‘What are you doing here?’
She explained, ‘I’m always unhappy when you meet Segura. This time I wanted to be sure…’
‘Sure of what?’ He wondered whether at last she had begun to suspect that he had no agents.
Perhaps she had received instructions to watch him, from London or from 59200 in Kingston They began to walk home.
‘Sure that it’s not a trap, that the police aren’t waiting for you. A double agent is tricky to handle.’
‘You worry too much.’
‘And you have so little experience. Look what happened to Raul and Cifuentes.’
‘Cifuentes has been interrogated by the police.’ He added with relief, ‘He’s blown, so he’s no use to us now.’
‘Then aren’t you blown too?’
‘He gave nothing away. It was Captain Segura who chose the questions, and Segura is one of us. I think perhaps it’s time we gave him a bonus. He’s trying to compile a complete list for us of foreign agents here American as well as Russian. Wild duck that’s what he calls them.’
‘It would be quite a coup. And the constructions?’
‘We’ll have to let those rest a while. I can’t make him act against his own country.’
Passing the Cathedral he gave his usual coin to the blind beggar who sat on the steps outside. Beatrice said, ‘It seems almost worth while being blind in this sun.’ The creative instinct stirred in Wormold. He said, ‘You know, he’s not really blind. He sees everything that goes on.’
‘He must be a good actor. I’ve been watching him all the time you were with Segura.’
‘And he’s been watching you. As a matter of fact he’s one of my best informers. I always have him stationed here when I meet Segura. An elementary precaution. I’m not as careless as you think.’
‘You’ve never told H. Q.’
‘There’s no point. They could hardly have traces of a blind beggar, and I don’t use him for information. All the same if I had been arrested you’d have known of it in ten minutes. What would you have done?’ ‘Burnt all records and driven Milly to the Embassy.’
‘What about Rudy?’
‘I’d have told him to radio London that we were breaking off and then to go underground.’
‘How does one go underground?’ He didn’t probe for an answer. He said slowly as the story grew of itself, ‘The beggar’s name is Miguel. He really does all this for love. You see, I saved his life once.’
‘How?’
‘Oh, it was nothing. An accident to the ferry. It just happened that I could swim and he couldn’t.’
‘Did they give you a medal?’ He looked at her quickly, but in her face he could see only innocent interest.
‘No. There was no glory. As a matter of fact they fined me for bringing him to shore in a defence zone.’
‘What a very romantic story. And now of course he would give his life for you.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t go as far as that.’
‘Do tell me have you somewhere a small penny account-book in black wash-leather?’
‘I shouldn’t think so. Why?’
‘With your first purchases of pen-nibs and india-rubbers?’
‘Why on earth pen-nibs?’
‘I was just wondering, that’s all.’
‘You can’t buy account-books for a penny. And pen-nibs nobody uses pen-nibs nowadays.’
‘Forget it. Just something Henry said to me. A natural mistake.’
‘Who’s Henry?’ he asked.
‘59200,’ she said. He felt an odd jealousy, for in spite of security rules she had only once called him Jim.
The house was empty as usual when they came in; he was aware that he no longer missed Milly, and he felt the sad relief of a man who realizes that there is one love at least that no longer hurts him.
‘Rudy’s out,’ Beatrice said. ‘Buying sweets, I suppose. He eats too many. He must consume an awful lot of energy, because he gets no fatter, but I don’t see how.’
‘We’d better get down to work. There’s a cable to send. Segura gave some valuable information about Communist infiltration in the police. You’d hardly believe..
‘I can believe almost anything. Look at this, I’ve just discovered something fascinating in the codebook. Did you know there was a group for “eunuch”? Do you think it crops up often in cables?’
‘I expect they need it in the Istanbul office.’
‘I wish we could use it. Can’t we?’
‘Are you ever going to marry again?’
Beatrice said, ‘Your free associations are rather obvious sometimes. Do you think Rudy has a secret life? He can’t consume all that energy in the office.’
‘What’s the drill for a secret life? Do you have to ask permission from London before you start one?’
‘Well, of course, you would have to get traces before going very far.
London prefers to keep sex inside the department.’
Chapter 2
‘I must be getting important,’ Wormold said. ‘I’ve been invited to make a speech.’
‘Where?’ Milly asked, looking politely up from the Horsewoman’s Year Book. It was the evening hour when work was over and the last gold light lay flat across the roofs and touched the honey coloured hair and the whisky in his glass.
‘At the annual lunch of the European Traders’ Association. Dr Braun, the President, has asked me to make one as the oldest member. The guest of honour is the American Consul-General,’ he added with pride. It seemed such a short time ago that he had come to Havana and met with her family in the Floridita bar the girl who was Milly’s mother; now he was the oldest trader there. Many had retired: some had gone home to fight in the last war -English, German, French but he had been rejected because of his bad leg. None of these had returned to Cuba.
‘What will you talk about?’
He said sadly, ‘I shan’t. I wouldn’t know what to say.’
‘I bet you’d speak better than any of them.’
‘Oh no. I may be the oldest member, Milly, but I’m the smallest too. The rum-exporters and the cigar-men they are the really important people.’ ‘You are you.’
‘I wish you had chosen a cleverer father.’
‘Captain Segura says you are pretty good at checkers.’
‘But not as good as he is.’
‘Please accept, Father,’ she said. ‘I’d be so proud of you.’
‘I’d make a fool of myself.’
‘You wouldn’t. For my sake.’
‘For your sake I’d turn cartwheels. All right. I’ll accept.’ Rudy knocked at the door. This was the hour when he listened in for the last time; it would be midnight in London. He said, ‘There’s an urgent cable from Kingston. Shall I fetch Beatrice?’
‘No, I can manage it myself. She’s going to a movie.’
‘Business does seem brisk,’ Milly said.
‘Yes.’
‘But you don’t seem to sell any more cleaners.’
‘It’s all long-term promotion,’ Wormold said.
He went into his bedroom and deciphered the cable. It was from Hawthorne. Wormold was to come by the first possible plane to Kingston and report. He thought: So they know at last.
The rendezvous was the Myrtle Bank Hotel. Wormold had not been to Jamaica for many years, and he was appalled by the dirt and the heat. What accounted for the squalor of British possessions? The Spanish, the French and the Portuguese built cities where they settled, but the English just allowed cities to grow. The poorest street in Havana had dignity compared with the shanty-life of Kingston huts built out of old petrol-tins roofed with scrap-metal purloined from some cemetery of abandoned cars.
Hawthorne sat in a long chair in the veranda of Myrtle Bank drinking a planter’s punch through a straw. His suit was just as immaculate as when Wormold had met him first; the only sign of the great heat was a little powder caked under his left ear. He said, ‘Take a pew.’ Even the slang was back. ‘Thanks.’