Charlie M

(4)

Charlie had seen advertised in the New Yorker the orange Gucci lounging pyjamas, with the matching rhinestoneencrusted sandals in which Janet greeted him.

She smelt fresh and expensive and when he kissed her, just inside the doorway of the Cadogan Square flat, he could feel she was still warm from her bath. It was nice of her to go to all the trouble, thought Charlie.

‘I’ve bought some wine,’ he announced.

She accepted the bag from him and extracted the bottle.

‘Lovely,’ she said. ‘Spanish burgundy.’

‘They didn’t have Aloxe Corton,’ he said. They had, but it had been priced at £4.

‘What?’ she said, moving further into the flat.

It wasn’t important, decided Charlie. ‘Nothing,’ he said.

Janet was using him, he decided, as he entered the antique-adorned living-room behind her, watching her body beneath the silk. She had a lovely ass.

Had she been born in a council house instead of on a country estate and attended a state school instead of Roedean, Janet would have been a slag, Charlie decided. She had an amorality sometimes found in the rich that made her sexually promiscuous, experimental and constantly avaricious. Rich enough – first from an aunt’s, then a cousin’s inheritance – to do nothing, Janet worked for £4,000 a year as Cuthbertson’s private secretary and never had any money. To get it, she had even whored, in a dilettante, friends-only way – ‘making a hobby pay for itself’ – and enjoyed boasting about it, imagining Charlie would be impressed or excited by it. Charlie felt she was exactly his sort of woman. And in addition, very useful. And she really was very good at her hobby between those silk sheets that always slipped off the bed, so that his bum got cold.

Quite unoffended, Charlie knew he was another experiment, like working for Sir Henry Cuthbertson, who was her godfather, and drinking warm bitter, which she had done for the first time on their initial date in the dive bar of the Red Lion, near Old Scotland Yard, and declared it, politely, to be lovely. Charlie was ‘other people’, a person to be studied like she had examined dissected frogs at her Zurich finishing school after leaving Sussex.

‘Like the duchess screwing the dustman,’ he reflected, aloud, stretching his feet towards the electric fire. They were still damp, he saw, watching the steam rise.

She reappeared from the kitchen, corkscrew in hand. She was a tall girl, hair looped long to her shoulders, bordering a face that needed only a little accent around the deep brown, languorous eyes and an outline for the lips that were inclined to pout.

‘What about a duchess?’ she queried.

‘You look like one,’ said Charlie, easily.

Who was using whom? he wondered, smiling up at her. Poor Janet.

He pulled the wine, filling the glasses she offered.

‘Love or what you will,’ he toasted.

She drank, swallowing heavily.

‘Very nice,’ she said bravely.

They had bred good manners in Switzerland, thought Charlie. He smiled, imagining Berenkov’s reaction to the wine. It was bloody awful.

‘For a man who has been demoted, you’re remarkably unconcerned,’ said Janet, sitting opposite. She wasn’t wearing a bra, he realised.

‘I told you, they’ve made a balls,’ he said. Rough talk would fit the image she wanted, he decided. He refilled his glass, ignoring her: it was unfair to expect her to drink it.

‘How?’

‘Completely misread the interview,’ he reported. ‘They have determined to get rid of me, certainly. But it won’t work this time.’

‘Cuthbertson won’t apologise,’ predicted Janet.

The fact that she was his god-daughter was incredibly useful, reflected Charlie: no one in the department knew the man like she did.

‘He’ll have to.’

She shook her head.

‘I know Sir Henry. He’s a bastard.’

‘So am I,’ responded Charlie. ‘Funny thing is, nobody has realised it. It’ll be the ruin of them.’

She smiled at the boast. It was a normal reaction, she supposed. His pride must be badly bruised: he’d once been the most important operative in the department.

‘I’ve cooked a meal, so we can eat here,’ she announced, wanting to move him away from the afternoon.

And not run the risk of being seen by any of your friends, thought Charlie. She would be very embarrassed by him, he knew. He was very happy with the proposal: there was no outing they would mutually enjoy and whatever they tried would have cost money and he didn’t have any. And she would never think of paying.

