Her day's work done, Fiona sighed with relief to be back in their new 'home'. There was a bunch of flowers, still wrapped in paper and cellophane, on the hall table. It was typical of Bernard that he'd not bothered to put them into a vase of water, but she didn't touch them. She took off her hat and coat, checked to be sure there was no mail in the cage behind the letter-box nor on the hall table, and then examined herself in the mirror for long enough to decide that her make-up was satisfactory. She had aged, and even the make-up could not completely hide the darkened eyes and lines round her mouth. She flicked her fingers through her hair, which had been crushed under the close-fitting hat, then took a breath and put on a cheerful smile before going into the drawing room of her rented apartment.
Bernard was already home. He'd taken off his jacket and loosened his tie. Shirt wrinkled, red braces visible, he was lolling on the sofa with a big drink in his hand. 'What a mess you look, darling. A bit early for boozing, isn't it?' She said it loudly and cheerfully before seeing that Bernard's father was sitting opposite him, also drinking.
Despite her flippant tone, Mr Brian Samson, still technically her superior in the office, frowned. He came forward and gave her a kiss on the cheek. 'Hello, Fiona,' he said. 'I was just telling Bernard all about it.' If it did anything, the kiss confirmed her father-in-law's feelings about upper-class wives who came home and reprimanded their husbands for making themselves comfortable in their own homes.
'All about it?' she said, going to one of the display shelves above the TV where by common consent the mail was placed until both of them had read it. There was only a bill from the wine shop and an elaborate engraved invitation to her sister's birthday party. She'd seen both pieces of mail but examined them again before turning round and smiling. Since neither man offered to get her a drink she said, 'I think I'll make some tea. Would anyone like tea?' She noticed some spilled drink and took a paper napkin to mop it up and then tidied the drinks tray before she said, 'All about what, Brian?'
It was Bernard who answered: The Baader-Meinhof panic, as they are now calling it.'
'Oh, that. How boring. You were lucky to miss it, darling.'
'Boring?' said her father-in-law, his voice rising slightly.
'Much ado about nothing,' said Fiona.
'I don't know,' said her father-in-law. 'If the Baader-Meinhof people had hijacked the airliner and flown it to Prague…' Ominously he left the rest unsaid.
'Well that would have been impossible, father-in-law,' she said cheerfully. The signal that came back from Bonn said that Andreas Baader committed suicide in Stammheim maximum security prison a year ago and the rest of them are in other prisons in the Bundesrepublik.'
'I know that,' said the elder Samson with exaggerated clarity, 'but terrorists come in many shapes, sizes and colours; and not all of them are behind bars. It was an emergency. My God, Fiona, have you been to Bonn lately? They have barbed wire and armed guards on the government buildings. The streets are patrolled by armoured cars. It's not boring, Fiona, whatever else it may be.'
Fiona made no concession to her father-in-law. 'So you don't want tea?' she said.
'The world is going mad,' said Samson senior. 'One poor devil was murdered when his own godchild led the killers into the house carrying red roses. Every politician and industrialist in the country is guarded night and day.'
'And complaining because they can't visit their mistresses, or so it said on the confidential report,' said Fiona. 'Did you read that?'
'What I can't understand,' said her father-in-law, ignoring her question and holding Fiona personally responsible for any delinquency attributed to the younger generation, 'is the way in which we have people demonstrating in favour of the terrorists! Bombs in German car showrooms in Turin, Leghorn and Bologna. Street demonstrations in London, Vienna and Athens. In favour of the terrorists. Are these people mad?'
Fiona shrugged and picked up the tray.
Bernard watched but said nothing. Throughout the world 1977 had seen an upsurge in the terrorist activities of religious fanatics and assorted crooks and maniacs. People everywhere were expressing their bewilderment. The older generation were blaming everything upon their children, while younger people saw the mindless violence as a legacy they had inherited. Bernard's wife and his father provided a typical example of this. Any conversation was likely to degenerate into an exchange in which they both assumed archetypal roles. Bernard's father thought that Fiona had too many airs and graces: too rich, too educated and too damned opinionated, he'd told Bernard once after a difference of opinion with her.
As Fiona went to the kitchen she delivered a Parthian shot: 'In any case, hardly a suitable cue for panic, father-in-law.'
Bernard wished she wouldn't say 'father-in-law' in that tripping way. It irritated his father, but of course Fiona knew that only too well. Bernard tried to intercede. 'Dad says it was the Russian message ordering the Czechs to keep their airfield open all night that did it. We put two and two together and made five.'
Fiona was amused. 'At this time of the year hundreds of East Bloc military airfields are working round the clock. This, darling, is the time of their combined exercises. Or hasn't that military secret filtered back to London Central yet?'
She wasn't in view but they could hear her pouring the hot water into the teapot and putting cups and saucers on a tray. Neither man spoke. The animated discussion they'd been having before Fiona's arrival had been killed stone dead. Brian looked at his son and smiled. Bernard smiled back.
Fiona came in and set the tray down on the table where Bernard had been resting his feet. Then she knelt on the carpet to pour the tea. 'Are you both sure…?' she said. She had arranged cups and saucers for all three of them, and a sugar bowl because her father-in-law took sugar in his tea.
'No thank you, darling,' said Bernard.
She looked at Bernard. She loved him very much. The hurried assignment to Berlin had not been wonderful for either of them but it had given her a chance to break away from the foolish relationship with Kennedy. These brushes with Samson senior were upsetting, but he was old, and in fact she'd found that the more she disliked the old man, the more she came to appreciate Bernard. He was always the peacemaker but never showed weakness either to her or to his father. Bernard, what a wonderful man she'd found. Now she'd had a chance to see things in perspective, she knew that he was the only man for her. The perilous relationship with Harry Kennedy was behind her. She still didn't comprehend how that frenzied affair could have happened except that it disclosed some alarming sexual vulnerability of which she'd never been aware.
Even so, she couldn't help but wonder why he hadn't sent the postcard. One was forwarded here every week: a coloured advertising card from a 'hair and beauty salon' off Sloane Street. Some friend of his owned it: a woman friend no doubt.
'No mail?' she asked as she measured milk into her tea and stirred it to see the colour of it.
'Only that same crimpers,' said Bernard.
'Where did you put it?'
'You didn't want it, did you?'
'If I take the card they said I could get a price reduction,' said Fiona.
'It's in the waste bin. Sorry.'
She could see it now. From where she knelt on the floor she could almost have reached it. It was in the basket together with an empty Schweppes tonic bottle and a crumpled Players cigarette packet that must have been Brian's. The postcard was torn into small pieces, almost as if Bernard had sensed the danger it held. Fiona resolved not to touch it, although her first impulse was to go and get it and piece it together.