'Anyway,' added Bernard, 'you won't be in London for a bit, will you?'
'No, that's right.' She sat back on her heels and sipped her tea as if unconcerned. 'I was forgetting that.'
'I told Dad that you are going out tonight. He wants me to go to some little farewell party at the Club and have dinner with him afterwards. Is that okay?'
She could have laughed. After all the trouble she'd gone to to arrange the secret meeting with Bret Rensselaer this evening, she now found that her husband was completely uninterested in her movements. She told him anyway. 'I'm at a familiarization briefing. Someone is coming from London.'
Bernard was hardly listening to her. To his father he said, 'If Frank will be there, I'll return some books I borrowed from him.'
'Frank will be there,' said his father. 'Frank loves parties.'
'Too bad you're not free, darling,' Bernard told his wife.
'Farewell parties are usually more fun without wives,' said Fiona knowingly.
'Another drink, Dad?' said Bernard and got to his feet.
His father shook his head.
'Where will you have dinner?' she asked.
'Tante Lisl's,' announced Bernard with great pleasure. 'She is cooking venison specially for us.' Tante Lisl owned a hotel that had once been her home. Brian Samson, and his family, had been billeted upon her when the war ended. It had become a sort of second home for Bernard, and old Tante Lisl a surrogate mother. Bernard's undisguised delight in the old house sometimes gave Fiona a feeling of insecurity. She felt that now.
Bernard came over and gave her a kiss on the top of her head. 'Goodbye, love. I might be late.' As he went out with his father he said, as if to himself. 'I mustn't forget to take those flowers for Lisl. She loves flowers.'
As she heard the front door close behind the two men Fiona closed her eyes and rested her head back in the armchair. Of course the flowers were not for her: how could she have imagined they were? The flowers were for that dreadful old woman against whom Bernard would hear no word said.
Bernard could sometimes be the archetypal selfish male. He took her for granted. He was delighted at the prospect of spending an evening with his father and his cronies, drinking and telling their stories. Stories of secret agents and daring deeds, exaggerated in the course of time and in the course of the evening's drinking.
It said a great deal about their relationship that Bernard would have been uncomfortable with her at such a gathering. Bernard respected her, but if he really loved her he would have wanted her with him whatever the company he was in. Secretly she lived for the day when he would be forced to see her for what she was: someone who could play the agent game as well as he could play it. Perhaps then he would treat her as she wanted to be treated: as an equal. And if meantime she'd used the same sort of secrecy to steal a little happiness for herself, could she be blamed? No one had been hurt.
She looked round the room at the mess that Bernard had left for her to tidy up. Was it any wonder that she had found such happiness in the short and foolish love affair with Harry Kennedy? He had given her a new lease of life at a time when she was almost in despair. During the time she'd had with Harry she had stopped the tablets and felt like a different person. Harry treated her with care and consideration and yet he was so wonderfully outgoing. He wasn't frightened to tell her how much he adored her. For him she was a complex and interesting human being whose opinions counted, and with him she found herself exchanging personal feelings that she had never shared with Bernard. When it came down to hard facts: she loved Bernard and put up with him, but Harry loved her desperately and he made her feel deeply feminine in a way she'd never experienced before.
Now that was all over and finished with, she told herself. She could look back soberly and see the affair with Harry for what it was: the most glorious luxury; a release in time of stress, a course of treatment.
She looked at the time. She must have a bath and change her clothes. Thank heavens she'd brought with her some really good clothes. For this evening's meeting she would need to look her best as well as have her wits about her.
Fiona Samson's appointment was in Kessler's, a family restaurant in Gatower Strasse, Berlin-Spandau. Its premises occupied the whole house, so that there were dining rooms on every floor. Downstairs old Klaus Kessler liked to supervise his dining room waiters in person. He stood there in his long apron amid dark green paintwork, red checked gingham table-cloths and the menu written on small slates. Kessler described it as a 'typical French bistro', but in fact its decor, and the menu too, showed little change from the Berlin Weinstube where the family had been serving good simple food since his grandfather's time.
Up the narrow creaking stairs there was a second dining room, and above that three upper rooms were more elaborately furnished, and with better cutlery and glass, linen cloths and handwritten menus without prices. These were booked for small and very discreet dinners. It was in one of them that Fiona had dinner with Bret Rensselaer that evening.
'You got away all right?' Bret said politely. She offered her cheek and he gave her a perfunctory kiss. There was champagne in an ice bucket: Bret was already drinking some.
The waiter took her coat, poured her a glass of champagne and put a menu into her hands.
'There was no problem,' said Fiona. 'Bernard is at a party with his father.'
'I hear the venison is good,' said Bret, looking at the menu.
'I don't like venison,' said Fiona more forcefully than she intended. She sipped her champagne. 'In fact I'm not very hungry.'
'Kessler says he'll do a cheese souffle for us.'
'That sounds delicious.'
'And a little Westphalian ham to start?' Anticipating her approval he put down the menu and whipped off the stylish glasses that he wore when reading. He was vain enough to hate wearing them but his attempts to wear contact lenses had not worked out well.
'Perfect.' Neither of them were interested enough in the food to read the menu all through. It was a relief, thought Fiona. Bernard could never sit down in a restaurant without cross-examining the waiter about the cooking in its most minute details. What was worse, he was always trying to persuade Fiona to try such things as smoked eel, tongue or – what was that other dish he liked so much? – Marinierter Hering.
'How are you enjoying Berlin?' Bret asked.
'Having Bernard with me makes a difference.'
'Of course. His mother went to England to look after the children?'
'It was sweet of her but I miss them awfully,' she said. A platter of ham arrived garnished with tomatoes and pickles, and there was a lot of fussing about as the waiter offered them a selection of bread rolls and three different types of mustard. When the waiter had departed she said, 'I suppose at heart I'm a housewife.' She spread butter on her black bread but she watched Bret's reaction. Exactly a week ago she'd decided that she would not be able to go through with this mad project of defecting to the KGB as some sort of superspy.
Fiona's life had become too complex for her. The clandestine meetings with Martin Euan Pryce-Hughes had not been too stressful. She was a sleeper: they met rarely. Her assignment had provided her with a smug feeling of serving her country, and the Department, while demanding little or nothing from her. Then had come the bombshell from Bret Rensselaer that the Prime Minister had asked the D-G for a long-term commitment to getting someone into the top echelons of the enemy intelligence service. Of course she hadn't entirely dismissed the thought that Bret had exaggerated the way it had happened, especially now that she saw the gain in prestige – and self-esteem too – that her planned mission brought to Bret.