Brian Freemantle: Madrigal for Charlie Muffin

Quickly he tried to control the shank of hair that curtained his forehead and was still with the comb in his hand when the lift stopped. Hurriedly he pocketed it, glad no one was waiting directly outside.

The lift led out onto a small foyer. Willoughby was waiting by the open door into the apartment.

‘Come in,’ he said.

Charlie had visited once before but there had been a lot of people and he hadn’t been aware of the size of the place. There was a large central corridor, with doors leading off either side; those into the drawing room were double-fronted and open, giving an expansive entry.

‘Clarrisa’s out,’ said the underwriter, leading Charlie in. ‘Got herself involved with some charity for abandoned animals.’

Charlie thought he made it sound a sudden hobby that would soon be discarded, like collecting train numbers or cigarette cards. ‘You should have called if it was inconvenient,’ he said.

‘She wouldn’t hear of it,’ said Willoughby. ‘And it gives us time to go through the insurance file.’

A man appeared at the door and Willoughby motioned him away. ‘It’s all right, Robert; I’ll do it.’ The underwriter came back to Charlie. ‘Drink?’ he said.

‘Scotch,’ said Charlie. He was glad Willoughby was wearing a lounge suit. On the way from Sloane Square underground Charlie had wondered if he were expected to dress: he’d hired a dinner suit the last time and kept being mistaken for someone brought in to help for the evening.

Willoughby handed Charlie the drink and said, ‘I’ve got the stuff in the study.’

It was miniscule by comparison to the City office, but still opulent, red-felt walls, a small antique desk and chair, a soft light apart from the single anglepoise lamp, a storage bureau, roll-top and antique again, and some photographs. They were predominantly of Willoughby, at school and university, but then Charlie saw the wedding group and moved closer to it.

‘Father used his influence and managed to get Westminster church,’ said the underwriter. ‘It was 1970.’

‘I remember,’ said Charlie. He had an operation to date it. Moscow: July. A randy MP crying foul because he’d been photographed with his trousers around his ankles with an Intourist interpreter looking irritated because she hadn’t been able to take her suspender belt off for the camera. Charlie had done the only thing he could to reverse the scandal; exposed the silly bugger himself and made a fuss about entrapment of British politicians on a supposedly friendly trade visit. Charlie peered closer at the picture. This was how he would remember Sir Archibald. Cherub-faced and bright-eyed, like a garden gnome by a goldfish pond. Not like the last time, at Rye, after he’d been dumped: a food-stained, shaky old man, his memory so whisky-blurred that sentences never had a coherent ending. Next to Sir Archibald lounged Clarissa in a veil and engulfed in cascades of fashionable satin. Narrow-featured even then, high cheek-boned, her face chiselled by the permanent diet. Calorie-free tonic water for social appearances and hand-rolled cigarettes for highs, remembered Charlie. Did she still smoke or had that been a passing hobby, like stray animals?

‘I’ve got the file here,’ interrupted Willoughby.

Charlie turned back into the room, seeing for the first time the small chair that had been set for him alongside the desk. In front of the underwriter was a spread of documents and diagrams. Charlie took the side chair and twisted the lamp, needing the illumination in the shaded room. It was an extensive dossier, with illustrations of the protection system and lists of the jewellery indexed against individual pictures of each piece, taken from several different angles. The correspondence between the ambassador and Willoughby was included, together with biographies of Sir Hector and Lady Billington. It was thirty minutes before Charlie looked up.

‘Wealth I ask not, hope nor love…’ quoted Charlie. In the early days in the department he’d habitually made remarks like that, in a futile attempt to convey the impression of an education he didn’t have.

‘They’re important people, Charlie.’

‘I’ll tug my forelock and keep my place,’ promised Charlie. Sir Archibald wouldn’t have made a point like that, even with cause.

‘I didn’t mean to offend you,’ said Willoughby hurriedly.

‘You haven’t,’ said Charlie. Why did people always suspect he’d break wind in a quiet moment?

They both started, surprised, when the study door burst open. Clarissa entered theatrically, opening her arms towards them. ‘Darlings!’ she said.

Both men stood. Charlie felt a pop of excitement, deep inside. She hadn’t changed since New York. Even the hairstyle was the same, bubbled out and frothing to her shoulders, accenting the length and narrowness of her face. He’d forgotten the eyes and their startling blueness and the way she accented that, too, limiting the make-up just to the palest lip colouring. She looked stunning.

‘Charlie!’

Self-consciously, Charlie took her hands and kissed her lightly on the cheek.

‘It’s so good to see you!’ she said.

‘And you.’

‘It’s been ages!’

She still talked in italics. ‘Yes,’ he said.

The butler appeared at the door and Willoughby said to his wife. ‘Do you want to change?’

‘No.’ She didn’t even look at him. To Charlie she said, ‘You’ve got fat.’

‘The good life,’ he said.

‘What have you been doing with yourself?’

‘This and that.’ Charlie retreated behind the familiar cliche. The social difficulty, the impossibility of any normal, inconsequential conversation about the past week or the past month was what got to Edith first, before the fear. Despite an education which had ended in Switzerland and the time she’d worked before their marriage as Sir Archibald’s secretary, which Charlie would have expected to widen her attitudes, Edith had remained the suburban woman. She liked dinner parties with neighbours and holiday photographs and gossip about children, even though they didn’t have any themselves. ‘ We’re dead, Charlie; we might as well go to Russia or the bloody moon. We haven’t got a life any more.’

‘I’m working,’ announced Clarissa proudly, offering her arm for him to go with her into the dining room.

‘So Rupert said.’

She seemed to remember her husband. ‘There was a committee meeting tonight and I’ve agreed to give a charity supper here.’

‘If you like,’ he replied.

‘I like!’

Willoughby said nothing.

‘Let’s eat,’ said Clarissa, coming back to Charlie.

The dining room was an unusual construction. Fifty people could easily have been accommodated, but there were sliding partitions which criss-crossed in dividing positions, so areas could be closed off to suit the number of people to be seated. With only three, the room was reduced to an annex. A round table was set and Clarissa stood waiting for Charlie to help her to her chair. He held back for Willoughby to do it.

‘It’s a worthwhile charity,’ said Clarissa to Charlie. ‘You must come.’

‘I’ll try,’ he said. He wouldn’t. He was unsure even whether tonight was a good idea. Clarissa had always been dismissive of her husband but he hadn’t suspected it would be this bad. He and Edith had never got like this, not even towards the end when there was every reason for the resentment and recriminations.

Under the butler’s direction, a Latin-looking woman served pheasant, while he poured claret from a cut-glass decanter.

‘Must be a year since you two were in New York,’ said Willoughby.

‘And two weeks,’ added Clarissa. Charlie wished she hadn’t.

‘You must have enjoyed it there,’ said the underwriter. ‘Clarissa could hardly stop talking about it when she got back.’