The Parrot Cage, page 13
Gerry, quite unaware how she had betrayed the self of which she was still only dimly aware, obeyed and led the way into the dining-room that led off the hall opposite the morning room. While Bob lit the tall candles that marched down the polished table in Evelyn’s beautiful Georgian silver sticks, Gerry directed the other men to their places and waited by her chair until Evelyn arrived carrying a heavy tray. Then together they distributed the hot plates and handed round the dishes of casseroled rabbit and vegetables.
When she was sitting in what was usually Bob’s chair at the foot of the table, Gerry thought that she had never seen the dining-room looking more attractive. Bob had turned off all the electric lights and the candle flames gleamed against the dark linenfold panelling and glinted off the carving of the beautiful old stone fireplace. She turned to say something of the sort to Bob, but he was deep in conversation with Bill Ramsden.
‘Gerry.’
‘Yes, Peter,’ she said, turning her head towards him. ‘Gerry, you’re looking very lovely tonight,’ he said in a voice so quiet that none of the others seemed to hear it. Whatever mood it was that held her in its grip prevented Gerry’s usual embarrassed protest and she only smiled back at him and said:
‘I’m glad.’
‘Don’t let Evelyn’s good rabbit get cold,’ said Bob on her other side and she picked up her knife and fork.
Despite Peter’s having said that he would need his assistant for his meetings with the Americans, Gerry was excluded from their discussions throughout Saturday, and so she spent the time helping Evelyn around the house and garden. As they were in the kitchen washing up the breakfast dishes on Saturday morning, Evelyn said:
‘Peter’s looking much better.’ Then she put another blue and white willow-pattern cup on the draining board for Gerry to dry and went on: ‘I think you must be very good for him.’
Gerry had an immensely clear picture of her left hand, the wedding ring and hoop of big emeralds and diamonds catching the light, as she picked up the cup and methodically wiped it with the drying-up cloth in her right. She carried the cup to the old oak dresser and came back to pick up the next one before she said anything. Then, without looking at Evelyn, she said:
‘What makes you think it’s me?’
‘The way he depends on you, turns to you all the time, waits for you, looks out for you, and is so very much at ease in your presence. He’s usually awfully restless, but last night he sat beside you on the sofa and hardly moved for simply ages.’
‘Oh,’ said Gerry inadequately, going back to the dresser, as though walking could help her through her own thoughts and Evelyn’s. Gerry was still there, carefully hanging the cup on its brass hook, with her back to the room when Evelyn said:
‘I’m glad you’re married, Gerry.’
‘Are you. Why?’ The shock of that comment, spoken in Evelyn’s usual, gentle, calm voice was enough to make Gerry’s voice rough and very cold.
‘Because he can be very fascinating, and because it must be difficult for you to work so closely with a man like that and keep your head. That’s blunt, I know, but I think you’re sensible enough to know what I mean and why I’m saying it.’
‘Evelyn?’ Gerry’s voice was more normal and she came back to the sink.
‘Yes, Gerry?’
‘I do understand all that, but what would be so dangerous, if I were not married, say?’
She did not see Evelyn turn her head and look very carefully at the younger woman’s face. After a moment or two, Evelyn spoke in a careful neutral tone.
‘A lot of girls have fallen for him, Gerry, and have been very unhappy. Although it’s always made me cross to watch him with them, I’ve sometimes thought that it’s only partly to do with him. At the beginning I used to think it must be something to do with his Russianness – it seems to fascinate English women – and I persuaded him to call himself Peter rather than Piotr, which they all found so romantic. But in the last few years it seemed to be stopping; as though something in him had changed and did not call out to them all as it used.’
‘Are you telling me that he seduced them? “All” of them?’
Evelyn dropped the bundle of teaspoons back into the sudsy water and turned to face Gerry.
‘That sounded very cold, Gerry. I don’t want to annoy you – still less to hurt you. I told you, I think you are doing a great deal for him and he obviously cares for you a lot. I just don’t want to see you fall in love with him. It’s not safe. And you have a husband.’
