In my new, unfettered fury, a veritable windstorm of unreason took possession of me: she was a trap, a honey trap, foisted on me by a conspiracy of my enemies! I, Cranmer, evader, closet romantic, veteran of a raft of futile love affairs, had fallen cloak-over-dagger for the oldest trick in the book!
She was a setup from the first day! By Larry. By Checheyev. By Zorin. By the two of them, the three of them together, the four of them!
But
Ashamed of falling prey to such wayward, unprofessional imaginings, I drew back from them and looked for other ways to stoke my burgeoning paranoia.
What did I know of her? On my own insistence, nothing, except what she had cared to tell me or, on Sundays, tell Larry in my hearing. Merriman's doggy bag still lay behind its curtain in my priesthole, unread, gathering dust, a symbol of my lover's integrity.
An Italian name.
A dead father.
An Irish mother.
A drifting, dilettante childhood.
An English boarding school.
Studied music in Vienna.
Gone east, gone mystic, espoused every softheaded cause known to the hippie trail, gone to the devil.
Come home, drifted again, studied more music, composed it, arranged it; cofounded something called the Alternative Chamber Group, introducing the traditional instruments of the new world to the classical music of the old—or was it the other way round?
Got bored, attended a summer course at Cambridge, read or didn't read the comfortable words of Lawrence Pettifer on the degeneracy of the West. Returned to London, gave herself to anyone who asked nicely. Scared herself, met Cranmer, appointed him her willing, doting, blinded protector.
Met Larry. Vanished. Reappeared with hair up, calling herself Sally and swinging her legs at Jamie Pringle.
My Emma. My false dawn.
* * *
We are naked, playing. She is arranging her black hair round my shoulders.
"Shall I call you Timbo?"
"No."
"Because Larry does?"
"Yes."
"I love you, you see. So naturally I'll call you anything you want. I'll call you Hey You, if you want. I'm completely flexible."
"Tim will do nicely. Just Tim. And yes, you are completely flexible."
* * *
We are lying in front of the fire in her bedroom. She has hidden her head in my neck.
"You're a spy, aren't you?"
"Of course. How did you guess?"
"This morning. Watching you read your mail."
"You mean you
"You don't put things in wastepaper baskets. Anything to be thrown away gets put in a plastic bag and taken to the incinerator. By you."
"I'm a very young wine grower. I was born six months ago when I met you."
But a germ of suspicion has been planted. Why was she watching me? Why was she thinking about me that way? What has Larry put into her head that causes her to put her protector under close surveillance?
* * *
I had reached my club. In the hall, old men were reading stock prices. Someone greeted me, Gordon someone: Gordon, marvellous, how's Prunella? Settling into a leather armchair in the smoking room, I stared into an unreadable newspaper while I listened to the murmurs of men who thought their murmurs mattered. The seasonal fog lapped at the long sash windows. Charlie, the Nigerian porter, came round to switch on the reading lamps. Outside in Pall Mall my gallant band of watchers were stamping their feet in doorways and envying the Friday commuters going home for the weekend. I could see them clearly in my other mind. I sat in the smoking room till dusk, not reading but seeming. The grandfather clock chimed six. Not a retired admiral stirred.
* * *
"Larry really believes, doesn't he?" she is saying.
A Sunday evening. We are in the drawing room. Larry left ten minutes ago. I have poured myself a large Scotch and am slumped in my armchair like a boxer between rounds.
"What in?" I asked.
Ignored.
"I never met an Englishman who believes before. Most of them just say 'on the one hand and on the other hand' and don't do anything. It's as if the middle bits of his engine had been taken out."
still don't get it.
I have annoyed her.
"Never mind. You obviously weren't listening."
I take another pull of Scotch. "Perhaps we hear different things," I say.
What did I mean by that? I wondered as I gazed through the lace-curtained windows of the smoking room at the smouldering pink night. What did I hear that Emma didn't, when Larry did his material for her, sang his political arias, excited her, drew her out, shamed her and forgave her, drew her out a little more? I was listening to Larry the great seducer, I decided, replying to my own question. I was thinking that my prejudices were leading me astray, that Larry was far smarter than I had ever been at stealing hearts. And that for twenty years I had harboured a very one-sided delusion about who, in the great Cranmer-Pettifer standoff, was running whom.
