Dream of Darkness, page 15
The wind from the east had been tossing handfuls of rain around the station platform, but the train soon rattled them out of it into a more temperate zone of high, ragged cloud which pied the fields with evening sunlight, and eventually deposited them in the close muggy city, whose bronze air vibrated with the threat of thunder. It felt more like a journey halfway round the world than a trip of fifty miles.
They got a taxi at Liverpool Street. It was rush hour. The storm was breaking now and the lurid light made the people scurrying along the pavements look as if they were fleeing the Last Trump rather than the first raindrops. As they drove up Cheapside, a vein of lightning varicosed lazily across the sky beyond St Paul’s dome, and the grumbling thunder at last exploded in anger. A few moments later, Vita rapped on the glass partition and said, ‘I get off here.’
She got out, handed the driver some money, said to Sairey, ‘I’ve paid all the way to Masham Square. See you in the morning, probably,’ then started across the road. It was a typical Vita parting, swift and economical.
The taxi started to edge into the traffic again.
Sairey said, ‘Wait.’ She was into impulse time once more. She pushed open the door and stepped out. Three other people immediately converged on the cab and began to dispute the primacy, while Sairey dodged through the traffic across the road. She thought she’d lost Vita, then glimpsed her about fifty yards ahead, up a less crowded side street. Sairey followed, hugging the wall to avoid both detection and the rain. She needn’t have worried about the first. Without the hint of a backward glance, Vita turned into a building and vanished from view. As Sairey approached, a taxi passed her, slowing down. It stopped about thirty feet ahead and a man got out. He was short-legged, bulky and apparently as indifferent to the rain as the animal he resembled. It was Archbell, and Sairey pressed into a doorway as if she were, indeed, a rambler who’d stumbled upon a bear unawares.
He paid the driver. Then a woman leaned out of the passenger window and addressed him. If Archbell were a bear, this was a gazelle. It was Fanny, her stepmother.
Sairey felt neither shock nor anger, and hardly even curiosity. She merely watched as Fanny handed Archbell a broad white envelope, which he stuffed negligently into his jacket pocket before bending down to grip her chin in his pawlike hand and kiss her full on the lips, nuzzling deep as though he tasted honey.
Finished, he turned away and disappeared into the same building as Vita. The taxi moved on, taking the next turn left.
Sairey waited for a minute or more, trying to pretend it was from choice, but uncertain how much her legs would have obeyed her. Finally, she stepped out of the doorway and began to advance.
The building into which first Vita, then Archbell, had vanished was a four-storey office block, Victorian except for the door which gave every impression of being hitech, hi-security, with an entry code touch panel. A list of firms was set in the wall alongside. The first two floors were divided between two insurance companies, a domestic service agency and a firm of accountants, all of whose names sounded vaguely familiar. But the top two floors belonged to the Bureau for Economic Co-operation (Research Division) which she’d never heard of.
As to which of these bodies required the presence of both Vita and Archbell, she could not begin to guess.
She stepped back from the doorway to peer up, as though she hoped to spot one or the other leaning out of a window.
A hand touched her lightly on the shoulder. The touch was light, but so unexpected that she screamed and almost unbalanced as she span round.
Fanny, elegant in a powder-blue Gucci suit, stood there. Behind her, at the kerb, was a taxi.
Fanny said, ‘I was sure that was you I spotted sheltering in a doorway further down. I wondered, can I offer you a lift home?’
OP ANTENOR CO-OP 17/33/7 RESTRIC (NON-ATT)
DOC 3 VG/JL
ORIG per/conf file ne* 13/c (TAPE-TRANSC)
Interview 21.7.81 Deputy Director/Nigel Ellis
DD: Nigel, you quite frightened my secretary when you rang. Is there a problem?
NE: A mistake. At least I hope it’s a mistake because if it’s not, then, yes, there’s a hell of a problem.
DD: Oh dear. Tell me about it.
NE: It’s this new assignment. What the hell’s going on, Joe? It’s a filing clerk’s job in Registry.
DD: Come now. Rather more than that, I feel. You’re virtually Collator of the East African section. Right up your street, I’d have thought, with your specialized knowledge.
