Len Deighton - Spy Sinker

If only it was possible to settle some of the vital things that would now be decided without her. She kept worrying about Billy and his school. She'd always hoped that eventually Bernard would come to see the advantages that little Billy would enjoy from going to a good public school. She could get him in: her father had promised her that. But with her absent, there was no chance at all that Bernard would do anything about it. Bernard had a phobia about public schools – 'beating, buggery and bad manners' – and about those who'd ever attended one, or so it seemed.

Harry came in with a tray of tea. 'You've read that newspaper story at least three times, darling. Does it have some special significance?' He leaned over and kissed her.

'The eternal psychologist,' she said and, throwing the paper aside as casually as she could manage, she took the tray on to her knees. A tiny vase contained what must have been the very last violets of the year. How delicate they looked. Lovely transparent china, silver teaspoons and two slices of the rich English fruit cake she adored. He must have had it all prepared. 'How splendid!' She held the tray steady as he climbed back into bed alongside her. 'Harry, what do you know about the English public school system?'

'You don't take milk with Earl Grey tea, do you, honey-child?'

'No. I drink it plain.'

'Public schools? What oddball things go round in that brain of yours. Most of the guys at the clinic seem to have survived them without visible damage. But then how can I tell? And mind you, there are not many of them I'd want to be in the shower with if the lights went out. What's on your mind?'

'I have close friends… Her husband is being sent abroad by his company. They are thinking of putting the boy into a boarding school.'

'And you're asking me if that's a good idea.' He set the cups on their saucers. 'My opinion as a psychiatrist, is that it? How can I tell you without seeing the kid? And the husband and wife too.'

'I suppose you are right.'

'If the husband doesn't want it done that way, the wife would be dumb to defy him, wouldn't she?' He poured some tea. 'Is that strong enough?'

'He hates all public schools. Yes, it's perfect.'

'Why's that?'

'Snobbery, bullying, privilege: the instilling into certain sorts of children that they are an elite. He thinks it contributes to British class hatreds.'

'Yeah and he is probably right, but you could say the same about shopping in Knightsbridge.'

'Bullying too?' she laughed.

'You bet. You mean you never tackled those determined old ladies with their sharpened umbrellas?'

'Were you at a boarding school?' She drank some tea and before he answered said, 'We don't really know each other, do we?'

'That's why we should get married,' he said.

'I wish you would stop saying that.'

'I mean it.'

'It upsets me.'

'Listen, I'm crazy about you. I'm free, white and over twenty-one. I'm in good shape at the gym and pretty good shape at the bank. I now have a twenty-year lease on this place and you chose most of the furniture. I love you more than I knew I could love anyone. I think of you day and night; I only come alive when we are together.'

'Stop it. You know nothing about me.'

'Then tell me about yourself.'

'Harry, we both know that this relationship is stupid and selfish. The only way we preserve it is by keeping our other lives to ourselves.'

'Non-sense!' he always said it in two syllables. 'I don't want to keep anything from you.'

'I don't know anything about you: your politics, your parents, your wife… or wives. I don't even know how many you've had.'

He held up the teaspoon. 'My parents are dead. I have no politics and I no longer have any wife. My divorce is finalized. No children. My ex-wife is French-Canadian and lives in Montreal. She was always dunning me for more money. That's why I skedaddled and had to keep moving. Now she has remarried and I'm really free.' He drank tea. 'Like I told you, my niece Patsy is back with her father in Winnipeg and the guy she ran away with is in jail for shop-lifting. That's all ancient history. What else would you like to know?'

'Nothing. I'm saying that it's better that we don't know too much about each other.'

'Or?'

'Or we'll start discussing our problems.'

'Would that be so awful? What problems do you have, honey?'

Poor Harry: the probability was that she'd soon be moving away to the East. When that happened the SIS would stage a full-scale inquiry just for the look of the thing. It would be foolish to rule out the possibility that Special Branch would find out about her relationship with Harry. Should they come to talk to him it was vital that everyone was left with the idea that she was a long-term Marxist. Anything else could spell danger. 'Only silly things, I suppose.'

'For instance?' He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

'Perhaps you'd no longer love me if you knew,' she said, and ruffled his hair in what she hoped was the appropriate patronizing gesture of a Marxist spy.

'I'll tell you something,' he said impulsively. 'I'm thinking of giving up the shrink business.'

'You're always saying that.'

'But this time for real, baby! For a hundred thousand dollars my cousin Greg will sell me a quarter share in his airplane brokerage. If I worked with him full-time we could let one of the pilots go. He needs the extra hundred thousand to buy a new lease on the Winnipeg hangar and buildings.'

'You said it was a risky business,' said Fiona.

'And it is. But no more risk than I can handle. And I've had about as much psychiatry as I can stomach.' He stopped but she said nothing. 'It's all office politics at the clinic: who gets this and who gets that.'

'But you have a work permit. You could go anywhere and get a job.'

'No I couldn't. It's not that sort of permit. And what kind of job could I get? I only went into the crowd hysteria research at the clinic to get away from neurotic housewives going into menopause. I've got to get away, Fiona. I've got to.'

'I didn't realize that you were so unhappy.' At moments like this she loved him more than she could say.

'Having you is all that keeps me going. There is nothing more important to me than you are,' said Harry, and, growing more serious added, 'No matter how long you live I want you always to remember this moment. I want you to remember that my life is yours.'

'Darling Harry.' She kissed him.

'I don't ask you to say the same. Your circumstances are different. I make no demands of you: I love you with everything I've got.'

She laughed again. The hours she spent with Harry were the only time she was able to forget what was in store for her.

London. May 1983.

'My God, Bret, how I wish you wouldn't suddenly appear unannounced, like an emissary from the underworld.' It was a silly expression from her schooldays, hardly an appropriate way to greet Bret Rensselaer even if he had walked into her home unannounced. Yet, as she said it, Fiona realized that nowadays she was beginning to think of him as some svelte messenger from another darker world.

The idea amused Bret. He was standing in the kitchen with his hat in his hand, smiling. A summer shower glittered as sequins all over his black raincoat. He said, 'Is that how you rate me, Fiona, a go-between for Old Nick? And what form does he assume when he is not the Director-General?'

Fiona was in her apron, her hair a complete mess, emptying the dishwasher. Cutlery in hand, she smiled, a nervous twitch of the lips, and said, 'I'm sorry, Bret.' She picked up a cloth and wiped a knife blade. 'The cutlery never comes out without marks,' she said. 'Sometimes I think it would be quicker to wash everything in the sink.' She spoke mechanically as her mind rushed on to Bernard.