The Confidential Agent (10 page)

‘Oh,' she said, ‘I can tell you that. You'll go on fighting for people who aren't worth fighting for. Some day you'll be killed. But you won't hit back at Roland – not intentionally. The Berne MS. is all wrong there.'

They got into a taxi. She said to the driver, ‘The Carlton Hotel, Guilford Street.' He looked back through the little window: there was no sign of Mr K. Perhaps it had been a coincidence – even Mr K. must sometimes relax and watch the gelatine tears. He said more to himself than her, ‘I can't believe they'll really give up, so soon. After all, to-morrow – it's defeat. The coal is as good as a whole fleet of the latest bombers.' They came slowly down Guilford Street. He said, ‘If only I had a gun . . .'

‘They'd never dare, would they?' she said. She put her hand through his arm, as if she wanted him to stay with her in the taxi, safely anonymous. He remembered that he had momentarily thought she was one of L.'s agents: he regretted that. He said, ‘My dear, it's just like a sum in mathematics. It might cause diplomatic trouble – but then, that might not be so bad for them as if we got the coal. It's a question of addition – which adds up to most.'

‘Are you afraid?'

‘Yes.'

‘Why not stay somewhere else? Come back with me. I can give you a bed.'

‘I've left something here. I can't.' The taxi stopped. He got out. She followed him and stood on the pavement at his side. She said, ‘Can't I come in with you . . . in case . . .'

‘Better not.' He held her hand. It was an excuse to linger and make sure the street was empty. He wondered whether the manageress was his friend or not: Mr K. . . . He said, ‘Before you go, I meant to ask again . . . could you find a job for this girl here? She's a good little thing, trustworthy.'

She said sharply, ‘I wouldn't lift a finger if she were dying.' It was that voice he had heard ages ago in the bar of the Channel steamer, making her demands to the steward – ‘I want one more. I will have one more' – the disagreeable child at the dull party. She said, ‘Let go of my hand.' He dropped it quickly. She said, ‘You damned quixote. Go on. Get shot, die . . . you're out of place.'

He said, ‘You have it all wrong. The girl's young enough to be my . . .'

‘Daughter,' she said. ‘Go on. So am I. Laugh. This is what always happens. I know. I told you. I'm not romantic. This is what's called a father-fixation. You hate your own father – for a thousand reasons, and then you fall for a man the same age.' She said, ‘It's grotesque. Nobody can pretend there's any poetry in it. You go telephoning, making appointments . . .'

He watched her uneasily, aware of that awful inability to feel anything but fear, a little pity. . . . Seventeenth-century poets wrote as if you could give away your heart for ever. That wasn't true according to modern psychologists, but you could feel such grief and such despair that you flinched away from the possibility of ever feeling again. He stood hopelessly in front of the open door of the shabby hotel to which ‘short-timers' came, inadequate. . . .

He said, ‘If only this war was over . . .'

‘It won't be over ever – you've said it – for you.'

She was lovely; he had never, when he was young, known anyone so lovely – certainly not his wife – she had been quite a plain woman. That hadn't mattered. All the same, it ought to be possible to feel desire with the help of a little beauty. He took her tentatively in his arms like an experiment. She said, ‘Can I come up?'

‘Not here.' He let her go: it hadn't worked.

‘I knew there was something wrong with me when you came up to the car last night. Dithering. Polite. I felt sick when I heard them beating you – I thought I was drunk, and then when I woke up this morning it still went on. You know, I've never been in love before. They have a name for it – haven't they – calf-love.'

She used an expensive scent. He tried to feel more than pity. After all, it was a chance for a middle-aged ex-lecturer in the Romance Languages. ‘My dear,' he said.

She said, ‘It doesn't last, does it? But then, it won't have to last long. You'll be killed – won't you? – as sure as eggs is eggs.'

He kissed her unconvincingly. He said, ‘My dear, I'll be seeing you . . . to-morrow. All this business will be over then. We'll meet . . . celebrate . . .' He knew he was acting not very effectively, but this wasn't an occasion for honesty. She was too young to stand honesty.

