Our Kind of Traitor

‘He completely loves me,’ Natasha replies. ‘Also physically.’

‘I meant, apart from that, what does he do for a living?’ Gail explains, careful not to smile.

It’s approaching midnight. To escape the cold winds and amuse two very tired little orphan girls, Gail has made a tent out of blankets and cushions in the lee of the protective wall that borders the garden. Out of nowhere, Natasha has appeared without a book. First Gail identifies her Grecian sandals through a gap in the blankets, waiting to come on stage. For minutes on end they remain there. Is she listening? Is she plucking up her courage? For what? Is she contemplating a surprise assault to amuse the children? Since Gail has not so far exchanged a single word with Natasha, she has no picture of her possible motivations.

The flap parts, a Grecian sandal cautiously enters, followed by a knee and Natasha’s averted head, curtained by her long black hair. Then a second sandal and the rest of her. The little girls, fast asleep, have not stirred. For more minutes on end Gail and Natasha lie head to head, mutely watching through the open flap as salvos of rockets are detonated with uncomfortable proficiency by Niki and his comrades-in-arms. Natasha is shivering. Gail pulls a blanket over both of them.

‘It appears that I am recently pregnant,’ Natasha observes, in groomed Jane Austen English, addressing not Gail but a display of fluorescent peacock feathers dripping down the night sky.

If you are lucky enough to receive the confessions of the young, it is wise to keep your eyes fixed on a common object in the far distance, rather than on one another: Gail Perkins, ipsissima verba. In the days before she began reading for the Bar, she taught at a school for children with learning difficulties, and this was one of the things she learned. And if a beautiful girl who is just sixteen confides in you out of the blue that she believes she may be pregnant, the lesson becomes doubly important.

* * *

‘At present time, Max is ski instructor,’ Natasha replies to Gail’s casually pitched inquiry as to the possible parentage of her expected child. ‘But this is temporary. He will be architect and build houses for poor people with no money. Max is very creative, also very sensitive.’

There is no humour in her voice. True love is too serious for that.

‘And his parents, what do they do, I wonder?’ Gail asks.

‘They have hotel. It is for tourists. It is inferior, but Max is completely philosophical regarding material matters.’

‘A hotel in the mountains?’

‘In Kandersteg. This is village in the mountains, very touristic.’

Gail says she has never been to Kandersteg but Perry has taken part in a ski race there.

‘The mother of Max is without culture but she is sympathetic and spiritual like her son. The father is completely negative. An idiot.’

Keep it banal. ‘So does Max belong to the official ski school,’ Gail asks, ‘or is he what they call private?’

‘Max is completely private. He skis only with those he respects. He loves best off-piste, which is aesthetic. Also glacier skiing.’

It was in a remote hut high above Kandersteg, Natasha says, that they astonished themselves with their passion:

‘I was virgin. Also incompetent. Max is completely considerate. It is his nature to be considerate to all people. Even in passion, he is completely considerate.’

Determinedly in pursuit of the commonplace, Gail asks Natasha where she is with her studies, what subjects she is best at, and what examinations she has fixed her sights on. Since coming to live with Dima and Tamara, Natasha replies, she has been attending Roman Catholic convent school in the Canton of Fribourg as a weekly boarder:

‘Unfortunately, I do not believe in God, but this is irrelevant. In life it is frequently necessary to simulate religious conviction. I like best art. Max also is very artistic. Maybe we shall both study art together at St Petersburg or Cambridge. It will be decided.’

‘Is he Catholic?’

‘In his practices Max is compliant with his family religion. This is because he is dutiful. But in his soul he believes in all gods.’

And in bed? Gail wonders, but does not ask: is he still compliant with his family religion?

‘So who else knows about you and Max?’ she asks in the same comfortable, light-hearted tone that she has so far managed to maintain. ‘Apart from his parents, obviously. Or don’t they know either, perhaps?’

‘The situation is complicated. Max has sworn extremely strong oath that he will tell no one of our love. On this I have insisted.’

‘Not even his mother?’

‘The mother of Max is not reliable. She is inhibited by bourgeois instincts, also loquacious. If it is convenient for her, she will tell her husband, also many other bourgeois persons.’

‘Is that so very bad?’

‘If Dima knows that Max is my lover, it is possible Dima will kill him. Dima is not stranger to physicality. It is his nature.’

‘And Tamara?’

‘Tamara is not my mother,’ she snaps, with a flash of her father’s physicality.

‘So what will you do if you discover you really are having the baby?’ Gail asks lightly, as a battery of Roman candles ignites the landscape.

‘At moment of confirmation, we shall immediately escape to distant place, perhaps Finland. Max will arrange this. At present time it is not convenient because he is also summer guide. We shall wait one more month. Maybe it will be possible to study in Helsinki. Maybe we shall kill ourselves. We shall see.’

Gail leaves the worst question till last, perhaps because her bourgeois instincts have warned her of the answer:

‘And your Max is how old, Natasha?’

‘Thirty-one. But in his heart he is child.’

As you are, Natasha. So is this a fairy tale you’re spinning me under the Caribbean stars, a fantasy of the dream lover you will one day meet? Or have you really been to bed with a little shit of a thirty-one-year-old ski bum who doesn’t tell his mother? Because if you have, you’ve come to the right address: me

Gail had been a bit older, not much. The boy in the case wasn’t a ski bum but a penniless mixed-race reject from a local grammar school with divorced parents in South Africa. Her mother had departed the family nest three years ago, leaving no forwarding address. Her alcoholic father, far from being a physical threat, was in hospital with terminal liver failure. With money borrowed from friends, Gail had the baby clumsily aborted, and never told the boy.

And as of tonight, she hasn’t got around to telling Perry either. On present form she wonders whether she ever will.

* * *

From the handbag she nearly left in Ollie’s cab, Gail fishes out her mobile and checks it for new messages. Finding none, she scrolls back. Natasha’s are in capitals for extra drama. Four of them are spread over a single week:I HAVE BETRAYED MY FATHER I AM SHAME.YESTERDAY WE BURY MISHA AND OLGA IN BEAUTIFUL CHURCH MAYBE I JOIN THEM SOON.PLEASE INFORM WHEN IS NORMAL TO VOMIT IN MORNINGS?

– followed by Gail’s reply, stored in her saved messages:Roughly first three months, but if you are being sick, see doctor IMMEDIATELY, xxxx GAIL

– to which Natasha duly takes offence:PLEASE DO NOT SAY I AM SICK. LOVE IS NOT SICKNESS. NATASHA

If she’s pregnant, she needs me.

If she’s not pregnant, she needs me.

If she’s a screwed-up teenaged girl fantasizing about killing herself, she needs me.

I’m her lawyer and confidante.

I’m all she’s got.

* * *