Reckless (39 page)

The priest turned to Rupert.

‘You did this?’

‘Not me,’ said Rupert.

‘Rupert has to go back to London,’ said Mary. ‘He has to go right away. It’s an emergency. But I’ve no call to be going anywhere. There’s no emergency for me. This is my home.’

She was so calm. Rupert was filled with wonder.

‘Are you sure, Mary? I’ll stay if you need me.’

‘No, you must go. I was afraid at first, but then I thought to myself, what is it I’m afraid of? Am I afraid to be alone? Well, I’ve been alone before. So you go where you’re needed, Rupert.’

‘And I’ll see you again in London?’

‘Yes, of course. I’ll stay with Mam and Eamonn for a few days. Then they’ll be glad to see the back of me.’

It was all very unexpected. Now it was Rupert who found himself reluctant to leave. He told himself he was curious to see the crowd of pilgrims when Mary returned to the scene of her visions. But the summons from Mountbatten was not to be ignored.

That afternoon he drove back to Dublin and caught a late flight to London. He was shocked to discover how hard he found it to leave Mary, and how stubbornly the memory of her face lingered in his mind.

‘I don’t believe it!’

A cable late on Sunday night from David Ormsby-Gore, the British ambassador in Washington, had alerted London to the crisis.

‘Bruce is on his way now,’ said the prime minister.

‘Nuclear missiles? On Cuba?’

Mountbatten could make no sense of it. He turned to Lord Home, the Foreign Secretary.

‘Do you get this, Alec?’

‘If it’s true,’ said Home, ‘maybe it’s to give him leverage over Berlin.’

David Bruce, the American ambassador, now arrived at Admiralty House, where the prime minister’s offices were temporarily located during the refurbishment of 10 Downing Street. He was accompanied by a man from the CIA called Chet Cooper. Cooper showed copies of top-secret photographs taken by a U2 high-level reconnaissance flight. Macmillan barely glanced at the photographs.

‘If the president tells me there’s a meaningful offensive capability there,’ he said, ‘that’s good enough for me.’

To the consternation of the two Americans, he seemed almost indifferent to the revelation.

‘We’ve been living in the shadow of annihilation for the past many years,’ he said, ‘and we’ve somehow been able to lead more or less normal lives. Life goes on.’

Bruce spoke of the options open to the president, including the invasion of Cuba. Macmillan listened, frowning.

‘And what if Khrushchev retaliates against Berlin, or against US bases abroad? Wouldn’t it be better to deal with Khrushchev privately over this?’

‘The president feels he must be seen to act,’ said Bruce.

After the Americans had left, Philip de Zulueta raised the issue of public perception.

‘A lot of people aren’t going to believe it,’ he said. ‘They’ll say it’s a trumped-up excuse to get rid of Castro.’

‘Nuclear missiles on Cuba!’ said Mountbatten. ‘I wouldn’t call that trumped-up.’

‘Philip’s right,’ said Home. ‘We need to get the Americans to make the photographs public.’

‘If you say so,’ said Macmillan. ‘I couldn’t make out a thing.’

He turned to Mountbatten with a sigh.

‘Brief the chiefs, Dickie. But tell them to play it down. I don’t want anything in the newspapers. No panic moves.’

Back in his office in the Ministry of Defence, Mountbatten found Rupert Blundell at his desk.

‘Thank God you’re back, Rupert. Walk with me. Give me some perspective.’

They headed down the long corridor to the chiefs of staff briefing room. Mountbatten presented the crisis to Rupert in a few words.

‘Strikes me as a clever move by Khrushchev,’ he concluded. ‘If Kennedy does nothing, he looks weak. If he launches an attack on Cuba, it gives Khrushchev the excuse to move on Berlin.’

‘Maybe,’ said Rupert.

‘You don’t think that’s what it’s all about?’

‘I don’t believe either Khrushchev or Kennedy wants to start a nuclear war.’

‘No, of course not. It’s about the achievement of limited objectives. Kennedy wants Castro out of Cuba. Khrushchev wants NATO out of West Berlin.’

‘And we’re the piggy in the middle,’ said Rupert. ‘I don’t see that it matters very much what we say or do.’

‘Oh, come on! That’s a bit hard. We are a nuclear power in our own right.’

