'In a nutshell, yes.'
'What if I refuse?'
'Harry, I found you. I'm a spotter; I have no real ESP talent myself but I can spot an ESPer a mile away. I suppose that in itself is a talent, but that's all I have. The one thing I know for sure is that there are others like me. One of them is the boss of the Russian branch. Now I've come to you and put my cards on the table. I've told you things I didn't even have the right to tell you. That's because I want you to trust me, and also because I think I can trust you. You've nothing to fear from me, Harry — but I can't promise the same for the other side!'
'You mean… they might find me too?'
They get cleverer all the time, Harry,' Gormley shrugged, 'just as we do. They have at least one man in England. I've not met him, but I've sensed him close to me. I know he was looking at me, watching me. He's probably a spotter, too. What I'm saying is this: I found you, so how long before they do? The difference is this: with them you'll not get a choice.'
'And with you I have a choice, right?'
'Of course you do. It's entirely in your hands. You join us or you don't join us. That's your choice. So take your time, Harry, and think about it. But not for too long. Like I said, we need you. The sooner the better…'
Harry thought about Viktor Shukshin. He couldn't know it, but Shukshin was the man Gormley had 'sensed' watching him. 'There are things I have to do first,' he said, 'before making any final decision.'
'Of course, I can understand that.'
'It may take some time. Maybe five months?'
Gormley nodded. 'If it has to be.'
'I think it has to be, yes.' For the first time Harry smiled his natural, shy smile. 'Hey, I'm dry! Would you like a coffee?'
'Very much,' Gormley smiled back. 'And while we drink it, maybe you'd like to tell me about yourself, eh?'
Harry felt a great weight lifted from his shoulders. 'Yes,' he sighed. 'I think maybe I would.'
It was a fortnight later that Harry Keogh finished his novel and 'went into training' for Viktor Shukshin. An advance on the book gave him the financial stability he would need for the next five or six months, until the job was done.
His first step was to join a group of crazy, all-weather swimming enthusiasts who made a habit of bathing in the North Sea at least twice a week all the year round — including Christmas and New Year's Day! They had something of a reputation for breaking the ice on Harden's reservoir to do charity plunges for the British Heart Foundation. Brenda, a level-headed girl on any other subject except Harry himself, thought he was crazy, of course.
'It's fine in the summer, Harry,' he remembered her telling him one late August evening as they had lain naked in each other's arms in his flat, 'but what about when it starts to get cold? I can't see you breaking the ice to go for a swim! What is this swimming craze, anyway?'
'It's just a way of staying fit and healthy,' he had told her, kissing her breasts. 'Don't you like me healthy?'
'Sometimes/ she had answered, turning more fully towards him as he grew hard again in her hand, 'I think you're far too healthy!'
In fact she had been happier than at any time in more than three years. Harry was much more open now, less given to brooding, more lively and exciting. Nor was his sudden interest in sports confined to swimming. He'd also taken up self-defence and joined a small Hartlepool Judo club. After only a week his coach there had been calling him a 'natural' and telling him he expected big things of him. He hadn't known, of course, that Harry had another coach — a man who had once been the Judo champion of his regiment, who now had nothing better to do than pass on all his expertise to Harry.
But as for Harry's swimming:
He'd always considered himself a fair swimmer; now it appeared that was all he had been. At first the rest of the group were way in front of him — at least until he found himself an ex-Olympic silver medallist who had died in an automobile accident in 1960, a fact recorded on his headstone in Stockton's St Mary's graveyard. Harry was enthusiastically received (his plan with reservations) and his new friend joined in the fun and games with great aplomb.
Even with this sort of advantage, however, there was still the physical side to overcome. Harry might let the professional swimmer's mind guide his technique, but it couldn't help with his lack of muscle; only practice could do that. Nevertheless his progress was rapid.
By September the craze was underwater swimming: that is, seeing just how long he could stay underwater on one breath, and how far he could swim before surfacing. The first time he did two complete lengths of the pool submerged was a red-letter day for Harry; everyone in the place had stopped swimming to watch him. That was at the swimming baths at Seaton Carew, where afterwards an attendant had sidled up to ask him his secret. Harry had shrugged and answered:
'It's all in the mind. Willpower, I suppose…' Which was fair enough. What he did not say was that while it had certainly been his willpower, it had not entirely been his mind.
By the end of October Harry had let his Judo training fall off a little. His progress had been too rapid and his instructors at the club were growing wary of him. Anyway, he was satisfied that he could now look after himself perfectly well, even without 'Sergeant' Graham Lane's assistance. By that time, too, he had taken up ice skating, the final discipline in his itinerary.
Brenda, herself quite capable on the ice, was astonished. She had often tried to get Harry to accompany her to the ice rink in Durham, but he had always refused. That was hardly unnatural; she knew something of how his mother had died; it was just that she believed he should face up to his fear. She couldn't know that the fear wasn't entirely his but his mother's. In the end, though, Mary Keogh was made to see the sense in Harry's preparations and at last came gladly to his aid.
At first she was frightened — the ice, the memory, the sheer horror of her death lingered still — but in a very little while she was enjoying her skating again as much as
ever she had in life. She enjoyed through Harry, and in his turn he received the benefit of her instruction; so that soon he was able to lead Brenda a merry dance across the ice — much to her amazement!
'One thing I can definitely say about you, Harry Keogh,' she had breathlessly told him as he expertly waltzed her round and round the rink while their breath plumed fantastically in the cold air, 'is that there's never a dull moment! Why, you're an athlete!'
And at that moment it had dawned on Harry that he really could be — if there weren't other matters more pressing.
But then, in the first week in November as winter crept in, his mother had dropped something of a bombshell…
Harry was feeling better than he had ever felt in his life before, capable of taking on the entire world, the night she had come to him in his dreams. In his waking hours he must always contact her if he wished to speak to her, but when he slept it was different. Then she had instant access. Normally she respected his privacy, but on this occasion there was something she must talk over with him, something which could not wait.
'Harry?' she'd stolen into his dream, walking with him through a misty graveyard of great, looming tombstones standing as high as houses. 'Harry, can we talk? Do you mind?'
'No, Ma, I don't mind,' he'd answered. 'What is it?'
She took his arm, held it tightly, and knowing now that she had firmly established rapport let her fears and her urgency spill out of her in a veritable torrent of words:
'Harry, I've been speaking to the others. They've told me there's terrible danger for you. Danger in Shukshin, and if you should destroy him terrible danger beyond him! Oh, Harry, Harry — I'm so dreadfully worried for you!'