Pantheon

Chapter Twenty-eight

‘We ought to stop and get something to eat,’ Dorothy said. When he hesitated, she added, ‘As a purely practical necessity.’

He was indeed exhausted and hungry too. Though sitting down for a meal seemed an indulgent act with Florence and Harry missing, he nodded his acceptance. ‘Good. I know a little place just a few blocks from here.’

She took him to a restaurant off Wall Street, where she gestured at a table outdoors. He had not eaten outside since Madrid three years earlier; he recoiled from the idea of doing so now, with someone other than Florence, particularly a young and, it had to be admitted, pretty woman. So he moved inside, where he instantly saw a set of newspapers spread out on a table, each one attached to a wooden pole, like those kept in a public library. He jostled aside a couple waiting to be seated and all but fell on the papers, scanning them for word from home.

They were from across the United States, almost all yesterday’s rather than today’s. He started with the Chicago Tribune and its headline: ‘Leading Congressman brands Roosevelt a “warmonger”.’ He read the first few paragraphs, which were plainly slanted in favour of the congressman and against the President. Was this what people here were thinking, that to come to Britain’s defence against the bloody Nazi menace amounted to ‘warmongery’? He could feel the bile rising in his throat. He shoved the paper aside, searching for some word on the war itself. He flicked through the Boston Globe, eventually finding, on page four, a story headlined ‘Stoic Britons gird themselves for invasion’. It was accompanied by a photograph of the ‘Home Guard’, the renamed Local Defence Volunteers that James had seen parading in the college quad, under the command of Bernard Grey. He wanted to weep for his country: weeks, if not days, away from Nazi conquest, with only a few feeble geriatrics to protect her. And America, her young, strong child, standing aside, refusing to help.

Dorothy ordered a bottle of wine and James didn’t bother to object. He drank more than he ate, listlessly turning over the steak that had been laid before him. As the sky outside turned a deep red, then indigo and finally fell into darkness, she tried to get him to discuss what they had learned, to speculate and theorize about George Lund and the secret fraternity of the Wolf’s Head Society, but he was sick at heart and could barely respond.

She tried a different tack. ‘So how long have you been married?’

‘It will be four years this winter.’

‘She as smart as you?’

‘Smarter.’

Dorothy whistled. ‘And what is she smart about?’

‘Her subject is biology.’

‘I bet it is.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Scratch that. You fall in love right away or she play hard to get?’ She lit a cigarette. ‘Or maybe you played hard to get? I could see you doing that. You’re the type.’

Without meaning to, James found himself telling the story — of the People’s Olympiad in Barcelona, of the outdoor swimming practice, of his confusion over Florence’s departure for Berlin. Dorothy nodded in the right places, asked the right questions. Not that he needed prompting. Once he started he found it hard to stop. He could hear his own voice, calmer and quieter as he talked about his wife and their life together. He found it comforting, as if the next best thing to speaking to Florence were speaking about her.

‘And you left Spain in thirty-nine, right?’

‘No, we left in thirty-seven.’

‘Why’s that? You lose faith?’

‘No. Not at all.’

‘Why then?’

‘I’d rather not talk about it.’

‘Oh, you never say that to a reporter, Dr Zennor.’ She lightly smacked his hand, the touch of her skin sending a current through him. ‘That just makes us more interested. Or in my case, intrigued. ’

‘What intrigues you exactly, Miss Lake?’

‘You, exactly, Dr Zennor.’

Feeling uncomfortable, he shifted the subject back to Florence, like a man returning to the warm part of the bed. He found himself describing her — her height, the muscles of her back, her posture. He was speaking about her athletic accomplishments, how she had trained for the Olympics, but the effect on him was more direct than that. Not for the first time, the physical memory of his wife recalled his desire for her. He had a memory of her stepping out of the shower, her skin glistening, the shape of her visible under the towel and how, when she spotted him gazing at her, she let the towel fall to the floor…

‘So what went wrong, Dr Zee?’ Dorothy Lake lit another cigarette, dipping her head to meet the lighter, so that James caught the scent of her hair. That too sent a charge through him, one that somehow combined with the yearning he felt for his wife, the longing for her touch, to produce an effect that confused him. He pushed away the sensation by trying to address her question.