‘Yes, I have.’ At the tone of Gerry’s voice, the other woman winced inside herself and took a while to work out what to say next. Then she decided that it was too difficult and so she said nothing. They finished that bout of washing-up in silence.
But before the weekend was done, Evelyn tried once more to tell Gerry some of what she wanted her to know. They were out in the vegetable garden, cutting late cabbages from the hard-frozen earth.
‘Have you heard from Andrew lately?’ asked Evelyn.
Gerry stood up and stretched her cramped back muscles, noticing the way the stark black trees were silhouetted against the silver fields, where the frost had not yet even begun to melt. Then she squatted down again and got on with her task, saying casually:
‘No, not really: a few dull letters. It’s strange that it’s possible to miss him badly and yet not want to go back to the way we lived before. I find it hard to remember what he’s really like, because the letters are so empty. But I sometimes think that he’s not in fact quite like the man I thought he was.’ Then she added with apparent irrelevance: ‘You know Mother’s always liked him a lot.’
‘Yes, I know. She spent a whole afternoon once at the village bring-and-buy telling me all about his virtues.’
There was silence as Gerry bent down to pile the cabbages into her basket and pick up the knife she had been using. Then as she straightened up, scraping her wellingtons against each other, she said drily:
‘That really ought to have warned me, I suppose. Just as Flixe’s hostility should have.’
Evelyn put her arm around Gerry’s shoulders for an instant.
‘Oh, Gerry. Please be careful of yourself.’
That was all. She said not another word on the subject, even when they were alone together, and Gerry was left to think round and round what they had said and what they might have said.
Chapter Ten
Sitting in the back of the official car with Peter Suvarov on Sunday afternoon, Gerry had innumerable questions she wanted to ask him about the two Americans and the discussions he had had with them. Although she had not been allowed to sit in on many of the talks, she had been asked to type various minutes and memoranda. They all seemed innocuous, and could have been dictated to any of the typists in RE(1)R when Suvarov got back there on Monday. Gerry was curious to know why it had been so important for her to be there; but she could not ask that, or any of the other questions, with the uniformed driver sitting so close to them.
Every so often she glanced sideways at Suvarov’s face, until the growing darkness hid everything except the gleam of his eyes, but his expression was too bleak to allow her to break into his silence. At last she just leaned back against the seat and yet again went over all the things that Evelyn had said to her.
The car jerked to a sudden stop at an unmarked road junction, and an enormous lorry lumbered across just in front of them. Gerry looked at Suvarov again and he must have seen the movement in the murk for he came out of his reverie and looked straight at her. The clouds that had obscured the moon drifted apart at that moment and she saw his face, drained of colour by the cool light. There was no comforting smile, just a long, long moment with his dark eyes looking at her with no expression that she could see. Then he looked away, but she felt his hand on hers and the warmth of that reached through both their gloves.
She, too, looked away, out of the car window at the thin-looking landscape of bare trees and flat, silver-grey earth. When his hand left hers she heard Evelyn’s voice again:
‘A lot of girls have fallen for him, Gerry, and have been very unhappy.’
It is not that I have some schoolgirl passion for him, she protested in vehement silence to herself. Really it isn’t. He’s just … so much the most interesting man I’ve ever met. And he makes me interested in so many things – and so much more interesting myself.
She told herself to stop making something out of nothing and ordered herself to think of some more suitable subject; but with Suvarov himself so near to her in the close darkness of the car it was impossible to stop thinking about him and the background to Evelyn’s warnings. Despite her determination not to succumb to a childish crush, it was horribly easy to understand why all those girls had fallen for him. It was not so much because of his interesting face with the long-tailed black eyes and perfectly modelled lips, she decided, as the mixture of his powerful intelligence and the shadows in his eyes which touched some deep protectiveness within Gerry whenever he let her see them.
