Ashes In the Wind (34 page)

My original minute has been leaked in its entirety to
The
Guardian
. Perm Sec sends for me, plainly believes I leaked the document, says there will have to be an internal inquiry. I go back to my office and write him a note saying: (a) it’s a lousy project; (b) the PM’s nephew’s interest should have been disclosed; (c) I had
not
leaked the document. I feel better immediately.

18 June

Sent for by the Perm Sec, who slaps my note down in front of me, describes it as ‘unnecessary and unwise’, two cardinal Treasury sins. He says he has asked the Committee of Inquiry (announced at PM’s Questions yesterday) to comment specifically on my role.

27 November

The Committee’s report was published today. There is a separate, confidential note on my part in the business. It’s now on my file. I have become an ex-high-flyer.

Strictly Private and Confidential

The Committee of Inquiry reached the following conclusions:

1.  James Burke, Assistant Secretary to the Treasury, was operating within Departmental guidelines in registering his view that this contract could not be justified in value-for-money terms, and in indicating that, in his opinion, there had been irregularities in the contract award process.

2.  The Committee took the view that in reaching his conclusion he had given insufficient weight to the importance of this contract for British exports and manufacturing jobs.

3.  The Committee considered that he was wrong in describing certain payments as bribes. These were legitimate commissions payable to a number of consultants providing valuable services to the main contractor and the Tanzanian government. There was no evidence to suggest that any relative of any minister benefited from these commissions.

4.  The Committee was unable to attribute responsibility for the leaking of James Burke’s minute to the
Guardian
. It has made several recommendations intended to improve security in the department.

5.  This note should be placed in James Burke’s Personnel file.

Rereading his diary and the weasel words of the Committee of Inquiry, James asks himself why he hadn’t resigned. His answer is unsatisfactory. He should never have accepted the
Private Eye
version without corroboration. He should have checked the story. And, given the decision to go ahead with the scheme, he should have resigned. It was the biggest test of his career, and he had failed. The version he had given Anna showed him in a heroic light. Heroic, self-righteous loser, that’s what he had been.

T
HE
LAST
SESSION
on the following day is gentle. They are both uncertain about what is happening between them, still at that point where it is possible to turn back, still curious, still intrigued.

‘I’m too comfortable, too conventional, I want the world’s approval,’ says James. ‘No money worries, unlike most people. No one dependent on me any more, no proper job. The Trust doesn’t count. My life is on tilt. So what do I do for the next twenty years, look at the fallow deer in the park at Donhead? If I was one of them, the next strong young buck would put me out of my misery.’

Anna laughs. ‘You don’t seem quite ready.’

James wonders whether yesterday’s attempt at concealment had been successful.

‘I’m the opposite. I could do with a little more comfort, I don’t mean money, although that, too, but I want to stop being restless. You teased me about faith-healing stuff the other day, but it’s true, I’ve been a sucker for yoga, TM, healing, almost anything except astrology and crystals. And I’m thirty-five. I would like...’ Anna trails her fingers gently down James’s back from his neck to the base of his spine. ‘Would like to declare you well and truly healed.’

James dresses quickly; there is nothing to hide today. They walk together down the hill. Halfway down Anna takes his hand and doesn’t let it go. They stop by the arched alleyway.

‘Can I come up and see what you’ve done to George’s room?’

‘Of course. It’s still quite bare.’

James follows Anna up the outside stairs, unlocks the door and they go in. Anna walks across the room, picks up the beehive mug on the bedside table, puts it down.

‘It’s all lovely. George’s stuff looks good here.’

‘It’s all designed for soldiers on campaign in India or Africa. Even the bed comes to bits.’

They go out on the balcony. The harbour is quiet; there is a gentle breeze from the sea, and a ray of sunshine picks out the battlements on the tower. James takes Anna’s hand, lets it go. She shivers as the sea breeze strengthens, and they go back into the room. Between them there hangs an unanswered question. They are both nervous. Anna inspects the books, takes out a copy of
The Oxford Book of English Verse
, puts it back, walks towards the door, stops by the sitz-bath.

‘What an odd bath.’

James explains the principle of the sitz-bath.

