The Confidential Agent (11 page)

‘You see,' she said, ‘you can go home now. Your job is finished.'

It was all too easy and too dubious. The ministry didn't trust him or them or anybody. They didn't trust each other. Only each individual knew that one person was true or false. Mr K. knew what Mr K. meant to do with those papers. The manageress knew what she intended. You couldn't answer for anybody but yourself. He said, ‘Those orders were not given to me. I shall keep the papers.'

Mr K.'s voice became shrill. He said, ‘If you go behind our backs . . .' His underpaid jumpy Entrenationo eyes gave away unguardedly secrets of greed and envy. . . . What could you expect on that salary? How much treachery is always nourished in little overworked centres of somebody else's idealism. The manageress said, ‘You are a sentimental man. A bourgeois. A professor. Probably romantic. If you cheat us you'll find – oh, I can think up things.' He couldn't face her; it was really like looking into the pit – she had imagination. The impetigo was like the relic of some shameful act from which she had never recovered. He remembered Else saying, ‘She acts like mad.'

He said, ‘Do you mean if I cheat you or cheat our people at home?' He was genuinely uncertain of her meaning. He was lost and exhausted among potential enemies; the further you got away from the open battle the more alone you were. He felt envy of those who were now in the firing line. Then suddenly he was back there himself – a clang of bells, the roar down the street – fire-engine, ambulance? The raid was over and the bodies were being uncovered; men picked over the stones carefully for fear they might miss a body; sometimes a pick wielded too carelessly caused agony. . . . The world misted over as in the dust which hung for an hour about a street. He felt sick and shaken; he remembered the dead tom-cat close to his face: he couldn't move: he just lay there with the fur almost on his mouth.

The whole room began to shake. The manageress's head swelled up like a blister. He heard her say, ‘Quick! Lock the door,' and tried to pull himself together. What were they going to do to him? Enemies . . . friends. . . . He was on his knees. Time slowed up. Mr K. moved with appalling slowness towards the door. The manageress's black skirt was close to his mouth, dusty like the cat's fur. He wanted to scream, but the weight of human dignity lay like a gag over his tongue – one didn't scream, even when the truncheon struck. He heard her say, ‘Where are the papers?' leaning down on him. Her breath was all cheap scent and nicotine – half female and half male.

He said apologetically, ‘Fight yesterday. Shot at to-day.' A thick decisive thumb came down towards his eyeballs: he was involved in a nightmare. He said, ‘I haven't got them.'

‘Where are they?' It hovered over his right eye; he could hear Mr K. fiddling at the door. Mr K. said, ‘It doesn't lock.' He felt horror as if her hand as well as her face carried infection.

‘You turn it the other way.' He tried to heave himself upwards, but a thumb pushed him back. A sensible shoe trod firmly upon his hand. Mr K. protested about something in low tones. A scared determined voice said, ‘Was it you who rang, ma'am?'

‘Of course I didn't ring.'

D. raised himself carefully. He said, ‘I rang, Else. I felt ill. Nothing much. Ambulance outside. I was buried once in a raid. If you'll give me your arm, I can get to bed.' The little room swung clearly back – the boot cupboard and the epicene girls in black silk stockings and the masculine chairs. He said, ‘I'll lock my door to-night or I'll be walking in my sleep.'

They climbed slowly up to the top floor. He said, ‘You came just in time. I might have done something silly. I think after to-morrow morning we'll go away from here.'

‘Me, too?'

He promised rashly, as if in a violent world you could promise anything at all, beyond the moment of speaking. ‘Yes. You, too.'

[3]

The cat's fur and the dusty skirt stayed with him all the night. The peace of his usual dreams was hopelessly broken: no flowers or quiet rivers or old gentlemen talking of lectures. He had always, after that worst raid, been afraid of suffocation. He was glad the other side shot their prisoners and didn't hang them – the rope round the neck would bring nightmare into life. Day came without daylight; a yellow fog outside shut visibility down to twenty yards. While he was shaving Else came in with a tray, a boiled egg and a kipper, a pot of tea.

