Our Kind of Traitor

continue our conversation.’

Luke and Yvonne offered sympathetic smiles. Perry offered no smile at all.

‘And Tamara?’ Luke asked.

‘God-smacked he called her. And barking mad with it, according to the islanders. Doesn’t swim, doesn’t go down to the beach, doesn’t play tennis, doesn’t talk to her own children except about God, ignores Natasha completely, barely talks to the natives except for Elspeth, wife of Ambrose, front-of-house manager. Elspeth works in a travel agency, but if the family’s around she drops everything and helps out. Apparently one of the maids borrowed some of Tamara’s jewellery for a dance not long ago. Tamara caught her before she could put it back and bit her hand so hard she had to have twelve stitches in it. Mark said if it had been him he’d have had an injection for rabies as well.’

‘So now tell us about the little girls who came and sat beside you, please, Gail,’ Luke suggested.

* * *

Yvonne was leading the case for the prosecution, Luke was playing her junior, and Gail was in the box trying to keep her temper, which was what she told her witnesses to do on pain of excommunication.

‘So were the girls already ensconced up there, Gail, or did they come skipping up to you the moment they saw the pretty lady all on her own?’ Yvonne asked, putting her pencil to her mouth while she studied her notes.

‘They walked up the steps and sat one either side of me. And they didn’t skip. They walked.’

‘Smiling? Laughing? Being scamps?’

‘Not a smile between them. Not a half of one.’

‘Had the girls, in your opinion, been dispatched to you by whoever was looking after them?’

‘They came strictly of their own accord. In my opinion.’

‘You’re sure of that?’ – becoming more Scottish and persistent.

‘I saw the whole thing happen. Mark had made a pass at me that I didn’t need, so I stomped up to the top bench to get as far away from him as I could. Nobody on the top bench except me.’

‘So where were the wee girls located at this point? Below you? Along the row from you? Where, please?’

Gail took a breath to control herself, then spoke with deliberation:

‘The wee girls were sitting on the second tier, with Elspeth. The older one turned round and looked up at me, then she spoke to Elspeth. And no, I didn’t hear what she said. Elspeth turned and looked at me, and nodded yes to the older girl. The two girls had a consultation, stood up, and came walking up the steps. Slowly.’

‘Don’t push her around,’ said Perry.

* * *

Gail’s testimony has become evasive. Or so it sounds to her lawyer’s ear, and no doubt to Yvonne’s also. Yes, the girls arrived in front of her. The elder girl dropped a bob that she must have learned at dancing lessons, and asked in very serious English with only a slight foreign accent: ‘May we sit with you, please, miss? ’ So Gail laughed and said, ‘You may indeed, miss,’ and they sat down either side of her, still without smiling.

‘I asked the elder girl her name. I whispered, because everybody was being so quiet. She said, “Katya,” and I said, “What’s your sister’s name?” and she said, “Irina.” And Irina turned and stared at me as if I was – well, intruding really – I just couldn’t understand the hostility. I said, “Are your mummy and daddy here?” To both of them. Katya gave a really vehement shake of her head. Irina didn’t say anything at all. We sat still for a while. A long while, for children. And I was thinking: maybe they’ve been told they mustn’t speak at tennis matches. Or they mustn’t talk to strangers. Or maybe that’s all the English they know, or maybe they’re autistic, or handicapped in some way.’

She pauses, hoping for encouragement or a question, but sees only four waiting eyes and Perry at her side with his head tipped towards the brick walls that smell of her late father’s drinking habits. She takes a mental deep breath and plunges:

‘There was a game change. So I tried again: where do you go to school, Katya? Katya shakes her head, Irina shakes hers. No school? Or just none at the moment? None at the moment, apparently. They’d been going to a British International School in Rome, but they don’t go there any more. No reason given, none asked for. I didn’t want to be pushy, but I had a bad feeling I couldn’t pin down. So do they live in Rome? Not any more. Katya again. So Rome’s where you learned your excellent English? Yes. At International School they could choose English or Italian. English was better. I point to Dima’s two boys. Are those your brothers? More shakes. Cousins? Yes, sort of cousins. Only sort of? Yes. Do they go to International School too? Yes, but in Switzerland, not Rome. And the beautiful girl who lives inside a book, I say, is she a cousin? Answer from Katya, squeezed out of her like a confession: Natasha is our cousin but only sort of – again. And still no smile from either of them. But Katya is stroking my silk outfit. As if she’s never felt silk before.’

Gail takes a breath. This is nothing, she is telling herself. This is the hors d’oeuvre. Wait till next day for the full five-course horror story. Wait till I’m allowed to be wise after the event.

‘And when she’s stroked the silk enough, she puts her head against my arm and leaves it there and shuts her eyes. And that’s the end of our social exchange for maybe five minutes, except that Irina on the other side of me has taken her cue from Katya and commandeered my hand. She’s got these sharp, crabby little claws, and she’s really fastening on to me. Then she presses my hand against her forehead and rolls her face round it as if she wants me to know she’s got a temperature, except that her cheeks are wet and I realize she’s been crying. Then she gives me my hand back, and Katya says, “She cries sometimes. It is normal.” Which is when the game ends and Elspeth comes scuttling up the steps to fetch them, by which time I want to wrap Irina up in my sarong and take her home with me, preferably with her sister as well, but since I can’t do any of that, and have no idea why she’s upset, and don’t know either of them from Adam – well, Eve – end of story.’

* * *

But it isn’t the end of the story. Not in Antigua. The story is running beautifully. Perry Makepiece and Gail Perkins are still having the happiest holiday of their lifetimes, just as they had promised themselves back in November. To remind herself of their happiness, Gail plays the uncensored version to herself:

Ten a.m. approx., tennis over, return to cabin for Perry to shower.

Make love, beautifully as ever, we can still do that. Perry can never do anything by halves. All his powers of concentration must be focused on one thing at a time.

Midday or later. Miss breakfast buffet for operational reasons (above), swim in sea, lunch by pool, return to beach because Perry needs to beat me at shuffle-board.

Four p.m. approx. Return to cabin with Perry victorious – why doesn’t he let a girl win even once? – doze, read, more love, doze again, lose sense of time. Polish off Chardonnay from minibar while reclining on balcony in bathrobes.

Eight p.m. approx. Decide we’re too lazy to dress, order supper in cabin.

Still on our once-in-a-lifetime holiday. Still in Eden, munching the bloody apple.

Nine p.m. approx. Supper arrives, wheeled in not by any old room-service waiter but the venerable Ambrose himself who, in addition to the bottle of Californian plonk we have ordered, brings us a frosted bottle of vintage Krug champagne in a silver ice bucket, priced on the wine list at $380 plus tax, which he proceeds to set out for us, together with two frosted glasses, a plate of very yummy-looking canapes, two damask napkins and a prepared speech, which he intones at full volume with his chest out and his hands pressed to his sides like a court copper.

‘This very fine bottle of champagne comes to you folk courtesy of the one and only Mr Dima himself. Mr Dima, he says to thank you for’ – plucking a note from his shirt pocket together with a pair of reading spectacles – ‘he says, and I quote: “Professor, I thanks you very heartily for a fine lesson in the great art of fair-play tennis and being an English gentleman. I also thanks you for saving me five thousand dollars of gamble.” Plus his compliments to the highly beautiful Miss Gail, and that’s his message.’

We drink a couple of glasses of the Krug and agree to finish the rest in bed.

* * *

‘What’s Kobe beef?’ Perry asks me, sometime during an eventful night.

‘Ever rubbed a girl’s tummy?’ I ask him.