The Lost American

Chapter Six

Brinkman was pleased with his initial success but not complacent about it; indeed, with the proper reflection he was actually prepared to accept an element of luck. A very small element. He accepted, too, that improperly created foundations could be washed away in the first rain-storm; and he hadn’t gone as far as creating proper foundations yet, just a minimum impression in London and a minimum impression within his own embassy. The first layer, then. It was essential to build up, to withstand gales as well as rain. Brinkman calculated it precisely, practically with stopwatch finesse, arranging the lunch with Harrison the day he was later to eat with Blair, so that if there were any later comparisons – he didn’t, after all, know just how close the two were – he would be shown to have been scrupulously honest. Brinkman slotted himself into the second place throughout their conversation, as he had at the embassy, when they were conducting business, not socialising, referring in almost an aside to their conversation that day and offering the information about the chartering, as if he were unaware of its dramatic significance. Brinkman admired Harrison’s professional reaction – or rather lack of it – enjoying the encounter he was dominating from an apparently secondary role. It quickly became an exercise in comparative tradecraft, Harrison pecking until he considered he had enough and then withdrawing into some inconsequential small talk to digest the gathered forage and Brinkman setting out the meal, hors d’oeuvre at a time, not wanting the man to glut himself and realise how he was being spoonfed. The encounter ended with invitations – more fulsome than before – to further social gatherings and Brinkman’s vague acceptance, still appearing an over-awed new arrival grateful for the advice from someone more experienced; someone who might – indeed would – more eagerly next time make an approach and drop the hints, confident now of an ingenuous playback.

Brinkman went to the Blairs bearing gifts. Remembering her apparent interest in clothes, in contradiction to her husband, he had freighted from London editions of Vogue and Harpers and the Harrods catalogue – although not quite the current ones, which would have shown he was trying – and apologised for his presumption when he arrived but explained he’d brought them from London and read them and thought perhaps she might be interested. Blair’s gift could wait until later. Ann thanked him sincerely, appreciating the thought and Blair, the cosseting husband, thanked him too, while he was pouring the drinks with Ann in the kitchen, finishing the meal, as grateful as his wife for the consideration. Sharon Berring arrived within fifteen minutes and Brinkman acknowledged the liaison between the Blairs and the Harrisons. He was midly amused, not offended, correctly recognising the effort to which they had gone.

The Canadian economist was more relaxed with him the second time, actually offering stories of her own, some of which were genuinely funny. Brinkman’s newness still enabled him to have anecdotes he hadn’t recounted at the Harrisons’ – enjoying Sharon’s laughter – but he was brought short when he began to talk about university life at Cambridge and Ann cut across him.

‘You were at Cambridge!’

Brinkman nodded, ‘Kings,’ he said.

‘Girton,’ she said, matching colleges like playing cards.

Ann became animated at the link, even more excited when she realised that despite their different periods at the university they had shared three common tutors. The discovery was fortunate, because it further enabled Brinkman to include Blair and Sharon in the conversation, recalling fresh stories about academics he and Ann knew which were amusing, despite their being strangers to the American and the Canadian. Brinkman studied Ann as they talked, aware now of the similarities. The appearance at the Ingrams’ farewell party had been misleading. The blouse was fuller and the skirt longer and although she had taken it off now, during the preparation and the serving, she’d been wearing a shawl around her shoulders when he first arrived. She wore flat-heeled, pump-type shoes, too, like everything else about her the appearance he remembered about the undergraduate style that was emerging just about the time he was leaving the university. It didn’t end with the clothes. The walls of the Blair apartment were draped with carpets – even a shawl in a small alcove – and there were miniature icons and miniature samovars and at least three sets that he could see of matroyshka, the traditional Russian doll, one of which lifts from a replica of the other until a whole family is disclosed. Like a dozen university rooms into which he’d been, festooned with the adventures of foreign explorations. He talked on, the words prepared and easy, his mind quite able to consider something else. He’d been passingly aware of the age difference between Blair and his wife at the Ingram party but closer, his attention undivided, Brinkman considered it again. Blair was in good shape and his size further diminished any difference between them, but there was one, Brinkman recognised. Ten years: maybe longer. The indication wasn’t so much in their physical appearance but in Blair’s attitude towards Ann, the arm-around-the-shoulder protectiveness of which Brinkman had been conscious at the first meeting. It betrayed the newness of the relationship, a period before they had had time to come properly to know each other – like couples know each other in the fullness of years – so that it was, instead, a time of proud possession, like the icons on the wall and the rings on the fingers were possessions. How, wondered Brinkman, had a cowboy-booted Texan – and he’d bet a week’s salary a paid-up Republican – become involved with a shawl-wearing English girl who he’d bet another week’s salary had chanted in crocodile outside the American embassy in Grosvenor Square in protest against the Vietnam war? None of his business, recognised Brinkman. His business was an unimpeded, unobstructed career, not the unnecessary and unimportant intimacies of someone else’s affairs. Unless those affairs affected that career.

Sharon maintained her part of the conversation, her genuinely amusing conversation disclosing a considerable ability as a mimic and mostly about people whom the Blairs knew among the Western community in Moscow. Although they were unknown to him, Brinkman responded politely, deciding she was a pleasant dinner table companion.