NE: Specialized arseholes. Do you think I’ve come back to London to bury myself in that dusty warren?
DD: What did you think you had come back to London for, Nigel?
NE: To be briefed for Archie’s job, that’s what. When I heard you’d got the Deputy slot and Archie was coming back to the UK to take charge of Africa, I assumed … well, for Christ’s sake, it’s always been understood that when Archie finally moved on, I’d step in!
DD: Controller, East Africa. That’s quite a step.
NE: Quite a step? It’s the natural progression. I’ve got more experience out there than anyone. I know more about the situation out there than anyone.
DD: Even Archie? That’s a little arrogant, isn’t it?
NE: It’s fact. Archie would be the first to admit that my experience at least matches his.
DD: Yes. Well, certainly, he gives you full credit for knowledge.
NE: Gives? So he has been consulted?
DD: Of course. You know how much importance we attach to a superior’s report when we are considering a promotion – particularly when it’s to the superior’s job.
NE: Then Archie … but what …
DD: Archie feels that, while in terms of simple knowledge you are certainly qualified for the job, in terms of judgement he is less happy.
NE: Judgement? What the hell does he mean?
DD: He said, if I recall right, that your tendency to question policy decisions has always given some cause for concern. You have been spoken to about this at various stages throughout your career, I think you will agree? It’s all on the record. Well, an enquiring spirit is always welcome in the Bureau, and many of your operational suggestions have proved extremely useful, no one’s denying that. But when it comes to policy … well, that’s water under the bridge. What concerned the appointing committee deeply, however, was Archie’s feeling that the stress of the work, and of your own personal circumstances, has begun to cloud your field judgement.
NE: What? Oh, I’m beginning to get the picture … oh, you bastard, Archbell, you bastard.
DD: Steady on, Nigel. You mustn’t get paranoiac. You really should be thanking Archie, not bad-mouthing him. He could easily have put you before a committee of enquiry on several occasions. In fact, at least once, I reckon he came pretty close to breaking the rules himself in not doing so.
NE: This gets worse. I can’t believe any of this.
DD: Come on. Do you deny, for instance, that while acting as our closest and most trusted link with the Amin regime, you actually concealed a fugitive Obote supporter in your house in Kampala?’
NE: No. Yes. I mean it wasn’t like that … it was a friend … the brother of a friend …
DD: It was an act of lunatic irresponsibility, both personally and professionally.
NE: Personally? What are you getting at, Joe?
DD: For Godsake, man, you had your family living with you! You knew as well as anyone what those bastards were capable of doing to their opponents. Yet you harboured a wanted man …
NE: Are you saying I should have let Juma Butabika and his madmen get their hands on him?
DD: Yes, if it meant keeping their hands off your own wife!
NE: Sarah? My God, Joe … Sarah … is this what this is all about? You think that Sarah died because … you’re crazy. If Idi thought I was double-crossing him, he’d have had my balls off with a machete, like in his army days, no subtle warnings like killing my wife! For Christ’s sake, Joe, those things you said when it happened, that was your grief talking, I understood that. But to let it fester … Joe, Sarah’s death was dreadful, but it was a tragic accident, that was all …
DD: Accident? You call murder an accident? I suppose you’ll say it was also accidental that you kept my grand-daughter away from me as much as you could? It was my house she should have come to, not that eccentric spinster sister of yours …
NE: Joe, slander me as much as you like, but if you say another word against Celia, I’ll push your teeth down your throat. As for Sairey, you had plenty of access till Celia realized what you were saying to her. My God, Joe, she was a little girl, needing to get over her mother’s death, not have the grisly details rehearsed over her bed by a pathetic old man, stinking of brandy! Oh yes, we kept Sairey away from you all right, I approved, Celia enforced, but it was Sairey herself who wanted it. You frightened her, Joe. And if she hasn’t let you get close as she’s got older, it’s because she can’t forget that fear.