She said, ‘Even Roland, I suppose, had a woman . . .' But he remembered that
she
– her name was Alda – had fallen dead when they brought the news. Life didn't go on in a legend, after the loved one died, as his had done. It was taken for granted – the jongleur only gave her a few formal lines. He said, ‘Good night.'

‘Good night.' She went back up the street towards the black trees. He thought to himself that, after all, L. might have had a worse agent. He discovered in himself a willingness to love which was like treachery, but what was the use? To-morrow everything would be settled, and he would return. . . . He wondered whether, in the end, she would marry Furtstein.

He pushed the glass inner door: it was ajar – he flashed his hand automatically to his pocket, but of course he had no gun. The light was out, but somebody was there: he could hear the breathing, not far from the aspidistra. He himself was exposed in front of the door, with the street lamp beyond. It was no good moving – they could always fire first. He took his hand out of his pocket again, with his cigarette case in it. He tried to stop his fingers shaking, but he was afraid of pain. He put a cigarette in his mouth and felt for a wax match – they mightn't expect the sudden flash on the wall. He moved a little way forward and suddenly struck with the match sideways. It scraped against a picture frame and flared up. A white childish face sailed like a balloon out of the darkness. He said, ‘Oh, God, Else, you gave me a fright. What are you doing there?'

‘Waiting for you,' the thin immature voice whispered. The match went out.

‘Why?'

‘I thought you might be bringing her in here. It's my job,' she said, ‘to see that clients get their rooms.'

‘That's nonsense.'

‘You kissed her, didn't you?'

‘It wasn't a good kiss.'

‘But it's not that. You've got a right. It's what
she
said.'

He wondered whether he had made a mistake in giving her his papers – suppose she destroyed them, out of jealousy? He asked, ‘What did she say?'

‘She said they'd kill you, sure as eggs is eggs.'

He laughed with relief. ‘Well, we've got a war on at home. People do get killed. But she doesn't
know
.'

‘And
here
 . . .' she said, ‘they're after you too.'

‘They can't do much.'

‘I knew something awful was happening,' she said. ‘They're upstairs now, talking.'

‘Who?' he asked sharply.

‘The manageress – and a man.'

‘What sort of a man?'

‘A little grey man – with steel spectacles.' He must have slipped out of the cinema before them. She said, ‘They were asking
me
questions.'

‘What questions?'

‘If you'd said anything to me. If I'd seen anything – papers. Of course I was “mum”. Nothing
they
could do would make me talk.' He was moved with pity by her devotion. What a world to let such qualities go to waste. She said passionately, ‘I don't mind their killing me.'

‘There's no danger of that.'

Her voice came shivering out from beside the aspidistra. ‘
She
'd do anything. She acts mad sometimes – if she's crossed. I don't mind. I won't let you down. You're a gentleman.' It was a horribly inadequate reason. She went mournfully on, ‘I'd do anything that girl'll do.'

‘You are doing much more.'

‘Is she going back with you – there?'

‘No, no.'

‘Can I?'

‘My dear,' he said, ‘you don't know what it's like there.'

He could hear a long whistling sigh. ‘You don't know what it's like here.'

‘Where are they now?' he asked. ‘The manageress and her friend?'

‘The first-floor front,' she said. ‘Are they your – deadly foes?' God knew out of what twopenny trash she drew her vocabulary.

‘I think they're my friends. I don't know. Perhaps I'd better find out before they know I'm here.'

‘Oh, they'll know by now.
She
hears everything. What's said on the roof, she hears in the kitchen. She told me not to tell you.' He was shaken by a doubt: could this child be in danger? But he couldn't believe it. What could they do to her? He went cautiously up the unlighted stair: once a board creaked. The staircase made a half-turn and he came suddenly upon the landing. A door stood open; an electric globe, under a pink frilly silken shade, shone on the two figures waiting for him with immense patience.

