The Adventures Of Una Perrson

  Marius, his friend, scratched his long nose, glancing casually to where Catherine sat passively on the floor, her shoulder resting against Constant's worsted leg. He swept his queen the length of the board. 'Check,' he said.

  Constant scowled and let go of her. His expression became boyish as he tugged at his little beard, studying his method of escape. He was Greek, with the weak, slightly furtive features of the typical antiquarian book-dealer. He was just what she had needed. He moved his king and put his hand against her face again.

  'Good,' said Marius. He was a very old friend of Constant's. They had only recently met again, when Marius's regiment had been stationed in the Knightsbridge barracks. Their previous meeting had been in Rome, Ave years before. Marius hated wearing his uniform and was now dressed in a dark blue sweater and light grey slacks, but his grooming betrayed both his occupation and his race.

  Catherine was glad to see that Constant was losing. It would give him the impetus to take his frustration out on her. While she enjoyed the waiting she was feeling a twinge or two of impatience.

  The room was lit with dim lamps, mostly art nouveau oil lamps supported by draped Mucha nymphs in cast iron and bronze. Along one wall ran the locked, glass-fronted bookcases which held Constant's special collection. By taking one or two books from it a month he was able to live well. He believed that the collection and the other things he had locked in the trunk in the bedroom would provide an excellent income for the rest of his life. Marius was the only soldier who came to the house who was not a customer. Marius refused to be stimulated either by Constant's insinuating references or by the profusion of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century erotica decorating walls, tables and mantelpieces. He showed a mild interest in Constant's Pre-Raphaelites, his Burne-Jones, his two Hunts, his late Millais, for he enjoyed collecting paintings, but his taste was more for Rembrandt and Hals.

  ‘Check.'

  Catherine took a keener interest in the game.

  Constant said: It is weary work, wielding the whip.'

  'Oh, true,' replied Marius. 'You should have my job, Constant.'

  They are not dissimilar, I suppose.'

  Marius refused consensus.

  Catherine, to relieve her boredom, kissed Constant's knee. He smiled affectionately down and slid his fingernail along her shoulder blade.

  'I believe it's stalemate,' said Marius.

  Constant fell back into his chair, caressing Catherine's face once more. 'Oh, very well.' He gave the appearance of magnanimity. 'My mind isn't on the game. This could go on all night.' He reached to grasp her left breast. 'And it would not be fair to keep this beautiful creature waiting.' He stood up. 'Let's call it a draw, shall we?'

  Marius was amused. 'I have to phone Rome, anyway.' He was still nominally head of the family firm which specialized in canning luxury foods. 'It was a pleasant game. Thank you for the dinner. For the drinks.' He stared at Catherine as if he felt he should make some remark to her, perhaps to thank her for her decorative presence. He seemed to disapprove of her. Or perhaps, more likely, he disapproved of Constant's flaunting of his power over her. A man with as much personal power as Marius could afford to regard such displays as vulgar. He accepted the topcoat Constant handed him and began to button it up.

  'Goodbye, Colonel,' said Catherine sweetly.

  But he was already in the hall. She heard Constant laugh and slap his thigh. She heard Marius clear his throat and murmur some remark.

  Constant returned to her. 'Did you say something?'

  'Only goodbye.'

  He stood over her, his legs slightly apart. 'You can remove that dress now.' She wore the peasant frock he had found for her. Her own clothes were in the bedroom. She began to stand up. 'No,' he said, 'stay there.' She pulled the frock from her body, kneeling. Constant's breathing became deeper and his eyes, focused intensely on her body, had the sudden appearance of strength. 'Good girl,' he said. 'You are a good girl, aren't you, Catherine?'

  'Yes,' she whispered, 'oh, yes.'

  'And you want to please me?'

  'Yes.'

  'You shall.' He moved past her. She heard him enter the bedroom. 'Stay in exactly that position,' he told her.