DD: I resent what you’re saying, Nigel, but this isn’t the time or place to discuss it. I assure you that decisions about your professional future are made on purely professional grounds. Accept them. You’ve had a stressful time out there, over many years. Relax and enjoy your leave with Sairey and … your wife …
NE: Fanny. They call her Fanny. Can’t you bring yourself even to acknowledge her name? Did you expect me to stay in mourning for ever? What a tight little pair of conspirators you and Archie make, both hating me because I married Fanny. Oh, your reasons are different, but that’s what it comes down to in the end … all right, all right, don’t go puce, you’ll have a seizure. If I’m not going to get Archbell’s job, at least send me back there in some capacity. I’m useless to you in Registry, you know that. Let’s put some distance between us, we’d both like that, wouldn’t we? I’ll swallow my pride if you’ll dilute your revenge.
DD: For the last time, there is nothing personal in this. But an African posting’s out of the question. Dicky Pepys, the new Controller …
NE: Pepys? You’re sending Pepys out there? I don’t believe this. He doesn’t know his arse from an elephant!
DD: There’s a feeling that Africa requires a fresh eye, Dicky is keen to start without prejudice. He doesn’t want staff too tainted with the colonial past. In particular, Nigel, he doesn’t want you. So I’m afraid, for the time being, it’s either the Registry job, or …
NE: Or what?
DD: Or early retirement. My secretary has the breakdown figures. I’m afraid they’re rather meagre, but that’s largely due to your own neglect of many opportunities to buy in the years before you came into the non-contributory scheme. You, doubtless, have made other arrangements …
NE: You, doubtless, know the ins and outs of my finances better than I do.
DD: Perhaps I do. So what’s it to be, Nigel?
NE: Oh, you tricky bastard. It’s not the nastiness, it’s the slimy self-deceit that makes me want to puke. You want to know what I’m going to do with your job? You really want to know? I’m going to take it. You’ll get so sick of me raising dust down among the files that in the end you’ll be glad to ship me out again. But from now on, you and Archbell had better keep right out of my life, you understand that? Right out!
DD: Fine, Nigel. Goodbye, then. Try not to bang the … oh well. Interview terminates fifteen thirty-seven hours, Tuesday, June twenty-first, nineteen eighty-one. Transcripts: Ellis file; Director; Controller Medpsych. End.
GLOSS CO-OP 17/33/7
REGRET MEDPSYCH RECEIVED ONLY TRANSCRIPT NOT TAPE COPY. AUDIO ANALYSIS SHOWS ELLIS CLOSE TO REJECTING JOB. CONTROL EXERTED TO CHANGE DIRECTION. PLAYING FOR TIME? RECOGNITION OF POSSIBLE ADVANTAGE OF REGISTRY JOB? ON AUDIO BASIS MEDPSYCH WOULD NOT HAVE MAINTAINED ELLIS LEVEL OF CLEARANCE IN SENSITIVE AREA OF RECORDS.
17
Number 28 Masham Square echoed emptily as the door closed behind them. Sairey peered into the study to confirm that neither her father nor Allan was at home.
‘Let’s have a drink, shall we?’ said Fanny, putting an arm round her shoulders and squeezing her gently as she urged her towards the lounge.
Sairey was taken aback. From their first encounter, Fanny had made it clear that physical contact beyond the purely social was not seen as part of her new duties. Sairey, keyed up to distrust and rebuff this unwanted stepmother, had instead found herself kept at such a polite arm’s length that her passionate resolve seemed merely absurd. So the dimensions of their relationship had been set.
And now this. Because she feels guilty! And if she thinks a little togetherness can win me round, she’s dimmer than she looks, thought Sairey unkindly.
Fanny poured two large glasses of white wine without further consultation and handed one to Sairey, who sat down, nursing the chilly goblet in both hands.
‘You drank like that the first time I saw you,’ said Fanny. ‘Only it was orange juice and you dribbled a little.’
‘What? At ten?’ said Sairey indignantly.
‘You were four.’
‘You saw me in Africa? You never said.’
‘I’d forgotten till now.’ From anyone else it would have sounded like a lie, but not from Fanny. ‘You were with your mother, she was having tea on the terrace at the Norfolk. They made a great fuss of you and brought you orange juice. You held the glass in both hands and glowered at your own thoughts over the top of it. ’
‘You knew Mummy?’
‘Only by sight. Someone pointed her out.’
‘But if you and Daddy both worked for Mr Archbell …’
She found it hard to keep the distaste out of her voice.
