Sweet Poison (29 page)

‘You don’t remember
much
?’ said Edward. ‘Does that mean you do remember something?’

‘I remember seeing your face all big and swollen, like the moon, looking at me and saying things I could not understand.’

‘But nothing before that?’

‘I think I heard some banging downstairs but I can’t really remember,’ she said sadly.

‘You know they killed Mr Lomax, don’t you?’ said Edward brutally. He felt it was important Hermione faced up to everything that had happened if she
was
ever to recover from her ordeal.

‘Yes,’ she murmured. ‘Inspector Pride told me.’

‘Who do you think it was who killed him then?’

‘I suppose it must have been Captain Gordon, but I don’t know.’

‘Why would he have wanted to do that?’

‘Oh, Gordon had found out that Lomax was cheating him – selling stuff on his own account, you know, and keeping the profits.’

At that moment Blanche reappeared and Hermione, as though Edward had served his purpose, pushed his hand away in a petulant gesture and cried, ‘Mummy!’

Blanche went to her daughter and took her hand. As Edward slipped out of the room he saw that both women were weeping.

Verity had been summoned to a meeting with David Griffiths-Jones. Verity had been in love with David, or at least they had had a love affair, and she was still not sure whether it was all in the past. It was very difficult to know with David what he was feeling, even what he was thinking. He was always affable but it was hard to get close to him. When she had first gone to work for the
Daily Worker
she was treated with some suspicion by others on the paper including the editor, Morris Block, a grizzled survivor of the Party’s earliest days. Block had been in Russia during the October Revolution of 1917, having got to know Lenin in Switzerland before the war. He had written a book about the Revolution which had been a best-seller in both England and America and was therefore regarded with some awe by younger comrades. He had disliked Verity from the first. Her father had got her the job and he, as one of the main financial supports of the paper, could not be gainsaid, but Morris Block saw it with some justification as typical bourgeois string-pulling. He was suspicious of Verity’s father and his connections with the English legal system which he regarded as wholly corrupt.

Young comrades took their line from the editor and treated Verity with barely concealed distaste. For example, if there was any sort of celebration – a birthday, say – she would only hear about it after the event. Verity understood why there should be this suspicion and reacted by working extremely hard both on the paper and helping organize marches and conferences, taking on the boring administrative work which most comrades did their best to duck. There was an added annoyance for Block: though Verity did not wear much make-up, she attracted all male eyes and there seemed too many extra male visitors to the office when Verity was ensconced there. She made no effort to soften her clipped upper-class accent which was much parodied by her colleagues. She refused to dress down and join the dowdy women in shapeless cardigans and woollen skirts, preferring to arrive in crisp little dresses which showed off her figure or white linen two-piece suits, and she insisted on bringing Max into work with her. Though the little dog was quite happy lying peacefully at his mistress’s feet, Morris Block saw it as unserious and sentimental to bring pets into the office.

When David came into the
Daily Worker
to deliver an article on the Mosley marches in the East End of London – this was about three months after Verity had started work on the paper – he astonished and infuriated everyone, including Morris Block, by immediately taking Verity under his wing. He invited her to accompany him to several Party meetings and it was assumed that they were lovers. However, it was some weeks before they actually did begin what turned out to be a brief but very physical affair. In fact, there was a period of a month or so when Verity, who was a virgin, graduated from being terrified that he would jump on her, to the moment when she wondered what was wrong with her that he did not.

David never explained himself, never said what he was thinking, and Verity never asked him. One evening, after a particularly tiring and fruitless meeting at which comrades refused to toe the Party line, David took Verity back to his tiny flat in Notting Hill. As soon as she was inside and without so much as offering her a drink he said, ‘I think we ought to go to bed, don’t you?’

