Liddell offered his arm. Rachel took it, and together they walked back towards the piano music and conversation. She tried not to hear the barely perceptible dip in the murmur of voices when they entered the ballroom.
* * *
Food was served around eight, an exquisite spread of tapas and cheeses. It was delicious enough that Rachel forgot her worries and simply enjoyed the stuffed peppers, small sausages and Spanish omelette. She had not eaten a proper meal for days.
As the evening wore on, Rachel drifted from one small group to another, light-headed and fatigued from making small talk. There was a jarring shift in the conversation whenever she tried to join, like a gramophone needle jumping over a record’s grooves. People became polite and distant and talked of inconsequential things. It was the mask one adopted with people who were not a part of the secret world, the uninitiated.
Ironically, the only person who stuck with her for a while was Guy Burgess, Kim Philby’s original gateway into the Service. Burgess was one of the more openly flamboyant Summer Court officers. He was unmasked, stank of liquor and cigarettes, and his open-collared shirt was covered in wine stains. He inhabited the body of a dark-haired, rakish medium with olive skin whose slack face was a stark contrast to his spirit rider’s sharp wit.
‘I applaud you for coming here, Mrs White,’ he said. ‘But I think you were right. You ought to go home to your husband and find something to do other than spying. It shouldn’t be difficult, and I would know: I only got into it because it was the most useless thing I could think of.’
‘Well, Mr Burgess,’ said Rachel, ‘looking at you, I can assure you that it is not the most useless thing I can think of.’
Burgess laughed. ‘I see we met too late. Sad. I am going to miss you now. Please don’t leave.’ He tossed his hand-rolled cigarette stub onto the Harrises’ thick burgundy carpet. ‘Actually, there is a host of little angels in the Summer Court more useless than me. That bounder Bloom, for example. We were supposed to meet for a drink but he is not even here yet.’
Rachel smiled, but inside, she was furious. Had she made a fool of herself for nothing? It might be months before Bloom visited the living world again, and by then it would be too late.
Burgess noticed her pause and looked at her, swaying slightly in his odd, pigeon-toed stance.
‘I don’t suppose I can entice you along on a secret mission to Tommy’s wine cellar, hmm? I am guessing he had new locks installed after my last visit.’
‘It is tempting,’ Rachel said, ‘but I think I will try my luck with Kim again.’
‘Suit yourself.’ He looked at Rachel. ‘I know it feels like you were not picked for the polo team, Mrs White. But imagine what a stupid game that is, sitting on top of smelly animals and trying to hit balls with long sticks.’
‘Yes. Only men could invent such a game,’ Rachel said.
* * *
Around ten o’clock, she found herself standing alone, drinking dark Spanish wine from a glass Kim had poured for her after making a show of arguing that the best way to sober her up was to push her through drunkenness and to the other side. Kim’s grin had been the same as ever, but his eyes were flinty.
At the other end of the room, Hildy and Tommy Harris held forth on one of the subjects they were both experts in—art, sculpture, music, cuisine or treachery. She considered joining the circle of listeners but could not bear another moment of hushed awkwardness.
Drinking more was not a good idea, but she continued anyway, in the faint hope that imbibing the Harrises’ grand vin would revive her connection to the secret world. Or failing that, magically summon Peter Bloom.
To distract herself, she studied a large Velasquez painting of the Madonna. The Mother of God floated in the air, surrounded by a bright halo. There were dirty, dark-haired people below her, reaching up, while she lifted two fingers in a serene but uncaring benediction.
Rachel was sceptical of religion like any intelligence officer faced with a poor cover story. The Anglican Church had adapted its doctrine to argue that Heaven and the Kingdom of God lay in the ana direction, where souls came from. Summerland was merely where the souls of the dead resided until Judgment Day, when they would return to their bodies on Earth and the chosen would be taken up to the true Heaven above.
The view was opposite to that of Pope Teilhard, who argued that the spirits evolved towards Godhead, and that the fourth dimension wrapped around itself in a circle. Summerland was the purgatory; the process of Fading—one’s memories being stripped away from the luz, the soul-stone—was a cleansing. Heaven waited in the infinite abyss of kata. It was heresy to cling to the world of the living for too long.
She finished her wine and cradled the empty glass against her collarbone, staring at the Madonna’s beatific face. Maybe Teilhard was right. Maybe she should just let it go.
‘Excuse me.’
A New Dead guest stood next to her. He was shorter than her, with dark, thinning hair, hands clasped behind his back. He wore a full face mask, a white, featureless oval with a thin golden net over the eyeholes. There appeared to be something wrong with his spirit crown: it made an audible humming sound.
‘Yes?’
‘I wanted to thank you. For creating a little scandal. I was worried it was going to be dreadfully dull and took my time getting here. Instead, everybody has been talking about you.’
Rachel’s heart jumped.
‘To be honest, sir, I could use a little more dull myself. But you are welcome. Have we met?’
‘I’m so sorry—where are my manners? We met only briefly, before my transition. Peter Bloom. Peter. I’m with the Iberian Section.’ His hand had a charter-body’s chill, but the grip was practised and firm.
‘Rachel White.’
‘Guy Burgess told me what you said,’ Peter said. He twitched, put a hand in his pocket, adjusted something and then shrugged. ‘Excuse me. Poor connection. I had a bit of a tumble earlier. I expect the medium will charge me an arm and a leg for it.’
That explained Bloom’s slightly dishevelled look. There were fresh mud stains on his trousers.
‘Are you going to offer me your sympathies as well, Peter? I’m afraid I’ve had enough of that for one evening.’
‘Not at all. In fact, I agree with you. Both branches of the Service have their problems, and nepotism is one of them. Section heads fighting turf wars is another. And then there is interservice rivalry. We wine and dine together here, but your people resent mine, and the Summer Court has a tendency to feel a bit…’ Bloom trailed off.
‘Superior? Arrogant? Stuck-up?’
‘Your words, not mine. In any case, you are not the only one who has been treated unjustly. It is a shame, isn’t it? We join the Service to experience something bigger than ourselves. Something holy, even.’ Bloom looked up at the painting, head cocked to one side.
‘Well, not asking questions or rebelling worked out for Mary,’ Rachel said. ‘She did what she was told and we still honour her. Perhaps I should follow her example.’ Her tone was bitter.
‘You are in a very cynical mood.’
‘I am a cynical sort of person. An occupational hazard, I suppose.’
She had not rehearsed this with Max. He had simply urged her to say what came naturally. She studied Bloom, but it was hard to read him with his full mask.
‘So why did you join the Service, then, Rachel?’
‘Well, I was born in Bengal. I was seven when my family moved back here, so I grew up thinking of England as this mythical place. My ayah, my nurse, made up all kinds of stories about the Queen and her court of spirits and I ate them up. I suppose I never quite stopped believing in them, in the idea of the Empire. At Princess Helena College, when the other girls picked on me for sounding different, I would tell them I was just as British as they were, and that one day I was going to work for the Queen.