Legacy (12 page)

‘Charles, I think we both know the game we are playing.’ His smile stopped as he looked at Charles.

‘Tell me again,’ said Charles.

Viktor clearly knew the files and spoke with well-rehearsed confidence. Charles’s father, he said, had been serving in Germany with the British Army’s Royal Engineers at the end of
the Great Patriotic War. He had earlier served, as Charles knew, with distinction in North Africa and Normandy. The sufferings of the people he had seen had made him determine to continue the
struggle against fascism wherever it appeared. He had reasoned that the one country most likely to do this was the one that had suffered most from fascism and which had a strong ideology with which
to oppose it, unlike the capitalist west which was contaminated by it. Having been allied with the Russians as a soldier in their victorious struggle against the Nazis, he had therefore volunteered
to continue to help them in the struggle for peace and justice during the years that followed. He had shared with them the knowledge gained during his work on British establishments and embassies
during all the following years, until his sad and unexpected death. His work had been of great value and the Centre had been sorry to be deprived by death of the opportunity to thank him for it.
Now they wished to convey their gratitude and the money owed, but they realised that the British authorities would regard his work as merely spying and would make trouble for Charles. He would
probably lose his job. But the Centre knew that Charles’s father had worked in secret not to damage his country but to safeguard mankind, and they did not wish Charles to suffer for it. They
wanted to discuss how the money could be transferred to him or to his family, or whether he would prefer them to keep it – until later, perhaps. Meanwhile, it was certain that no one would
ever know what Charles’s father had done, so Charles had nothing to fear from Moscow.

‘I can promise you that,’ Viktor said.

Charles felt as if his stomach had been taken out, leaving a chasm beneath into which he would fall endlessly as in a childhood dream, if he let himself. To keep going he had to concentrate on
what was before him, staring into Viktor’s eyes, not trusting himself to look away. It was like skating not on thin ice but on no ice; momentum was all.

‘This is a more professional evening than I had appreciated, Viktor.’

Viktor nodded, taking it as a compliment. ‘It is an obligation upon us all.’

They had every detail of his father’s overseas assignments, their dates, durations and purposes. There was no doubt they knew it all. At the time Charles did not even try to reconcile what
he had heard with his memories of a man he had thought of as an ideal – perhaps, as Viktor would have it, an essential – kind of Englishman, modest, conscientious, loyal, patriotic,
concerned to do things properly, whether it was securing an education for his children or putting up a shelf, and as honest as the day. He postponed thought; the implications were too great to be
thought about then, though they could be felt.

He managed a smile that felt like a grimace. ‘But what makes you think I share your profession, Viktor?’

‘Because that is what the Centre told me. They know. Perhaps your father told them. They sent you this.’ He took an envelope from his inside pocket.

Charles put it straight into his own. It felt like a concession to look at it now. ‘He died before I joined the Foreign Office,’ he said, emphasising the last two words.

The emphasis was lost on Viktor. ‘Perhaps it is because you were in the British Army.’

‘It doesn’t follow.’ He was beginning to believe the façade of his own composure. There was even some relish in anticipating the security branch tooth-sucking in Head
Office when they learned that he was Sovbloc Red already, within months of joining. It would be a pleasure to administer shock, almost a revenge for his own. Virgin covers were painstakingly and
expensively protected for as long as possible, especially for anyone interested, as he had been, in a Sovbloc posting. That was to assume, of course, that he had enough of a career left after this
to merit any posting anywhere.

He still clung to Viktor’s eyes, as to a rope thrown to him in the river. Viktor returned his gaze with more sympathy than if he looked upon him solely as a quarry, but still watchfully
with cool assessment. Charles admired that; that was right, as it should be.

He broke off and walked back towards the wooden steps. Some were missing, others wobbly. ‘Be careful,’ he warned. ‘Tread on the ones I tread on.’ Acting as if he were
responsible for Viktor was a minor reassertion of authority. At the top they paused and looked back at the river.

‘You will think about it, Charles?’

Pride forbade any display of concern. He sensed he was regaining the upper hand. They were the
demandeurs
and Viktor was no doubt under pressure to return with an answer. ‘Think
about what?’