‘Are we? We can’t launch the Thors without American authorisation. In any nuclear exchange the Russians will target our Thors in the very first wave of attacks. If they’re to be any use at all, we have to launch them before we’re attacked, which we’re never going to do. That makes them worse than useless: they’re dangerous. You want perspective on this crisis? Offer to trade the Thors.’

‘Trade the Thors!’

‘Tell Khrushchev if he pulls his missiles out of Cuba, we’ll dismantle the Thors. They’re due to be phased out next year anyway.’

They had reached the briefing room. The heads of the services and their advisers were already there.

‘Draw up a list of options as you see it, Rupert. Put the Thors on the list.’

Mountbatten went on into the big room. Rupert returned to his desk. He realised he was intensely excited. He took out a pencil and began to jot down the thoughts that were chasing round his head.

Why had Khrushchev taken such a giant risk?

In all his ponderings on the issue of nuclear weapons, Rupert had stopped short of considering an actual crisis. Each crisis came with its own set of specific circumstances, and had to be addressed in that light. Here now was a crisis.

The problem of intention loomed large. It was both critical to any solution, and unknowable. What did Khrushchev want? This deployment of nuclear missiles on Cuba achieved the exact opposite result to Rupert’s hoped-for spiral of trust. It generated a spiral of fear.

Stay with the core conclusions. This is not a military crisis. Nuclear missiles are weapons designed not to be used. In this sense they are imaginary weapons. Understand the fear they are designed to allay, remove that fear, and the weapons become redundant.

But even now, Rupert knew, the Chiefs of Staff would be analysing the Russians’ move in terms of the danger it posed to the West. They would be war-gaming every possible development of Soviet strategy in order to defend against it. In other words, they would be acting as if the Soviet intentions were wholly aggressive. That assumption generates fear. Fear leads to aggression.

So fear faces fear. Expectation of attack faces expectation of attack. Fingers begin to twitch on triggers. It would be a doomsday scenario but for one thing. Nobody wants to be the bad guy.

It’s like the final gunfight in a Western. It’s a moral stand-off.

The first and most crucial battle
, Rupert wrote on his pad,
is the battle to make the other side shoot first
.

Pamela travelled back from Sussex to London on the afternoon of Monday, October 22. She found the Brook Green house empty. Hugo was at work. Harriet and Emily had gone to stay with Harriet’s family in Lyme Regis for the week of half-term. Mary was in Ireland. Pamela was not sorry to have the house to herself. She was in a strange state of mind.

She phoned Susie and got no answer. Then after some hesitation she phoned Stephen Ward’s flat, but no one answered there either. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to say to Stephen. Had he known about André’s tastes? Why had he not warned her?

Were all men incapable of love?

She went into the kitchen, and then into the larder, prowling for some source of gratification. She found a tin of Horlicks, and decided to have some. It was years since she had tasted Horlicks. She heated milk in a pan, and added the pale powder, and spent an annoying amount of time making it dissolve.

The hot sweet malty taste took her straight back to childhood. That brought memories of her father, pulling her over the snow on a sledge, turning back to smile for her. With a lurch she realised how much she had adored him. In her mind he was always some distance away from her, perhaps turning back to wave, but always leaving.

I hate you for leaving me.

The anger burst out of nowhere.
Still storming that fatal beach
. Why? The war was over, the medal won. What was there left to prove?

It was in him from the beginning
.

And now it’s in me.

This was what made Pamela walk about the empty house, unable to settle to anything. She was supposed to be calling the art college. Larry had made the contact, they were expecting her. But she could no longer imagine herself as an art student. It had been the picture she had built for herself once of the world she would enter that was beyond home, beyond school. But since then she had been introduced to a very different world, at Cliveden and Mayfair and Herriard, and by that bright light art school looked childish and provincial.

So what do I want now?

She felt hurt, and cheated. When her mother was her age war had come along, and swept her up and filled her days. She had been a driver, of all things. When she talked about it, which she did sometimes, she laughed, knowing it was a little ridiculous. But she had loved it. She was in control of her army staff car. She had known, day by day, what she was supposed to be doing. There had been days and nights off, and dancing in London clubs during the blackout, and boyfriends, but nothing serious. Then she had fallen in love.

