She spoke instead to her parents in London, surprising them frequently by the miraculous submarine connection. She gathered herself to reassure them; by scouring her store of imaginative sympathy, by the effort of will involved in comforting her mother in her last months and her father in his impending loss, she brought some solace to herself.
In her afternoon rests she sometimes thought of herself as a traveler in a dark wood. She was confronted by paths into the forest, by the need to make pitiless choices. This was the lot of a woman of her age, to take on the lives of those older and younger than herself, to carry the weight they could not bear; while her own private grief, a disabling, more vital version of something she had known when young, was fated to be seen by her in the uncompromising perspective of her imagined self when old, where all passions came to the same inevitable end.
“Frank?”
She heard his voice answer at last. She sat down heavily on the kitchen chair.
“Is this Mary?”
“Yes. How are you?”
“I’m okay. I didn’t hear from you, but I didn’t like to call. Are you at home?”
“Yes. Charlie’s at a party. Dolores is at the pictures.” The mention of Charlie in this deceitful context almost took away the pleasure of hearing Frank’s voice.
“What are you wearing?” he said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I want to be able to picture you.”
“Well … Just my day clothes.”
“Don’t be shy, Mary. Remember the night you left?”
“I do, Frank. Oddly enough, I do.”
“Well then.”
“A cream blouse with a broderie anglaise collar and a black woolen skirt and loafers and a pink cardigan. It doesn’t really go. I just threw it on. I was chilly.”
“Not in your summer dresses yet?”
“No, it’s quite cold here. What about you?”
“Just an undershirt, suit pants, bare feet. I was writing a piece. The building’s always warm.”
“I’ve missed you, Frank.”
“I haven’t breathed since you left.”
Mary found her face muscles aching from a strange reflex grin in which they had set themselves. She began to talk softly to him about how she pictured his apartment and him in it; this led her to his mouth and how soft it was to kiss. She heard him laugh.
She said, “And is there a record playing in your apartment?”
“Yeah, it’s still Miles Davis. It’s ‘On Green Dolphin Street.’ ”
“That’s what was playing when we kissed.”
“Or wasn’t that—”
“No. That was it.” Uttering the word “kissed” had produced such a fierce, illicit thrill in Mary that she could not be bothered about song titles.
“So nothing’s changed,” said Frank.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. Unfortunately, I’m sure. Do you remember after dinner?” He, too, started to go over what had happened between them that night, as though anxious to establish that it had not been a dream of his own alone. She laughed when his narrative slowed down at the moment he kissed her breasts; he seemed to hope he might relive it by the close retelling, and, though it was shocking to be spoken to in such a way, she did not deter him.
It was Frank who eventually said, “Maybe we shouldn’t be speaking like this. When am I going to see you?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t think I can find a pretext for coming to Washington. I have to be here.”
“Oh God,” said Mary, feeling the fixed smile disappear.
“I think I could bear not having you if I could see you. Does that seem so very much to ask? Just to look at you?”
Mary had the sensation of falling. “I’ll fix it,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
She felt blood scalding her face. “I’ll come.”
—
The following morning, while Mary was reading the newspaper in the living room, the telephone rang. It was Duncan Trench, asking if he could come round and see her. He told her it was something that needed to be treated with the utmost discretion, and he would therefore be grateful if she could make sure the maid was not in the house.
Bewildered, Mary put down the receiver. Insofar as Duncan Trench had registered on her mind at all, it was as an irascible, bluff colleague of Charlie’s whose disagreeable manner could be partly forgiven by the fact that he was clearly naive and often drunk. Could it be that chub-faced Duncan had all this time been nursing a passion for her? She shook her head. Not everything confidential had to do with amorous feelings; it was more likely that Duncan wanted to talk about Charlie’s work or, more probably still, his health.
She heard no car draw up outside, so Duncan’s ring at the doorbell took her by surprise. She opened her arm toward the sunny living room, but Duncan had already bolted ahead of her.
“Can I get you some coffee, Duncan? Or a drink?”
“No. No, thanks.”
He walked over to the phonograph. “How does this thing work?”
“I’m sorry?”
“This thing. I want to put a record on.” He began wrenching at the arm and twisting the knobs.
“Let me show you. Anything in particular?”
“Something noisy. A brass band or something.”
“I’m not sure how much brass band music we have. Would Duke Ellington be all right? Or Count Basie, perhaps?”
The needle dropped onto the record with an amplified thud, then skated over the surface for a moment before it settled in the groove.
Duncan turned the volume up to the maximum. He put his face close to Mary’s. Despite the rhythm of the music, she did not feel like dancing.
“You probably know what I do at the Embassy,” he shouted.
Mary recoiled from the blast of American cigarettes and hotel coffee on his breath. She knew quite well what he did at the Embassy, but thought it unwise to tell him so.
She put her hand on his shoulder and reached up to his ear. “Not really.”
“I’m not a career diplomat, like Charlie or Eddie Renshaw. I work for a different organization. Have done since I left Oxford.”