‘Yes, but I was only a secretary. Clerk-typist was my official designation, I recall.’
She smiled at the absurdity of anyone calling her a clerk-typist and Sairey smiled too, for it was absurd. Her mind was racing. She’d been armed for battle, but this unprecedented openness from Fanny was not to be ignored.
‘You must have been very young.’
‘About your age. Is that very young? It was my first job, my only job. Archie Archbell was an old friend of the family. I wasn’t bright enough or well enough connected to make it to Oxbridge, and when he suggested Kenya, it sounded more my style than the University of Kent. Did you enjoy Karen Blixen’s book, by the way?’
‘It was all right. A bit old-fashioned in its attitudes, a bit condescending.’
This was meant to be sharp, but Fanny, even in confidential mood, was impervious to gnat bites.
‘Yes, I read it years ago, before that feeble film. I got this idea of a place where life was never dull but where there was this intricate, almost invisible network of support. Like staying at Brown’s and shopping at Harrods. Of course there was another reason why I went.’
She sipped her tea, replaced her cup.
‘I was Archie Archbell’s mistress,’ she said.
Since the moment she had spotted them in the taxi, Sairey’s mind had been skirting round the suspicion of an affair between Archbell and Fanny. But the idea of that cool beauty in the grasp of that hot brutishness was absurd, was obscene, was impossible. Yet here was Fanny, pre-empting whatever clumsy probing she might have screwed herself up to, with a simple confession.
‘Don’t look so shocked. Your father knew. Everyone in Nairobi did.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’ cried Sairey, flushing with embarrassment, not at the topic, but at her own feelings of inadequacy in dealing with it.
‘You mean you weren’t curious? I’m sorry. Perhaps I misread you.’
‘All right. When I saw you with him … the way he kissed you … I wondered … are you still having an affair with him, Fanny?’
Her stepmother said, ‘Now? Lord, no. Not since 1977, when I first went to bed with your father. There was, naturally, a slight overlap. One has to be certain. But not since. And, in case your schoolgirl curiosity takes you burrowing in the opposite direction, not before. If your father was ever unfaithful to your mother, it was not with me.’
Sairey looked at her, wanting to believe, but reluctant to trust.
‘Sairey,’ said Fanny, with gentle exasperation. ‘Archie’s taste is for young flesh. Ten years ago I was getting close to the end of my active life as far as he was concerned. Now, in his eyes, I am a well-hung pheasant to a man whose mouth is watering for spring lamb. You are prime meat as far as he is concerned. He’s talked about you longingly. But I should advise against it. I’m sorry. That is impertinent of me. Your private life is your own affair. Forgive me.’
The brief moment of closeness was coming to an end. Fanny was steering them back to the bottom line of their relationship; courteous rejection on the one side, and on the other, a confusion of resentment and admiration and pain.
‘Why don’t you like me, Fanny?’ Sairey burst out.
A look of surprise touched her stepmother’s face.
‘Don’t I? I seem to recollect not much liking the look of that dribbling, glowering child all those years ago. But I really didn’t connect her with you at all, till just now. So, no, I don’t dislike you, Sairey. In fact, at times I think I get quite close to liking you, or at least thinking I shall like you when you … eventually. In any case, you mustn’t set too much store on liking and disliking. Life can be like staying at Brown’s and shopping at Harrods if you don’t let likes and dislikes get too much in the way. I was lucky. I learned that early.’
Was there, momentarily, a hair crack through which pain showed? Sairey didn’t believe it, or didn’t want to believe it.
‘How does Daddy fit into all this?’ she asked.
It was meant to be an accusation, it came out as an appeal.
‘Nigel? Perfectly, I’m glad to say.’
‘You mean he just happened along when Archbell was beginning to hunt around for younger flesh, so you hopped off one gold card to another?’
Fanny began to laugh. It was a joyous, melodious sound, but Sairey responded neither to its mood nor its melody.
‘And if you’re not screwing Archbell, what are you doing with him? What was that paper you were giving him? Are you spying on Daddy? Why have you and that animal been talking about me? Where was he going? Why did he go into the same building as Vita? What the hell’s going on?’