  She guessed that he was fetching one of his whips, but when he came into her field of vision again his hands were empty. He had changed into a kimono which reached to his knees, revealing his thin, hairy legs. He wore a pair of dark leather slippers on his feet. As he moved closer the kimono parted. He was naked. His penis was half-erect. She anticipated the effort needed to make it as stiff as possible. As a sadist he was excellent but, in common with most of those she had known, particularly the Greeks, he was never very far away from impotence.

  ‘Take it in your lips,' he said.

  Obediently she took his penis into her mouth, rolling her tongue around it, scraping it gently with her teeth, her body supported on her hands. 'Good,' he said. 'Slowly. Good.'

  Deliberately, she tried to hold off his full arousal, even as his groin thrust against her face. She knew that he was unlikely to come, but tonight he might be satisfied only by this and she wanted more from him, for she had to leave early if she was to catch her plane. She pretended to cough, pulling free of him. For a moment he continued to move against her face. 'That wasn't right,' he said. 'You're wilful tonight.'

  'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I think I've got a cold coming.'

  'Hm.' He was mildly angry. 'Now, again.'

  She accepted him for the second time and waited until his penis began to swell before she coughed. 'I'm sorry. Constant, really.'

  'You are a bad girl, aren't you?' he said.

  She bowed her head. 'Yes.'

  Impatiently he put both hands under her chin and pushed his by now limp penis between her lips. Almost immediately she started to cough. He dragged her head back by the hair. He glowered down at her. 'Naughty child.'

  'Yes.' She was beginning to get her lift. 'I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.' This time her cough was spontaneous. He slapped her across both cheeks. Her face glowed and she stopped coughing. 'Naughty little girl!'

  She pretended that she was eager to try again. She bent towards his penis but he drew away. 'No. No more.'

  ‘Please.' She crawled towards him.

  'No.'

  'I'll try not to—'

  'Go into the bedroom,' he said sternly. "

  Again she began to get to her feet, but he pushed her down. 'No. Crawl.'

  She crawled around the furniture, across the Persian carpet, into the gloom of the bedroom. It was lit by candles. 'Get onto the bed,' he said.

  She obeyed, lying face forward, arms spread. She heard him open the lid of his trunk. There was a clatter as he took something out, closing the lid. Then he stood staring down at her.

  'You have been a particularly bad child tonight,' he said. His accent grew thicker. 'Haven't you?'

  She could only nod.

  The tip of his whip touched her backbone. He drew it down to her bottom, he pushed the tip between her legs so that she felt it against her vagina before he moved it down the back of her legs, stroked her just behind the knees with it, caressed her calves with it, slid it around her feet and her ankles. By now she had lost her tiredness entirely and had become acutely conscious of her body, its smoothness, its beauty.

  'There will be six strokes tonight,' he said, 'at least.' The whip hissed. Her buttocks flamed. She did not let him hear her groan. She held it from him. She owed him only a little generosity. He moved methodically down her bottom, placing each stroke expertly, one below the other. On the sixth stroke her whole body sang with white fire and, for her own pleasure, she screamed.

  He had not finished. He fell on top of her, biting her neck, her shoulders, pinching the flesh of her waist, scratching at her pubis, brutally clutching her clitoris. She groaned and, as methodically as he had whipped her, she began to recite a familiar litany, begging him to stop. He would not. He took her by the hair once again. He made her kneel on the floor while he sat
on the edge of the bed with his legs spread.

  'Now we will try again,' he said. 'Now you will not cough. You will do better, yes?'

  She nodded. She was completely out of her head with pleasure.

  She sucked him hard, pretending desperation, she rubbed his penis against her cheek as she licked and nipped at his testicles, she took him into her mouth again, using her teeth so that now he groaned and shivered, tangling his fingers in her hair, until with a little feeble movement he ejaculated his drop of semen into her throat. She lay back on her heels, her eyes shut. She wiped her lips. He had collapsed onto the bed and was smoking one of his cheroots by the time she rejoined him, taking her own cigarettes and matches from the jet and mother-of-pearl table beside her. She found her watch. A few more minutes and she would have to be on her way. She hadn't told him of her plans. She became all at once aware of the welts on her bottom and again her whole body came alive. She would regret her parting from Constant. He was about the best she had managed to find and had required little training.