‘Can I try it? I’ve only got a shower at Dad’s.’

James, his heart pounding and his mouth dry, says, ‘Of course. I’ll be on the balcony.’

‘No need. I’ve seen you with no clothes on, after all.’

Anna puts in the plug, turns on the water and begins to undress. The bath fills quickly. Anna naked is as James has imagined her. She sits on the step, legs and lap covered in water.

‘Can you put the band around this?’ Anna says as she gathers up her hair. James fixes the band in place and presses his lips against the downy hollow in her neck.

‘Thank you,’ and she twists round to kiss him on the lips. The kiss lasts a long time. Then she washes her feet and legs and stomach.

‘You scrub my back,’ she says, passing James the soap. He begins by running his knuckles down either side of Anna’s backbone, which makes her laugh. ‘I’ve taught you my technique,’ she says.

‘You have. Now swivel and rinse.’

Anna drops down into the bath, the water just covering her breasts, and smiles at James. She soaks for a few minutes, eyes closed, then James wraps her in a large red towel.

‘Come here,’ says Anna, leading him to the bed, the towel wrapped around her like a sarong. She unbuttons James’s shirt, and he slips quickly out of the rest of his clothes. Again he is naked in front of her.

She drops the towel, sits on the bed facing James, strokes him, then leans back, raises her knees and pulls him into her, giving a little moan.

‘It’s been a long... I
mean I haven’t...’ says James. He tries to think of anything other than what is happening, realizes this is futile, and comes with a feeling of relief and pleasure.

‘It’s my turn,’ says Anna, her hands pushing James down, then holding the back of his head.

‘There, that’s perfect, there.’

She comes with a series of gasps as her thighs clasp James’s cheeks and then fall slowly away. James leaves his mouth on Anna for a few moments, gets on the bed and wraps his arms around Anna’s still-damp body.

‘That was lovely,’ Anna says, moves her cheek into the hollow of James’s arm and goes to sleep. James lies looking at Anna, who has become his reason for leaving the train.

Later they make love again; then Anna leaves for her father’s cottage. James asks her to stay.

‘I don’t think Dad would approve of me seducing a client – and you’re his client too.’

‘When will I see you again?’

Anna kisses him and doesn’t answer.

The next morning James walks down to the phone box at ten and rings Jack Pearson’s number. There is no reply. He walks to the tower at the end of the harbour wall, returns to the phone box and rings again. Physical passion, and a longing to see and talk to Anna again, have given him an ache he hasn’t felt for many years. You’re being ridiculous, he tells himself; she’s twenty years younger than you, and you have nothing in common.

Back at his flat he picks up an old edition of Cooper’s
Life of Socrates
from his job lot of books; he is looking for a distraction from the thoughts of Anna’s kisses, Anna naked, Anna returning, Anna disappearing. The quirkiness of the eighteenth-century language is a partial antidote. He is held by one quotation, ‘The unexamined life is not worth living.’ With a large marker pen he writes on the whitewashed wall above the fireplace, ‘
Ho de anexetastos bios ou biotôs anthrôpôi
,’ laughing at his own pretension, at the same time pleased he can remember not just the quotation but the Greek lettering. He knows he is showing off, to himself and, he hopes, to Anna, who will tease him about his need to put his knowledge on display. If he sees her again.

In the evening James walks down the harbour towards Jack’s cottage, stops short, and goes back to the Allen Arms, hoping Anna will be there. He sits in a corner of the deserted bar, nursing a whisky, wondering why he has built a casual encounter into something much more. He goes up to bed early, the euphoria of the previous day replaced by a black unhappiness.

The next morning he has breakfast in the Harbour Café, walks to Jack’s cottage, all the way this time, and knocks on the door. Jack Pearson answers.

‘Anna about?’

‘Gone to Newcastle. Back still bad?’

‘Much better, thanks. I’ll be playing golf again any day now.’

James turns away and heads out along the shore beyond the harbour and the clubhouse. The day is overcast, matched to his mood; he walks along the beach until the sand runs into a rocky headland. As he skirts the rock pools a jellyfish reflects a brief ray of sunshine. Five miles from Allenmouth he is forced inland by the cliffs he had seen on his first day. A series of little roads take him first north, and then west in a long sweep back to the river, far above the trestle bridge where he had made his original crossing.