Blair was a generous host, another bottle of wine opened and available when the previous one was only half empty and Brinkman quickly appreciated the way to avoid his glass being constantly topped up was not to make room in the first place. By the time the meal ended he thought both Sharon and Blair were drunk, although Ann appeared to be in better control.

Sharon unsteadily helped the other woman clear the table while Blair poured brandy, a brief moment when they were alone.

‘Maybe we should get together soon, by ourselves?’ offered Blair.

‘I’d like that,’ said Brinkman. Had Ingram openly asked the American to protect him? It was unlikely but not unthinkable. Brinkman hoped not.

‘When are you free?’

‘Any time,’ said Brinkman, generously. How could he manoeuvre the conversation to introduce the wheat discovery? He wanted to show the intelligence to be his calculation, which meant it had to be tonight; tomorrow Harrison would be bustling between the Canadian mission on Starokonyushennyr and the United States embassy at Chaykovskovo, eager to impart it as his revelation.

‘What about Thursday?’

‘Thursday’s fine,’ accepted Brinkman.

‘You haven’t been to our embassy yet?’

‘No.’

‘The cafeteria is never going to make the Guide Michelin but occasionally it has its moments.’

‘Sounds fine,’ accepted Brinkman. Seeing the opportunity, he said, ‘Just call, if anything comes up.’

‘Of course,’ said Blair. ‘Can’t imagine anything will though; it all looks pretty quiet at the moment.’

‘I’m not so sure,’ lured Brinkman.

‘Why not?’ demanded Blair at once. The man’s head came up and the relaxation seemed to go from throughout the large body and Brinkman thought that even if Blair were as drunk as he suspected him of being the man had an impressive ability to recover, practically before one’s eyes.

Brinkman told him, not in a chronological disclosure of facts but disjointedly, the way he had recounted it earlier to Harrison, wanting neither man to imagine he had done better than them but rather that he was testing out his impressions and theories. Blair listened expressionlessly and seemingly sleepy-eyed and at the end said, laconically, ‘Interesting: certainly worth thinking about.’

Brinkman knew that the American was doing more than just thinking about it: just as he knew that after he left tonight Blair would take advantage of the time difference between Moscow and Washington and go back to the embassy and send a report. Which meant Ottawa and Washington would hear of things within a time frame which for all intents and purposes was simultaneous and that London – because of their advance knowledge – would be able to offer confirmatory help as soon as the requests came from both capitals. And that Blair and Harrison would be grateful to him. Which is how Brinkman wanted it to be. And wouldn’t hold back from helping him in the future. Which was also how Brinkman wanted it to be.

The coffee was good – imported – and the brandy, too, but Brinkman was conscious of Blair’s impatience. Conscious too, that the American Resident had stopped drinking. To make it easy for the man, Brinkman excused himself, refusing Ann’s insistence upon another coffee or another drink, agreeing to another meeting soon, because there was so much about Cambridge they hadn’t talked about. Brinkman escorted Sharon home again and once more refused her invitation to a final nightcap, risking offence this time by not even pleading pressure of work. He thought she was an amusing girl and an intelligent, witty companion. But he thought she might also become an encumbrance, imagining something more than properly existed in a casual, one-night stand. And Brinkman didn’t want any sort of encumbrance.

Back at the Blairs’ apartment Ann looked bemused at her husband’s announcement that he had to return to the embassy. ‘What for?’

‘Something’s come up.’

She looked at the telephone and then back to him. ‘Nobody called.’

‘Something I forgot to do today: just remembered.’

While the agreement was no secrets in their personal relationships she accepted because of what he did that his work was sacrosanct. It was just that it had never happened this way before. ‘How long?’ she said.

‘Not long,’ he promised. ‘Just a cable to send.’

‘Hurry back.’

‘Sure.’

She tried to remain awake, actually taking another brandy she didn’t want and staying up for an hour. Then she went to bed, intending to wait there but it didn’t work and she fell asleep, so deeply that she wasn’t aware of his return or of his easing in beside her. He could only make out the vaguest outline in the darkness, the jut of her chin and her nose and the bulge of her breasts, rising and falling rhythmically in the darkness. He loved her so much, Blair thought; so very much. Everything that had happened was worth it, to have Ann as his wife, he determined. Just as he determined they would always stay together.

‘How heavy?’ asked the embassy doctor, bent over her case notes.

‘Very heavy,’ insisted Ann determinedly. ‘I’ve flooded, for the last three months.’

He looked up at her. ‘There’s no indication of any blood pressure.’

‘Need there be?’ she asked. She knew the answer, because she had already checked.

‘Not necessarily,’ conceded the doctor. ‘If you’re going to stop using the pill, what are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. Become pregnant, I hope, she thought.

‘What about a coil?’

‘I tried it in England,’ lied Ann. ‘It hurt: it was always uncomfortable’.

‘A diaphragm then?’

‘I’ve never used one.’

‘It’s your responsibility,’ warned the man. ‘You’ve got to remember to use it.’

‘All right,’ said Ann.

‘You sure about the pill?’ said the doctor, still doubtful.

‘Quite sure,’ said Ann.