Secret Kingdom (22 page)

‘Twice. Three times if I’m lucky.’

‘Do you stay all night?’

What difference does it make? ‘I don’t fuck her and fuck off, Nigel. That’s not my style.’

‘You are aware that Eva Balassi is a member of the Communist Party?’

‘Everyone’s a communist here. How else do you think they

survive?’

Somebody has it in for you, Bobby.

*

The room is in darkness. He picks up his watch and turns its face towards the window to catch what little light comes up from the street below. Ten to two. He puts the watch back on the bedside table and turns over. Even with a single sheet, he is hot and restless.
The temperature seems to have diminished hardly at all since the afternoon. The bedroom is like an inferno.

‘What is it?’ Eva asks.

‘I can’t sleep.’

‘Nor can I. It’s too hot.’

She pulls back the sheet and fans them both briefly, their naked bodies cooling momentarily with the rush of air. The truth is, he hasn’t slept at all. Too many questions. His mind is racing out of control again tonight.

*

‘She has a daughter, doesn’t she?’

‘Yes.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Dora.’

‘That’s right, Dora. Mother and daughter live together.’

‘Yes.’

‘How do you organize yourself around that?’

Why the hell do you want to know all this?

*

She telephones in the afternoon with the coded message they have agreed on. ‘The papers are ready for collection.’ If Hart takes the call, Eva is to say that Martineau has asked for a transcript of a recent speech given by an economics deputy and she has translated it for him. Not much of a deception but better than an embarrassed silence. Decrypted, it means that Dora is staying at her friend’s house, and Eva is inviting Martineau to spend the night with her.

He arrives at her flat soon after half past six, carrying his linen jacket, his shirt sticking to his back, his face dripping. He does not want to kiss her when she opens the door (‘I need a bath, make myself presentable’), but she kisses him anyway and runs a cold bath while he undresses. She is wearing a loose white dress gathered at the waist that makes her hair and skin seem even darker, through which he can clearly see the contours of her body.

She talks to him as he washes, their conversation self-consciously avoiding anything other than the trivia of their lives. They have shared their passion for each other, they have recklessly spent as much time together as they can, but, for reasons neither will admit
to, they have never once talked about themselves – what they do, what they believe in, who they are. Their knowledge of each other hardly extends beyond their bodies. No trespassing on the dangerous ground of their identities. Not yet, anyway. An unspoken rule of engagement.

Martineau is sitting on the side of the bath drying himself when Eva takes off her dress and, naked, climbs on to him. Her arms are tightly around his neck, her feet in the bath. She kisses him so fiercely he can hardly breathe. His hands, still wet, force their way through her thick hair and down her back. Eventually he breaks from her grasp, drawing her to her feet, kissing her and then gathering her in his arms. He carries her, face buried against his chest, into the bedroom, lays her down on the cover and explores her body as never before, speaking to her gently in whispers. She says nothing, her eyes closed, her mouth half open, only her breathing quickening until her body arches under him and a cry bursts from deep within her, all the mysterious longings of her life gathered in a single piercing sigh.

Much later, they are lying side by side but not touching except for their hands, which are tightly laced together, as the daylight gives way to dusk and then to night. Later still Eva gets up and finds them both something cold to eat while Martineau dips his body into the cool water of the bath. They eat in bed, propped up against the pillows, Eva cross-legged before him, drinking wine with ice in it.

*

‘Does Christine know?’

‘Nobody knows, except you and whoever tipped you off, and God knows how they found out.’

‘Somebody always finds out, Bobby. You know that as well as I do.’

‘And you believed it?’

‘Look at your record, Bobby. What choice does that give us?’

‘This is nothing like that French woman, Nigel.’

‘From where we’re sitting it looks worse.’

‘You’ll have to explain that.’

‘Eva Balassi spent the war years in Moscow, during which time she got to know a number of men and women, both Hungarian and Russian, who have subsequently risen in the communist hierarchy,
some in the Kremlin, some here. She’s right in the thick of it, Bobby. That’s not the kind of information we can ignore, is it?’