‘How you would like us to pay you the money.’ The brute fact hung in the air between them. Viktor was nervous now. ‘We can meet again to discuss it.’

‘Perhaps we should do that.’ Charles went decisively down the steps on the landward side.

Viktor remained at the top, his face in shadow. ‘Charles – I – am sorry for you. I am sorry to be doing this.’

‘Is this what they told you to say or are you becoming less professional?’

‘Yes, and yes.’

Viktor refused a lift, preferring to return by tube. Charles walked with him to Waterloo. They talked about football. Viktor was a keen Liverpool supporter. ‘It is permitted to support
capitalist football teams,’ he said. ‘But not if they would play against Moscow Dynamos.’ He smiled but his expression when they shook hands was resigned. ‘I am sorry,
Charles. I like you. I hope we go on meeting anyway, you know.’

‘Don’t worry, I know it’s not personal.’ No more than one soldier killing another on the battlefield, he thought, but he felt he was gaining strength by giving
reassurance and wanted to show no resentment. ‘It’s not your fault. Exploiting friendships is what we all do.’

Charles drove slowly to his sister’s house. He was probably over the alcohol limit but didn’t care. He felt invincibly sober, as if life from now on held no alternative. His watch
told him they had spent three and a half hours together – important for the write-up – but already he could sense his own history being rearranged into before and after this event,
already he was looking back on his life up to three and a half hours ago as a state of innocence. Yet still he withheld thought, his mind hovering, uncommitted, in suspension. It was not yet
digestible. It couldn’t be processed. It was not only his memories of his father that would need rebuilding, but his sense of his own past. For the time being the way to keep going was to do
just that, to keep doggedly going, one foot in front of another, like running up a ploughed field. It was also what you did after a bomb had exploded beneath you, as he knew well from Belfast. You
simply carried on, clinging to routine, procedure, reassembling anything around you that was still recognisable.

He rang twice on Mary’s door before noticing that there were no lights behind the curtains, but then the hall light came on. He did not relish spending half the night listening to her
problems with her fiancé, but it was preferable to the alternative. It did not occur to him to tell her about their father; she did not even know what he himself did.

The door was answered by a tousle-haired man wearing a towel. ‘I’m Mary’s brother,’ said Charles. ‘I said I’d drop round.’

‘I’m James, her – you know – we’re engaged. She’s asleep. D’you want me to wake her?’

‘Just tell her I called. Sorry to disturb you. We have met, haven’t we?’

‘Think so. At your mother’s house. Can’t remember when, I’m afraid.’

‘Me neither. Well, sorry to have bothered you.’

The man held out his hand and they shook. ‘Don’t worry. It’s all right. See you sometime.’ He grinned. ‘Well, quite a lot, I guess.’

He would be all right, Charles thought as he turned the Rover onto Battersea Park Road towards the wine bar where Roger and the others were spending the evening. Through the steamed-up windows
he made out plain wooden tables, candles, potted plants and ferns. The traffic held him up outside, conveniently because he was still undecided whether to go in. He wanted the distraction of
company, but not much company. A man wearing wide flares and with long dark hair straggling over his Afghan coat walked in with a very tall girl whose mohair covered her mini-skirt and who was
otherwise all bare thighs, boots and spangles. Must be freezing, he thought. While the door was still open Gerry and Rebecca came out, putting on coats. She wore a white woollen hat and threw a
long white scarf around her neck with an extravagant gesture. Gerry shuffled into a voluminous old duffel-coat. They were laughing. Charles moved on with the traffic. He didn’t feel up to
being merry.

Nor did he want to be alone, yet. He drove to Hugo’s Wandsworth house. Hugo had said to call round afterwards, if there was time and if he were satisfied there was no surveillance. He had
forgotten about surveillance, but no one turned in the street after him, or came the other way. There was no need to talk about it tonight, of course; nothing would change overnight. But the urge
to talk about something – anything – was strong.

He made out Anna’s form through the stained-glass door as she came down the hall. Her eyes widened. ‘Charles.’

‘I’m sorry it’s so late. It’s probably too late. I should’ve rung –’

‘You don’t look well. You look tired. Come in.’