‘You’d have to ask Florence.’

‘What would she say if I did?’

‘That I became unbearable. And that she feared for our child.’

‘Why?’

‘Because of the war.’ James, now smoking too, inhaled deeply. ‘And because of me.’

‘You? You didn’t hurt the baby, did you?’ For once the alarm was genuine, a look that made James wonder if this was Dorothy Lake’s real face, if the rest of the time she was posing.

‘Never deliberately.’ He saw Dorothy’s reaction. ‘I never hit him, for Christ’s sake! There was an accident with a boiling kettle. A near-miss. Nothing happened. But it could have.’

‘And you blame yourself?’

‘I deserve the blame.’

‘You’re very hard on yourself, do you know that? I’ve noticed that about you. It’s very unusual in a man.’

James looked up at her, with a faint smile. ‘How old are you, Miss Lake?’

‘I’m twenty-one.’

‘And yet you know all about men.’

‘I know plenty.’

‘Yes? And why’s that?’

‘Same way a birdwatcher knows about birds. I pay attention.’ She held his gaze after she spoke, lifting the cigarette to her lips, letting her eyes close for a fleeting moment as she sucked on it and inhaled, then looking at him again. In the end, it was he who broke the contact.

‘So what’s your story going to say then?’

‘I don’t think I have enough to go on yet. We need to find out more. The wife didn’t give us much, did she?’

‘No.’ He decided not to mention the widow’s impassioned, urgent final message.

‘Other than that she doesn’t believe Lund committed suicide.’

James sat back. ‘How do you know that?’ He pictured Lake on the other side of the closed door, her ear pressed to the wood, hearing Margaret Lund’s warning.

Not for my sake. For yours.

Dorothy took a sip of wine, licking her lower lip afterwards like a cat. ‘Oh, sometimes you just know, don’t you? Call it woman’s intuition.’ She briefly touched his hand as she said that, her fingers as cool as they had been when they had shaken on their deal all those hours ago.

‘It’s a lovely evening,’ she said as they headed outside. ‘I’m going to walk a bit. Care to join me?’

James looked at her — this young woman who knew how to get a man to talk and how to listen, whose hair was a perfect, lustrous honey-blonde, who through the cloud of cigarette smoke still managed to smell so alluring — and settled on his answer. ‘I’m tired, Miss Lake. I enjoyed our dinner very much, but I’m going to turn in.’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’ll walk you back to the Club.’

The stroll was short, but seemed to take an age. His chest seemed to be crackling with a kind of static energy; he was breathing unevenly. Neither of them said a word.

At last they were at number four hundred and fifty-nine. He was about to knock on the door when he felt her hand on his arm. She guided him round so that they faced each other.

‘Good night, my handsome Englishman,’ she said, and she moved her face close to his. He could have moved at that moment, but he did not and, an instant later, he felt her lips touch his. Lightly, the slightest brush of her mouth, but the taste — of the wine, of her lips — was strong. Combined with the smell of her perfume, the freshness of her skin, it was intoxicating. One second became another and another, until he felt the first tiny touch of her tongue.

Suddenly, and without conscious volition, he sprung away from her, appalled. Reaching in his pocket for the key Walters had given him, he pivoted and opened the door of the Elizabethan Club, mumbling, ‘I really am dreadfully sorry. Good night.’ He stepped inside, shutting the door loudly behind him.

He pressed his head hard against the wall. What had he just done? What the hell had he just done? Florence’s last message to him, delivered twice, had been a declaration of love — and how had he rewarded her? By embracing an American girl, a perfect stranger. Kissing her…

But he had broken away, he told himself. He had resisted. But not straight away. He had held that kiss for at least a second or two; he had not rejected it immediately. No wonder Florence had left him. He was a loathsome rat, unworthy of her love. He lifted his head and let it fall against the wall and then did it again, harder this time. How could he have done such a thing?

‘I’m sorry to disturb you, sir.’

Immersed in guilt and self-disgust, James had not heard the butler approach.

‘It’s just I thought you’d want to know.’

‘Know what, Walters?’ James tried to compose himself.

‘That a lady came here looking for you today. An English lady — with a little boy.’