The Sleeping Partner (4 page)

‘Damn,' she said. ‘ What a fool. It's only happened once ever before – more or less the same cause, I think – disturbed night, overslept and no breakfast.'

‘Stay where you are. There's no hurry.'

We were silent for a bit. While I waited I thought about thallium activated sodium iodide crystals.

She sat up and wiped her lips. ‘ Sorry to be such a fool. It won't happen again.'

‘Take your time. It could come to anyone. I remember when I was a kid …'

We were silent on the drive back to Letherton. She said: ‘Were those your two children in the photograph?'

‘What? Oh, no, they're my sister's. We haven't any children. Have you?'

‘No.'

Something made me add: ‘ When you're making bits for pilotless interceptors to hunt and destroy things with atomic war-heads, the future for the human race doesn't look specially rosy.'

She looked at me. ‘ You mean—?'

‘Well, that's unless you can look on it all as a happy little academic exercise, and I never have been able to. I don't think I want to see children of mine growing up in a world of ten or twenty years ahead.'

‘No,' she said, but doubtfully.

Near Letherton I said: ‘Are you all right now?'

‘Yes, I don't know what got into me. But as it's nearly one, d'you mind if I drop off here and I can have my lunch at home? I can be back at the usual time.'

‘Where do you live?'

‘At the cottage past those next trees. It'll save having lunch at the canteen, unless you want me back now …'

‘No …' I slowed the car. ‘Does your husband get home to lunch?'

She fumbled in the car pocket for her bag. ‘ Yes, he's always in.'

‘Oh, he'll be glad to see you, then.'

‘Yes.'

I left her there. So there was a husband at any rate. Before I'd gone a hundred yards I'd forgotten her. I knew at this stage that Thurston had ‘sold' me to Harwell in a big way over this survey equipment, and I knew that the rest was up to me. I felt reasonably confident of the outcome though pretty anxious about the time element. But it wasn't the same sort of ‘delivery date' as the last affair, where the factory itself had been concerned. This was a much more personal thing between me alone and Harwell in which maybe only one or two people would take any part. In spite of that it was likely to settle the future of Granville & Co. – not perhaps its existence but whether it did the sort of work I wanted it to do.

I
T WAS
the Tuesday after that that I'd promised to take Lynn out for the evening. We'd arranged to meet Simon Heppelwhite, the stage designer, whom Lynn had worked for before she married me and who had first introduced us. He was an old friend, leonine, lisping, larger than life, and still a technical bachelor although well on in his forties, so we never quite knew what he would bring along to make the table even.

Tonight he came with a striking young red-head called Joy Fraser. We went to Quaglino's first. The Fraser girl looked bored at the beginning as if the company was dull for her liking; and perhaps her side of it was, because Simon always made a terrific fuss of Lynn and that left me and I was thinking of the risk of over-heating in a main power unit.

However, when Simon carried Lynn off I made an effort and asked Joy Fraser to dance. She got up and drifted towards the floor with a look more of duty than of pleasure, which must have been a pretty good reflection of my own feelings. But after a bit she brightened up and said I danced well and I said so did she, and she said how old was I and I told her and she said that made me twelve years older than she was, and I said almost old enough to be her father, and she said she wasn't looking for a father. I thought that was going to end the conversation, but after a pause she said many men were still in their prime at thirty-four. So I said I still had my own teeth, and she said as it happened she had a false front one where she'd knocked it out falling downstairs a couple of years ago.

A few courses later I had another dance with her and she said: ‘Simon tells me you're practically the King-pin of Electronics. Death-rays and mechanical brains. Yippee.'

I said: ‘It's all a question of fixing the largest possible number of wires into the smallest possible box. Glorified radio factory.'

She glanced me over. ‘You don't look clever. I'd take you for a RAF officer if you were a bit sprucer.'

‘I'll brush up next time.'

‘Except for your eyes,' she said.
‘They're
queer. They're like an explorer's, as if they're used to looking long distances.'

