Tourist things, they'd done mainly tourist things. The shops, the sights, a lot of laughter that shaded into smiles of promise and acceptance. He was — this he was prepared to admit because he welcomed the sensation — besotted with her. He wanted to make love to her; more he wanted to love her and be loved. He felt his breathing shallow and quick as he waited for her to knock on the interconnecting door between rooms 402 and 404 of the Portman Hotel. And when she came in, he wanted her arms to be full of parcels purchased with the money he had given her for clothes — she had her own money, enough for Liberty's and all the expensive clothes she wanted, but he had given her the gift of a blank cheque as a declaration.
She knocked, and walked in. Her arms were full of bags, above which she was smiling almost apologetically, and she suggested a past and a context to their relationship which had remained absent until that moment. He felt a rush of gratitude in his chest.
She was wearing new boots, and a new dress. She heaped the packages on his bed, taking a winter coat from one of the larger bags, which she put on and paraded before him. She did not make the fashion show an occasion for titillation, nor did he regard her as an object of immediate desire. She seemed closer to him, better known, than that.
'You like them, then? You approve?' He nodded. She draped the coat over a chair, then sat down. 'Pour me a drink — shopping in London is murder.'
He poured whisky for them both, toasted her, then she came and stood by his side, looking down at his notes.
'Busy day?'
'It must be easier than shopping in London,' he observed, his hand wiping across his notebooks, the arranged scraps of paper.
'Are you getting anywhere?' she asked. He was aware of her thigh against his shoulder; aware too, of another mood suggested. He watched her parading her purchases now in a different way, replaying the images to himself — turn of the body, line of the thigh and hip he could sense through his shirt-sleeve, breasts only emphasized by the new dress.
'I — yes, I think I am. I'm looking at naval activity around that period, near the Irish coast and the French coast.'
'What have you found?' Her thigh pressed with an emphasis — he was sure of it — against him. He heard the rustle of the dress against her tights.
'I'm not quite sure, yet. There are some important factors I know already, of course. The St George's Channel minefield, for example—' He looked up at her. She seemed almost brooding, not looking at him but at his papers.
'What—?'
'The minefield protecting the channel between Cornwall and Ireland. The Germans would have had to deal with it if they wanted to land between Cork and Waterford.'
'And—?' Her hand on his shoulder was an almost absent gesture. He shivered, barely perceptibly, and she seemed not to register the reaction she had created.
'I haven't found any evidence of the minefield having been swept by the Germans. But a British minesweeping flotilla left Milford Haven — in Pembrokeshire — under sealed orders at just about the right time. I'm trying to follow their progress. I'd like to know where they went, and what they did.'
'Why?'
'I don't know — maybe it's just a hunch? I have some reports from Admiralty Intelligence about troop movements in the Brest area of Brittany about the time—' He looked up at her. 'I
She smiled with a peculiar intensity, transferring her gaze to her hand on his shoulder, then swallowing some of the whisky. She seemed intensely alert, expectant, and for a moment McBride thought her concentration had nothing to do with their physical proximity.
'Good,' she said, and it was obvious she had lost interest. Her hand rubbed the hair at the nape of his neck.
'That minesweeping flotilla lay at anchor on its return for three days — the flotilla captain was ordered to London—' Then he added, his voice thick and his concentration elsewhere: 'There's something about the time of return, and the sailing date — I almost realized what it was just as you walked in—' Then he gave up the small, and quite uninteresting, spark of enquiry, putting his arm around her thighs, squeezing her against him. She moved slightly closer, then bent in front of him, putting down her glass on his notes. Normally fastidious, the wet ring created on his notebook did not irritate him.
He lifted his head, kissed her. Her mouth rubbed against his, her tongue prised open his teeth. There was something diametrically opposed to their earlier selves between them now, something uncomfortable, vivid, almost violent. She had retreated as a person, become merely physical. He stood up, pressing against her, moving her towards the bed. She stepped back for a moment, smiling, and undid the tie-belt of the dress, and the buttons, stepping out of it as it dropped to the carpet. Then she pressed against him again, moving her hips, her arms pressing his sides, fingers splayed and slightly clawed against his back.
He moved her slightly sideways, then they declined on the bed slowly, statuesquely, their limbs interweaving with a slow, rubbing passion, as if the skin of one savoured that of the other. He unhooked her brassiere, tugged at the restraining tights and panties with the same half-frozen, intense slowness, while she unbuttoned his shirt, unzipped his trousers.
She caught sight of their splayed, intertwined bodies in the mirror of the dressing-table, just once as they neared a mutual climax. His trousers were comically round his ankles. Then she lost all objective awareness for a time, even the awareness of engineering their love-making, of confirming her control of him. He thrust into her eagerly even as she decided that in his case sexual passion was a sufficient substitute for love — he would, at least temporarily, believe himself in love with her, be malleable — and she gave herself to replying to his eagerness, lifting her hips so that her legs gripped his sides. The necessity of performance became an imperative she could not quite cold-bloodedly control.
Moynihan picked up the telephone with a lover's eagerness. He had sat on in the darkening Bloomsbury room long after Lobke had departed, waiting for one call, suffering the unwilled images coming out of the dark of her body twisted about McBride's white torso.
'Yes?'
'Claire—' He caught his breath. He hated, now that she had diminished his imaginations by calling him, the delight that had leapt under his heart just as she spoke; hated the sharp jealous pain the first ringing of the telephone had recalled; hated the dependence her body, her attention forced upon him; hated the superiority she seemed to acquire over him.
'Well?' He tried to sound casual.
'He's asleep.'
'You wore him out, I suppose?' The sarcasm didn't seem to have any ability either to hurt her or restore his self-satisfaction.
'Naturally. But I didn't ring you to tell you that.' He could sense the laughter, like a cold chill against his skin. He had no recollection of his own love-making with her, no physical identification with her. Even her voice was thin and distant.
'No?' Better. Lighter, surer tones now.
'Don't be stupid, Sean. Just listen. He might wake up, and come in.'
'Yes,' he snapped.
'He's interested in a minefield, in the St George's Channel, and in a minesweeping flotilla — he seemed to think it's leading somewhere. Are you any the wiser?'
'No, I don't know a damn thing. That pig Lobke was here earlier — you've seen the news. Those bastards in Dublin are coming to London — they're going to sell us down the—'
'I've no time — he's awake. As soon as I have anything concrete, I'll call.'
'Take care—' he began, even as the connection, broken, purred in his ear. Another moment, and he would have added something more revealing, more committed.
