A Perfect Spy

I hate him. I always did. Even when I fell for him — when he was taking me up and down the scale and I was weeping and thanking him — I still hated him. Tell me about the night in question, he was saying. He meant the night they heard of Rick’s death. She told it to him exactly as she had rehearsed it.

* * *

He had found the cloakroom and was standing before the worn dufflecoat that hung between Tom’s loden and Mary’s sheepskin. He was feeling in the pockets. The din from upstairs was monotonous. He extracted a grimy handkerchief and a half-consumed roll of Polo mints.

“You’re teasing me,” he said.

“All right, I’m teasing you.”

“Two hours in the freezing snow in his dancing pumps, Mary? In the middle of the night? Brother Nigel will think I’m making it up. What did he do in them?”

“Walked.”

“Where to, dear?”

“He didn’t tell me.”

“Ask him?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Then how do you know he didn’t take a cab?”

“He’d no money. His wallet and change were upstairs in the dressing-room with his keys.” Brotherhood replaced the handkerchief and mints in the duffle.

“And none in here?”

“No.”

“How d’you know?”

“He’s methodical in those things.”

“Maybe he paid the other end.”

“No.”

“Maybe someone picked him up.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“He’s a walker and he was in shock. That’s why. His father was dead, even if he didn’t particularly like him. It builds up in him. The tension or whatever it is. So he walks.” And I hugged him when he came back, she thought. I felt the cold on his cheek and the trembling of his chest and the hot sweat clean through his coat from his hours of walking. And I’ll hug him again, as soon as he comes through that door. “I said to him: ‘Don’t go. Not tonight. Get drunk. We’ll get drunk together.’ But he went. He had his look.” She wished she hadn’t said that, but for a moment she was as cross with Magnus as she was with Brotherhood.

“What look is that, Mary? ‘Had his look.’ I don’t think I follow you.”

“Empty. Like an actor without a part.”

“A part? His father takes up and dies and Magnus doesn’t have a part any more? What the hell does that mean?”

He’s closing in on me, she thought, resolutely not answering. In a minute I’m going to feel his sure hands on me, and I’m going to lie back and let it happen because I can’t think of any more excuses.

“Ask Grant,” she said, trying to hurt him. “He’s our tame psychologist. He’ll know.”

* * *

They had moved to the drawing-room. He was waiting for something. So was she. For Nigel, for Pym, for the telephone. For Georgie and Fergus upstairs.

“You’re not doing too much of this, are you?” Brotherhood asked, pouring her another whisky.

“Of course not. When I’m alone, almost never.”

“Well, don’t. It’s too damn easy. And when Brother Nigel’s here, nothing. Keep it under wraps completely. Yes, Jack?”

“Yes, Jack.” You’re a lecherous priest scavenging the last of God’s grace, she told him, watching his slow purposeful movements as he filled his own glass. First the wine, now the water. Now lower your eyelids and lift the chalice for a sanctimonious word with Him who sent you.

“And he’s free,” he remarked. “‘I’m free.’ Rick’s dead, so Magnus is free. He’s one of your Freudian types who can’t say ‘Father.’”

“It’s perfectly normal at his age. To call a father by his Christian name. More normal still, if you haven’t seen each other for fifteen years.”

“I do like you to defend him,” Brotherhood said. “I admire your loyalty. So will they. And you never let me down. I know you didn’t.”

Loyalty, she thought. Keeping my silly mouth shut round the Station in case your wife finds out.

“And you wept. Quite the old weeper, you are, Mary, I didn’t know. Mary weeps, Magnus consoles her. Odd, that, to the casual observer, seeing as how Rick was his daddy, not yours. A rôle reversal with a vengeance, that is: you doing his mourning for him. Who were the tears for exactly? Any idea?”

“His father had died, Jack. I didn’t sit down and say, ‘I’ll cry for Rick, I’ll cry for Magnus.’ I just cried.”

“I thought it might be for yourself.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re the one person you didn’t mention. That’s all. Defensive: that’s how you sound.”

“I am not being defensive!”

She was too loud. She knew it and once more so did Brotherhood and he was interested.

“And when Magnus is done with consoling Mary,” he continued, picking a book from the table and flipping through it, “he slips on his duffle and he goes for a walk in his dancing pumps. You try to restrain him — you beg him, which is hard for me to visualise, but I’ll try — but no, he will go. Any phone calls before he leaves?”

“No.”

“No incoming, no outgoing?”

“I said no!”

“Direct dial, after all, you’d think a bereaved man would want to share the bad news with other members of his family.”

“They’re not that kind of family. I told you.”

“There’s Tom for a start. What about him?”

“It was much too late to ring Tom and anyway Magnus thought it better to tell him himself.”