The Husband's Story (32 page)

Not that Stan minded having to gulp down his own drink. Something told him that it was high time for him to see what Beryl was up to. In the last glimpse that he had caught of her she had been playfully poking Mr Hunter-Smith in the ribs with her rolled-up fan. That was when he had gone hurriedly through to the bar to order himself his glass of whisky.

By now, however, Beryl was nowhere to be found. The fact that she was not in the bar did not surprise him in the least because he remembered that right back in their young days together, she had always regarded bars as somehow rather common and vulgar. The dance floor itself was deserted. And there was no sign of her in the lounge where he had more than half expected to find her: the small, separate tables
there and the waiter service were so much more in Beryl's style.

When he did finally come upon her she was tucked away in a corner, and was whispering something to Commander Hackett of Security. And the Commander was eagerly leaning forward to hear more. From the expression on his face – one of simple, startled wonderment – it might have been her secret life story that she was telling.

That was when Stan went back to the bar for the second time. And this time he regretted it. Everyone else appeared to be having a thoroughly good time. He alone was on his own; and, either it was really happening or he was just imagining it, people seemed to be nudging each other as he passed.

What could not be entirely in his imagination, however, was a snatch of conversation that he overheard just as he had managed once again to elbow his way back up to the bar counter. There were four of them in the group, all juniors; and all with their backs towards him. It was the youngest of the four, a little copy-typist who looked as though it was already past her bedtime, who was speaking. ‘She can't be,' were the words Stan heard. ‘Not
his
wife. I don't believe it. I nearly burst out laughing. How could she?'

After that, Stan did not feel like waiting around any longer for his drink. He simply wanted to get away. And he wanted to get Beryl away, too; right away, somewhere little copy-typists wouldn't be making fun of her.

But it was not so easy as all that. Beryl was back on the dance floor again. And she had changed her partner. This time it was Mr Parker who had her in his arms. They were going through a rather stylish turn together, and the near-by couples were glancing admiringly across at them. Beryl's eyes were half-closed. Mr Parker's, however, were wide open. They were fixed hard upon her. And Stan could hardly believe it. On Mr Parker's face was a look of sheer doting and devotion.

Not that this was altogether surprising. After all, Beryl was by any standards a strikingly good-looking woman; and, at this moment, conscious of the success that she was enjoying, she was radiant. She glowed. The bobbing-up-and-down hair ornament had come off some time during the last dance and was now crammed away at the bottom of her evening bag. But Beryl did not care. She knew instinctively that it was her night, and she was happy. Everything had, at last, turned perfect. She liked dancing. She liked the dress that Madame Desmonde had nearly killed herself to finish off in time. And, best of all, she liked
Mr Parker. More than once, as she had felt his strong, athletic hand in the small of her back or had caught the rich, Fifth-Avenue odour of his after-shave lotion, she had thought how lucky Stan was to have nice, presentable young men like that working for him. There must, she supposed, be more to Stan than she had ever realized.

Oddly enough, that was what Mr Parker in his own way was thinking, too. Bachelor as he was, he harboured no hostile feelings towards women, no animosities. It was merely that he was frightened of them; frightened, but not uninterested. All that fitness-cult of his – the running round the streets in a track-suit, the twelve lengths in the swimming bath, the two rounds of golf at the week-ends – was simply his way of being manly without involving anyone who was likely to be womanly. He secretly envied those dull, ordinary men who solved it all just by getting married; and apparently Stan was one of them. What for the life of him, however, he could not imagine was how Stan could ever have mustered sufficient courage to propose to so magnificent a human being as Beryl; or, for that matter, how Beryl could ever have consented to throw herself away on anything so insignificant as Stan.

This time when the dance was over Mr Parker insisted on ordering champagne. It was only a half-bottle that he asked for but, because the waiter knew his job and brought it in a bucket, it gave their little table just the look of distinction that Beryl liked. Nor did she forget her role as hostess. In between sips and smiling across at Mr Parker, she kept lifting her glass to anyone who passed by or even happened to glance in her direction.