“I’m sorry?”
Duncan grimaced. He leaned down to Mary’s level and put his lips to her ear.
Fighting with the sound of Duke Ellington’s rhythm section in one ear (Jimmy Blanton on bass, as someone had pointed out the other day—Frank, perhaps; no, on second thought, it might have been Eddie, in the log cabin) was Duncan bellowing in her other ear the word: “Intelligence.”
Mary stood back a pace and looked at his flushed cheeks and low forehead with its wiry hair surround. “Intelligence” was not the first word that came to mind.
“I see,” she said. How long ago that weekend on the bay now seemed; her world was still steady, and Frank just a visitor that someone—who?—had asked along.
Duncan was still shouting. “… even with our closest allies. Of course, our work here is quite different from what we do in, say, the Soviet Union, or even one of the Arab countries. There’s a lot of sharing. We cooperate closely with American security.”
Mary said nothing.
Duncan looked exasperated. “The FBI,” he shouted.
“Yes, yes, I understand.”
“Just a little favor I wanted to ask you.”
Mary found it difficult to make out exactly what Duncan was saying, but she caught enough of it to understand. “You’re very well regarded,” he was saying. “A new Yugoslav couple’s just arrived. We’re particularly interested in her. We wondered if you could make an effort to be her friend, keep your eyes open, then have the occasional chat with me.”
“Tell me what Charlie’s doing,” said Mary. “Is he working for you?”
“No. Not allowed to, though we share information occasionally. We’re all on the same side after all.” He coughed. “I can’t pay you, I’m afraid. It’s just something for your country.”
>
Mary looked at Duncan’s anxious face; there was a line of sweat on his upper lip.
“I’d like to help, Duncan,” she said.
“But?”
“What?”
“I said, ‘But.’ I hear a ‘but’ coming.”
“But I’m going to live in New York for a bit.”
Duncan looked dumbfounded. “Charlie never mentioned anything.”
Mary herself could barely believe what she had said. “I haven’t told him yet.”
Duncan looked at her in disbelief. Mary went over to the record player and turned it off.
“There must be other people you could ask,” she said. “Other wives. What about Katy? She’s very social.”
“She’s American. You’re the one we want. And it would do Charlie no harm.”
It was quiet in the room. Mary looked down at the floor, then up again. “I wish you hadn’t said that last bit. About Charlie. That’s really not fair.”
Duncan shrugged.
“Anyway, I can’t help you, Duncan. I’m just not going to be here.”
“How long will you be away?”
“A couple of weeks or so.”
Mary went over to the mantelpiece, where she found a packet of Charlie’s cigarettes. “I’ve had a difficult time recently,” she said. “My mother’s dying, my children have vanished. I think I need a change of air.”
Duncan nodded, with an appearance of concern. “Yes, I know what it’s like. Ladies. You need … Anyway. But two weeks is all right. I’ll ring again.”
Chapter 7
The redcaps wheeling baggage down the platform at Baltimore wore their peaked hats pushed back on their heads and walked with a slow, distracted motion, as though they were no more willing or engaged in their work than their fathers had been in the tobacco fields. There were three rivers to cross on the way to New York, and Mary was counting them off impatiently as the train rolled out of the station, gathered gratifying speed toward the Susquehanna and swept her on through the drab marshaling yards of Philadelphia to the Delaware.
She remembered a painting of George Washington crossing the river; the state had been the first in the union, and in the making of the new country the river had had some symbolic force, a Rubicon after which … From the train, she saw neat clapboard houses with short wooden jetties and small boats jostling on their ropes; she heard in her mind that irritating song, “What did Della wear, boy …” It had been playing through a car window when she first had lunch with Frank in Georgetown in that innocent age.
Mary saw the skyline of New York approaching, but the train was still in fields; there were raised highways flying to the left, signs of construction to the right, but no suburban crescendo, no spread or graduated entrance to the city. Then they came to a steep-sided cutting and vanished suddenly into the dark; the locomotive slowed as it rattled through an underworld of rusted sidings and wrecked trucks, a place where trains came home to die in the glow of lanterns that hung from the bricked vault, so that the final crossing, beneath the Hudson, seemed less like the Rubicon than the Styx.
Mary found a cab up on the ramp and emerged once more into the unyielding grid, where there were no more curves or meadows or boats at mooring, but an equation to be solved using numbers and right angles only. Her hotel was near the station; she had found it in a guidebook that recommended its handy situation, clean rooms and reasonable prices. She made her way to the desk, checking that she had a supply of dollars and quarters to distribute to the willing hands.
The lobby of the hotel was dark and smelled of cleaning fluids; the crimson carpet looked damp, as though it had just been shampooed. The desk clerk found her name, handed her a key and asked if there was anything she wanted; Mary felt that in his voice she detected a note of skepticism.
“No, no, I’m fine,” she said, following the bellboy to the elevator.
The room turned out to be two rooms: a small lounge gave on to a large bedroom. There were walk-in closets and a bathroom with mysterious old-fashioned plumbing that included a fourteen-inch tubular chrome upstand next to the tub.