‘What happened after I left?’ asked Charlie, spreading the salmon mousse on the toast.

The girl sighed. The preoccupation was to be expected, she thought, but it made him boring.

‘They went potty,’ said Janet. ‘Wilberforce was sent to retrieve the report to the Minister, but it had already gone. So Sir Henry dictated a contradicting amendment, then scrapped it because it seemed ridiculous. When I left, he was making arrangements to dine the Minister at Lockets to explain everything.’

‘And who got the blame?’ queried Charlie.

‘Wilberforce,’ answered Janet. ‘Poor man. Uncle treats him almost like a court jester.’

‘Masochist,’ identified Charlie. ‘Gets a sexual thrill out of being tongue-lashed.’

She believed him, realised Charlie, seeing the interested look on her face. To correct the misunderstanding seemed too much bother.

He cut into the steak au poivre, sipping the wine she had provided.

‘This is good,’ he complimented.

‘Margaux,’ explained Janet, patiently. ‘Daddy takes the production of the vineyard. This is ’62.’

Charlie nodded, as if he’d recognised the vintage.

‘Where did you learn to cook like this?’

‘They thought it important at school.’

‘What have Snare and Harrison been told to do?’ he probed, insistently. She obviously hadn’t understood the wording of the Official Secrets Act she had promised to obey seven months earlier.

‘Interrogate Berenkov again.’

‘Oh Christ,’ said Charlie, putting aside his knife and fork. ‘That’s a tape I’d love to hear.’

She pushed away her plate, fingering the stem of her wine glass.

‘I’m very fond of you, Charlie,’ she announced, suddenly.

At least she didn’t make any pretence of love, he thought. He hoped she wasn’t moving to end the affair; he wasn’t ready for it to end yet. He gazed across the table, admiring her. Certainly not yet.

He waited, apprehensively.

‘What are you going to do? They’re determined to get you out,’ she said.

Charlie stopped eating, appetite gone.

‘I know,’ he said, completely serious. ‘And it frightens me to death. They won’t let me go, because they want me under observation. Or stay, because they detest me. So I’m faced with working for the next fifteen years as a poxy clerk.’

‘You couldn’t stand that, Charlie.’

‘I’ve got no bloody choice, have I? I’ve devoted my life to the service. I love it. There’s not another sodding thing I could do, even if they’d let me.’

He did love the life, he decided, adding to both their glasses. Because he was so good at it.

It had been wonderful before Cuthbertson and the army mafia had arrived, when his ability had been properly recognised.

The Director had been Sir Archibald Willoughby, who’d led paratroopers into Amhem with his batman carrying a £20 hamper from Fortnum & Mason, and Venetian goblets for the claret in special leather cases. He was cultivating Queen Elizabeth and Montana Star roses in Rye now, hating every moment of it. There’d been two written invitations to visit him since his summary retirement, but so far Charlie had avoided it. They’d drink to much whisky and become maudlin about previous operations, he knew. And there was no way they could have kept the conversation off Bill Elliot.

On the day of the purge, Elliot had been sent home early because Cuthbertson, who read spy novels, imagined he would find evidence of a traitor if he turned out every desk and safe in the department.

So the second-in-command had arrived in Pulborough three hours earlier than usual for a Tuesday to find his wife in bed with her brother.

Elliot had walked from the room without a word, gone directly to the hide at the bottom of the garden from which he had earned the reputation of one of Britain’s leading amateur ornithologists and blown the top of his head away with an army-issue Webley fired through the mouth. He had been crying and he’d made a muck of it, so it had taken two days for him to die.

The suicide had slotted neatly into Cuthbertson’s ‘who’s to blame’ mentality, despite the wife’s unashamed account to the police, and Elliot had been labelled responsible for the Warsaw and Prague débâcles. It would be nice, reflected Charlie, to prove Cuthbertson wrong about that. Like everything else.

‘Sure they wouldn’t let you retire, prematurely?’ asked Janet, breaking Charlie’s silent reminiscence.

‘Positive,’ asserted Charlie. ‘And I don’t think I’d want to. At least rotting as a clerk would mean a salary of some sort. I wouldn’t live off a reduced pension.’