Evelyn had told her that Peter had changed since Gerry had gone to work for him, that he was happier, that he relied on her: could it be true? The possibility drove a strange shiver through her.
‘Cold, Gerry?’ came his voice, almost as gentle as though he were talking to Ming.
‘No; but thank you, Peter. It was just a thought. I’m sorry I disturbed you.’
‘You didn’t. Look, the first edges of London. Won’t be long now. Gerry, must you get back to Dover Street at once?’
‘No, no; there’s nothing I have to do,’ she answered immediately, hoping that he was going to ask her to dine with him.
‘Could you bear to come to the office then? Just for an hour or two? I ought to get all this weekend’s business on to paper as soon as I can. I know it’s unfair to ask you to give up yet more of your free day, but …’
‘Don’t worry,’ she said, mastering her disappointment. ‘Of course I don’t mind.’
He leaned forward and said:
‘Would you drop us at Queen Anne’s Gate then, Rogers?’
‘Certainly, sir. Shall I wait?’
‘No, I’m not sure quite how long we’ll be and both Mrs Kyrle and I are within walking distance of the office.’
‘Very good, sir.’
Within less than half an hour the car drew up outside the white-painted door of the house in Queen Anne’s Gate and Suvarov was getting out of the car on to the pavement. Gerry followed him, briefcase in hand, and waited for him to unlock the front door. He spoke briefly to the duty watchman in his cubby-hole by the inside doors and led the way up to the third floor. Then he unpacked his notes and started to dictate to Gerry lists of all the points discussed during the weekend, decisions made and still awaited, and a mass of details he needed to assimilate.
She found it hard to focus her mind on the consequence of what she heard. The words were easy to follow and she scribbled them down with no trouble, but when he got to the end and she had covered nearly half a notebook with hieroglyphics, she could not have given a clear account of any of it. He put down his sheaves of notes at last and said:
‘Thanks, Gerry. If you’d put it into shape tomorrow and get one of the confidential typists to type it by the end of the day we’ll have done all we can. Now—’ The air-raid sirens burst into banshee wails before he could finish and he just said: ‘Bastards to come in on a Sunday evening. We’d better go downstairs and shelter.’
Gerry shook her head. ‘Not after what … Annie. I don’t think I could ever shelter again. But don’t worry about me; I’ll go back to the flat. I’ll go across the park. They don’t bomb parks.’
‘No, Gerry. It’s not safe. Come downstairs with me.’ ‘I daren’t, Peter. Don’t be angry, Please.’ She saw him walk towards her and in an instant she knew what was going to happen. There was nothing she could do or say. Part of her protested silently, but when she felt his arms around her and his cheek on her hair every protest was deadened.
‘I can’t let you go. I can’t bear to risk you, Gerry. You’re too valuable to me. I need you.’ Then he lifted his head and she felt his hands slide from her back up to her neck and to her face. He held it so that she had to look at him. Just before he kissed her, he said:
‘Without you it would all be such a struggle.’ His lips moved over hers and his hands held her, gently but inexorably. She moved closer towards him and put her arms on his, her hands on his neck. As he felt her move, he held her more tightly and lifted his head just a little.
‘Gerry, I don’t know how I have waited to hold you like this.’
‘You too?’
‘Oh, dear one, don’t you remember that evening – just last Thursday, wasn’t it?’
‘I didn’t know that that was it. I thought it was just me being stupid and wicked.’
He laughed at her words, kissed her again and, saying, ‘Come here with me,’ he urged her to the side of the room where there was a huge, soft sofa.
‘Peter, I can’t,’ she meant to say, but the words would not come. Instead she obeyed him and, with his arm still around her shoulders, sat back on the soft, feather-filled cushions. He kissed her again and began to touch her.
‘Peter …’ At once he was still.
‘Gerry, I couldn’t force myself on you. Tell me to stop if you want me to.’
‘It’s … No, don’t stop. Just love me.’
