Red Joan (11 page)

‘Go on then, Leo,' Sonya says after a moment's hesitation, leaning back and exhaling a slow spiral of smoke. ‘I can see you're dying to tell them.'

Everyone looks at Leo. Joan frowns, suddenly aware that Leo is looking away from her, deliberately avoiding her gaze. ‘Tell us what?' she asks.

‘Oh!' Sonya says, looking at Joan and putting her hand to her mouth as if she has said something she shouldn't, and allowing the wishbone of concern to appear again on her brow. ‘Hasn't he told you?'

‘Told me what?'

Leo clears his throat. He takes the cigarette from his mouth and holds it between his fingers. ‘I'm going to Moscow.'

Joan stares at him. His face is flushed with excitement. The others fidget and cluster for more details but Joan feels her body start to burn. Why has he not told her already? Why wait until now? She clears her throat. ‘For how long?'

‘Three months. I've been invited to give a lecture at the university, and then I'll be taken on a tour.'

‘Where to?' William asks.

‘The usual, I imagine. Collective farms, factories, schools, clinics.'

Joan has a sudden urge to be outside. The air is so close in here, so stuffy. She stands up and walks over to the door.

‘Jo-jo, wait.'

It is Leo's voice, but Joan does not wait. She opens the door and steps out into the corridor, not stopping until she is far enough away to feel alone. She puts her hands over her face. Footsteps are coming towards her. Leo. She knows the rhythm of him but she does not turn around. She sniffs and wipes her eyes.

‘I was going to tell you,' he says. ‘I only found out yesterday for certain. I wanted to find the right moment.'

Joan does not look at him. She takes the cigarette from between his finger and thumb and puts it in her mouth, closing her eyes so that she can concentrate on the sensation of smoke pouring into her throat and lungs and causing her to gulp for oxygen. ‘Well, I'm not sure you found it.'

He gives a rueful smile. ‘I didn't know Sonya would bring it up.'

‘Of course she would.' There is a silence, and then another thought occurs to her. ‘And evidently you found the right moment to tell her.'

Leo steps towards her, his hands firm about her waist, holding her perfectly still. ‘I'm sorry,' he whispers. ‘I was going to tell you.'

‘But you didn't.'

There is a pause as he looks away from her. He is so secretive. How she would like to open him up and see right inside him. Turn him upside down and shake him, until all the little secrets have fluttered out, and then he would simply be there in front of her, just him, and she could wrap her arms around him and hold him tightly against her.

As if he can read her mind, he runs his hands up her body and pulls her face towards his, kissing her lips. ‘Stay with me tonight, Jo-jo,' he whispers. ‘Please. Before I go.'

She looks at him, holding her breath, waiting for him to say the words. Oh, she knows he will not say them. Of course he will not. She knows it is just a question of whether or not she will capitulate.

William opens the door and peers out to look for them. ‘Come along, Pooh, come along, Piglet. We're starting again.'

Joan hesitates. Sonya steps out behind William, still sporting her sympathetic expression, and at the sight of her Joan feels her cheeks flush, because it turns out that she, unlike Sonya, is the jealous type. Or at least, this is what she decides the burning feeling must be. She can feel it pulsing in her chest and rising up through her lungs. She is surprised at the strength of it.

And she is angry too; angry with Leo for not telling her first, for not knowing that she might not want everyone else to see her reaction, for not understanding how much he means to her. On top of this, she is also angry with Sonya, even though her reasons for this are less clear. She is annoyed that Sonya knew about Leo's trip before she did, yes, but she is also irritated by Sonya's dismissal of the possibility that Leo might want to sleep with her, the implication that she is not good enough for him, that Leo is too incorruptible to want her.

Her blood runs hot inside her. ‘No,' she says suddenly, her eyes avoiding Sonya's. ‘We're leaving early tonight.'

‘Are we?' Leo asks.

‘Yes.' She slides her arm around him and he responds to her, pulling her body towards his, and as he does, Joan sees Sonya's eyes widen before she turns away, laughing at something behind her in the room; a shrill, too-loud laugh, which echoes through the courtyard as they leave.