Stan was not among them. He had found his way up to the gallery that ran round the dance floor. Compared with all the fun and merriment going on below, it was a desolate, unfestive sort of place up there, with just the tops of the painted metal columns that supported the roof, and a row of tip-up seats that were used only on spectator nights. Stan chose for himself the end seat in the furthest row. From there he could keep an eye on Beryl and Mr Parker.

And what he saw appalled him. They had reached the physical contact stage. At the end of any remark made by Mr Parker he would place his hand lightly on Beryl's arm; and Beryl in return would let her fingers rest equally lightly on the cuff of Mr Parker's sleeve. All in all, amidst the hurly-burly of the dance, it seemed to be a secret seance that the two of them were having, a new and rapidly growing friendship, carried on in a kind of romantic Braille. When Stan allowed himself the
liberty of leaning over the balcony-rail to observe them more closely, he was amazed to see on Mr Parker's face an expression of sheer human yearning.

That was why Stan came downstairs again to say that it was time to leave.

The ride home in the enormous Daimler was quiet and uneventful. Conscious of her success, revelling in the part which she had played to make the party go, Beryl dozed. Like a happy child, she rested her head up against the hired car's upholstery and dreamt her own way home.

Stan himself was not dreaming. He was thinking of the consequences. And not only of what MI6 might make of it. He was thinking of the fact that, over and above the cost of the hired Daimler, he had a perfectly good season ticket that had been left unused, and that he hadn't got any spare change with which to tip the driver. Stone sober and despondent, he stared blankly out past the driver and wondered how he was going to be able to face Mr Parker tomorrow.

Or, for that matter, how Mr Parker was going to be able to face him.

Things usually look a bit different, however, on the morning after, and Mr Parker showed no sign of any embarrassment whatsoever when he came down to see Stan next day.

All that was worrying Mr Parker were the holiday arrangements to fill in for Stan while he was away. An elderly and rather morose-looking senior clerk, the sort of distant half-forgotten cousin who turns up only at Christmas parties, was the best that Personnel had been able to promise, and Mr Parker saw himself having to dash up and down every half-hour just to make sure that the department wasn't getting itself a bad name. A fortnight may not seem a long time, but fourteen days of slipshod filing can leave a hurricane trail of chaos and confusion in their wake; something that may take months, even years, to clear up.

But, for the first time in his life, Stan realized that he didn't care. Just didn't care. If he had been Head of the Department that, of course, would have been different: he might even have had second thoughts about going away at all. But he wasn't Head. They – that remote, self-perpetuating, mysterious They – had decided to pass him by. And it was now up to Them to take the blame for anything that went missing, or got itself mislaid, or couldn't be found, or had to be returned because it was the wrong one when eventually it did reach its destination.

Stan, in fact, wasn't thinking about the department at all. What he was thinking about were things like a pair of blue canvas shoes with thick crêpe soles; and a couple of open-necked shirts with short sleeves; and a dark, preferably nautical-looking jacket with gilt buttons that he could wear beside the pool after dinner when Beryl was in her semi-evening; and a hat with a brim – straw or canvas, he didn't mind which – in case there should be a heat-wave.

‘Everything in order for while you're away?' Mr Parker had asked in that clipped, CO-ish voice of his.

Stan, however, had just remembered that he needed a new toothbrush and a bottle of insect repellent in case the midges should prove troublesome. That was why he was a trifle slow in answering. But he
pulled himself together before Mr Parker could say anything, and even managed to pass it off with a bit of a joke.

‘Everything except old Boanerges.'

Boanerges was a code-name left over from World War I. It had been used to conceal the invention of a radio-controlled torpedo. The missile had, however, never worked properly. It had, indeed, exhibited extremely alarming homing tendencies. And when, in 1920, Designs Development Department called for the files to see if anything could be learnt from the mistakes of the already defunct inventor, it was discovered that everything about it had disappeared – description, specifications, blue-prints, everything. It was as though Boanerges had never for a single moment existed. There had been an Enquiry, a court martial, a couple of suspensions on half-pay and a dismissal. Not a trace of the missing papers was ever found. Nor did it appear to matter.