It was the first time she had seen the inside of his flat, and no one else had ever been invited back as far as she knew. She had assumed that going back with David to his eyrie was an invitation to become his lover and she suspected that if she refused to sleep with him he would never forgive her. She did not intend to refuse him. She was, after all, almost twenty and she considered it was time she lost her virginity. She admired him and was rather in awe of him. He was a glamorous figure in the Party and it was something to have been chosen by him. All this was true but it was still a shock to have sex treated as if it was as much a matter of course as going to the pictures. Despite herself, Verity was rather put out by the unromantic way in which David had at last made the proposition she had been waiting for, but she tried not to show it. She went over to the fireplace, which had been blocked in but still boasted a mantelpiece. There was nothing on it but a thick layer of dust and a small mirror. Glancing into it she saw that David was undressing. She turned and said, ‘Is this what is expected of us?’

‘I don’t care what is expected of us. I want you and you want me. Isn’t that enough? Surely you don’t expect me to go through all that bourgeois stuff – flowers, chocolates, me telling you how pretty you look in pink?’

‘No, of course not! I knew what you meant when you invited me back here.’

‘That’s all right then.’

David went on undressing but Verity still stood doodling in the dust with her finger. David was much taller than she was and as he marched over to her, naked except for a pair of socks which somehow made him seem even more naked, she grasped the mantelpiece in what David took for alarm. Though she would die rather than admit it, this was the first time she had seen a man without any clothes on and she found her eyes focusing on his groin where there nestled among thin hair as golden as that on his head an absurd piece of flesh she identified as his penis. It looked too small to do what she had been told by her schoolfellows it was supposed to do. Was he deficient in some way, she wondered?

‘I say, you do want to be my lover, don’t you?’ he said. It was the first time she had seen him even remotely unsure of himself and it made her feel better. This tiny doubt made him seem more human and therefore lovable.

‘Yes, David,’ she said and almost laughed, ‘but you will have to be patient with me. You see, I have never done this before.’

‘Oh, I see,’ he said, his face clearing. ‘Well, don’t be nervous, I’ve got one of these.’ He flourished a little packet at Verity containing, she supposed, a French letter. She knew about these but had never understood how they worked so she smiled weakly. ‘That’s good.’

They had seldom even kissed before and never like lovers so it was another surprise when he took her face in his large callused hands and kissed her on the lips. Suddenly, Verity was overcome with a swimmy sensation which made her feel she wanted to lie down.

David proved to be an efficient lover in no way lacking in what was necessary and that was a great relief. She had endured the fumblings of inexperienced youths before and had no wish to lose her virginity in some messy scramble. He had no embarrassment and seemed to approach love-making as if it were just another task the Party had set him. No, that was not fair, she considered as she helped him take off her brassiere and then her drawers. He was passionate in his way. It was just that there was something a touch clinical about how he avoided saying anything in the least romantic while he made love to her or, in fact, saying anything at all beyond the occasional grunted instruction. She did not want him to slobber over her and whisper lies in her ear but . . . he seemed unaware that she might like to hear that he at least
lusted
after her. Then there came a moment when she stopped analysing her feelings and began to relax.

When it was all over Verity was filled with gratitude. He had aroused her to a new understanding of the pleasure her body could give her. He had been gentle with her but masterful. He had made her understand why sex was so important to people and, for ever after, would be to her. She did not love him and she was quite sure he did not love her, but there was a respect and even, at least on her part, affection.

They made love many times over the next four months and Verity got to look forward to it so obviously that all her friends and certainly those she worked with noticed she was a different person – glowing with a knowledge of herself and suffused by a feeling of good will to all. Where she had been abrupt before, she was now patient. Where she had been – without meaning to be – supercilious, she was now friendly. The comrades warmed to her, and the others on the paper – with the noticeable exception of Morris Block – treated her as one of themselves. Then David disappeared without saying anything to Verity about where he was going or for how long. There was the briefest note left on her desk that she should not worry about him, which she wondered if she should interpret as meaning she should not wait for him. He did not reappear until she met him with Edward Corinth, five months later in the Parton Street bookshop.