‘You don’t have to ask that. Of course I love you – who could fail to love you?’ After that even the silent arguments of her mind and conscience were banished by his nearness, the immensity of what he made her feel and her longing to give him anything and everything she had to give.
Much later he said, looking tenderly down at her face, more beautiful than ever in its drowsy peace:
‘Sleep now, Gerry.’ Then he got up and came back a moment later with the rough grey wool blanket that was part of the emergency stores. He wrapped it round her, but she put out a hand to grasp his. From her sleepiness she murmured:
‘What about you, Peter? Where will you sleep?’
‘Hush, little one. There’s no room for both of us there. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be all right. Trust me, and love me.’
‘Always,’ she said as her eyes closed.
It was hours before she woke, into a kind of golden blaze of early sunlight and inexpressible happiness. She turned her head languorously on the cushion, looking for him. When she saw him sitting at his desk, his dark head resting on his clasped hands, she was filled with compunction. She had been so comfortable and he must have sat like that all night. Without thinking, she slid off the sofa, wrapping the scratchy blanket around her body like a toga, and walked quietly across the room. There was a clock on his desk and she saw that it was nearly six. With a gentle hand she touched his head, saying quietly:
‘Peter, wake up.’ He lifted his head and what she saw in his face froze all the happy golden warmth out of her mind. She could not speak. The lines between his mouth and chin were more pronounced than she had ever seen them and his eyes had a self-hatred that almost stopped her breath. ‘Peter, you look awful. You shouldn’t have let me have the sofa. Lie down for a bit and go to sleep again.’
‘I wasn’t asleep, Gerry,’ he said turning away from her. Then in a voice that had no life in it, he said: ‘Gerry, I shouldn’t have done it. God knows I ought to know better by now. And with you of all people. Gerry, go home now.’
She stood clutching her grey blanket around herself, unable to believe what he had said.
‘What did I do?’ she whispered. He winced, but in the same dead voice, he said:
‘Nothing. It was my fault. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.’
‘No, Peter,’ she said, walking round behind his chair so that she could see his face again. Then she knelt on the floor by his chair and, forgetting the blanket in the unhappiness she read in his eyes, put her hands on either side of his face. The blanket fell around her knees and he shut his eyes.
‘Gerry, cover yourself up; you’ll … you’ll catch cold.’
‘No, Peter. Tell me. What we just shared was more than this. You can’t send me away like this now. You must have meant what you said. You couldn’t have been pretending. I’ll never believe it.’
She looked up into his face, trying to understand what was going on in his mind. If it had not been for the unmistakable misery in his dark eyes, she might have brought herself to ask for more than reassurance. But it seemed that he could not give her any. Putting his hands on her bare arms, he said:
‘Gerry, nothing I said was a lie, then or now. But I shouldn’t have done it. I was mad to touch you. You must go now, before they come in to work.’ But there was something missing, although his eyes had actually focused on her and his hands were warm and gentle again.
‘Don’t you care at all for me?’
His head dropped forward until his forehead rested against hers.
‘Yes, my dear, I care. Now go before I hurt you any more.’
Without speaking, she picked up her blanket and walked back to the sofa to collect her scattered clothes and put them on. There was something almost unbelievably squalid about the process and she felt filthy. How could something as radiantly wonderful – and sweet – have turned into this hell? How could he care for her if he was turning her out like some …? Even her mind could not bring that word to the surface after what they had said to each other the night before.
Just before she left him she turned in the doorway and said with only the slightest tremor in her voice:
‘I expect it is the wrong thing to say, but I love you, Peter. And last night you made me feel more loved than I have ever been. I can’t believe that it was just clever technique. You asked me to trust you, and I do, but I hope that you will bring yourself to be able to trust me enough to tell me what has happened to make you do this to us both.’ She stopped, took a deep breath and then went on in a more distant voice: ‘I’ll come back later to see to all those reports. I expect you’ll have meetings for most of the day.’