At Leo's college gate they have to sneak past the night porter. Joan puts on Leo's overcoat and hat so that she can stride in after him, her feet slightly out-turned in her flat brogues to give her a manly gait. Nobody calls out to them to stop, and they giggle as they run across the courtyard. Outside his door Leo fumbles for his key and when he hurries her inside she is surprised at how neat it is. There are heavy maroon drapes looped up next to the windows and dustless piles of books on the shelves. The cushions on his sofa are neatly aligned and even the counterpane of his bed is smoothed down.

Leo closes the door behind them. He steps towards her, catching her in his arms and pulling her close to him. He kisses her, and the feel of him is more playful than usual, more deliberate, his fingers light on her neck, tickling, teasing. His tongue flicks against her lips and she kisses him back, her arms encircling his body. He tastes of tobacco and biscuits and warm, sugary tea. He moves his hands down her body, over her waist, and then suddenly he is sliding her cotton skirt up her thighs. His hand slips underneath and his fingers find the top of her stockings, gently following the line of silk where it meets her bare flesh. He presses into her and her hands clutch his neck as her body arches towards him.

‘I shouldn't be here,' she whispers, suddenly scared of what they are about to do. What has she been thinking? This is too soon, too sudden. Would she even be here if Sonya had not brought up the subject of his trip to Moscow? She does not know. She steps away from him. ‘I have to be up early tomorrow morning.'

‘You can sleep in the afternoon, can't you?'

‘I suppose so.' If he would only say it then it would all be fine. She would not feel so rushed. She holds her breath, shaking her head—no, she is thinking, no—but her feet are slipping out of her shoes, and now she is standing in front of him in her stockinged feet. He is watching her but still she hesitates, waiting for something.

Say it
, she thinks.
Please say it
.

She should leave. What if she gets caught? She would get sent down from university in disgrace. She tries to move further away from him but the muscles in her feet will not obey instructions.

Leo takes a step towards her, his eyes fixed on her, and still she cannot move. She feels her hands twitching at her sides, and then, before she has quite made up her mind what to do, she finds that her fingers are trembling at the small metal clasp on the collar of her blouse, and as it falls open she knows that she is not going anywhere. She cannot. She wants to feel his body on hers, his naked skin against her own. She wants to run her hands along the furrow of his spine, to kiss his neck and his chest and wrap her legs around his waist. She wants him to be hers, utterly corruptible.

And she knows that once it is over she will want to cover herself up, her too-thin body delicate against the bulk of his. He will be grateful. He will look at her and kiss her, and then he will offer her his jacket as he smuggles her out of his room in the morning, and she will wish she could have stayed there for ever.

But she also knows, before any of this has happened, when she is still standing in front of him with her blouse open at the neck and her shoes kicked carelessly aside, that no, even after all of this, he still will not say it.

Special Branch report re: Tour of Russia (departure from Hay's Wharf, London)

 

22 May 1938

 

The following is a list of passengers, all travelling on return tickets between London and Moscow, who left this port for St. Petersburg at 10.15 p.m. today sailing on the steamer
Smolny
, and who are believed to be members of a party of doctors, scientists and economists visiting Moscow on a tour:

. . . GALICH, Leo Borisovich, Jesus College, Cambridge University, Cambs; ticket no. 7941 . . .

GALICH is of Russian nationality and is currently studying for a PhD in economics at Cambridge University. He has recently purchased various books on Soviet economic policy, also some technical engineering works. He is believed at present to be visiting Moscow as part of a British delegation to an economics conference at the university, but if and when he returns his description is:

Born Leningrad, 20 May 1913, height 6ft 2ins, medium build, hair brown, eyes dark, complexion sallow, clean-shaven. Accent: Germanic. Excellent spoken and written English. We have one photograph which is to be found attached.

 

The photograph of Leo is produced from Ms. Hart's slender briefcase and pushed across the table to Joan.

She holds it delicately at the corner while she puts on her reading glasses to squint at it. She has not seen it before. He is dressed in shorts and a white open-necked shirt, long socks and black leather boots. There is a cigarette balancing on his lower lip, smouldering carelessly, the crumbled ends charred and blackened.

