The Longest Pleasure (8 page)

'No.' She dra
nk some vodka, sat beside him on
the bed, took his face between her hands, kissed him on the mouth. Her lips parted his, her tongue counted his teeth.

'Are you ready now?'

‘No,' he li
ed.

She smiled, stroked his cheek, ran her fingers into the meadow. 'I am glad. I hate men who are in a hurry, who Want to push it in and then hurry away again. Why do so many men wish to do that, Ivan ?'

'Perhaps because they are afraid they will not be able to.' He unbuckled his belt 'And I would prefer you to call me Alexander.'

'Alexander,' she said. 'My name is Irena. But they will have told you that' 'I knew your name already.'

'Then I am famous. Let me do that for you.' Her fingers unfastened his buttons, took off the jacket. She knelt before him to remove his boots.

'And is it just experience that makes you better than the others?'

She stroked his bare feet, her head on one side, ran her hands up his legs. 'I do not fake. I do not have to.'

'Never?'

She shrugged hair from her eyes. 'I can climax by just thinking about it. I will show you just now, if you wish. You can feel my pulse.' She eased his pants down his legs, carefully folded them and laid them across the chair.

'And that is not bad for business ?' ' She smiled. 'That is a myth, Comrade Sandor.' She took off his underpants as a man might undress a girl, starting at his shoulders, dragging her hands down his flesh, caressing buttocks and thighs and calves all in the one continuous movement. 'That a girl must love a man who can give her an orgasm? That is childish. I give myself orgasm. So I love myself. That is more logical. And as the first time for most people is masturbation, so we all love ourselves the best. That is a natural law. I would say you are ready now.'

He lay down. 'Is there a time limit?'

She stooped to kiss him, refilled his glass, lay beside him, propped on her elbow, one knee up. You are a spendthrift, Alexander. You pay for as long as you take. But most of them are in and out, like I said, and then they wish to hurry away again.'

'I am not extravagant, Irena. But I like to get my money's worth.'

'Just by lying there?' Her fingers moved over his back, stroked the ridges of scar tissue. You must have been near death.'

'My own grenade. Here in Budapest.'

'She frowned, looked
at
his face for a long moment. ‘D
o you know you have not touched
me?
You can still change your mind.'

Galitsin placed his finger on the tip of her chin and moved
it
upwards, slowly, along the line of her jaw, over her temple, and into her hair. 'There is time.'

She laughed. 'I know what we will do. We will lie here beside each other and think it out.'

'I would enjoy that,' Galitsin said.
‘I
would enjoy that very much, Irena Szen.'

Nancy Connaught sat in the farthest comer of the bar, gave
a
sigh. She wore
a
blue woollen suit which clashed agreeably with the crimson plush and also set off her hair, but which she regretted, and a floppy white hat, which had been useful in Bond Street 'Isn't this the hottest October on record or something?'

'It is very pleasant, Miss Connaught,' the waiter agreed. 'It makes up for the snow and ice of August.'

‘I
read about that,' she said. 'The weather's all ups
-a-
daisy, isn't it? Don't tell me. It's the bomb.'

'So they say, miss. So they do say. Old Crow? With ice?'

"Right the first time,' she agreed. 'I'm expecting Major Shirley.'

She lit a cigarette. London was home, now. Jacksonville was a million miles away, and whenever she went back to New York she felt a stranger. But after five years she thought she knew the British. She didn't, of course. Nobody ever knew the British. But by
feeling
that she did she gave her articles that much more conviction, for her American readers. And now she was going to be half British herself. She felt she needed another bourbon, looked up, and discovered Alan Shirley, smiling and blushing.

His appearance never aged, even to the extent of adding to the considerable weight he had always carried, although he did not seem to diet. And he always blushed when first they met after any separation at all, even a weekend. Because he was
very
British, and had once proposed to her. She had asked him why, as bed had never really become
a
subject between them.

And he had shrugged, and said, 'Well, we both have red hair.'

'Mine's darker than yours,' she had pointed out. But she liked Alan a great deal. And always would. She tilted her head back, allowed him to kiss her on the forehead, took off her glasses. 'Hi!'

'And the same to you. You're looking very cool.'

‘
Well, I'm melting. Johnny. A Walker Black and another of these.'

'Right away, Miss Connaught.'

'He looks after me,' she said.
‘I
like him. But I like everyone today. Alan! You're going to be the first to know. I've been and gone and done it.'

He gave
a
startled glance at her empty left hand. 'Why tell me?'

'Oh, not that, silly. I've bought
a
house. Well,
a
cottage, really. Don't laugh. It's in
a
place called Lyme Regis. Practically.'-

'Very pleasant spot.'

'It's a dream. Mind you, this place, well, it's
a
derelict coastguard cottage, or something. You know the sort of thing.
It
needs a few repairs. There's a hole in the roof.'

'You've been had, darling.'

'So maybe I was swindled, just a little. It's what I want, Of course, I'll have to put in heating, and there's a new upstairs floor to come, and, you'll never believe this, but it doesn't have a bathroom.'

'I wouldn't believe anything else. When are you going to let me see it?'

'We can drive down tomorrow, if you like.'

'I'll take a rain-check.'