“It’s okay?” said the bellboy.
“Yes, yes, of course,” said Mary, fumbling in her purse.
There was also, on the nightstand by the bed, a telephone. First, she went to the bathroom, splashed water on her face and combed her hair. It was half past six and there was a chance he would be home. She picked up the receiver, then replaced it. How desperate was she? She could at least unpack. Eventually she came to it. Seated on the edge of the bed, she heard the single calling ring go out, and imagined the instrument bleating on his desk; to arm herself against the worst, she pictured absence, an empty room. She swallowed hard to clear her ears; she thought she might not hear his voice over the roar of expectation with which her body was already clamoring.
This is not good, she had time to think as the ringing sound went on: this desire is excessive and is demeaning me.
The sound of Frank’s abrupt answering voice filled her with an exultation that swept away misgivings. He was amazed to find her in New York, and his surprise for a moment overcame his delight, so that Mary asked him to reassure her that he was honestly pleased. This he was able to do, with passion, and soon Mary felt herself settle into the arms of his conversation, the short sentences, the fuzzy baritone, the sardonic edge of it at war with the warmth of what he said. She surrendered herself to it.
In the bath, her hair wrapped up in a cap, she lay back and tried to calm herself. She thought of Richard and Louisa, five hours ahead of her, asleep in their drafty dormitories; of her mother watching the lights of extinction grow large; and of Charlie mounting the steps of the plane, awash with sedatives and scotch. She thought also how her mother would still have enough strength to admonish her for her selfish immorality.
She put on a short-sleeved navy woolen dress she had bought from Bonwit Teller on a previous visit to New York; it was billed as evening wear, but she thought it casual enough for whatever Village dive they might find themselves in later. She made up carefully in the steamy bathroom, rolling mascara along the lashes, her face elongated by the effort of opening her eyes. When she had finished, she looked at her reflection one last time. “What are you doing?” she mouthed at the glass. She turned away with no sensation of having made a choice.
It was a warm dusk on 35th Street as she walked briskly across to Broadway. When she felt the chrome handle of the taxi spring the catch inside the yellow door, she wondered if she had ever felt more invigorated, more charged with the voltage of the moment. A few minutes later, she was there: she climbed out and watched the cab pull slowly off down Christopher Street, then took out a book of matches on which she had written the address. She crossed the street to Frank’s building, the tallest in view among the low Village houses. She breathed in deeply as she pushed at the art deco outer door and walked across the polished hall, past the doorman.
“Mr. Renzo? Sure, ma’am. Fourteenth floor.”
The elevator rose slowly. On the previous occasion she had not had time to examine the inside; now she saw a seat, a concealed telephone, a safety inspection certificate. The numbered lights flicked through their inevitable sequence till she was delivered at her destined floor; when the doors ground open, he was waiting.
“I came back,” she said.
The scene of the almost-crime was thrillingly intact.
Writhing in his arms, Mary found herself in danger of repeating the same sequence of events with the same unsatisfactory conclusion.
Frank seemed to sense something similar and guided her to a couch while he went to the kitchen bar to make a drink. She watched him rattle the cocktail shaker and pour the liquid into two glasses. On the bookshelf near her shoulder was a photograph of a slightly younger Frank, shirt-sleeved, in an office; across the desk was a young fair-haired man, his face a compacted smile of youthful energy.
“Who’s that with you in the picture?”
“That’s Billy Foy. He
was my best friend. We first met in the army.”
He handed Mary her drink and smiled as he backed off. “You stay right there. Then we’ll both be all right.”
There were some awkward pleasantries and reassurances, then silence.
Mary sipped her drink and looked up at him.
Frank smiled back at her and raised his glass.
She said, “I know what you’re thinking.”
“Yeah, and I know what you’re thinking. And it ain’t gonna happen.”
“No. It certainly isn’t. So now let’s think about something else.”
“Where’s Charlie?”
“He’s in Boston for a couple of days.”
“Right. Did you see the paper? The Soviets shot down one of our spy planes over Russia. A U-2. It means the Summit in Paris won’t take place.”
“That’s worrying.”
“It is. Things are coming a little unglued. The pilot can expect to get fried. And it’s bad news for the President. It’s a worry for the whole world.”
Mary swallowed. “It’s so strange, isn’t it? We carry on as though nothing was happening. And yet …”
“We go sailing on the lake, we drink cocktails and we dance till dawn. But …” He shrugged.
“I know,” said Mary. “It might all go up.”
“Any day. Have another drink.”
When he refilled her glass, he stole a kiss from her mouth.
“I had some good news today,” he said, as he retreated to safety. “The managing editor called me into his office and asked what my plans were.”
“You mean …”
“They’ve taken Cordell off the Kennedy campaign. There’s one hell of a fight over it. Kennedy’s press people are furious for one thing. And Cordell’s threatening to resign.”
“And don’t tell me,” said Mary. “They’re sending you.”