She brought him three cups of coffee as he unravelled the file for the visit to Yalta. If his predecessor had stayed the course then Holt would have been glad of a gentle run in to his duties. But it was a mess, had only been taken so far, had missed two necessary weeks of knocking into shape. Holt reckoned the file could have been part of the aptitude test they'd given him at FCO after the entrance exam. He attacked the problem, and wished Miss Davenport didn't smoke. Holt was a smoker and trying to kick it and the Camel fumes were rich temptation.
He wrestled the Crimea programme into shape, so that he could dominate it. First flight to Simferopol.
Helicopter transfer to Yalta, check in at the hotel, hire car booked with Intourist. Lunch at the City Authority with the chairman and the deputy chairman, and then back to the hotel for an hour's break before meeting the local newspaper editors. Dinner at the hotel, the British hosting, and the guest list including the same chairman and deputy chairman and the legion of freebooters they would have in tow. That was day one… day two in Sevastopol, day three in Feodosija, and the ambassador had said that if he was coming all that way he was damned if he was going to be prevented from walking the length of the Light Brigade's charge – his predecessor's note on that was underlined twice.
Another note in the handwritten scrawl of his predecessor. The ambassador intended to lay a wreath at any British military cemetery that was still fit to visit.
"Stormed at with shot and shell, While horse and hero fell, They that had fought so well Came thro' the jaws of Death, Back from the mouth of Hell." Good for Sir Sylvester if he was going to remember Cardigan's heroes with a poppy wreath, but there was no sign of the cemetery yet. That he would have to do himself.
Holt worked late that first day, and he didn't see Jane.
Only a cryptic message on his internal phone to state that she was going straight from the office to the Oklahoma rehearsal, that he should get his beauty sleep.
For young Holt the first week flew. He would have sworn he had learned more from life in the capital of the Soviet Union in that one week than he had gathered togetherin two years shuttling paper, and calling it analysis, on the Soviet Desk at FCO.
He went with the ambassador to the Foreign Ministry and was present at a preliminary planning meeting with the Secretariat of the Deputy Foreign Minister for the arrival in Moscow the following month of the Inter-Parliamentary Union from London. He attended a reception thrown by the Foreign Trade crowd for a Scots firm working on the natural gas pipeline across Siberia. He explored the Metro. He was taken out to dinner with Jane, by the Second Secretary Commercial andhis wife. He was invited to supper, with Jane, by the first Secretary Political and his wife. He went to the disco, with Jane, at the British Club. He drove out of the city, with Jane, in the British Leyland Maestro that he had been allocated, to the embassy's dacha for aweekend picnic with her boss, the military attache, and his wife. That he was determined to be circumspect, and that Jane had the curse, were the only drawbacks.
At the end of that first week he had the programme for Yalta beaten, also the draft of the programme for thel Members of Parliament when they flew out, and he had persuaded Miss Davenport to restrict his coffee ration to two per day, and he had seen the wisdom of the ambassador.
Because of his girl, he was the centre of attraction in the confined oasis that was the embassy community. Of n u r s e he didn't touch her, not in public, not where anyone could see. But they were light in the darkness.
Their laughter and their fun and their togetherness were a lift to the embassy personnel who had endured the short day, long night misery of the Moscow winter.
At his morning meeting with the ambassador, Holt presented the programme for Yalta.
" There's one problem. Lady Armitage isn't back so her aircraft seats are extra; should we cancel them?"
"Wouldn't have thought so."
"Whom would you like to take, Ambassador?"
"I'd like to have a hostess for our receptions, and I would like to take the most competent Russian linguist on my staff. To you she may, among other things, just be personal assistant to the military attache, to me she is a very highly regarded member of the t e a m.. . "
"Jane?" A flood of pleasure.
The ambassador's voice dropped, "Miss Davenport has hearing that puts to shame the most sophisticated state security audio systems.. . I fancy that a few days out of the clutches of our colleagues' wives would not distress you."
"That's very good of you."
"She's coming to work, and don't forget to make double sure that you've booked an extra single room for every hotel we're staying in."
"Will be done."
"Holt, it's a good programme, well presented. I learn more about the life blood of the Soviet Union from these visits than from anything else I do. And, most important, we are on show. We are the representatives of our country. You'll give Miss Canning my respects and request her to accompany us, having first checked with the military attache that he can spare her. You will fix the hotel accommodation, you will sort out the necessary travel permission for her from the Foreign Ministry… Get on with it, Holt."
"Darling, nothing's what it seems… Ben's not an agony aunt … "
"He talked about us getting out of the clutches of the embassy wives."
They were in the bar of the British Club, not up on the stools where the noise was, where the newspaper men and his buisness community gathered, but against the far wall. She was on her second campari and soda, and there was a strain about her that was new to him.
He drank only tonic water with ice and lemon because besides cutting out cigarettes he had forsworn alcohol from Monday to Friday and he was suffering.
''Don't be silly, Holt, don't think he's taking me to Yaltajust so that we can have a cuddle in the corner without anyone knowing."
''Why is he taking you, then?"
''Put your thinking cap on, Holt. I'm a hell of a good linguist. At East European and Slavonic I actually had abetter mark in the oral than you did. Had you forgotten that? I 'm in Moscow. I'm personal assistant to the brigadier who is the military attache. An excuse has been found to take me down to the Crimea."
He stared at her. She was taller than he was. She had fair hair to her shoulders. She had gun-metal grey eyes that he worshipped. She wore a powder blue blouse and a severe navy blue suit.
''Asi said, Ben's not thinking of you and me, Ben's thinking of the job."
"And at Sevastopol there i s… "
''I don't want to talk about Sevastopol, nor do I want to talk about what's at Simferopol – I want to have a drink at the end of a vile day."
He was bemused. "I honestly didn't know that that was your line."
"When do you tell a bloke? First date? First time in bed? First night after you're married? Bit late then, Leave it… Raise your glass to Ben – curse is over tomorrow, poor darling…"
His elbows were on the table, his chin rested on his knuckles. He didn't know whether to be shocked or proud. He'd always thought of Jane as a souped-up secretary, and now he had lit upon the truth that there wasenough toher line for her to be required in the Crimea. Bloody hell. She was probably on a higher grade than he was.
"To Ben," she said. Holt raised his glass, clinked hers. "To adjoining rooms in Yalta." Under the table she squeezed his knee.
"Why do you call the ambassador Ben?"
Her voice sunk, and he had to crane to listen, and from the bar it would have seemed like sweet nothings from the love birds.
"Remember the guy who tried to plummet the El Al, spring of '86? He was organised by Syrian Air Force Intelligence. Name of Nezar Hindawi. Nasty man, put his lady on a plane with three pounds of Czech-made explosive in the bottom of her hand baggage, timed to detonate over Austria. The Syrians didn't just burn their fingers, they were scorched right up to their armpits. Shouted like hell, but they were caught still smoking when Hindawi rattled off his confession. So we broke off diplomatic relations, big deal, told the Syrians that if they didn't behave like gentlemen then they were going to get booted out of the club. They were pretty upset, big loss of face, and they started doing their damnedest to get our ambassador back. They made their first overtures right here at a reception in the Kremlin. One of their diplomats sidled up to Sylvester and gave him the glad news that the El Al had all been a dreadful mistake, the wild fantasies of a couple of bottle washers, that Syria was dead against terrorism.