‘You shouldn't have bothered,' he said. ‘I would have come down.'

‘I thought,' she said, ‘it would be a good excuse. You'll be wanting the papers back.' She began to haul off a shoe and a stocking. She said, ‘O Lord, what would they think if they came in now?' She sat on the bed and felt for the papers in the instep.

‘What's that?' he said, listening hard. He found he dreaded the return of the papers. Responsibility was like an unlucky ring you preferred to hand on to strangers. She sat up on the bed and listened too; then the footsteps creaked on the stairs going down.

‘Oh,' she said, ‘that's only Mr Muckerji – a Hindu gentleman. He's not like the other Indian downstairs. Mr Muckerji's very respectful.'

He took the papers – well, he'd be free of them very soon now. She put on her stocking again. She said, ‘He's inquisitive. That's the only thing. Asks such questions.'

‘What sort of questions?'

‘Oh, everything. Do I believe in horoscopes? Do I believe the newspapers? What do I think of Mr Eden? And he writes down the answers too. I don't know why.'

‘Odd.'

‘Do you think it'll get me into trouble? When I'm in the mood I say such things – about Mr Eden, anything. For fun, you know. But sometimes it gets me scared to think that every word is written down. And then I look up sometimes and there he is watching me like I was an animal. But always respectful.'

He gave it up: Mr Muckerji didn't concern him. He sat down to his breakfast. But the child didn't go; it was as if she had a reservoir of speech saved up for him – or Mr Muckerji. She said, ‘You meant what you said last night about us going away?'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘Somehow I'll manage it.'

‘I don't want to be a burden to you.' The novelette was on her tongue again. ‘There's always Clara.'

‘We'll do better for you than Clara.' He would appeal to Rose again. Last night she had been a little hysterical.

‘Can't I go back with you?'

‘It wouldn't be allowed.'

‘I've read,' she said, ‘about girls who dressed up . . .'

‘That's only in books.'

‘I'd be afraid to stay here any more – with
her.
'

‘You won't have to,' he assured her.

A bell began to ring furiously down below. She said, ‘Oh, he's rightly called Row.'

‘Who is?'

‘The Indian on the second floor.' She moved reluctantly to the door. She said, ‘It's a promise, isn't it? I won't be here to-night?'

‘I promise.'

‘Cross your heart.' He obeyed her. ‘Last night,' she said, ‘I couldn't sleep. I thought she'd do something – awful. You should 'ave seen her face when I came in. “Was it you who rung?” I said. “Of course it wasn't,” she said and looked – oh, daggers. I tell you I locked my door when I left you. What was it she was up to in there?'

‘I don't know for certain. She couldn't do much. She's like the devil, you know – more brimstone than bite. She can't do us any harm if we don't get scared.'

‘Oh,' she said, ‘I tell you I'll be glad to be off from here.' She smiled at him from the door with joy; she was like a child on her birthday. ‘No more Mr Row,' she said, ‘or the “short-timers” – no Mr Muckerji – no more of
her
for ever. It's my lucky day all right.' It was as if she were paying an elaborate farewell to a whole way of life.

He stayed in his room with the door locked until the time came to start for Lord Benditch's. He was taking no chances at all now. He put the papers ready in the breast-pocket of his jacket, and wore his overcoat fastened up to the neck. No pickpocket, he was certain, could get at them; as for violence, he had to risk that. They would all know now that he had the papers with him. He had to trust London to keep him safe. Lord Benditch's house was like home to a boy playing hide-and-seek in an elaborate and unfamiliar garden. In three-quarters of an hour, he thought, as a clock told eleven-fifteen, everything would be decided one way or another. They would probably try and take some advantage of the fog.

This was to be his route: up Bernard Street to Russell Square Station – they could hardly attempt anything in the Tube – then from Hyde Park Corner to Chatham Terrace – about ten minutes' walk in this fog. He could, of course, ring up a taxi and go the whole way by car, but it would be horribly slow; traffic-blocks, noise and fog gave opportunities to really driven men, and he was beginning to think that they were driven hard by now. Besides, it was not beyond their ingenuity to supply a taxi themselves. If he had to take a taxi to Hyde Park Corner, he would take one from a rank.