We went round again. She certainly could dance. I wished I could solve circuiting problems this way.

She said: ‘You look to me like a man with a strong sex potential.'

‘That seems to change the subject.'

‘It just occurred to me.'

‘Well, I don't know what your standards are.'

She was silent for a bit. ‘I'm a person with a strong sex potential too. It can be very difficult at times.'

‘What times?'

She smiled past me. ‘I think you're very sweet – and rather naive.'

‘Don't be deceived by it.'

‘No, it's probably part of a defence mechanism. Are you afraid of your wife?'

‘If I said no you wouldn't believe me.'

‘That's a very intelligent remark.'

‘Does it surprise you?'

Her eyes were narrowed and slightly green in the subdued light. ‘I think Lynn's a very sweet person. D'you mind my calling her Lynn?'

‘I think it's only right for one who's on such close terms with her husband.'

She eased herself away from me a bit then. It certainly gave us both more living space.

I said: ‘What made you fall downstairs?'

‘When?'

‘When you lost your teeth.'

‘Tooth. Oh, I had a brown-out after a cocktail party. I hadn't learned how to handle things then. I was pretty young.'

‘Yes, it's nice when one gets over one's youth.'

‘Now you're laughing at me. But it's perfectly true. People grow up very quickly these days. How old is Lynn?'

‘Twenty-six.'

‘Well, I think she's sweet. Simon says she's very artistic. Are you?'

‘Anything but, I'm afraid.'

‘Perhaps you sublimate your emotions.'

‘I don't think Freud ever thought of guided missiles.'

At Quaglino's the music is non-stop so you devise your own exits. I'd noticed that Lynn and Simon had gone off the floor a few minutes ago, so I thought it was time we returned to base. In any event I was feeling the strain of being bright and young. But when we got to the table I was surprised to see Lynn looking angry. I wondered if she'd been quarrelling with Simon, but he looked as impressive and as unruffled as usual.

At about a quarter to one we left. While we were waiting for the girls to get their coats Simon Heppelwhite said:

‘I gather your factory prospers, Michael.' He was the only person who ever gave me my full name. When I didn't reply he went on: ‘It was quite a risk taking that big move so soon. Now … in ten years you'll be a millionaire. Like Nuffield. On the crest of a new industry.'

I said: ‘You know even if that weren't a wild exaggeration, it would be quite impossible these days.'

He took out a cigarette and fitted it into his long cigarette-holder. Some people going out stared at him: he was so tall. ‘Anyway, I hope that you're happy, now things have turned out so well in every way.'

It was not normal to use quite that tone. I wondered if he'd heard something about my row with Harwell.

I said: ‘ Isn't it a bit early for the epilogue?'

He smiled behind his lighter. ‘This is still Act One.'

He was about my oldest friend and I tried to think things out before I spoke. ‘I don't know how you measure up happiness; it's a pretty tall order, isn't it? I'm married to the person I care most about in the world and I'm doing the job I like best. I'm too close to know more than that. Isn't happiness a thing you have to judge at a distance? Ask me in five years' time and maybe I could answer for tonight.'

Simon took the holder from between his teeth. ‘That's over modest. And it's a depressing attitude anyhow. I think you have to claim more. Grasp it and be proud of it … Why don't you take Lynn away?'

‘Away? Where to?'

‘A holiday abroad. You both deserve it.'

‘At the moment it just isn't possible.'

He shrugged and turned back from his reflection in one of the gilt mirrors. ‘It's a question of calculating the risks, isn't it. Counting your losing tricks and— Ah, here they come.'

The girls were talking like old friends, and when they came up Lynn smiled brilliantly at me. I thought, what a hope the red-head's got, even if she wanted a hope and wasn't just being conventionally amorous.

Whichever it was, and no doubt the wine helped, by the last dance at the Coconut Grove she was clinging to me as closely as a contact lens. It was three when we left them and there was still more than an hour's drive home. Lynn and I didn't talk, I remember, for the first few miles. Like a dog to its vomit, I'd gone back to the problem of how to get rid of the power dissipated in the stabilising valves in a hermetically sealed unit. Then as the traffic lights began to thin out I said: ‘Simon puzzles me, Lynn. I wish you'd explain him to me.'