‘I thought Edith had money.’

‘She’s loaded,’ confirmed Charlie. ‘But my wife is tighter than a seal’s ass-hole.’

She smiled, nodding. It really was the sort of language she expected, Charlie realised.

‘Do you know there are receipted bills at home dating back ten years. And if you asked her the amount, she could remember,’ he added.

‘Why not leave her?’

‘What for?’ challenged Charlie. ‘Would you have me move in here, a worn-out old bugger of forty-one without a bank account of his own who can only afford Spanish plonk.’

She reached across, squeezing his hand.

‘From the performance so far, you’re hardly worn out,’ contradicted Janet. ‘But no, Charlie. I wouldn’t.’

‘So I’ve got to stay, haven’t I? – tethered to a job that doesn’t want me. And at home, to a wife who’s not very interested.’

‘Poor Charlie,’ she said. She didn’t sound sad, he thought.

He gestured round the apartment, then nodded towards her.

‘All this will end, when I’m transferred, won’t it?’

‘I expect so,’ she said, always honest, looking straight at him.

‘Pity.’

‘It’s been fun,’ she said. She made it sound like a skiing lesson or a day out at Ascot when she’d picked a winner.

‘Shall we go to bed?’ he suggested.

‘That’s what you came here for.’

They took a long time with each other, exploring; like children in bicycle sheds at school, thought Charlie, biting at her thigh. Just more comfortable, that’s all.

‘Don’t. That hurts.’

‘So does what you’re doing. I can feel your teeth.’

‘Want me to stop?’

‘No.’

‘Charlie.’

‘What?’

‘Your feet are a funny brown colour.’

‘My shoes leaked. The dye won’t come off.’

‘Poor Charlie.’

Then:

‘I like what you’re doing, Charlie.’

‘Where did you learn to do that?’ he said, with difficulty.

‘At school.’

All that and cooking too, reflected Charlie. He winced, conscious of her teeth again. He should have washed his feet a second time, he told himself. She’d bathed, after all.

Charlie and his wife crossed on the following night’s ferry from Southampton, so they were in Cherbourg by 6.30 in the morning.

Charlie liked driving Edith’s Porsche, enjoying the power of machinery performing fully in the manner for which it was designed. I perform best fully extended, he thought, looking sideways at the woman as they climbed the curling road out of the French port and thinking of the previous night. Had Janet been acting her whore’s role when she’d cried, he wondered.

Edith was a handsome woman, decided Charlie, as she smiled back at him. She had wound the window down, so that her naturally blonde hair tangled in the wind. She was definitely very lovely, he thought, her face almost unlined and no sag to the skin around her throat. He was very lucky to have her as a wife.

They stopped at Caen to look around the war museum and still easily reached Paris by noon. While Edith sipped kir on the pavement outside Fouquet’s, Charlie telephoned their lunch reservation.

They ate at the Tour d’Argent, fond of the view across the Quai de la Tournelle to the Notre Dame. With the filet de sole cardinale, Charlie ordered Corton Charlemagne and then — ‘we’re on holiday, after all’ — a half bottle of Louis Roederer with the soufflé vallesse, which he later agreed was an ostentatious mistake.

‘You enjoy spending money, don’t you, Charlie?’ she said, as they unpacked at the Métropole-Opéra.

‘Do you begrudge it?’ he asked, immediately.

‘You know I don’t,’ she said, quickly, frightened of offending him. ‘But I saw the bill. It was over £50.’

‘But worth it,’ he defended.

He sat watching her change, enjoying her body. She was very well preserved, he thought, admiringly. Her waist was bubbled only slightly over the panty girdle, which he didn’t think she needed anyway, and her legs were firm and unveined. Her full breasts fell forward as she unclipped her bra and she became conscious of his attention, covering herself like a surprised schoolgirl.

‘What are you looking at?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Don’t,’ she protested, emptily, pleased at the attention. She loved him very much and it frightened her sometimes.

Janet liked him admiring her body, Charlie compared, even insisting they made love with the light on. Edith always wanted it dark. Women were funny, he thought: his wife had much the better body. She should learn to be proud of it, not shy.

