Len Deighton - Spy Sinker

And this double life left him very little time for relaxation or pleasure. Now, at lunchtime on Saturday, a time when he might have snatched a few hours relaxing with friends at the sort of weekend house-party he most enjoyed, he was sitting bickering with his wife about the divorce and her wretched alimony.

It was typical of Nicola that she should insist upon having lunch at Roma Locuta Est, a cramped Italian restaurant in Knightsbridge. Even the name affronted him: 'Rome has spoken' was a way of saying no complaints would be listened to, and that was exactly the way Pina ran her restaurant. Pina was a formidable Italian matron who welcomed the rich and famous while ruthlessly pruning from her clientele those of lesser appeal. It had become a meeting place for the noisy Belgravia jet-set, a group which Bret assiduously shunned. This being Saturday they were at their most insufferable: table-hopping and shouting loudly to each other, ordering their Anglicized food in execrable Italian. Bret's lunch was not made more enjoyable by discovering that just about everyone here seemed to be on first-name terms with his wife Nicola.

'You really believe it,' she was saying. 'Jesus Christ, Bret. You say you're poor; and you really believe it. If it wasn't so goddamned sneaky, it would make me laugh.' Nicola had obviously taken a lot of trouble with her clothes and make-up, but she was out of his past and he felt no attraction to her.

'You don't have to tell everyone in the room, darling,' said Bret softly. Knowing the sort of place it was, Bret had made appropriate sartorial concessions. He was wearing a suede jacket and tan-coloured silk roll-neck. His normal attire, a good suit, would have looked out of place here on a Saturday lunchtime.

'I don't care if all the world knows. I'll shout it from the house-tops.'

'We've been through all this, before we were married. You saw the lawyers. You signed the forms of agreement.'

'I didn't read what I was signing.' She drank some of her Campari and soda.

'Why the hell didn't you?'

'Because I was in love with you, that's why I didn't.'

'You thought separating would be like it was in old Hollywood movies. You thought I would go to stay in my club and you'd have the house, and the furniture and the paintings and the Bentley and every other damn thing.'

'I thought I might own half of my own home. I didn't know my home was owned by a corporation.'

'Not a corporation: it's owned by a trust.'

'I don't care if it's owned by The Boy Scouts of America: you let me think it was my home, and now I find it never was.'

'Please don't tell me that you gave me the best years of your life,' said Bret.

'I gave you everything.' She stirred her drink so that the ice rattled.

'You gave me hell.' He looked round the dining room, 'I can't think why that woman Pina allows dogs in here: it's unhygienic.' He lookout a handkerchief and blew his nose. 'And animal hair affects my sinus.'

'It doesn't affect your sinus,' said his wife. 'You get your sinus and then you look round for something to blame it on.'

Bret noticed that the demonstrative Pina was making her rounds. She liked to take her customers in a bear hug and scream endearments into their ear before discussing their food. 'Yes, you gave me hell,' said Bret.

'I told you the truth, and you found it hell.' With quick agitated movements Nicola opened her handbag to get her cigarettes. Under the handbag there was a copy of Vogue and a book called Somebody Stole My Spy . On the cover it said 'Better than Ludlum' in letters bigger than the author's name. Bret wondered whether she was really reading the book, or had brought it here as some kind of provocation. She liked to make jokes about his 'career as a spy'.

When Bret leaned forward and lit the cigarette for her, he noticed that she was trembling. He wondered why. He found it difficult to believe that he could cause anyone to become so distressed. 'Jesus!' said Nicola and blew smoke high into the air so that it made little clouds in the plastic vines that hung from the ceiling.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Pina coming. Bret detested her and decided to flee to the toilet but he was too late. 'And you know my husband,' Nicola was already saying, her voice strangled as she was enveloped in Pina's beefy arms, and drowned by a babble of Italian chatter.

Bret stood up and edged sideways to keep the table between them and nodded deferentially. Pina looked at him, rolled her eyes and yelled in Italian. Bret smiled and gave a little bow to acknowledge what he thought was some flowery Roman compliment but it turned out to be Pina shouting for more menus.

When they'd ordered lunch, or more accurately when they had agreed to the meal that Pina decreed they should have, Nicola went back to talking about the settlement.

'Your lawyer is a bastard,' she said.

'Other people's lawyers are always bastards. That comes with the job.'

Nikki shifted her attack. They do what you tell them.'

'I don't tell them anything. There's nothing to tell. The law is explicit.'

'I'm going to California. I'm going to sue you.'

'That won't get you anywhere,' said Bret. 'I don't live in California and I don't own anything in California. You might as well go to Greenland.'

I'm going to take up residence there. They have communal property laws in California. My brother-in-law says I'd do better there.'

'I wish you'd start using your brains, Nikki. The money my father left me is in a trust. We're not really a part of the Rensselaer family. My grandmother married into it late in life: she changed her children's name to Rensselaer. We never inherited the Rensselaer millions. I just have an allowance from a small trust fund. I told you all that before we were married.'

She waggled a manicured finger at him. 'You're not going to get away with this, Bret. I'll break that damned trust fund if it's the last thing I do. I want what I'm entitled to.'

'Dammit, Nikki. You left me. You went off with Joppi.'

'Leave Joppi out of this,' she said.

'How can we leave him out of it? He's the third party.'

'He's not.'

'Nikki, dear. We both know he is.'

'Well, you prove it. You just try and prove it, that's all.'

'Don't drag it all through the courts, Nikki. All you'll do is make lawyers rich.'

'Who's having the insalata frutti di mare? yelled the waiter into their ears as he bent over the table.

'I am,' said Bret.

'You want the sole off the bone, madam?' the waiter asked Nicola.

'Yes, please,' she said.

Bret looked down at the mangled lettuce upon which sat four cold damp shrimps and some white rubber rings of inkfish, and he looked at Nicola's delicious filleted sole. 'Melted butter?' said the waiter, 'and a little Parmesan cheese?' Nikki always knew what to order: was it skill or was it luck? Or was it Pina?

Bret noticed that the bejewelled woman at the next table was feeding pieces of her veal escalope to a perfectly brushed and combed terrier at her feet. 'It's like a damned zoo in here,' he muttered, but his wife pretended not to hear him.

Nikki abandoned her sole fillets and put down her knife and fork. 'I gave you everything,' she said again, having thought about it carefully. 'I even came to live in this lousy country with you, didn't I? And what did I get for it?'

'What did you get? You lived high on the hog, and in one of the most beautiful homes in England.'

'It wasn't a home, Bret, it was just a beautiful house. But when did I ever see my husband? I'd go for days and days with no one to talk to but the servants.'

'You should be able to cope with being alone,' said Bret.

'Well, old buddy. Now you'll be able to find out what it means to be alone. Because I won't be there when you get home, and no other woman will put up with you. You'll soon discover that.'