‘What needs to be explained?'

‘Well, he's such a good fellow in most ways, so full of astute common sense. Yet he has these girls … What's his relationship with them anyhow?'

‘Why do you think I should know? I wasn't ever one of them.'

‘Good God, I didn't suppose you were. But you've worked for him, you must have seen the whole thing from the inside.'

After a minute she said: ‘It suits his style, the favourite-uncle attitude, and it's good for business to be seen about with attractive women … Not that he might not go beyond that now and again, especially with a fast worker like Joy Fraser.'

I said: Talking of favourite uncles, Simon did do rather an act with me this evening, while we were waiting for you and Joy to get your coats.'

‘What did he say?' Lynn asked quickly.

‘He asked me if I was happy. It's rather a mouthful to answer outside the Ladies' Cloak Room.'

‘Oh, God, he can be so pompous.'

I said: ‘What would you have answered if he had asked you that?'

She curled down slowly into the rug like a sleepy cat, the ash blonde head drooping slightly towards my shoulder. At one time I would have put my arm round her as a normal part of life, but the strangeness of her moods these last few months made me hesitate. She was better again, much better; but still at times withdrawn, shut away.

She murmured: ‘ If I were asked now, I should say, sleepy, rather cold but getting warmer, pleasantly tired, mildly exasperated, looking forward to a cup of tea and bored with being asked silly questions.'

Before we had gone much farther she was asleep. I remember thinking to myself as I drove along, happy? Well, if I can put over this latest job …

But Lynn was right, people like Simon asked silly questions. There's nothing more to life than life. You can't get a quart measure out of a pint pot. Only saints or lunatics tried to do that, and I'd brought myself up not to believe in either.

What had Simon called it – the depressing attitude of the over-modest? I didn't feel over-modest; anything but. Sceptical perhaps. A very proper scientific scepticism. Maybe if that infiltrated into one's private affairs it would make one reluctant to make any big claims, even if all the signals suddenly went green.

I didn't realise then how long it would be before any of the signals would again be green for me.

Six or seven weeks later – a week only before Lynn left me – we had the fiasco at Glyndebourne. At the time it didn't seem as important as it did later.

I'd had a hectic few weeks. Very nearly everything possible had gone wrong with the scintillometer, but it was moving ahead pretty well at last and Glyndebourne was one of the never-miss things in our lives, so I'd arranged to slip away immediately after lunch, pick Lynn up, change and get across London to Lewes by half-past five. In the end it didn't work that way, and in spite of cutting my lunch to a cup of coffee and a sandwich, it was well after two before I left. Then because of summer traffic I couldn't make up any time on the way. At a quarter to three I drew up in the drive and found Lynn already changed and looking absolutely beautiful in a white frock with long white lace gloves that left only about six inches of rounded arm bare at the top. Her expression wasn't right for the sunny afternoon but I kissed her and told her what I thought of her looks and ran upstairs and began to drag on a dinner jacket.

At three-five we were off, and I thought we'd made up the time lost. But again I'd reckoned without the holiday traffic, and it was ten past five when we got through East Grinstead. Lynn didn't say anything, but I could see she was on wires. If you're late it means staying out until the interval.

I hogged the road to Lewes, cutting in and out among all the family eight-horsepowers. It was a lovely afternoon, and the sun beat down into the car, so that I was soon sweating and wishing I could have been in slacks and an open shirt on a beach somewhere. We made Uckfield with twelve minutes to go, and as I drove into the car park at Glyndebourne the last bell was ringing. Lynn slid out and I followed her at the double. Everybody had gone in and I thought the doors were closed, but we just scraped in as the attendant was going to shut them.

What followed is no fault of Glyndebourne. Last year I'd been there to a performance of
The Magic Flute,
and it had been like hearing it in a fourth musical dimension.