Desmond Bagley - The Tightrope Men / The Enemy

‘You shouldn’t push so hard.’

‘That isn’t what you told me the last time we met.’

Denison did not know what to make of that, so he said neutrally. ‘No.’ The silence lengthened. ‘How’s your mother?’ he asked.

‘She’s all right,’ said Lyn indifferently. ‘But, my God, he’s such a bore.’

‘In what way?’

‘Well, he just sits in an office and makes money. Oh, I know you’re rich, but you made money by making things. He just makes money.’

Denison presumed that ‘he’ was John Howard Metford who was ‘something in the City’. ‘Metford isn’t such a bad chap,’ he said.

‘He’s a bore,’ she said definitely. ‘And it isn’t what you said about him last time.’

Denison decided against making gratuitous judgements. ‘How did you know I was here?’ he asked.

‘I got it out of Andrews,’ she said. ‘When he told me you were in Scandinavia I knew you’d be here or in Helsinki.’ She seemed suddenly nervous. ‘Now I’m not sure I should have come.’

Denison realized he was standing over her. He sat in the armchair and, perhaps in response, she stretched out on the bed. ‘Why not?’ he asked.

‘You can’t be serious when you ask that.’ Her voice was bitter. ‘I still remember the flaming row we had two years ago – and when you didn’t remember my twenty-first birthday I knew you hadn’t forgotten. But, of course, you didn’t forget my birthday – you never forget anything.’

He was getting into deep water. ‘Two years is a long time,’ he said platitudinously. He would have to learn how to speak like a politician – saying a lot and meaning nothing.

‘You’ve changed,’ she said. ‘You’re … you’re milder.’

That would never do. ‘I can still be acid when I want to be.’ He smiled. ‘Perhaps I’m just becoming older and, maybe, wiser.’

‘You always were wise,’ said Lyn. ‘If only you weren’t so bloody right all the time. Anyway, I wanted to tell you something to your face. I was disappointed when I found you weren’t in England, so I rushed over here.’ She hesitated. ‘Give me a cigarette.’

‘I’ve stopped smoking.’

She stared at him. ‘You have changed.’

‘Temporarily,’ he said, and stretched out his hand to open a drawer in the dressing-table. He took out the gold cigarette case and the lighter and offered her a cigarette. ‘I’ve had a bad head cold.’

She took a cigarette and he lit it. ‘That never stopped you before.’ She drew on the cigarette nervously and blew a plume of smoke. ‘I suppose you’re surprised I’m not smoking a joint.’

Denison suspected that he was encountering something of which hitherto he had only heard – the generation gap. He said, ‘Stop talking nonsense, Lyn. What’s on your mind?’

‘Direct and to the point as usual. All right – I’ve taken my degree.’

She looked at him expectantly and he was aware that she had dropped a bombshell. How he was supposed to react to it he did not know, but the damned thing had better be defused carefully. However, taking a degree was usually a matter for congratulation, so he said, ‘That’s good news, Lyn.’

She regarded him warily. ‘You mean it?’

‘It’s the best news I’ve heard for a long time.’

She seemed relieved. ‘Mother thought it was silly. She said that with all the money I’m going to have why should I worry about working – especially with a lot of snotty-nosed East End kids. You know what she’s like. And the Bore didn’t care one way or another.’ For a moment she sounded pathetic. ‘Do you really mean it?’

‘Of course I do.’ He found he was really glad for her and that put sincerity into his voice.

‘Oh, Daddy; I’m so glad!’ She scrambled off the bed and went to her bag. ‘Look what it says in here. I had to get a new passport, anyway.’ She opened the passport and displayed it ‘Occupation – teacher!’ she said proudly.

He looked up. ‘Was it a good degree?’

She made a wry face. ‘Middling-good.’ There was no smile on her face now. ‘I suppose you think a Meyrick should have passed with honours.’

Mentally he damned Meyrick who, apparently, set a superhuman standard. This girl was set on a hair trigger and his slightest word could cause an explosion in which somebody would get hurt – probably Lyn. ‘I’m very glad you’ve got your degree,’ he said evenly. ‘Where are you going to teach?’

The tension eased from her and she lay on the bed again. ‘First I need experience,’ she said seriously. ‘General experience. Then I want to specialize. After that, if I’m going to have a lot of money I might as well put it to use.’

‘How?’

‘I’ll have to know more about what I’m doing before I can tell you that.’

Denison wondered how this youthful idealism would stand up to the battering of the world. Still, a lot could be done with enthusiasm and money. He smiled, and said, ‘You seem to have settled on a lifetime plan. Is there room in the programme for marriage and a family?’

‘Of course; but he’ll have to be the right man – he’ll have to want what I want.’ She shrugged. ‘So far no one like that has come my way. The men at university could be divided into two classes; the stodges who are happy with the present system, and the idealists who aren’t. The stodges are already working out their retirement pensions before they get a job and the idealists are so damned naive and impractical. Neither of them suit me.’

‘Someone will come along who will,’ predicted Denison.

‘How can you be so sure?’

He laughed. ‘How do you suppose the population explosion came about? Men and women usually get together somehow. It’s in the nature of the animal.’

She put out her cigarette and lay back and closed her eyes. ‘I’m prepared to wait.’

‘My guess is that you won’t have to wait long.’ She did not respond and he regarded her intently. She had fallen asleep as readily as a puppy might, which was not surprising considering she had been up all night. So had he, but sleep was the last thing he could afford.

He put on his jacket and took the keys from the zippered compartment of her bag. In the lobby he saw two suitcases standing before the desk and, after checking to make sure they were Lyn’s, he said to the porter, ‘I’d like these taken to my daughter’s room. What’s the number?’

‘Did she have a reservation, Mr Meyrick?’

‘It’s possible.’

The porter checked and took down a key. ‘Room four-thirty. I’ll take the bags up.’

In Lyn’s room Denison tipped the porter and put the two cases on the bed as soon as the door closed. He took out the keys and unlocked them and searched them quickly, trying not to disturb the contents too much. There was little that was of value to him directly, but there were one or two items which cast a light on Lyn Meyrick. There was a photograph of himself – or, rather, of Harry Meyrick – in a leather case. The opposing frame was empty. In a corner of one suitcase was a small Teddy-bear, tattered with much childish loving and presumably retained as a mascot. In the other suitcase he found two textbooks, one on the theory and practice of teaching, the other on child psychology; both heavyweights, the pages sprinkled with diagrams and graphs.

He closed and locked the suitcases and put them on the rack, then went down to his own room. As the lift door opened on to the third floor he saw Armstrong just stepping out of the other lift. Armstrong held out an envelope. ‘Mr Carey told me to give you this.’

Denison ripped open the envelope and scanned the sparse typescript on the single sheet. The only thing it told him that he had not learned already was that Lyn Meyrick’s sport was gymnastics. ‘Carey will have to do better than this,’ he said curtly.