suggested they lend me some money. They were only sticking to the pattern laid down by Marimee but I felt really touched. I accepted, with great anxiety and swapping of bank-account guarantors, and got a small room in the garret. A lot cheaper than our own hotels, I was astonished to learn.
Supper, Gerald finally wedded himself to the phone, and I was left with Lilian. It was getting on for ten o’clock. It crossed my mind to tell her how I’d cunningly outwitted the opposition back at the pit stop but thought better of it. Was I expected to chat about everything that happened? Probably not.
“He’ll be telephoning now until midnight,” Lilian said.
She looked bonny. No specs now, earrings, a lace shawl that should have been Edwardian but was disappointingly repro. We were in the garden, looking down into the rock pool. Only three other couples remained, talking softly.
“He works hard,” I said. I meant it as praise.
“Och, nobody more than Gerald!”
Well, I suppose Marimee was giving orders for tomorrow. Was the silver lift to be done in Paris, then? Or was that tale now to be discarded, as the cover story it undoubtedly was? I felt things were imminent, brewing up to action. Maybe Gerald had better be warned about the two aggressive enemy.
“Look, love.” I glanced about. Any of these diners could be the opposition. “This is a bit public.”
“Public?” She seemed to colour slightly, but I couldn’t really tell in the low glim. “What…?”
“They’ll hear.” Through the lounge window Gerald was visible, nodding, reporting in, taking notes. “Even from inside the bar.”
She looked towards the hotel, seemed a little breathless. “It’s risky, Lovejoy. I’m not sure if I know what —”
“My room,” I suggested quietly. It was quite logical after all, the one place that had not been prearranged. They’d had difficulty finding me a nook.
“Oh, Lovejoy.” She was worried, glancing at the building, the other diners, two waiters. “I’ve never… I mean, what if Gerald—?”
Typical woman. A bloke’s got to take charge some time, hasn’t he? I had my arm through hers.
“We’ve got time before Gerald’s done, love. It’ll be safe.”
Which was how we entered my small single-bedded room together, in an ostentatiously non-clandestine way that probably announced skulduggery louder than a tannoy. Inside as I closed the door, she paused.
“Lovejoy.” She was all quiet. I bent my head to hear. Very sensible in the circumstances. In those spy pictures a transmitting bug’s small as a farthing. The hotel could be riddled.
“Yes, love?”
“I… I don’t do this sort of thing.”
What sort of thing? “I don’t either,” I whispered encouragingly. “We’re in this together, love. I’m discretion itself.” I decided to prove it. “I had a tussle with that blond motorist at the service station. I saw him off.” Well, it was nearly the way it happened.
“You did, hen?” Her eyes grew even larger. “Oh, that’s wonderful! Gerald isn’t really very… ” More colour. “Well, physical, Lovejoy.”
“Doesn’t matter.” I glowed in her admiration. Not much comes my way, so I have to glow where I can. “I can cope, love.”
“Lovejoy.” Quieter still. I was stooped over her now, both of us standing there. We hadn’t yet put on the light. “I’m not quite as young as I was. I’d hate to disappoint you.”
It’s one of my observations that women are more practical than us. But that only holds true for ninety-nine per cent of the time. Once in a hundred, their minds go aslant. They talk tangents. Here we were, spies doing our surreptitious best, and she starts on about age. Women’s tangents mostly concern numbers, I find. Years, hours, fractions of a penny for mandarin oranges, when little Aurora was actually born to the split second. Daft.
“It’s the way I want it, love,” I whispered, all reassuring. “You’re exactly right.”
“Oh, darling.” Her shawl fell as she put her arms round me. It’s not often my mouth gets taken by surprise, but this time it was startled. Her breast was beautiful, though I stabbed myself on a brooch that made me yelp. Just shows how thoughtless modern women are. Edwardian ladies had amber beads to cap the points of their brooch pins, so that marauding mitts of amorous gentlemen didn’t get transfixed in a ration of passion—cunning, this, because a dot of blood on a white-gloved finger when reentering the ballroom meant suicides in the regiment.
“Shhh!” she said, breathless still. I joined in the breathlessness as we made the bed and still I hadn’t managed to reveal my doubts about Colonel Marimee’s mission.
“Dwoorlink,” I managed, as nature started to decide the sequence of events.
“No, Lovejoy. Please. Say nothing…”
I did as I was told. It’s my usual way. Sometimes it works out for the best, as now. She was lovely. And it’s any port in a storm, isn’t it.
Love never comes without problems, but sometimes they come in a way that shows you’ve had no right to stay thinking. I mean,
I ought to have said how attractive she was, this lovely woman. Maybe, it seemed to me in the instant before ecstasy engulfed the universe, I should have admitted I wasn’t much, just a bum wondering what the hell everything was all about, give her the option to pull her dress on and light out leaving me, as it were, standing. But I obeyed, said nothing, learned nil, and managed only bliss. If anybody from the opposition was actually listening, we fooled them. She was superb.
An hour later I took her to her door, two floors down. She unlocked it. Gerald wasn’t in yet. She pulled me in, just far enough for a parting snog before shoving me gently away.