  He spoke unexpectedly. Usually he never spoke at this stage. 'You look very dignified tonight,' he said. He was praising himself as much as he praised her. 'So completely feminine.'

  She smiled around her cigarette.

  'And it has only just begun,' he added. She had let him think that he was the first; she had enjoyed the fantasy.

  ‘For you,' she said.

  She had puzzled him. Again his expression became boyish, petulant. 'What?'

  'I've got to go in a moment,' she told him, as if in explanation.

  'To your boyfriend?' He was contemptuous. 'To your rock-and-roll hero.'

  'I'm leaving.' She was deliberately uncommunicative.

  He said, as if to excuse her behaviour: 'Are you still taking the drugs?'

  'Oh, yes.' She gave in to her impulse. 'Would I be here, otherwise?' Before he could demand enlightenment, she continued: 'But I'm giving them up after tonight.'

  'You are wise. You don't need them. You might think that you know what you are doing, but they could destroy you in the end.'

  'True.' She sat up, straightening her fine back. She stretched. 'Ah!'

  He said, not altogether seriously, 'I will be very angry with you if you go now.'

  'You're tired.' She smiled. 'You've overdone it. You should sleep. Shall I get you a cup of cocoa before I leave?'

  'No.' He was sulky. He didn't look at her.

  She climbed into her underclothes. She pulled up her long, golden skirt. She buttoned her shirt and over this she put her short, quilted jacket.

  'You look lovely.' Either he had relented or he hoped to flatter her, to make her stay. She ran a brush over her hair. 1 feel wonderful.' She could give him that.

  'You have your pride again.'

  'Yes.'

  'When shall I phone you?'

  She hesitated, looking down at his odd body. She felt affection for him. She bent and kissed his little cock.

  'When?' he said. She picked up her handbag.

  'Whenever you like.'

  'He won't be there for a while?'

  She wondered, momentarily, if she should tell him that Viv would answer the phone to him, for she would have already left the country, if Marius's second-in-command was as good as his word. 'Don't worry,' she said. With a bouncing step she made for the exit.

  'I won't phone.' He attempted firmness, but his desire had left him. 'You come here tomorrow. At seven o'clock.'

  'Okay. See you then,' she said.

  She reached the front door, opening it on its chain to peer outside. The best part of Smith Street consisted of neatly stacked rubble. Marius's men had cleared most of the roads soon after they had arrived. Up at the corner of King's Road she saw the dark outlines of a vehicle. It was waiting for her.

  Closing Constant's door behind her, she began to stride up the street. She was whistling 'I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles.' It was almost her theme song, she thought.

  TWENTY-THREE

  In which Miss UnaPersson witnesses at last the restoration of order

  The man who had built the gibbet had taken pains with his work. It was an exact reproduction of the kind once seen in cowboy films. Against those wooden houses still standing in this section of Umea the gibbet did not look out of place. Craven, on the other hand, hanging there in his flying jacket and silver helmet, looked incongruous. It was inevitable that he tried to convince the soldiers that she had been involved in his stupid plot to steal the only sea-worthy gunboat in the harbour. Una turned her back on her dead lover as the Finnish major cleared his throat to attract her attention. He was seated at a trestle table on which all the many papers were secured by a variety of heavy objects, including his Walther automatic pistol.

  'Could we continue. Mademoiselle Persson?' He spoke Russian. 'A few more of these questions,' he tapped the documents, 'and you can go free. The pacification of Sweden is accomplished. They have already released most of the civilian prisoners in the south.' He was anxious to reassure her. 'A new autonomous parliament is in the process of being convened.' He studied the form, his felt-tip pen poised. Then he glanced up, his eyes amused. 'You agree to recognize the authority of the Emperor of Russia?'

  She nodded.

  'You are a Swedish national?'

  'I have dual nationality. My father was Swedish. Mother was English.'

  'They are resident in Sweden?'

  'They are both dead.' A sad pout.

  'Aha. Occupations?'

  ‘He was a doctor, a missionary, an explorer. She became a missionary, too. They met through the Church. Mother was very devout (although not without a sense of humour).'