D. said gently, ‘Bona matina. You didn't teach me the word for night.'

The manageress said, ‘Come in and shut the door.' He obeyed her – there was nothing else to do; it occurred to him that never once yet had he been allowed the initiative. He had been like a lay figure other people moved about, used as an Aunt Sally. ‘Where have you been?' the manageress demanded. It was a bully's face; she should have been a man, with that ugly square jaw, the shady determination, the impetigo.

He said, ‘Mr K. will tell you.'

‘What were you doing with the girl?'

‘Enjoying myself.' He looked curiously round at the den – that was the best word for it. It wasn't a woman's room at all, with its square unclothed table, its leather chairs, no flowers, no frippery, a cupboard for shoes. It seemed made and furnished for nothing but use. The cupboard door was open full of heavy, low-heeled, sensible shoes.

‘She knows L.'

‘So do I.' Even the pictures were masculine of a kind. Cheap coloured pictures of women, all silk stockings and lingerie. It seemed to him the room of an inhibited bachelor. It was dimly horrifying, like timid secret desires for unattainable intimacies. Mr K. suddenly spoke. He was like a feminine element in the male room; there were traces of hysteria. He said, ‘When you were out – at the cinema – somebody rang up – to make you an offer.'

‘Why did they do that? They should have known I was out.'

‘They offered you your own terms not to keep your appointment to-morrow.'

‘I haven't made any terms.'

‘They left the message with me,' the manageress said.

‘They were quite prepared, then, that everybody should know? You and K.'

Mr K. squeezed his bony hands together. ‘We wanted to make sure,' he said, ‘that you still have the papers.'

‘You were afraid I might have sold them already. On my way home.'

‘We have to be careful,' he said, as if he were listening for Dr Bellows' rubber soles. He was dreadfully under the domination even here of the shilling fine.

‘Are you acting on instructions?'

‘Our instructions are so vague. A lot is left to our discretion. Perhaps you would show us the papers.' The woman didn't talk any more – she let the weak ones have their rope.

‘No.'

He looked from one to the other – it seemed to him that at last the initiative was passing into his hands; he wished he had more vitality to take it, but he was exhausted. England was full of tiresome memories which made him remember that this wasn't really his job: he should be at the Museum now reading Romance Literature. He said, ‘I accept the fact that we have the same employers. But I have no reason to trust you.' The little grey man sat as if condemned with his eyes on his own bitten finger-tips; the woman faced him with that square dominant face which had nothing to dominate except a shady hotel. He had seen many people shot on both sides of the line for treachery: he knew you couldn't recognise them by their manners or faces: there was no Ganelon type. He said, ‘Are you anxious to see that you get your cut out of the sale? But there won't be a cut – or a sale.'

‘Perhaps, then, you'll read this letter,' the woman suddenly said: they had used up their rope.

He read it slowly. There was no doubt at all of its genuineness; he knew the signature and the notepaper of the ministry too well to be deceived. This, apparently, was the end of his mission – the woman was empowered to take over from him the necessary papers – for what purpose wasn't said.

‘You see,' the woman said, ‘they don't trust you.'

‘Why not have shown me this when I arrived?'

‘It was left to my discretion. To trust you or not.'

The position was fantastic. He had been entrusted with the papers as far as London: Mr K. was told to check up on his movements before he reached the hotel but was not trusted with the secret of his mission: this woman seemed to have been trusted with both the secret and the papers – but only as a last resort – if his conduct were suspicious. He said suddenly, ‘Of course you know what these papers are.'

She said stubbornly, ‘Naturally.' But he was sure that, after all, she didn't – he could read that in her face – the obstinate poker features. There was no end to the complicated work of half-trust and half-deceit. Suppose the ministry had made a mistake . . . suppose, if he handed the papers over, they should sell them to L. He knew he could trust himself. He knew nothing else. There was a horrid smell of cheap scent in the room – it was apparently her only female characteristic – and it was disturbing like scent on a man.