Even so, it was generally recognized as not in the best of good taste ever to refer to Boanerges at all; and certainly not to Mr Parker who did not like to be reminded how much of a new-comer he was.

As it turned out, Stan need not have worried about what Beryl might have said to Commander Hackett at the staff ball or, for that matter, to Mr Hunter-Smith either. They did not come near him.

When the pressure did begin to build up, it came from quite a different quarter: it came from Mr Karlin. He, apparently, was being got at from above. Results were all that he was interested in, he kept saying. He even went so far as to make the offer that, if Stan could double his output of pictures he, for his part, would be ready to double up on the money.

The last conversation between the two of them took place in the rear seat on the top deck of a No. 73 bus going to Hounslow. It was not a route – not in that direction, at least – with which Stan was at all familiar. All that he knew was the No. 73 passed regularly through Hammersmith nosing its way to places like Richmond, in search of its ultimate, late-night resting place, the depot.

And, the way things were, the assignation could not have proved a more inconvenient or unsatisfactory one. Stan had received a message asking him to be at the Hammersmith bus stop by six-ten. And at six-forty-five he was still standing there. Then, just when he was on the point of calling it a day and packing it in, Mr Karlin came sidling up,
with no suggestion of an apology, not even so much as a hint of recognition; merely absent one moment and there, present in the bus queue beside him, at the next.

It was not until they sat down together, with the whole of the half-deserted top deck of the bus stretching out before them, that Mr Karlin said anything. And, when he did so, he shielded his mouth with his hand, keeping his voice so low that Stan had to tilt his head over to hear him.

It was then that Stan noticed how nervous, how unusually apprehensive Mr Karlin seemed to be. One by one he eyed the other passengers as they came up the stairs after him; and then, when the conductor came along for the fare, he kept his chin buried in between the flaps of his raincoat with the brim of his grey trilby entirely covering up his face as he held out the money.

The awaited transaction was equally furtive. Mr Karlin produced a plastic carrier with ‘Express Dairy' stamped on the outside, and put it half-open in Stan's lap. Stan had known what to expect. The bulge in the carrier that made a deep wrinkle in the word ‘Dairy' was caused by a neatly stacked-up wad of one-pound notes. Stan slid them out and thrust them down inside his own overcoat pocket. A moment later, he dropped his own cassette of microfilm back into the empty bag, and that was that.

Then, something occurred that had left Stan really on edge. The No. 73 was trundling placidly along between the bus stops, with the rows of small, identical suburban villas sliding by on either side, when it drew up at one of the Request signs. A large, overcoated man got on and came up the stairs. Once on the top deck, he glanced round and then, finding that the rear seat was occupied, sat down one row in front.

That was enough for Mr Karlin. Without a word, he slid out of his place and went down the stairs at the double. The bus was well under way again by then. But Mr Karlin had not paused. Out of the side window, Stan saw it all happen. Mr Karlin jumped, landed, stumbled and recovered himself. Then, without even looking up, he turned into a side road on the left and, half walking, half running, disappeared rapidly away along it.

The man in the overcoat had not seemed even to have noticed. He unfolded an evening paper and was busy reading. But Stan was sitting bolt upright. He had gone clammy. He could feel the sweat breaking out along the backs of his hands, and knew that any moment now he
was due to begin feeling sick; then the tremblings would be sure to start up, too.

There he was, all jumpy and alone and miserable, with his handkerchief pressed against his mouth just in case, on a No. 73 being whisked away into the night to an unfamiliar, unwanted destination.

The whole incident had upset Stan more than he realized; more even than that unannounced visit of the man from the Electricity.

A couple of weeks later it still kept coming back to him – Mr Karlin's abrupt departure, his flying leap off the moving bus, his stumble. And it was the stumble that disturbed him most, because Mr Karlin had gone right down on one knee and a sprawling, outstretched hand. Stan had never seen Mr Karlin at a disadvantage before. Behind that steady smile of his he had always seemed so calm, so quietly sure of himself. There was something strangely unnerving in the thought that Mr Karlin for once had been unnerved, too.