Red Joan (25 page)

He takes her other hand in his and there it is again: a rising sense of panic that something is starting now. Something dangerous. Because she realises that what he has just said is probably the most romantic thing anyone will ever say to her. ‘Yes,' she whispers. ‘I think I do understand.'

‘You deserve more than that. And maybe, one day . . . ' He stops, leaving the sentence unfinished, hanging in the air between them. And then, very slowly, he leans forward so that Joan feels the lightest graze of his lips against hers, and for that brief moment before they turn into their separate bungalows, it feels like the saddest way of one person touching another it is possible to imagine.

 

And that is it. Nothing more is said on the matter. It is not awkward between them as Joan fears, but peaceful. He is so open, so unwaveringly kind, that it is impossible to maintain any feelings of affront. And more than that, he is careful with her. He makes coffee for her and brings her lunch from the canteen, and he installs a radio in her bungalow so that she can listen to music in the mornings. Perhaps this is what it means to be loved, she thinks, and she allows herself the luxury of holding this thought for just a moment before banishing it.

They work together diligently and finish ahead of schedule, and it is decided that they will stop in Montreal for a night on the way back to Quebec. Taylor Scott arranges for them to stay with his colleague, Professor Marsh, who will show them around the theoretical department at the university before they sail home, and he is quite insistent that they do not refuse the invitation.

‘We're being shown around the university?' Joan repeats, having only been informed of this aspect of the itinerary once they are packed and ready to leave their bungalows.

Taylor nods and continues, explaining that their visit will be purely political, a bit of a waste of time, but necessary to keep everything ticking along between the two Canadian departments. There is still tension over which department does what and how the funding should be split, so in the interests of diplomacy they should make a token visit to the other side.

Joan feels hot. She takes off her cardigan and bends down to unzip her suitcase so that she can slip it into the side pocket, aware that she will not need it for the car journey. She is relieved for the distraction, not wanting anyone to see the flush of her cheeks. How she hates her own weakness. She is being silly, of course. It is highly unlikely that she will bump into Leo in such a large place. His department is probably located in a different part of the university, possibly even in an entirely different part of the city. There is no reason to feel scared; no reason for her fingers to tremble like this.

Kierl is watching her when she stands up again. ‘Let me take your case for you.' He lifts Joan's case and struggles to the car with it.

Max puts his case on top of Joan's in the back of the car and then rolls up his sleeves to prepare for the drive. ‘We'll only spend the morning at the university. We could do some sightseeing in the afternoon, if you like? What would you recommend, Kierl? Anything we ought to see in Montreal?'

A long pause while Kierl frowns, trying to muster up a response. ‘You could walk up Mount Royal,' he says at last. ‘It's nice up there.' He looks at Joan and offers a sharp sort of smile which Joan supposes is his attempt at a farewell gesture, and then he turns sharply and walks away.

Max watches him go, shrugs and gets into the car. ‘Odd chap.' He looks at Joan, and for a moment a smile flickers across his face. ‘I'm all out of pennies now.'

 

They arrive at Professor Marsh's house late at night after the long drive from Chalk River and Joan is put up in the attic room. It is a child's room, decorated with pictures of mountains and horses, and Joan falls into a restless, fitful sleep. At first, she dreams of the sea, stretching out along the horizon, blue from a distance and wide, and she is walking along the deck with Max, but he spins away from her so that when she looks for him again he has gone, and the sea is closer now, colder. The spray is not blue but colourless. And suddenly, the figure beside her is not Max but Leo, and Joan finds that, for the first time since he left, she can picture him exactly: his perfectly drawn lips and illuminated expression as he explains statistics to her, his lemon-soap and tobacco smell, his expression as he leans across a restaurant table and swipes a cut of venison from her plate; and when she wakes up she finds that she is sobbing as she did when he left, crying and squeezing her hands into two tight balls so that her nails leave little crescent-shaped marks where they press into her soft skin. Crying because he had not loved her as she thought he did, because she had not even realised what love meant until Max stood outside her bungalow and told her that he couldn't stop thinking about her and wanted to talk to her for ever, and then kissed her so gently that she thought her heart might break.

