The Longest Pleasure (14 page)

'Then lend me your pistol, Comrade Lieutenant,' Galitsin smiled. 'I handed mine over to the fascists as a safe conduct, and the bastards forgot to give it back.'

The lieutenant unstrapped his weapon. 'Undercover work is something for which I lack the stomach, Captain Galitsin. I salute you.'

Galitsin buckled
the
belt around his waist, saluted in turn. 'Your work is equally valuable, Comrade Lieutenant. Now take your men about their duty.'

He watched the patrol continue down the street, smashing doors, shattering windows. The liberators. But at least they were brave men. Who thought him even more courageous than themselves.

'I would not have believed it possible,' Kirsten said. 'It is just like a spy film.'

'What is a spy film?' Irena asked.

'It
is
a movie, stupid. A very popular subject In the West The hero is always some British or American amateur, accidentally caught up in intelligence work, who outwits the stupid communists and makes a sensational getaway
at
the end with some vital piece of microfilm. And he always has a beautiful girl in tow, of course.'

'I have two beautiful girls,' Galitsin said. 'That will prove more difficult.'

'Well, that's a relief,' Kirsten said. 'I thought you were blind.' Her spirits had returned now that she could see the pattern of her escape forming about her. A pattern which would take her back into
her
own world,
to
hate and to scheme and to plot all over again. While her companions . . . Galitsin glanced at Irena Szen. She was excited, too. And happy. She was an uncanny mixture of utter innocence, and, indeed, utter ignorance, mingled with tremendous human ex
perience, carefully observed. B
ut she needed her humans one by one, and on her terms, to be able to understand them, to dissect them with that sharp little brain of hers.

And Alexander Galitsin? Oh, Galitsin was a brave man. He had handled that situation without a touch of fear or doubt. For the first time he realised that he
could
get them out of Budapest. That it might even be easy, provided he kept his head and his nerve. And if all went well. But everything went well only in those sugar-sweet movies Kirsten enjoyed. The dull sounds of the reconquest of Budapest were punctuated by two sharper noises, close at hand.

'Rifle shots!' Irena seized his arm.

'They are shooting those two boys,' Kirsten said. 'Is that not right, Comrade Captain?'

'Here is the car,' Galitsin said. The smoke had drifted across the street, drooping lower, and then cleared again in
a
puff of wind. The houses were etched in the noonday sun. And the heavy car rumbled towards them, bumping over the rubble which had accumulated during
a
fortnight of chaos.

'
The car stopped, the driver got out, saluted. 'Comrade Captain!'

'Get in, ladies.' Suddenly Galitsin was nervous, desperate to sit behind the wheel and gun the engine. He forced himself to remain still, ha
nds clasped behind his back. ‘N
ow, Corporal,' he said. 'I must ask you to walk back to headquarters. I am on a special mission with these two ladies, who are agents of the Fourth Bureau.'

The corporal hesitated. 'That will not be possible, Comrade Captain. I am not allowed to leave my car.'

'I have given you an order, Corporal.'

From the back seat Kirsten made a gesture, indicating that now was the moment for dropping the mask. It would be perfectly simple; the corporal also wore a revolver, but he would never draw it on a captain.

'If you will permit me to use the car radio,' the corporal said, 'I will contact company headquarters and clear the matter with them. Have
I
your permission, Comrade Captain?'

'No.' Galitsin drew his revolver. The corporal stared at it, but Galitsin's attention was
already taken by the three men
coming round the corner. The sergeant and his two riflemen, returning from an execution.

'Drive!' Galitsin yelled. 'You! Drive!'

Kirsten threw herself over the back rest and into the front seat, a flurry of flying skirts and long pale legs. The engine was still
running, and the gears grated as she threw them into low. Irena screamed and reached for the door, but the car was already moving too fast, swinging in a tight arc for the nearest corner, slewing on two wheels. The sergeant shouted, and his men opened fire, but the bullets were wild, and within seconds the car was out of sight. The corporal stood to attention, in front of Galitsin, gazing at the pistol. The sergeant ran up the street, saluted. 'I am sorry, Comrade Captain. But they will not get far. Once
I
regain the patrol we will send a radio message, and they will be stopped at the next checkpoint.'

Galitsin replaced the pistol in his holster.

The Pontiac stopped with a squealing of brakes. Nancy Connaught always drove with a squealing of brakes. Cars were enormous, complicated pieces of machinery which either went very fast or didn't go at all. 'She'll take about twenty,' she said, rolling down her window.

The girl smiled, and shook her head. 'One only this afternoon, I'm afraid, miss.'

'You have got to be joking, darling. Wake up, Galahad, and come to the rescue of a damsel in distress.'

Alan Shirley opened his eyes, sat up. 'I'm afraid she probably means business. There's a rumour going around the place that petrol rationing is about to be introduced.'

'And he never told me.' Nancy pushed her head out of the window. 'Listen, doll, if you could manage three, I'll be your friend for life. This crate drinks gas like I drink bourbon, and we've still twenty miles to go.'

The girl hesitated, and then nodded. 'I suppose we could make it three, miss.'

Nancy pulled a couple of pound notes from the glove compartment You and me are buddies.' She started the engine, slipped it into drive. 'Say, Galahad,
I
suppose if
you
admit mere's
a
rumour, then it's a cert I thought the war was over?'