When she said it, he felt it. ‘Perhaps I am. It’s just a – I was going to talk to Hugo. But it can wait till tomorrow. I needn’t have bothered you. Sorry.’

‘Hugo’s out. Come in.’

‘Just tell him –’

‘Charles, come in.’ She spoke sternly, with a smile. They went through to the kitchen. He declined a drink, so she put on the kettle. ‘Hugo’s playing war games at the
house of a fellow commander-in-chief. He won’t be long.’

She asked no questions. She would know all about need to know, better than he since her Sovbloc posting with Hugo could well have involved her in casework more delicate and risky than anything
he was likely to do in London. She picked up a cup from the crowded draining board and dried it with the tea-towel, holding it close to her body. When she had dried the second cup she stood holding
it in the cloth and facing him. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

He nodded, feeling quite suddenly that he couldn’t trust himself to speak.

‘Sit down,’ she said gently.

‘I’m okay standing.’ His voice sounded gruff to his own ears.

‘You’re making me nervous.’

He sat at the kitchen table and watched as she dried saucers and teaspoons and made the tea. Observing the lift near the ends of her dark eyebrows, the way her blonde hair was pushed back behind
her ear on one side, the profile of her cheek bone when she turned, the faint, doubtless hated, crow’s feet on her olive skin and the deft, unselfconscious movements of her small hands made
it easy to imagine what it would be like to be obsessed. He had never been obsessed. Was this how Viktor watched the woman he knew as Chantal? Viktor obsessed, or Viktor in love, was something else
he could imagine more easily since their walk by the river. Did Viktor feel the movement of an eyebrow as a sudden catch in his heart? Was a detail, an accident of physiognomy such as angle of
cheek in relation to eye sufficient to banish all other thoughts from Viktor’s head whenever he noticed it? Was it for something like this that Viktor risked marriage, career, liberty?

‘Penny for your thoughts,’ she said with a smile, as she put tea-pot and biscuits on the table and sat.

It was a phrase his grandmother used often when he was a child. ‘Deal. I was thinking about a deal.’

‘Not cherry or mahogany?’ She put a black tea-cosy over the pot.

‘Your question reminded me of my grandmother. She also used to use one of those.’

She sighed. ‘I’m a bit of an old tea-cosy myself, I’m afraid. At least, I feel I’m becoming one.’

‘No, you’re not.’ His voice felt gruff again. It was strange to feel his voice out of control. Why should the voice be affected? ‘This evening I learned that my father
–’ It came in a rush, taking him by surprise, but a sudden tightening in his throat stopped him. Saying it would change it. So far it was private, something that, however corrosive or
overwhelming, could be assimilated and dealt with privately. Saying it would give it a public existence, what in Viktor’s world they might call an objective reality. It would be part of
history, public property, something for others to play with, yet every twitch on the wire he would feel in his heart; like the movement of an eyebrow.

She was looking at him, her elbows on the table, holding the pot by handle and spout.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I can’t – not now. Another time.’ It was difficult to go on. It was absurd, what words did. Ridiculous, stupid.

She put down the tea-pot and put her hand on his. ‘I could see there was something wrong the moment I saw you. It was written all over your face.’

‘Sorry to burden you with it.’ He held her hand. Her grip answered his. His own reactions astonished him. He had to breathe deeply to get the words out.

‘You haven’t. It’s not a burden, whatever it is.’ The front door opened. She gave a brief squeeze and removed her hand. ‘Tell Hugo everything or nothing. Whatever
you feel like. We can talk another time.’

She left them. Over tea, then whisky, he talked to Hugo for an hour, describing everything, including the riverside walk, but omitting all mention of his father. ‘He was interested in my
family background,’ he said, ‘but I didn’t volunteer anything.’

‘Quite right, quite right. Make them work for it. He’s probably been told to do a pen-picture of you. They like to know about the family in case there’s any angle they can get
hold of. Don’t suppose there is in your case, is there? Nothing you know of? Good. We must remember, though, that he’s on paper as MFA, not KGB. It’s Hookey who seems so convinced
otherwise. What was your impression?’