 

In the morning, she dresses carefully before going downstairs for breakfast, dabbing face powder onto her cheeks and applying a light lipstick. She hopes that by pretending to be perfectly all right she might be able to convince herself that this is the case. They will only be at the university for a few hours. That's all. A few hours and then home again.

Max is in the front passenger seat of Professor Marsh's car and the heat of the day is already evident. ‘You look tired,' he says, turning around to glance at Joan.

Joan smiles nervously, suddenly horrified at the thought he might have heard her sobbing from the upstairs room. How ridiculous she would have sounded. ‘I suppose I am rather.' She undoes the latch of the car window and pushes it open, and as the car moves faster she closes her eyes and feels the freshness of the breeze against her skin, lifting her hair from where it prickles against her neck and dislodging the hairclip that she had put in so carefully that morning.

She excuses herself when they arrive, wanting to sort out her hair before the meeting, and she is encouraged to find she has the ladies' lavatory to herself. She is in a cubicle when she hears someone else enter the room. The footsteps on the tiled floor cause her to hesitate. It is a rhythm she recognises.

No. It can't be. Not in a ladies' lavatory.

The footsteps stop as the person seems to glance along the row of cubicles to check which ones are taken. She knows there are four empty cubicles to choose from, and yet the footsteps do not move away. They simply turn, shuffle a little, and then turn back. The tread of the shoes is too heavy, too flat, for a woman. She sees the tips of two brown shoes facing her.

It can't be him. Surely not.

Her body feels suddenly itchy and too hot.

‘Jo-jo?' a voice whispers.

The breath catches in her throat. What is he doing in here? How did he know where she would be? She feels a sudden burning sensation in her chest, and realises that it is not anger or fear or any of the other emotions she expected to feel when she saw him again. It is sadness. No, she thinks. No, you don't. Her hands shake as she flushes the lavatory. She has not yet combed her hair and she runs her fingers quickly through it. She takes a deep breath, slides back the bolt on the door, and steps out.

‘My little comrade,' he says, kissing her drily on the cheek, not heeding the fact that she does not sink into him but stiffens a little and draws away. His old name for her does not have the softening effect she had feared it might. ‘How are you?'

‘Very well.' She tries to be brisk as she steps around him to the washbasin. The oddness of the situation makes it easier to cope with Leo's nearness. ‘How did you know where I was? Why didn't you just leave a message instead of lurking out there like that?'

Leo shrugs. ‘It's better if nobody sees us talking to each other. I'm known here. My work is known.' He hands her a towel. ‘Here.'

‘Thanks.' Joan dries her hands, turning away from him and trying to quell the confusion of feelings inside her. She takes a comb out of her bag, her fingers trembling, and she runs it through her hair. She sees him watching her, and realises that her old guardedness has returned. It is a shock how unfamiliar this feeling has become. She had always assumed it was normal to feel like this in any relationship, but she is no longer so sure. She clips her hair back into place and turns to him, slipping the comb inside her bag. ‘So how do I look?'

Leo frowns. ‘Combed,' he says. She remembers this from before: description is the closest he will come to any sort of comment on her appearance. He flicks a cigarette out of his silver tin. ‘Smoke?'

Joan takes it. She places the nub of it in her mouth, allowing him to shield the tip with his hand as he lights it so that his hand brushes against her cheek. He smells different today, and she is relieved. No trace of lemon.

‘So you're here on a research trip?'

She nods. ‘Uh huh.'

‘Dare I ask?' He gives her a slow smile. He must know the effect of that smile. It must work on others as it does on her.

‘Same old research. And the answer's still no.' She wonders how many other women there have been since she last saw him, and for a moment she is grateful to Sonya for having put the idea of Max into her head. How does she always seem to know these things?