'It's
a
British habit not to start paying for their wars until they're done.'

'So what do we do about it?'

'Queue up and get our coupons.'

‘
You, too?'

'Well, of course, I have to do
a
certain amount of official travelling. Now, if you'd settle down and go to work for a reputable newspaper, instead of freelancing about Europe
3
you could probably get an increased allowance yourself.'

'Some things just aren't worth it.' She gunned the engine over the top of the hill, brake
d once again, 'Isn't that some
thing?'

The fields fell away from the narrow road, and Lyme Bay lay before them, sparkling blue-green in the pale November sunlight

‘I
could sit and look at that all day,' Nancy said. 'If
I
can't raise enough petrol to get back to London, I'll spend the winter right here. And it's all mine. Not a tripper until next Whitsun.'

Shirley lit two cigarettes, stuck one between her lips. 'The town is down that road to the right, if I remember.'

'Correct. But we stay up here.' She turned the Pontiac on to a narrow, bumpy track; coarse grass brushed the wings.

'When you said it was right next to the road I assumed that it was in the village.'

‘I
thought intelligence officers were never allowed to
assume
anything?'

'My dear girl, all intelligence work is based upon intelligent assumption.'

'Is that a fact?' She turned through
a
rotting gateway, braked, raised a cloud of dust which eddied about the car, opened the door, stepped out, holding on to her headscarf and letting her skirt fly as die wind gusted around her.
^‘
Voila!
'

Shirley sighed, moved his gaze from the slender legs, to the white-walled cottage, walked round the front, hands clasped behind his back. 'There must have been some nice roses here once,
^’

There'll be some nice roses there again, if you'll turn the soil.' Nancy produced an enormous bunch of keys, unlocked the door. It creaked as she pushed it open, sagged from rusting hinges. 'Must get an oil can. Now let's open
a
window. I was down last weekend, stocking a few goodies,, so it's not quite so primitive as it seems. The gas is connected, but not the electricity, as yet There's an oil lamp.'

Shirley crossed the bare wooden floor, testing each board, checked as a car hurried by in the distance. 'That gave me
a
bit of a start. Must be all of a mile from the village.'

'And not a telephone. That's the thing I like about it Mind you, I'd be a bit nervous if I didn't have my old black belt to fall back on.' She unscrewed the thermos. 'Bother. It's melting. This will be my only cold drink.' She measured Scotch into one glass, bourbon into the other.

'I didn't know you went in for judo.'

'I don't.
My
black belt holds up my stockings, and that's twice as effective. How.'

'Cheers. And congratulations. It's in a better state than I'd expected. What about furniture? A table and two chairs in here. One chair in the living room...'

'There's a bed upstairs. And a sort of dressing table. A desk with a mirror.'

'Only one bedroom?'

'I'm afraid so,' she said. 'It's
that
kind of a cottage.'

'Mmmm.' He put down his glass. 'Then do you mind if I kiss you? I'd have done it before, but I wasn't sure how you'd feel about that sort of thing.'

She put her arms round his neck. 'What an awful lot we have to learn about each other.'

'Do you know, sweetheart, I could fall in love with you all over again.'

She frowned. "You'll have to fill me in on the missing link.'

'Well, I was in love with you. Years ago. I was madly in love with you. But being a sensible chap, when you turned me down, I fell out of love with you again, as rapidly as possible.'

'Must be nice to have a will of iron. And now it's coming back?'

'Like toothache.'

'Well, use that tremendous willpower again, darling'.

"Now
you've
lost
me.'

She disengaged herself, refilled their glasses. 'We're here for the weekend. Let's leave Monday to worry about itself. Me, I just want to relax. Did you bring those Beardsley things?'

'No.'

‘
Never mind. We can look at each other instead. Take a tour.' She held his hand, climbed the creaking staircase, opened a door. 'This is it. But there's a big back garden, completely overgrown.'

He sat on the bed, took her on his knee. 'What
did
bring this on?'

She removed her glasses, slid them across the table. The sloping roof seemed to brush the top of her head. 'There was a brief period, last week, when I thought we were for it, The whole kit and caboodle.'

'And now we've climbed down.'

"Now you've shown all the restraint one expects from the British.'

"Don't you believe it,' Sh
irley muttered, busy with a but
ton. 'My God, I do believe they are.' 'Are what?' 'Are real.'

‘
You have a lean and hungry look, yon Alan. I'm afraid I don't give milk.' She released him, kicked off her shoes, lay down with a sigh, hands behind her head, remembered her scarf after it was already crushed, and sent it floating into the corner of the little bedroom. 'So I'm happy. Happy to have another chance at life.'

'Well, you can take it from me, darling, I'm happy to be elected.'

She looked down on his head. He was going bald, little traces of scalp showing through the pale carrot. And he was so hungry. But so was she. Hungry, and uneasy, all at the same time. 'And do you think we have the right to be happy when there are so many dead Egyptians and Israelis and even a few Englishmen and Frenchmen lying around the place?'

He was deep in a valley. She was a woman of valleys, and sudden firm ridges. He was surprised to discover that, for all her suggestion of plumpness she had the waist of a ballet dancer, and a figure to match her legs. Always excepting the swelling, white-fleshed, blue-veined, cherry-nippled mounds. 'I could say what about all the dead Hungarians. And I do hope you're not a between-the-sheets philosopher.'