David had appointed a Lyons Corner House in which to meet Verity and he was there sitting at a small table surrounded with tea and cakes when she arrived. It was really an absurd place to have chosen if his idea had been to be inconspicuous. Among all the ladies in their pearls and twinsets and the few men in suits and bowler hats, David stood out like a lighthouse on the Essex marshes. He was gold while they were base metal. In his grey flannels and white open-necked shirt he might have just strolled off the cricket pitch after scoring a century. Rather self-consciously, Verity took off her coat and sat herself down, noticing that David made no effort to stand up and greet her, like a gentleman. Max did not like David and growled before Verity hushed him and put him under the table. She was not quite certain if animals were allowed in a Lyons Corner House. ‘Yes, madam?’ said one of the Nippies, stopping for a moment beside their table.

‘Oh, just a cup of tea, please,’ she said, looking up at the girl, prim in her black uniform and smart little hat.

David looked at her sleepily. ‘You’re late,’ he said. ‘I suppose you have been with that boneless wonder, Corinth.’

‘I have as a matter of fact,’ said Verity defensively. ‘And Lord Weaver.’

‘That’s interesting,’ he said, sitting up in his chair. ‘What did he want?’

‘He offered me a job but I refused.’

‘You little fool,’ he exclaimed. ‘You had the opportunity of penetrating that organization and you threw it away!’

One of the reasons David so fascinated Verity was that he was always shocking her. She presumed he regarded himself as entirely logical but just as she was congratulating herself on at last understanding how his mind worked, she discovered she had got him entirely wrong.

‘Yes, I did. I’ve got principles, you know, David. I don’t know how you could expect me to work for a rag like the
New Gazette
. Anyway, what do you mean, “penetrate”? I’m not a spy.’

‘Look,’ he said, as angry as she had ever seen him, ‘you are of value to the Party only in so far as your social background and upbringing allow you to mix with people like Corinth and Weaver. The Party needs to know what is happening in the enemy’s camp. In war, information is more valuable than a regiment of soldiers. You must see that, surely!’

‘What do you mean, “war”?’ said Verity. At that moment the waitress arrived with her tea so David had to keep silent. When the girl had gone he spoke more calmly, as if he now held himself in check.

‘Verity, you have to understand that we
are
at war. In a year or five years or ten years we will be fighting with guns but for the moment this is an undeclared war, though none the less deadly for that. Fascism is the extreme and inevitable consequence of unbridled capitalism. History tells us that the time is approaching when world revolution will overturn capitalism, but the revolution will demand sacrifice and the Party, which is the tool of revolution, demands total commitment, total loyalty and total obedience. You do what you are told to do and it is not your job to question your instructions. Do you understand me?’

Verity was white with fury. Who was this man who hissed threats of violence at her? He was certainly not the David who had been her lover – who had stroked and caressed her and made her limp with longing for him. While he had been away he had changed, or someone had changed him.

‘Was this what they taught you in Moscow?’ she said suddenly, knowing the moment she uttered the words she had hit on the truth.

David looked at her for a long moment and then his expression relaxed and he smiled. ‘I’m sorry, Verity,’ he said. ‘I’ve been under rather a lot of strain recently. I shouldn’t have said what I did.’

‘No,’ said Verity coldly, ‘I’m glad you did. I understand what you want of me, David, but I don’t think I can be what you say the Party says I should be. It’s not in my nature. I shall think of myself as a loyal member of the Party still but don’t ask me to spy on my friends for you.’

‘No, of course not,’ he said, backing down. ‘I didn’t mean that. I wanted to meet to ask you how you got on at the German embassy.’

‘Oh, all right, I think. Friedberg seemed to like me but then he doesn’t know that I am a Communist. I have a nasty feeling though that some of his henchmen do. There was a Major Stille there who looked straight through me.’

‘Stille, eh?’ said David and he seemed to be reaching back in his memory to identify him. ‘What did he look like?’