The world is different now. Bored people looking for fun, lonely people looking for love.

Pamela thought back, asking herself when it was that she first saw a man look at her in that certain way. It was five years ago. They’d had a Christmas party at their house, just a drinks party, maybe thirty or forty local friends on one of the evenings leading up to Christmas. Her mother had said, ‘Pammy, you can be our waitress. Take round the cheesy biscuits.’ Edward had still been
very small, so how old had she been? Twelve, thirteen. She had held up a plate before the local lord, George Holland, who was even older than her parents, and he had stared at her as if she were the only person in the room, and at the same time as if he didn’t see her at all. Then he said, ‘My word, Pammy, you are growing up.’ She had understood then that he wanted her as a man wants a woman, and it had thrilled her. She had given him her special smile. This involved wrinkling up her nose and half shutting her eyes and giving a little lift of her shoulders, as if she and the person she was peeping at were sharing a secret that was funny and a bit rude. He had smiled back and said, ‘You run along, you bad girl.’ Later, remembering this, she had realised they had been flirting.

There had been a great deal more flirting since. Pamela adored flirting. She loved that moment when she caught a man’s eye, and saw him struggling to conceal his response to her, and failing. She loved walking into a room and seeing every man there shift his posture to take account of her.

But flirting is only a prelude. The story has not yet begun.

In a sudden violent flood her mind filled with images of couples copulating, from André’s collection. Women on their sides, one leg raised; on their hands and knees, bottoms in the air; astride their lover, head arched back; and always, in every pose, stabbing into them, the angry male weapon. This turned out to be the true story after all. This was what being pretty and flirting led towards. You were the only person in the room and they didn’t even see you. It was so mean, it was such a swindle, it made her want to cry. Worse, it made her afraid. What if there was nothing after all? What if the years ahead held only loneliness and disappointment? What then?

You hear the hiss and suck of the waves rolling up the shingle beach, and they call to you, and you go.

The key scraped in the front door. Pamela ran into the hall. Hugo entered. The moment he saw her his face lit up.

‘Pammy! You’re back!’

His transparent joy at seeing her changed everything. She laughed and was light-hearted, skipped about making him a drink after his day’s work, felt young and pretty again.

‘Guess what I’ve been drinking? Horlicks!’

‘My God! Is it drinkable?’

‘Next I’ll start wearing baggy cardigans and woolly slippers and keeping budgies.’

‘I’m so glad you’ve come back. I thought perhaps you wouldn’t. You know Harriet and Emily are away?’

‘Yes, I know. I’m back for now, at least. If you’ll have me.’

‘You know you’re always welcome here. You brighten up my drab life.’

‘I don’t see that it’s so drab.’

‘Actually, business is rather booming at present. Today I signed a deal to supply the new Hilton they’re building on Park Lane.’

‘Hurrah! Does that mean lots more money?’

‘Some lots.’

‘Then we should celebrate. Why don’t we go out to dinner? There’s only us, and I’m a rotten cook.’

‘I say, shall we?’

His eyes shone with excitement.

‘I shall dress up,’ said Pamela, ‘so that you won’t be ashamed to be seen out with me.’

She put on her second-best frock, which was made of fine navy-blue jersey, and was very figure-hugging. There was nothing immodest about it, except for the closeness of the fit to her body. She brushed her hair back and wore it with an Alice band, aware that this showed her cheekbones to advantage.

‘There,’ she said, presenting herself with a demure curtsy. ‘I’m practically a convent girl.’

‘You’re divine,’ he said.

They hailed a taxi on Hammersmith Road, and he told the driver to take them to Franco’s on Jermyn Street.

‘You’ll like Franco’s,’ he said to Pamela. ‘Italian, but smart.’

In the taxi he asked after Kitty and the family, and quite suddenly Pamela found herself telling him about her father.

‘Mummy told me what really happened,’ she said. ‘I’d never known.’

‘Oh, Lord,’ said Hugo.

‘I’m glad she told me. You knew, I suppose.’

‘Yes, I knew. A real tragedy.’

‘Did you have any warning?’

‘Not exactly,’ said Hugo, sounding uncomfortable. ‘I mean, there had been problems. But I never expected him to … ’

His voice tailed off.