  'Natural causes? Or . . . ?' He meant to ask if they had been killed in the fighting.

  They were killed some years ago.' Una lifted the collar of the mink. 'A ballooning accident in China. It was horrible. They were climbing aboard when the mooring ropes slipped too soon. Clinging to the ropes, they shot into the air. They could be seen trying to reach the basket, but it was improperly attached to the gasbag itself—mother swung into it, it tipped sideways and down. Mother fell, with the Peking ducks, the binoculars, the trunk of tropical clothing. Father remained. When he saw mother go, he gave a shrug and released his hold on the rope, plunging after her . . . '

  Tragic' The Finn wrote 'Killed abroad' in neat Cyrillic capitals.

  'Indeed!'

  'Your occupation, mademoiselle?'

  'I am an actress.'

  'Last place of employment?'

  She hesitated.

  He tried to help her. 'Here, In Umea?'

  'I have been resting,' she told him.

  His smile was sympathetic. 'Can you remember your last engagement?'

  'Entertaining the troops in England.'

  'That will do. A great shame about England. And yet it was inevitable.' He reached for a rubber stamp.

  On the other side of the square a group of civilians were dragging a large hand-cart full of coarse red blankets. They all wore Russian army greatcoats and their breath was white in the sharp October air.

  Apparently with relief he stamped a document and signed it. 'Here is your passport. You still intend to go on to St. Petersburg?'

  'I have friends there.'

  'You are lucky.' He spoke without irony. For a moment his eyes rested on the hanging body of Craven. 'A few more hours and he would have been free, anyway.'

  'Yes.'

  'And next year the new century begins, or the old one ends. Nobody seems to be quite clear. It is strange how peace brutalizes some people and ennobles others. It is the same with war. I wonder if there is actually any difference. Many people seem to feel more tranquil when they know there is nothing to do but fight.'

  ‘I know what you mean, major.' She accepted the passport and tucked it into her ermine muff.

  ‘You will be appearing on the stage in Petersburg?'

  'I hope so.'

  He stood up and saluted. ‘I will come and see you.'

 
She inclined her head, the mink shako falling a little so that it almost covered her elaborately mascaraed left eye.

  'You are a very beautiful woman. You will find many admirers in Petersburg.'

  'Oh, certainly.' She laughed. She was touched by his innocent enthusiasm. 'It is a wonderful city in which to be admired.'

  'You must come to Rovaniemi some time. My home. The Paris of the North. The Gateway to Lappland!'

  She knew the city. 'It is a lovely place,' she said. She felt uncomfortable. The handing over of the passport seemed to have reversed their positions. She was embarrassed. She would have preferred his condescension to his admiration. She turned to take one last look at Craven, her heavy furs swinging. It was odd, she thought, that now she had capitulated she had more power than she had ever possessed when she had been a fighter. The knowledge shocked her, as it always had done. She caught the heavy odour of her own perfume. This was no time for self-examination; she must let herself go, fall into her new role with all the old thoroughness. A good actress, she thought, is a contented woman. Too many role options and one became confused. It was much better to let oneself get typecast. And that, she reflected not for the first time, was the trouble with the twentieth century: there was far too much choice for comfort. Well, not any more. The war was over. The Tsar ruled the world (what was left of it) and, with luck, would continue to do so for a long while. Perhaps Jerry had been right, after all, and one big war was preferable to a lot of small ones.

  From somewhere the Finnish major had commandeered a hov-ercab. The driver wore one of Umea's many municipal uniforms. He saluted self-consciously; the major opened the door for Una. The machine rocked slightly on its air cushion as she boarded. The door was shut.

  'The airfield,' said the major in Swedish. 'Good luck. Miss Persson, and bon voyage.’

  'Next year in St Petersburg.' She blew him a kiss. A role is a role, she thought. She was already remembering the old lines.

  The taxi took the short, privileged route through the city and was soon in the suburbs, driving along streets lined with pines and birches, the timber houses of the rich, set back from the street, consciously built in the Swiss chalet style beloved of Edwardians who had settled in the English Lake District. These streets reminded her of New England and she felt a pang of loss.