Brian Freemantle - The Lost American

Ann fixed his drink and made another for herself and said, ‘Steak. That OK?’ At least they were able to eat well, with access to the embassy concessions.

‘Wait until I can teach you how to cook them outside.’ Eddie Blair was a tall, heavy man of casual, almost slow, movements. He spoke slowly, too, the Texas accent pronounced. The slowness and the frequent references to cook-outs and range riding and the tendency to dress in jeans and sports shirts for the more casual parties conveyed to some the impression of country-boy stolidness, which was intentionally misleading. Blair was one of the most highly regarded foreign service officers within the Central Intelligence Agency, already at supervisor rank.

‘I’m looking forward to it,’ said Ann, honestly. ‘How was your day?’

He grimaced. ‘Average. Yours?’

‘Average,’ she said. Liar, she thought. She said, ‘Betty Harrison called, suggesting lunch. But I said no.’

‘Why not?’ said Blair.

Because I lunched with her yesterday and two days before that and I’m lunching with her tomorrow, thought Ann. She said, ‘I was busy, here in the apartment.’

‘Nothing for you in the bag,’ he said. All their overseas correspondence arrived in the diplomatic pouch.

‘I wasn’t expecting anything,’ she said. Father sends his regards, she thought. ‘You?’ she said.

Blair reached into his briefcase and took out the letter, still sealed. ‘From Ruth,’ he said, unnecessarily.

‘Let’s open it,’ said Ann. They’d made each other several promises, when they married. One, practically a cliche, was no secrets and that extended to the letters between him and Ruth. Blair interpreted it by never opening his first wife’s letters at the embassy when they arrived, but always waiting until he got home.

She refilled his glass and decided, after a moment’s hesitation, against having a third herself while he opened the letter and read it. ‘She’s taking the kids to her folks’ place in Maine, for Thanksgiving,’ he reported. There was a few seconds’ silence and then he said, ‘Paul’s grades aren’t good; teacher’s apparently disappointed. John’s either.’

Ann wondered if it was because of the break-up and knew he would, too. It wouldn’t have been possible here in Moscow, of course, but elsewhere he would have taught the boys to cook-out and ride and hunt and fish and have gone camping with them, at week-ends and on vacations. He missed the boys, she knew. His guilt – the guilt he sought to minimise, despite the undertakings about no secrets – was as much for abandoning them as it was for abandoning Ruth.

‘Ruth’s been getting out,’ he said, still reading the letter. ‘Guy called Charlie Rogers. Someone she knew at high school. Friend of the family, apparently.’

‘How do you feel about that?’ she said, wishing immediately she hadn’t.

Blair frowned up at her. ‘Pleased for her, of course,’ he said. ‘What else should I feel?’

‘Nothing,’ she agreed at once. He could have made an argument out of it if he’d wanted to. Thank God he hadn’t. She was still nervous of arguments, in their relationship.

‘She’s sent some pictures,’ said Blair. He looked at the prints for several moments and Ann stared at him, alert for any facial reaction. There wasn’t any. ‘Here,’ he said, offering them to her.

Paul was the older, fourteen in two months’ time. John was nine, dark-haired like Ruth. Paul had his father’s blondness and would be big, too: already he had to be almost five feet. She guessed they’d posed specially for the photographs to be sent to their father: their lips were barely parted, in reluctant indications of a smile. They were standing against Ruth’s car, in the driveway of the Rosslyn house. If Eddie got the headquarters posting he expected, he’d be very near to them, Ann realised. So he would be able to take them on cook-outs and hunting and camping. Would the boys accept her? Ruth had – or appeared to have done, at least – despite the strained tightness of the initial confrontations and the immediate aftermath of the divorce. There’d only been one meeting with the children and they’d treated her then like the enemy she was, which she realistically accepted was all she could expect. She hoped the attitude would change, with time. ‘Is John wearing braces on his teeth?’ she said, passing the pictures back.

Blair stared down and said, ‘Difficult to tell. Ruth doesn’t say anything about it in the letter.’

He held it out to her, for her to read, another part of their no secrets agreement. Ann hesitated, appreciating the gesture but reluctant to take it from him. It was part of the undertaking between them. And he always read her letters, from her mother, although more out of courtesy to her than for any other reason, because they were so bloody stiff and formal. But she always felt the embarrassment of prying when it came to Ruth’s correspondence, which was probably illogical, considering that she’d taken the woman’s husband but it was nevertheless a sensation she always experienced. There was, of course, the other reason. To want to read the letters from his first wife could have indicated a jealousy. Ann was confident she didn’t have anything to be jealous about, not with Ruth. It was only to be expected that Eddie would still have some feeling for her: love, even, of a kind. But not the kind that was any danger to her. So there was no reason for jealousy and no reason, therefore, to do anything that might hint she felt that way. Like reading her letters. ‘Later,’ she avoided. ‘I’ve got dinner to fix first.’

As soon as they started to eat Ann recognised that the steaks were slightly more overdone than he liked, but Blair didn’t complain. ‘Sorry,’ she said, not wanting him to think she didn’t care.

‘It’s fine, really,’ he said. ‘John Ingram has got his posting.’

‘Where?’ she said. Ingram was Blair’s counterpart at the British Embassy, the Resident for Britain’s M16.

‘London,’ said Blair.

Lucky John Ingram, thought Ann. London was where she’d first met Blair, when he’d been attached to the American Embassy there, liaison attache with the British. ‘I’ll miss them,’ she said.

Lucinda Ingram had been one of the few wives to accept her, almost from the start, a bustling, no-nonsense woman, one of the ones who didn’t flirt. She drank a bit, though; but never beyond control. Lucinda’s going would mean she was losing her closest friend.

‘The farewell party is next Saturday.’

Same faces, same small-talk, she thought. ‘When did they hear about the move?’

‘Today, apparently.’

Which was why Lucinda hadn’t called, Ann supposed. She’d only be hearing about it herself tonight. ‘I must buy her something. A farewell gift,’ said Ann.

‘That would be nice.’

‘Maybe something from the gold shop, on Gorky Street.’ There wasn’t much else she could think of in the way of a gift that was obtainable in Moscow.

‘John’s asked me to look out for their new man.’

‘Who is it?’

‘Someone called Brinkman. Jeremy Brinkman.’

‘Wonder if he knows what to expect,’ said Ann. New arrivals were always lionised, a fresh face initially with fresh stories and news from outside their confines.

‘John doesn’t know him.’

‘Is he pleased to be going?’ Lucinda’s attitude had always been that Moscow was a stepping-stone assignment for her husband and somewhere – like anywhere else – that had to be enjoyed by a careerist’s wife.

‘It’s a promotion, so I think so,’ said Blair. ‘I don’t know that he likes the idea of being stuck in London.’

Dear God, just for the chance, thought Ann. She said, ‘Will he be?’