Edith was a comfortable women to be with, he decided, the sort you didn’t have to talk to all the time. With Janet three minutes of silence was construed either as boredom or boring so there was always a frenzy of meaningless chatter, like annoying insects on a summer’s picnic. He definitely preferred Edith, he decided. They were friends, more than lovers, he thought. But very much lovers; Edith had a remarkable appetite for a woman of forty.

She backed towards him, the zip of her dress undone.

‘Do me up.’

‘Why don’t we undo it?’

‘There isn’t time.’

‘For what?’

‘Don’t muck about, Charlie. Tonight.’

He fastened the dress: she didn’t bulge it anywhere, he saw.

He gave every indication of loving her, she thought, patting her hair into place before the dressing table.

‘Promise me something, Charlie,’ she said, crossing the room to him and placing her hands upon his shoulders. She was very serious, he realised. Her eyes were quite wet.

‘What?’

‘You won’t leave me because of this office business, will you?’

‘You know I won’t,’ chided Charlie. ‘I’ve told you not to worry.’

‘I can’t help it,’ said Edith, who ten years earlier had occupied the position that Janet now held as secretary to Sir Archibald Willoughby. Charlie had told her in detail of his treatment since Cuthbertson’s arrival.

He stood up, coming level with her.

‘I love you, Edith,’ he insisted, putting his hands round her waist. ‘I promise you that everything will work out. They’re bloody fools.’

‘They can’t be as stupid as you think.’

‘You wouldn’t believe it!’

He kissed her, very softly, and she clung to him, head deep into his shoulder.

‘I’m so worried about you, Charlie.’

He stroked her neck, lips against her hair.

‘I’m a survivor, Edith. Don’t forget that. I always have been.’

She shook her head, dismissing the assurance.

‘Not this time, Charlie.’

‘We’ll see, darling. We’ll see.’

Edith had allotted £100 a day for their holiday and Charlie drove eastwards from Paris the following morning £ 10 under budget, which pleased her.

Financial security meant everything to Edith, he knew, as it always had to her family. She couldn’t temper her attitude, despite what had happened to her father. He had been a bank manager in Reigate, a respected Freemason, church deacon and treasurer to the local Rotary Club. And he’d embezzled £600 to cover stupidly incurred gambling debts he was too proud to ask his rich wife to settle, shocking her and Edith by the knowledge that he feared their contempt and attitude to money more than the ignominy of a jail sentence.

Edith had never forgotten the barrier that money had created between her parents and tried desperately to avoid it arising between her and Charlie. She was terrified that she was failing.

Charlie had planned the holiday with care, determined they should enjoy themselves. In Reims, they stayed at La Paix but ate at Le Florence, on the Boulevard Foch, dining off pâté de canard truffé and langoustine au ratafia, drinking the house-recommended Maureuil. The next day, Charlie drove hard, wanting to reach the German border by the evening. They stayed in Sarreguemines, where Charlie remembered the Rôtisserie Ducs de Lorraine on Rue Chamborand from an operation eight years earlier.

‘The duck is as good as it ever was,’ he declared at the table that night.

‘I wish we could stay in France,’ said Edith, almost to herself.

‘I thought you were looking forward to seeing Austria and Germany in the autumn.’

‘I was,’ she agreed. ‘But not any more. Not now.’

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

‘You do love me, don’t you, Charlie?’

‘Yes, Edith,’ he answered, holding her eyes.

‘I know I’m inclined to keep a pretty close check on money,’ she said, looking down into her wine glass and embarking upon a familiar path. ‘But I can’t help it: it’s bred into me. But I regard it as our money, Charlie. Not just mine. Spend all of it, if you want to.’

He waited.

‘I mean, it wouldn’t matter if you were downgraded … we wouldn’t starve or anything. And it would be safer, after all.’

‘I’ll have Cuthbertson begging me for help,’ predicted Charlie. ‘And it’ll be my money that supports us.’

Why, thought the woman sadly, did he have to have that bloody grammar-school pride. Just like her damned father.