrible, having someone you love working God knows where and having the access to what was happening to him: not knowing when you arrived in the morning if there’d be a dry, cold message from some embassy station saying that your husband had been arrested. Or killed’

‘Actually she was in a different section, so she didn’t have access,’ said Charlie. ‘And I never got arrested: not on a department assignment, that is.’

‘Do you mind talking about it?’ asked Natalia belatedly.

‘No,’ said Charlie.

‘Can I ask you something very personal?’

‘If you like.’

‘What about children?’

Charlie took several seconds to reply. He said: ‘We decided against it, at first. It was Edith’s decision, really. Because of what I did. She thought…well, that it wasn’t a good idea. Then she changed her mind: she’d left the department by then, wasn’t doing anything. Not working, I mean. She became pregnant about a year after she quit. She lost it, just beyond two months. It didn’t happen again. Her becoming pregnant. There were tests and things and there was no reason why it shouldn’t have done. Medical, I mean. It just didn’t.’

‘Would you have liked a baby?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Charlie, again with complete honesty. ‘It all seemed to be over before I’d become used to the idea of having one in the first place. I don’t ever remember making up my mind.’

‘I’m thirty-eight, Charlie. Nearly thirty-nine.’

‘So?’

‘The chances of our having one aren’t good.’

He laughed. ‘You thinking that far ahead!’

‘I haven’t been, not until now. But why not?’

‘No reason,’ conceded Charlie. ‘I haven’t, that’s all.’

‘Think about it now,’ she demanded.

‘That’s not the way it’s decided!’ protested Charlie.

‘How is it decided?’

‘I don’t know!’ struggled Charlie. ‘People talk about it…discuss it for a while…’

‘You don’t want one, do you?’ challenged Natalia openly.

‘Maybe not,’ said Charlie.

‘Why not?’

‘Frightened, I suppose.’

‘What’s there to be frightened of?’

‘Something happening. Going wrong.’

‘I never imagined you’d feel like that.’

Charlie shifted impatiently. His arm was numb from the length of time Natalia had been lying on it. He said: ‘Isn’t this part of the conversation academic, anyway? There’s a lot of other things to think about first.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like what I’m going to do.’

‘Do?’

‘Job,’ said Charlie.

Now it was Natalia who did not speak for several moments. When she did she moved further away, off his arm, and said: ‘Put a light on.’

‘Why?’

‘Put a light on!’

He did. Natalia sat up, careless of the covering falling, unembarrassed at her nakedness. Her body was very firm, a young girl’s litheness, her breasts with hardly any sag, her stomach hard.

‘So?’ he said. Charlie came up in the bed too, propping himself on his tingling arm, hoping it would restore the circulation. He wondered how she was going to phrase it.