pretty girls was that they remained positively, actively attractive at all times and at every stage of the game, then, more foggily still, how altogether serviceable it was that what girls, whether pretty or not, most liked receiving exactly matched, coincided with, was no more nor less than what men were most inclined to offer. Kitty gave little groans of contentment. Sweet smells and bird-song drifted in at the open window, where a bumble-bee entered and, after a quick half-circuit of the room, went out again.
‘How lucky we are,’ said Kitty. ‘We might never have met each other. Have you ever thought of that?’
‘No,’ said Alexander truthfully. He went on, ‘And I don’t believe it, darling. I think we were intended to meet.’
‘You mean by God, or Fate, or…?’
‘One of those. Something brought me to England and made you cross my path. You remember how we first met?’
‘Yes, you picked me up in the street in Northampton.’
‘You know, you’re very sweet, Kitty love, but you can be frightfully crude sometimes. I did not pick you up. I’ve told you a hundred times how it was. An important dispatch had to be taken to the Military Secretariat. At the last moment the officer who was supposed to take it went sick and I was sent instead. I was just coming out of the building after delivering it when for no reason at all I looked over my shoulder and saw you crossing the road away from me, and straight away I just knew we were made for each other, so I ran after you and nearly got knocked down by a waggon and said something to you – I can’t remember what it was…’
‘I can. It was, “Would you like to go for a walk?”‘
‘I dare say it was, that’s quite unimportant. And then you told me it was the first time you’d been in that part of Northampton for over a year.’
‘Did I?’
‘That was later, of course. Well, surely you can see it? I mean, you must agree that what we feel about each other is quite exceptional?’
‘Oh yes, I can’t imagine many people having such a lovely time as we do or being as happy. And nobody anywhere being happier.’
‘Well then, darling Kitty, it would obviously be absurd if something like that could have happened and then never did after all.’
‘I can understand it would be a pity, my love. Well yes, I supposed it might be rather absurd too, in a way.
He pushed the thick fair hair back from her brow and took her face between his hands. ‘Let me tell you how I feel – how you make me feel. When I’m with you, even when I’m not but I think of you so hard it’s almost as if I can see you, then I feel the blood going through my body with a new life, so that I tingle from head to foot, and I’m so much aware of everything round me that it’s as if I’d been half blind and deaf and sort of numb before, and I seem to be within just one second or one metre of understanding the secret of the universe. Everything’s incredibly grand and yet completely simple. And then,’ he added, determined to go carefully with the next part, ‘I wish you could have been… kidnapped and taken prisoner by Vanag’s men so that I could come riding in to rescue you.
Rather disappointingly, she seemed not to notice his change of tack there. ‘I wish I knew half as much about how I feel as you do about how you feel. I only know I feel wonderful in every way and it’s all because of you.’
This was so near to what he would have said himself in her situation that he looked her closely in the eye, but found he was unable to go on doing so; his gaze shifted to her mouth and the thought, all thought, began to slip deliciously away. There was not a great deal about what followed that was the product of intention. The sound of the shutting front door recalled them to the bed where they lay and to each other.
‘Daddy,’ said Kitty. ‘He sometimes comes in for a few minutes in the middle of his rounds.’
‘Good, I want a word with him.’
Dr Joseph Wright, a small, pale, bespectacled man with brown hair turning grey, was some years too young to be a true pre-war but, having had both parents killed during the Pacification, he resembled one in many ways. So for his younger daughter to be openly and regularly screwed by a Russian officer, one whom moreover he disliked and despised personally, made him angry. This condition he kept to himself as far as possible; the girl seemed to have, no objection to the state of things, and the associated benefits, in the shape of the occasional bottle of cognac or few kilos of fuel, were certainly welcome enough, but it was (or could any day turn out to be) much more important to stay in the general good books of one of the
When he had politely finished dressing upstairs, Alexander came down and entered the sitting-room at the back of the house. This was cool and rather dark, with trailing plants in baskets and on pedestals and brackets, and more of the same and of other types in a small conservatory at one end. Here a tap dripped slowly into water in a pot or bowl.
The doctor answered civilly in Russian, which was difficult for him – the civility, not the Russian: nothing annoyed him more than this facile mode of linguistic condescension. Because of this he missed the next remark offered, but pricked up his ears at the one after, a question, banal enough, to be sure, about his practice. As he made some equally tedious reply to this unprecedented show of interest, it occurred to him that the young bastard must want something. What it was remained unuttered till Kitty had come in with a tray of tea and shortbread. Soon after that an evening in March of that year was mentioned. Dr Wright remembered it well as one of an irregular series stretching back over about a year, curious soirees in this house held at the irresistible wish of Ensign Petrovsky, who also provided all the drink, most of the food and two or three of the guests, uncouth brother-officers of his. Wright’s part, as well as that of stomaching the occasion, was to provide the remaining guests from among the local populace, a task that called for only modest powers of persuasion with those under about fifty, while those above that age would often surrender principle for unlimited vodka. Well, the wanted something was now discovered: the mounting of a further performance some time soon. What remained mysterious was what was in it all for this particular
Just when Wright was expecting a date to be suggested, Alexander puzzled him by saying, ‘There was an interesting conversation about religion, about the Church of England. One of your friends mentioned a Reverend Mr Glover, I think, who lives in a nearby village.’
‘Yes, in Stoke Goldington. Not far.’
‘Is the gentleman in good health?’
‘Well, he must be nearly eighty, but as far as I know he’s well enough.’
‘Do you know him, doctor?’
‘I’ve met him occasionally,’ said Wright, by now almost shaking with curiosity. ‘Not for some years, though.’
‘I wonder, if I asked you very charmingly, whether you’d arrange for me to visit him. I mean, get his permission for me to call.’
‘His permission? You people can visit anybody you please.’
‘This is a matter of some delicacy, my dear doctor. I should like him to express his willingness. If he doesn’t, then there’s really no point in my calling.’
Wright felt renewed puzzlement. Kitty, the teacup forgotten in her hand, had been showing absorption in this duologue much more obviously than her father. Now she said,
‘Darling, what do you want to see an old clergyman for?’
Alexander had foreseen such a question from her without being any the better equipped to tackle it when it came. Alone with her he would have been loftily secretive, but he sensed that her father would somehow puncture anything like that. It seemed best to turn frank instead, though not artlessly so. ‘There’s somebody called
