A Perfect Spy

“Mind if I read the card, Mary?” Fergus had said. “It’s just routine, only you know what they’re like in London. Bee. That’ll be Mrs. Lederer, wife of the American gentleman?”

“That’s who it will be,” Mary had confirmed.

“Well it’s a nice book, I will say. In English too. Looks really old, it does.” He was turning through it with practised fingers, pausing at pencil marks, holding occasional pages to the light.

“It’s 1698,” Mary had said, pointing to the Roman numerals.

“My goodness, you can read that stuff.”

“Can I have it back now, please?”

The grandfather clock in the hall was striking twelve. Fergus and Georgie were by now no doubt lying blissfully in each other’s arms. Over the interminable days of her secret imprisonment Mary had watched their romance ripen. Tonight when she came down to dinner Georgie had the indisguisable glow of someone who had been screwing minutes before. In a year’s time the two of them would become yet another his-and-hers couple in one of the resources sections where the Other Ranks held sway: surveillance, microphone installation, sweeping, steaming mail. A year later when they had pooled their fiddled overtime and their cooked-up mileage and inflated their out-of-town subsistence they would make a down payment on a house in East Sheen, have two children and become eligible for the Firm’s subsidised education scheme. I’m being a jealous bitch, thought Mary, unrepentant. Right now, I wouldn’t mind an hour with Fergus myself. She picked up the receiver and waited.

“Who are you ringing, Mary?” said Fergus’s voice immediately.

Wherever he was in his love-life just then, Fergus was very awake indeed when it came to cutting in on Mary’s outgoing phone calls.

“I’m lonely,” Mary replied. “I want to have a chat with Bee Lederer. Anything wrong with that?”

“Magnus is still in London, Mary. He’s been delayed.”

“I know where he is. I know the story. I am also grown up.”

“He’s been contacting you regular by phone, you’ve had nice chats with him, he’ll be back in a day or two. Head Office has nabbed him for a briefing while he’s over there. That’s all that happened.”

“I’m all right, Fergus. I’m word perfect.”

“Would you normally ring her as late as this?”

“If both Magnus and Grant are away, yes I would.”

Mary heard a click and then the dialling tone. She dialled the number and Bee started moaning at once. She was having her damned period, she said, a real bastard, cramps, the bends, you name it. It always grabbed her this way in winter, specially when Grant wasn’t there to service her. Giggle. “Oh shit, Mary, I really miss it. Does that make me a whore?”

“I’ve had a lovely long letter from Tom,” said Mary. A lie. It was a letter and it was long but it was not lovely. It was an account of the great time Tom had had with Uncle Jack last Sunday and it had made Mary’s flesh creep.

Bee declared that Becky just adored Tom so much it was indecent. “Can you imagine what is going to happen the day those kids wake up and discover la différence?”

Yes, I can, thought Mary. They’re going to hate each other’s guts. She took Bee through her day. Hell, just screwing around, said Bee. She’d had a squash date with Cathie Krane from the Canadian Embassy but they’d agreed on a coffee instead because of Bee’s condition. Salad at the Club, and Jesus somebody really ought to teach these damned Austrians how to make a decent salad. This afternoon a cruddy Bring and Buy at the Embassy in aid of the Contras in Nicaragua and who gives a fly’s elbow about the Contras in Nicaragua?

“You should go out and buy yourself something,” Mary suggested. “A dress or an antique or something.”

“Listen, I can’t even move. You know what he did, the little runt? He turned the Audi in for servicing on his way to the airport. I don’t get the car, I don’t get a lay.”

“I’d better ring off,” Mary said. “I’ve got a feeling Magnus is going to pull one of his dead-of-night calls and there’ll be all hell if the number is engaged.”

“Yeah, how’s he taken it?” said Bee vaguely. “Is he all weepy or is he sort of reconciled? Some men, I think they really want to castrate their fathers all their lives. You should hear Grant sometimes.”

“I’ll know when he’s back,” said Mary. “Before he left he hardly spoke a word.”

“Too cut up, huh? Grant never gets cut up about anything, the creep.”

“It hit him badly at first,” Mary confessed. “He sounds much better now.” She had scarcely rung off before the phone gave its in-house buzz.

“Why didn’t you mention the beautiful book she sent you, Mary?” Fergus complained. “I thought that was why you’d be ringing.”

“I told you why I was ringing. I was ringing because I was lonely. Bee Lederer sends me about fifteen books a week. Why should I talk to her about a bloody book to please you?”

“I wasn’t meaning to offend, Mary.”