‘Miles!’
He opened his eyes. Those of Richard Mowbray were on him, and a hand rested on his shoulder.
‘Wakey, wakey, old chap.’
‘Richard, I must have dozed off.’
‘I admire that in a man, Miles, the ability to stay calm when all around are clinging to the wreckage.’
‘I had no sleep last night.’ He glanced around his office, having for a moment expected to find himself in the hotel room.
‘I came to sympathize,’ said Mowbray. ‘Is it true?’
‘Is what true?’
‘That you saw something suspicious and went over there to investigate?’
Well, that was the story which Denniston, listening like an attentive tiger beetle, had soaked up. Miles had added some nice touches, like the living-room light being turned off and then on again. Denniston had snatched at that one with his mandibles.
‘A signal!’
‘That’s what I suspected, sir.’
And Denniston had sat back, pleased with himself.
‘Yes, I saw something, Richard,’ Miles said now, scratching at his face.
‘Uh-huh.’ Mowbray seemed unconvinced, and Miles remembered that it was Mowbray who had come closest to witnessing his dark ebb and flow of the previous night, and of all other nights. Tact was needed.
‘It seems strange,’ he said, ‘that the very day we move out, something like that happens.’
Mowbray thumped the desk with his fist.
‘That’s just what I was thinking, Miles. It’s as though they knew the operation had been wrapped up.’
‘Of course, it could be coincidence.’
‘If I have to make the choice between coincidence and conspiracy, I’ll plump for conspiracy every time.’
Miles thought of Billy Monmouth, conspiring against him and against Sheila.
‘You’re probably right, Richard. But then what stops us from ripping our lives apart looking for the watchmen who are watching us?’
‘Come on, Miles. What about your act with the restaurant cutlery and the way you check your car? I know all about your little rituals. Would you call them paranoia?’
Miles was suddenly aware of having humored Mowbray a little too much, and it had led to this, his own discomfort. Did everyone know everything about him? Sheila could hear him at the living-room door. Mowbray was telling him that his little restaurant game was common knowledge. It was a sobering thought. How many people laughed at him behind his back? Everywhere he turned these days he bumped into people who knew too much about him, and all the time it was he who was supposed to be on the watch, on the hunt.
Hunting what?
Hunting his own fantasy of a goliath beetle, a double agent? What kind of beetle was Richard Mowbray anyway? To his enemies in the firm he would be a Colorado beetle. The Colorado beetle had led a harmless existence until settlers took the potato to North America. The beetle loved the new crop, became mesmerized by that first forbidden taste. Yes, that was Mowbray, safe within the firm until he had begun to investigate it for himself, and then coming to enjoy that investigation so much that he wanted to taste more deeply.
But Mowbray would never find a single double agent, for the simple reason that he was wandering aimlessly and in all the wrong directions.
‘If there’s any paranoia to be found around here, Miles, it isn’t in your head, and it certainly isn’t in mine.’
Mowbray’s eyes were like candles, but Miles knew that he was fumbling in the dark.
In the film that evening, John Wayne played a policeman sent across to London to take charge of a criminal wanted in the United States. The film’s real entertainment came from the sight of the Hollywood legend stalking the streets of the dull old city. It was nice to watch one of the good old boys in action.
Miles was thinking back to his unheroic undergraduate days, days spent following Sheila, mooning outside her digs, wondering if she had any secret lovers or secret life. He would make a scene if he saw her speaking to other men, and she would laugh at him. God, he had been quick-tempered in those days. The firm had calmed him down.
‘Hello.’
The voice was just about empty of emotion, but hesitant.
‘Hello,’ he answered.
This was it, then. She had entered the living room, was removing her coat. He kept his eyes on the television.
‘I’m just going to make myself a coffee. Would you like some?’
‘Yes, please,’ he lied, not wishing to sound intractable.
‘Fine.’
And she left the room again, while the film played to a score of gunshots and screeching wheels. Miles took a deep breath. Only seconds of this fragile peace remained. He sat up straight in the chair and clasped his hands, the way he had seen actors do when they were supposed to be anxious for resolution. He was no hero, but he could act as well as anyone.
Was it as easy as that, then? No, of course not. But they made some kind of effort at a beginning, sitting together on the settee, sharing a bottle of wine, watching television.
Or rather using the flickering pictures as a partial means of escape, so that the conversation never really had a chance to become too volatile, too involved. The television acted like the third party to an argument; neither Miles nor Sheila wanted to make too much fuss in front of it.
And although it was dark, they left the curtains open, to remind themselves how tiny their drama would seem against the perspective of the world. The programs on TV grew softer as the night progressed, and so did the conversation. Everything conspired, so it seemed, to make their own dialogue easier. The old marriage was over, on that they were agreed. Did they want a new one to begin, or were they content to see the old one perish and go their separate ways?
‘What about you?’
‘I asked first.’
And both smiled, wishing to try the former path.
‘But there has to be give, Miles.’
‘Agreed.’
Sheila was rubbing at her forehead, her eyes moist, and Miles examined her closely. She was the same woman to whom he had lost his virginity, the same woman he had married. Love overwhelmed him, and he put an arm around her, pulling her in toward him. She hugged him silently, her hands sliding over his back. He felt an almost adolescent excitement. Love was a strange and a timeless gift; one never lost the knack.
Over a supper of microwaved pizza and another bottle of Rioja, they spoke softly together, as though afraid of waking their parents in an upstairs room. They giggled together, too, thinking back on the good times, acting like old friends. Perhaps it was important at this fragile stage not to act as husband and wife. Miles mentioned that he had read a lot of Sheila’s books.
‘You never told me that.’
He shrugged his shoulders. So then they talked about books for a while. Sheila applauded silently.
‘You have been a bookworm, haven’t you?’ She was smiling. ‘But, Miles, if you’d told me, we could have had such good discussions, couldn’t we?’ He agreed that this was true. ‘Miles, let’s go to the theater sometime together. Let’s make it soon.’
Miles felt the life flooding back into him. It seemed that the firm, over the years, had sucked the life out of him and replaced it with little coils and bolts of mistrust and fear. But he could change, couldn’t he? Starting now, with Sheila giggling and looking so very young, and he trying to impress her and make her laugh. Yes, the life was there again.
They had not mentioned Billy Monmouth yet. Leave the pain to some other time, their eyes said. Everything can be faced in time.
Sheila felt confused, though she tried smiling her most open and encouraging smile. Was this what she had wanted all along? Was this what the fling with Billy had always been leading toward? And had it been a ‘fling’ anyway? She didn’t know, not yet. Perhaps if Miles had not found out about Billy, she would have told him herself. Yes, she tried telling herself that she had been using Billy, nothing more. No, nothing more than that. Oh God, she had worried away the past few nights by herself, wondering where Miles was, even going so far as telephoning Jack in Edinburgh, swallowing her embarrassment and asking if his father was there. But not there, and now here, his arms feeling more muscular than she remembered, his back thicker, but having lost weight from his paunch. And it felt so good lying here, without questions, without answers to those questions.