Ted Allbeury - The Twentieth Day of January

“Wasn’t Tammy’s?”

John Davies’ eyes were watching his face.

“I guess not, Jimmy. Not if you’re in a hurry, anyway.”

“How much does Tammy make now?”

Davies pursed his lips. “It ought to be confidential. She makes five hundred a week on her present contract. In five weeks’ time her new contract doubles that. What made you ask?”

“I wondered if it was worth it for her.”

“Is it?”

“No.”

John Davies leaned back in his chair, moving aside a pile of papers. Then he looked up at MacKay.

“Have you got a girl, Jimmy?”

“No. Tammy was my girl.”

“Can I say something? Something you might find offensive?”

“Go ahead.”

“When I first met you and Tammy, about a year before you were married, I could have forecast that this would happen. If it hadn’t been for one thing.”

“What was that?”

“Tammy was every man’s dream girl. The golden girl we all fantasize about. But even then you could see the ambition, the determination to make it in showbiz. I thought it might survive because you were a good-looking man. An attractive man with charm. But I didn’t know one vital thing.”

“What was that?”

“I took it for granted that when Tammy gave what we call ‘management privileges’ to agents, impresarios and the rest of the gang, you’d be taking your pick of Tammy’s pretty friends. There’s many a showbiz marriage survived on that basis when they were making their way. But you weren’t in showbiz and you were a bit of a puritan. So it didn’t work. And I was wrong.”

“Would you have told me then if you had known?”

“No way.”

“Why am I a puritan?”

John Davies smiled. “You have to love them, or like them a lot, before you screw them. Other men are satisfied with a pretty face and a willing body.”

MacKay thought of the girl in Paris and realized that Davies was right.

“How long will it take?”

“The way I suggested, two months. The other way… how long since she told you?”

“Seven months.”

“The other way about eighteen months.”

“She’ll be at the top by then.”

The solicitor shrugged. “Maybe not.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“OK.”

John Davies smiled, relaxed and less formal. “How are you doing in the job?”

“No complaints so far.”

“They made a good buy when they chose you, my friend.”

“How’re Sally and the kids?”

“Sally’s fine. Sends you her love and a standing invitation. The kids both have measles, so they’re pretty tame at the moment. Have you got a lunch date?”

“No.”

“Let’s go over to the Law Society. No, sod it, let’s go to the Wig and Pen.”

James MacKay had spent his statutory night with Paula Manning and for the first time in his life had discovered that, with no love and only marginal like, and despite a cloud of misery, if the girl was very pretty, with long legs and nice boobs, then James Bruce MacKay was as other men were. Lustful and happy with it. There had been other nights with Paula Manning until he wondered if she told Tammy. He still wanted to be the white knight with that particular human being.

The divorce had made a three line paragraph in the two London evenings and there was no mention of other parties. Just “irretrievable breakdown of the marriage.”

Tammy had always sung under her own name and most of the public had seen Tammy Lane as a single swinger. SIS had liked it that way, too. It wasn’t really their image.

He had seen gossip-column pieces about her in the nationals and her face looking out from record sleeves in shop windows. The big grey eyes pensive and pleading, the big soft mouth slightly open. He had seen the first of her own shows on BBC 2 and had got drunk for the first time in his life. And there had been one ghastly evening in his flat when he had made love to a girl and then gone to make them coffee and she had called to him. She had switched on the TV and was watching it avidly. “Isn’t she fantastic, Jimmy. Just listen.” It was the Royal Command Performance and Tammy Lane was singing her fans’ favourite song—“Smoke gets in your eyes.” The camera was close-in, full-face, and her eyes swam with tears as she sang the words. “They said someday I’d find, all who love are blind…” And when the girl had turned to look at him she had seen his white face, his eyes closed and the tears on his cheeks. But it was never like that again. He didn’t forget her. But he didn’t remember her either.

And as the years went by there were other things to occupy his mind. Maybe time doesn’t heal all wounds, but it brings the perspective of a longer lens and puts healthier tissue where the wounds have been.

Magnusson phoned him the following afternoon.

“The Minister’s not at all keen, James. Thinks it might be construed as some sort of sour grapes. He pointed out, by the way, that all Powell’s statements about the Soviets have been more anti than pro.”

“Right, sir. I’ll forget it.”

“I didn’t say that, my boy. I said that that’s what the Foreign Minister thinks. How’s your own operation going at the moment?”

“We’ve got some daytime radio problems but we’re OK at night when we’ve got an all-dark signal path. It’s early days yet, sir.”

“Quite. I thought you might like to take a few days of your leave, and take a trip to Washington. Have you got any friendly contacts at Langley?”

“Only Peter Nolan.”

“Yes. What’s he doing now?”

“I don’t know, sir. He’s still in the Soviet bloc division. The last time we met he was in New York, controlling the operations against the KGB at the United Nations and the Soviet Consulate-General.”

“I’ll send a personal message to Morton Harper. Non-committal, of course. When do you think you could go?”

“Can I use Movement Control facilities?”

“Certainly.”

“I could hand over this evening and use the early Concorde flight to Dulles tomorrow morning.”

“Do that.”

Concorde drooped into Dulles at 09.00 hours and the sun was trying to get through the thin cloud from the east. The forty or so passengers were near enough to the terminal buildings to walk and MacKay, with only his cabin bag, had gone straight to immigration.

Nolan was waiting for him there and after the immigration officer had given a brief glance at his visa he was passed straight through. Nolan drove him downtown for breakfast at the Sheraton. There was only small talk until the coffee and then Nolan lit a cigarette and leaned forward across the table.

“I don’t know what the hell this is all about but Harper had some sort of signal from your guy that said you were coming over on leave and would I stand by for courtesies, whatever that means.”

“It means I’m bringing bad news and please don’t crap on the messenger.”

Nolan half smiled. “What’s the bad news? We already picked up the rumours about Kowalski.”

“It’s nothing to do with any current operation, it’s from way back. About one of your citizens named Dempsey. Andrew Dempsey.”

“Who’s he?”

“Logan Powell’s campaign manager.”

“Yeah. I remember the name now. What’s he been doing?”

“In 1968 he was a Party member. So was his girlfriend. She was also a Soviet citizen. They were both beaten up by the French police during the student protests in Paris in May 1968. An American named Kleppe got them out of jail after your embassy had refused to help. We were suspicious of Kleppe at the time but we never proved anything, and after I went back to London it was left to the Sûreté and the Dutch police to follow up. I don’t know if they ever did.”