‘All right, all right. I won't ask.' And he doesn't. He goes to the window and unlatches it, shoving it open to reveal a concrete yard, empty except for a few bins. He leans out, looking first one way and then another, flicking cigarette ash as he does. He turns back to her. ‘Listen, Jo-jo. I came because I had to see you. I thought you might have . . . ' he hesitates, ‘ . . . changed your mind. You've still got the chance, you know.'

‘No,' she whispers. ‘I've already told you I won't do it.' She pauses. ‘Is that the only reason you wanted to see me? Have you got nothing else to say?' Her voice betrays her feelings more than she would wish, but she is no longer willing to hide her anger. Of course she is cross with him after the way things were left between them and she wants him to acknowledge it.

Leo's expression is pained. ‘Of course not, Jo-jo. I think about you—' He stops.

‘Is that it? You think about me?'

‘I think about you a lot.' He puts out his hand to touch her face, and she does not move away. He runs his finger gently along her cheek before letting his hand drop. ‘You're my little comrade. You always will be.'

Joan feels her heart quicken, but will not allow herself to believe him. She is not as gullible as he thinks. ‘Not any more.'

‘I know you agree with me really. You think the same as I do. The bomb should be shared. The Russians should be allowed to know.'

Joan opens her mouth and then closes it again, annoyed by his refusal to see their history together as something separate from his politics. She wants to push him away, both hands on his chest, and make him understand that she will not be persuaded. ‘No, I don't,' she whispers.

Leo is undeterred. ‘We're supposed to be allies,' he continues. ‘If they don't share it now, what happens after the war?'

‘How should I know?' Joan snaps. ‘I can't see into the future. We're making this now so that Hitler doesn't get there first.'

‘But you're not going to drop it on Hitler, are you?'

‘Of course not. It's a deterrent.'

Leo smiles. ‘Oh, Jo-jo. Always so trusting, aren't you?'

Joan glares at him although she feels herself to be wrong-footed. ‘But it's true.'

He takes her by the shoulders. ‘What I meant was that you're not going to drop it on Hitler because this bomb is not a bullet. It's made for . . . ' he pauses, pretending to calculate something in his head. ‘You probably know this better than I do. How many people live in a city, on average? How many babies, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters—'

‘But that's why it's a deterrent,' Joan whispers, exasperated.

Leo sighs and shakes his head. ‘I really thought you were braver than this.'

Only he doesn't say
really
. He says
veally
. And Joan knows that there was a time when this would have made her heart melt just a little. ‘Don't. It won't work.'

‘Fine. Write to me, if you change your mind. In fact, tell Sonya next time you see her.'

Joan does not reply. She does not trust herself to speak. There are tears brimming, pulsing, behind her eyes. ‘I have to go. They're waiting for me.' She blinks and turns towards the door and, for a moment, she believes his hesitation is because he is summoning up the courage to say something he has never said before, to catch her in his arms and kiss her properly, in which case she is certain that she would push him away. She absolutely would. But he does not. After a few seconds, he merely whispers: ‘You go out first. I'll follow you in five minutes.'

‘I thought you were going to climb out of the window.'

Leo gives a small snort of surprise. ‘Don't be ridiculous. I'm a research fellow. I work for the government. I can't be seen clambering out of windows in the science department. I'll follow you out.' She turns to leave but he takes hold of her wrist. ‘I know you'll come round, Jo-jo. I know you better than you think.'

She shakes her head. ‘No, you don't.'

‘I know you can do it. You just won't because you're scared.'

‘That's not the only reason. But yes, of course I'd be scared.'

Leo's grip tightens around her wrist. ‘Then you're scared of the wrong thing. It's far more dangerous to the world if it's kept from us. The West hates communism. They'd do anything to destroy it, whatever the cost, and now they can. Russia needs a bomb for her own protection.'

Joan shakes her head. ‘I can't, Leo. I'm under oath.' She pauses. ‘And I won't.'

He does not drop his gaze from hers but he releases her wrist, and then takes a step away from her. ‘You'll come around, Jo-jo,' he says quietly.