He realizes how little he has seen of the countryside around Allenmouth, and how wild it becomes once the sloping fields above the riverside change from green to the brown of the fells. Small feeder becks, darkened by the peat on the high ground, flow into the main river at intervals, and twice he has to turn up them to find a crossing. Wading through the second beck, he sees the carcass of a drowned ewe, dead for some time, the fleece almost worn away, skin stretched tightly over the protruding ribcage. Occasional flurries of rain soak his tweed jacket; he feels his feet beginning to blister and takes a perverse pleasure in the physical discomfort. By the time he reaches his flat it is almost dark. He climbs wearily up the outside staircase and decides his Allenmouth adventure is over.

Later, lying awake, he hears his door open, the rustle of clothes falling to the floor, and feels Anna’s mouth on his as she slides into bed beside him. They light the fire, open a bottle of wine, talk, make love, and Anna stays till morning.

When James wakes up, he reaches over and finds only the warm depression left by Anna’s body. He puts on his dressing gown and goes through the open balcony door to Anna, who is looking out to sea. He puts his arm around her and kisses her cheek. Below, the harbour is beginning to come to life. One fisherman has already loaded his nets into a sturdy working boat, with blue sides, a small deckhouse towards the stern, two stubby masts fore and aft; ‘ALN 14’ is painted on the stern. As they watch, he casts off his mooring and heads out through the narrow harbour mouth.

‘I can’t make out the name,’ says James.

‘Neither can I – but it’s
Andromeda
. Johnny Pease is always first away.’

‘I’d like a boat like that.’

‘And live here, and become a fisherman? You may have left it a little late.’

Anna smiles, shivers a little and they go back in together. James makes coffee, squeezes three oranges and scrambles half a dozen eggs.

‘I’m not used to such luxury.’

‘You should come here more often.’

‘Maybe I will,’ says Anna as she dresses. ‘I’m away; Dad will wonder where I’ve got to.’

She kisses James, but when he tries to pull her back to bed she puts her hands on his chest and pushes him gently away.

‘Let’s meet this evening,’ says James.

‘I’ll come round about seven,’ and Anna goes through the door and down the outside stairs.

This is the beginning of what James would like to make a routine; Anna’s unpredictable comings and goings are the exact opposite. She is reluctant to be pinned down. Sometimes, but not often, she stays the night, sometimes they will arrange to walk together the next day, but it is always left to James to suggest their next meeting. James, although he abandoned the train and deserted his Trust Board meeting, is still a civil servant at heart who likes an organized diary. He finds Anna’s attitude to time infuriating. And exciting.

They are at that stage where discovery is a pleasure. James and Anna are both explorer and explored. Anna finds every aspect of his past intriguing, pressing him for stories about his childhood, his marriage, his career.

‘You treat me as though you were an anthropologist and I was a member of some unknown tribe in the Amazon rainforest,’ says James.

‘That’s exactly what you are. Everything about you is outside my experience. I like finding out things about you.’

‘I talk too much. And you don’t talk enough.’

‘My life hasn’t been as interesting, and it’s a lot shorter than yours.’

‘It’s interesting to me.’

They are walking along the back street towards the Allen Arms when James notices the lettering carved above a double doorway. ‘St Elmo’ on the left, ‘St Valery’ on the right, and beside the doorbell a little tarnished brass plaque, ‘Allenmouth Ex-Servicemen’s Club’.

‘Let’s have a drink in here for a change,’ says James.

‘It’s for old soldiers.’

‘That’s me.’

James leads Anna into a small room with a bar in the corner. A grey-haired man in a dark blue blazer with shiny buttons and a regimental badge is drawing himself a glass of beer.

‘Ex-servicemen only,’ he says. ‘Sorry.’

‘I am one. 23491332 Trooper Burke, Royal Irish Dragoons.’

‘A donkey-walloper, eh? I was REME, kept you buggers on the road. We usually ask for a British Legion card, but if you can still remember your number that’ll do me.’