Nancy replaced her glasses on her nose, lit
a
cigarette. 'Can't leave London, eh? Just what are you cooking up? And with the Frogs, to
o. You make a dangerous combina
tion.'

'I wish I knew where you-got your information.'

'I have big ears.' But she was suddenly serious. 'Al! There's nothing
big,
I hope. It's too soon after the last one.'

'Listen, darling, I came here to pump you, not to be pumped.'

'So shoot.' She drank whisky.

'How was Moscow?'

'Very nice. I mean it Old-fashioned, but nice. Even the people are nice. The people in the street, anyway. I'm reserving judgement on the Kruschev crowd. There's something brewing there, too. Or maybe now they've sort of taken the lid off they're worrying about not being able to stick it back on again. Poland bothers them, and they don't like to talk about Ulbricht's problems. And lots of them will say, privately, that snuggling up to Tito isn't a good idea. Any use?'

'Perhaps more than you know, if you really think they have a full plate at the moment. But you enjoyed yourself.'

'I was the complete tourist. Really and truly. I went to Lenin's tomb.'

'You
queued for two hours to look at a wax model?'

'Well, I didn't, actually. The Intourist boys took me to the head of the line. And I'm not sure he
is
a wax model, any more.
It
was impressive in there. Those characters really worship that guy.'

'Necrophilia leaves me cold.'

'And then, let's see, oh, I went to the art museum. The most dreadful stuff you could ever imagine. Real schoolboy daubs. But one or two war scenes were pretty terrifying. Crude, but you could catch the emotion. And they still feel that way.'

'I never showed you my collection of Beardsley sketches, did
I?
You must come up and see them some time.'

'I'd simply adore to, really. Or, better yet, you can bring them down to the cottage when you come. And I went to the Puppet Theatre. That's quite clever.'

'And to the Bolshoi, of course.'

'As a matter of fact, no. The big guns were touring, or something. I went to the Central Concert Hall, though. You'll never guess why.'

'Liberace was on.'

'I covered a chess championship. It's the big thing in Russia.'

'So I've heard. I thought you were supposed to be on holiday?'

'I thought
it
would be a good idea to cover something typically Russian, and you can't get more typical than
a
chess tournament. This was the Red Army Championship. I'll admit I thought it was more important than it turned out. Still, I had a word with the eventual winner. What was his name, now? A. P. Galitsin. He was a captain.'

'Galitsin, Galitsin, Galitsin. That rings a tiny bell somewhere.'

'He's a war hero. Bit of a squarehead, if you know what I mean. All Russian soldiers look like squareheads to me. It's the haircut.'

'Galitsin.' Shirley signalled the waiter. 'I'll look him up.'

*Do you really make
a
note of everyone you meet?'

'It's my job.'

‘I’
d love to read what you put about me.' 'Then I'll try to remember. Useful contact, certainly, if sometimes a bit vague.' 'Nothing personal?'

'As Americans go, quite tolerable. As journalists go, almost tolerable. As American women journalists go, I can't think of one I'd rather fall out of an aircraft with. Even tolerably easy on the eye, if a bit top heavy.'

'Oh, you are a lovely man. They're real, you know. They just growed.'

'And growed, and growed, and growed. Those to whom the Lord hath dispensed goodness should learn to share. I've just remembered about Galitsin. He saved my life once, in a roundabout sort of way.'

'Never.'

'Fact. He took on a tank which seemed interested in blowing up the building in which I, and most of his unit, were prudently hiding under tables. That's what he got his decoration for, I fancy. Funny thing, he had an English mother. Correction. He wouldn't appreciate that She was Scottish.'

'Don't tell me he speaks English?'

"Very well, as I remember.'

The louse. There was I, spluttering away through an interpreter
...'

'Deep, some of these Russians. Particularly the ones who play chess.'

‘I
would never have suspected depths in
him.
But it would have added a bit to the story. He was off to join his regiment, back in Hungary, of all places.'

'Is that so?' Shirley frowned. 'I wish him joy of it'

IV

The alarm jangled into Irena's consciousness. She flung out an arm, knocked the clock from the table to the floor, where it continued to clang away. Irena put her pillow over her head. She hated waking up at the best of times, seldom left her bed much before noon.

But today was special. By opening one eye she could see the telegram propped against the bedside lamp, summoning her to wakefulness. She dropped her legs over the side of the bed, remained kneeling, as if praying, her arms and her hair scattered across the sheet. She thought about Sandor. Why? she wondered. Why did she allow herself? Because it could not be true. She was not sure that she wanted it to be true. To women like Irena Szen, people like Sandor Galitsin did not happen. But he
had
happened once before. It was not impossible for him to happen again.

As for the why, she understood this too. And this she was not prepared to consider. Only a fool would do that, and Irena Szen, whatever people thought of her, was no fool.

She dragged herself to her feet, splashed water into the basin, washed her face, cleaned her teeth, took a pair of stockings from the line hanging above the stove, sat on the bed again, surveyed the room, made gloomy by the shadow of the building next door lying across her one window, made shabby by the scuffed linoleum on the floor, the rusting iron bedstead, overladen with the smell of
woman
which always lingers in the absence of regular fresh air.