He sends London important news about what’s happening in Hungary and they won’t listen to him. Some unknown person passes them some gossip and they send out a top man to interrogate him. Either he’s going mad or the world’s turned upside down.

Carswell was right. Somebody had it in for him and no mistake.

*

He can’t sleep. It’s not just tonight, it’s every night now, whether he’s with Eva or not. Is it guilt? How long is it since his marriage made a claim on his conscience? So long, he’s forgotten. His relationship with Christine is a marriage of appearances, an empty shroud. Touch it and it would disintegrate, nothing left but dust. God knows, after more than twenty years of pretending, what is there left to be faithful to?

*

Silence. The creaking of the fan. The flare of the match as Carswell relights his pipe. He wipes his face with his handkerchief. The room is getting hotter.

He’s forgotten how Carswell uses silence to undermine your confidence. He sits there, a still, bulky presence, saying nothing, looking at you, pulling on his pipe. Evil-smelling Sobranie tobacco, awful stuff. His silence makes you question your reply. Have you missed something? Was your answer inadequate? That’s the danger. He gets you talking to fill in the gaps when he has said nothing, and that is when you give yourself away. Only not this time, my friend. I’m wise to all your tricks.

‘What do you know about Eva Balassi?’ Carswell asks.

‘Not a lot. We don’t talk much.’ Too busy fucking, he wants to say, but doesn’t.

‘We’ve done a bit of digging on her that you might find interesting.’

Digging where?

Carswell withdraws a typewritten sheet of paper from an envelope that sits on the table between them. Of course he’d find it interesting.

‘Parents are smallholders, both still alive. They live in a village near Vesprem, Catholics, poor background. Eva, the eldest of three,
two brothers, does well at school, athletically as well as academically, fine swimmer and a talent for languages. When she’s sixteen, she’s selected to go to the Institute of Languages in Moscow. Her parents don’t want her to leave but she goes anyway. By this time she’s become an ardent communist, something to do with a boyfriend, we think. A few weeks later, war breaks out. She and others like her are stuck in Russia for the duration. In Moscow she betrays all the signs of an enthusiastic Party member, makes many useful contacts in the Soviet Party hierarchy. She works for Radio Moscow where, later on, she does some English-language broadcasts. Has an affair with a Russian army officer who leaves her pregnant but doesn’t marry her. That’s the daughter Dora. Good swimmer, too. Always beating the Russians, which they don’t like. Returns to Budapest in forty-six, one of a small, privileged group of communists who have Moscow’s confidence. Starts work as an interpreter, is chosen to represent Hungary in the forty-eight Olympic Games. Wins a gold medal. Becomes a State Heroine.’

‘What in?’ Martineau asks, already knowing the answer.

‘Freestyle. A year or so later gives up swimming competitively. Continues to work in the Party, using her connections as a basis for advancement, which is rapid.’

How the hell does Carswell know so much about her? Who’s his source?

‘What about a husband?’ Martineau asks. Since Carswell knows so much he might as well satisfy his curiosity.

‘Hasn’t she told you?’

How can he explain to Carswell that he never asks any questions because he’s afraid he might learn things he doesn’t want to know?

‘We don’t talk much, Nigel. Remember?’

‘No husbands now that we know of. There was one once, for a few months. We know he was a soldier. He seems to have buggered off somewhere, probably killed in action. I expect there were other relationships.’

‘There usually are.’

‘The problem, Bobby, isn’t who she sleeps with but her connection with the Party. Without warning, a year ago, everything comes unstuck. She no longer attends Party meetings, resigns her position on the union committee. Within a few weeks she’s detached herself from all her Party activities. We don’t know why. Either she falls
out of love with the system, which given her background is highly unlikely, or she’s under instruction to distance herself. Starts mixing, discreetly, with groups of intellectuals, members of the Writers’ Union mostly, many of them known opponents of the regime. That raises questions. Has she been instructed to infiltrate local groups known to be hostile to the government? If she has, we must assume she’s working for the AVH.’