Nick stands up and glances at the photograph over her shoulder. ‘So that's him, is it?' he asks with a note of curiosity in his voice, in spite of his policy of tactical indifference. ‘Comrade Leo. Off to Russia to prepare himself for the revolution.'

‘He was only going to a . . . ' she stops, the word eluding her for a second, ‘ . . . a conference.'

Nick's face registers surprise at Joan's defensiveness. ‘I was joking.'

Ms. Hart ignores him, instead looking intently at Joan. ‘But he did think the revolution would come, didn't he? He wanted it to happen.'

‘Yes, but . . . ' Joan says and then stops. ‘Lots of people thought it was inevitable back then. If you'd suggested to any of them there wouldn't be a revolution, they'd have said you had your head buried in the sand.'

‘Who exactly do you mean by “they”?'

‘Well, all of them. Leo, Sonya. The others at the meetings.'

‘William?'

‘I don't know. We never spoke about it. Not directly.'

‘And you?'

Joan shakes her head. ‘I never joined. I was never a member.'

‘Of the Party?'

‘Of anything.'

‘I believe it was Communist International which was their affiliation, was it not?' Mr. Adams asks. ‘Comintern.'

Joan shrugs but says nothing.

When it is clear that she is not going to expand on this, Mr. Adams leans towards her. ‘You wouldn't be giving anything away. That was one of the few things we were able to elucidate from Sir William before he died.' He fixes Joan with a stern look. ‘You must have been under some pressure to join. So why didn't you?'

A silence.

‘Does it matter?' Nick asks eventually, his voice impatient. ‘She said she didn't join.'

‘Your mother's political beliefs are not irrelevant to this case. It might help her if we can establish—'

‘I wasn't convinced enough,' Joan interrupts. ‘I didn't agree with everything, and I didn't like the idea of belonging to something that told me what I could think and what I couldn't.' She pauses. ‘I might have joined if they hadn't all been so strict, but that's always the way with any sort of club, isn't it? There's always a party line.' She looks at Nick. ‘Like that tennis club your father wanted us to join in Sydney. It was the same there.'

Mr. Adams' expression is one of mild disbelief. ‘I don't think joining a tennis club is really comparable.'

Joan's eyes flick to his. ‘You didn't meet them.'

Nick inhales sharply. ‘But you didn't join the Communist Party, did you? Or Comintern, or any of them?'

Joan looks at her son and sees in his expression that he is not just impatient. He is pleading with her. He thinks she is not taking this seriously enough. ‘No,' she whispers.

The furrow in Nick's forehead disappears and he nods his approval before turning to Mr. Adams. ‘There, see. She didn't join. She wasn't convinced enough. When are you going to realise that you're wasting your time?'

‘Because we're not, are we, Mrs. Stanley?'

A silence. Joan sits back in her armchair and presses her hand against her forehead. There is a burning sensation behind her eyes, as if the process of recalling such long-ago thoughts and emotions has a physical effect, and the pressure of her hand against her skin is momentarily cooling. No, she didn't join, but that didn't mean she didn't think about it in those early days, especially in the face of the apparent indifference of her fellow students. The Newnham Hockey Team even went on a tour of Germany during the Easter holidays of 1939, in spite of it being quite clear what was happening to the Jews by then, but nobody else in the team raised any objections. It was only Joan who refused to partake in this jaunt to Frankfurt and Wiesbaden, thus putting an end to her hockey career which, truth be told, was stalling anyway, but she was astonished at the lack of support in college for her stance. Nobody else seemed to care all that much. Except Sonya.

She nearly joined then, but to a certain extent, she didn't join because she didn't have to. As Leo's girlfriend, she held the privileged position of being able to come and go as she pleased without being obliged to adhere to the conventions of the group, calling the others ‘comrade' and reading the set texts while never truly saying what she thought. She knew that, while she was sympathetic to many of their ideas, she was not quite able to match their certainty of purpose, their earnest togetherness, and so it was easier for her to remain on the outskirts, not really one of them but accepted all the same.