He came downstairs with his heart knocking; he told himself in vain that nothing could possibly happen in daylight, in London: he was safe. But he was glad, nevertheless, when the Indian looked out of his room on the second floor; he was still wearing his frayed and gaudy dressing-gown. It was almost like having a friend at your back to have any witness at all. He would have liked to leave visible footprints wherever he walked, to put it incontestably on record that he had been here.

The carpet began. He walked gently, he had no wish to advertise his departure to the manageress. But he couldn't escape without seeing her. She was there in her masculine room, sitting at the table with the door open, the same musty black dress of his nightmare. He paused at the door and said, ‘I'm off now.'

She said, ‘You know best why you haven't obeyed instructions.'

‘I shall be back here in a few hours. I shan't be staying another night.'

She looked at him with complete indifference. It startled him. It was as if she knew more of his plans than he knew himself, as if everything had been provided for, a long time ago, in her capacious brain. ‘I imagine,' he said, ‘that you have been paid for my room.'

‘Yes.'

‘What isn't provided for – in my expenses – is a week's wages for the maid. I'll pay that myself.'

‘I don't understand.'

‘Else is leaving, too. You've given the child a fright. I don't know what motive . . .'

Her face became positively interested – not angry at all. It was almost as though he had given her an idea for which she was grateful. ‘You mean, you are taking the girl away?' He was touched by uneasiness: it hadn't been necessary to tell her that. Somebody seemed to be warning him, ‘Be careful.' He looked round. Of course there was nobody there; in the distance a door closed: it was like a premonition. He said unguardedly, ‘Be careful how you frighten that child again.' He found it hard to tear himself away. He had the papers safe in his pocket, but he felt that he was leaving something else behind which needed his care. It was absurd: there could be no danger. He stared belligerently back at the square spotty veined face. He said, ‘I'll be back very soon. I shall ask her if you . . .'

He hadn't noticed last night how big her thumbs were. She sat placidly there with them hidden in the large pasty fists – it was said to be a mark of neurosis – she wore no rings. She said firmly and rather loudly, ‘I still don't understand,' and at the same time her face contorted – a lid dropped, she gave him an enormous crude wink full of an inexplicable amusement. He had an impression that she wasn't worried now any more, that she was mistress of the situation. He turned away, his heart still knocking in its cage, as if it were trying to transmit a message, a warning, in a code he didn't understand. It was the fault of the intellectual, he thought, always to talk too much. He could have told her all that when he returned. Suppose he didn't return? Well, the girl wasn't a slave, she couldn't be made to suffer. This was the best policed city in the world.

As he came down into the hall a rather too-humble voice said, ‘Would you do me the greatest favour . . . ?' It was an Indian with large brown impervious eyes, an expression of docility, he wore a shiny blue suit with rather orange shoes, it must be Mr Muckerji. He said, ‘If you would answer me just one question? How do you save money?'

Was he mad? He said, ‘I never save money.' Mr Muckerji had a large open soft face which fell in deep folds around the mouth. He said anxiously, ‘Literally not? I mean, that there are those who put aside all their copper coins – or Victorian pennies. There are the building societies and national savings.'

‘I never save.'

‘Thank you,' Mr Muckerji said, ‘that is exactly what I wished to know,' and began to write something in a notebook. Behind Mr Muckerji Else appeared, watching him go. Again he felt irrationally glad, even for the presence of Mr Muckerji. He wasn't leaving her alone with the manageress. He smiled at her across Mr Muckerji's bent studious back, and gave her a small wave of the hand. She smiled in return uncertainly. It might have been a railway station full of good-byes and curiosities, of curtailed intimacies, the embarrassments of lovers and parents, the chance for strangers, like Mr Muckerji, to see, as it were, into the interior of private houses. Mr Muckerji looked up and said a little too warmly, ‘Perhaps we may meet again for another interesting talk.' He put forward a hand and then too quickly withdrew it, as if he were afraid of a rebuff; then he stood gently, humbly smiling, as D. walked out into the fog.