Where does association with foreigners come in all this? he wants to ask. But he says nothing because, when it comes down to it, he has nothing to say. He’s learned more about Eva in the last five minutes than in all the hours they’ve been together. The knowledge doesn’t leave him elated. Carswell knows too much and what he knows has an unavoidable logic. Eva is probably on the payroll of the secret police or she’s the mistress of a high-up official. That means he’s in it up to his eyeballs. He is overwhelmed by a sense of foreboding. He’s not going to get away with it this time. This is where the famous Martineau luck runs out, well and truly.

Bloody hell.

He hardly hears what Carswell is saying.

‘Then some little bird whispers in our ear that she’s sleeping with our man in Budapest. You can’t blame London for worrying, can you?’

There’s more to it than that
, he wants to say.
You can call me a fool for what I’ve done, but you need better evidence to call me a traitor.
Carswell’s holding something back.

Carswell’s voice is colder now; he is distancing himself from Martineau. No surprises there. The evidence is coming out bit by bit. ‘Drip-feed what we know.’ That’s what they’ll have said to him before he left for Budapest. ‘If he thinks we know more than he does, then you won’t have to wait long for him to sing like a canary.’

‘What I don’t understand, Bobby, is how a man as experienced as you can fall for the oldest trick in the book.’

Understand what? Falling in love at his age? Sexual desire? Wanting a woman so much you thought you’d go mad if you didn’t have her? He’d met Nora Carswell once. A neat suburban bundle of penned disapproval. No children. A couple of cats on whom she lavished excessive affection. Knees lashed together with steel hawsers. (‘My husband doesn’t trouble me much.’) Did women like her have
desires of their own? Carswell’s put up with her all these years with no hint he’s ever strayed. How
can
he know what he feels about Eva?

*

Distracted and helpless in the days after the weekend at her summer house, he smokes too much and drinks more than usual. This goes unnoticed at the embassy; it’s a habit others share. He loses weight – nobody notices that either. His mind wanders in meetings, past eccentricities proving the perfect cover for present erratic behaviour. On occasions, he is short with Hart. He shaves more carefully, eliminating the usual razor nicks on his chin, smudges of blood on his collar; brushes his hair more often to no visible effect; worries that he ought to get his crumpled suits pressed but doesn’t get round to doing anything about it, and thinks about buying some new shirts, which he doesn’t get round to doing anything about, either.

‘Say it to me, Bobby. Tell me you love me.’

What he feels isn’t the last flicker of the candle before the flame dies – Martineau as ageing reprobate, clinging on to what’s left of his libido with the desperation of a drowning man. It is the realization of the dream he has sought since his youth but which has eluded him all his life until now. He has to know it is the same for her. If it is, then what? Then damn the consequences.

Pountney leaped from the taxi in York Road, ignoring the rain, and ran up the steps into Waterloo two at a time. He raced across the forecourt, his heart sinking as he heard the clang of a gate shutting and a whistle blown. His train? It couldn’t be. He’d seconds to spare. He arrived breathless at the entrance to the platform in time to see the lights of the carriage disappear agonizingly into the darkness of the wet night.

‘Damn. Damn.’

That was the last train. He’d have to go by taxi. He joined a queue and waited. A bad end to an even worse day.

‘Richmond,’ he told the driver.

‘That’ll be extra, sir.’

Who cares what it costs? Get me away from here as quick as you can. I want to bury today before it buries me.

Down into York Road, right over Westminster Bridge, there were still some lights on in his building (he could tell Harriet truthfully he wasn’t the last to leave; she was always saying no one worked as hard as he did), sharp left past the House (lights on there too, must be a late sitting) and then on to the Embankment for the long trek home. He sat back in the taxi, exhausted, diminished, close to defeat after the events of the day. Now he faced the prospect of Harriet awake when he returned. She was always awake when he was late and inevitably inquisitorial. He didn’t know which was worse; what had happened, or the interrogation to come.

*

‘This won’t wait, Gerry,’ Margaret said in her warning voice as soon as he arrived. ‘I think you’d better take it in now.’

He read Randall’s telegram and agreed. The day had been thrown off course before it had properly begun.