The Parrot Cage, page 23
‘Jean-Pierre, no,’ she said instinctively. He did not raise his head, but his hands slid up her body to grip her shoulders and hold her down against the pillows. After a minute or two she could no longer think. Every faculty seemed to be concentrated on him and on the astonishing response her body was making. When he raised his head at last, all she wanted in the whole world was to feel him inside her and she gave herself up to him in total surrender.
She was consumed by his body and by her own until in one glorious explosion of sensation she rocketed into the very heart of desire.
Afterwards, when he was dressed again and preparing to leave, he held her gently against him and said into her hair:
‘That was more than sex, mignonne. You were very sweet. I’ll telephone you tomorrow. Good night.’
Flixe went back to bed in a daze of pleasure and quite genuine happiness. Some of the things Jean-Pierre had said to her as he made love to her made her wonder whether he really did care for her. It was a dizzying idea. Lying at peace, just before sleep overtook her, she knew that she ought to have softly teased secrets out of him, but with her mind warmed by his words and her body heavy with his pleasure, she had not even wanted to try. With sleep takings in the edges of her mind, she remembered his last words and her own version of them was, ‘It was more than conquest; there was real affection there – his for me, perhaps; mine for him, certainly. Not love; not like the love that’s Peter’s, but something friendly; kind.’ She slept.
Over the next eighteen months Flixe gradually became accustomed to her role as the mistress of a rich and cultivated man. She accepted the endless presents with growing ease, even though she sometimes felt guilty about enjoying them; she dressed in the black-market clothes and silk stockings that he bought her; she ate the delicacies he provided. Sometimes she would feel ashamed as, curled, scented, made-up, and dressed in all her finery, she passed a tired-looking woman making the best of herself and her clothes with all the recommended makeshifts: her legs painted with gravy browning and a line of eyebrow pencil down the back; her hat embellished with some odd flower or feather taken from her children’s dressing-up box; and on her face the determined expression of a woman who has to queue for unrationed luxuries to give her family anything to lift their dreary meals.
Flixe found that the only thing to do was to concentrate on the importance of the work she was trying to do and accept the material benefits of it as suitable payment for its distasteful nature. Her distaste dwindled, though, as she learned more about Jean-Pierre, and by the second Christmas of their association, she had come perilously close to falling in love with him. Once or twice as he lay asleep on her shoulder she wondered what she would do if he were to tell her something crucial that would confirm Peter Suvarov’s suspicions, and perhaps even lead to Jean-Pierre’s arrest.
But in fact she found out far more about herself than about him. It was as though in unlocking her body, Jean-Pierre had also removed shutters from the hidden parts of her mind. Much of what she discovered about herself she disliked, but in recognising and acknowledging it she found a kind of freedom. Looking back at the old Felicity Alderbrook, she wondered how the silly creature could have wasted so much time and energy on absurdities: on having more – and more glamorous – partners at every dance than Gerry; forcing every male guest in the house, whatever his age, endowments or attractions, to acknowledge hers; spending hours tending those attractions, as though they were her entire self; looking, she acknowledged at last, for a richer, better-looking, more distinguished husband than Andrew Kyrle to spite her father and his favourite daughter, as though that would satisfy her for ever.
The role Suvarov had designed for her was, paradoxically, the most appropriate anyone could have found. All her mother’s teaching and criticism had been designed to help her to make herself agreeable and seductive so that when an appropriately endowed man appeared she would be able to make him want her. The fact that the original plan had been to make the man feed and house her for the rest of her life and Suvarov’s version was to make him betray himself and his confrères for the good of her country made little difference. The mechanics were precisely the same.
Ever since her father had shown his disgust so unmistakably, she had been angry about the double standard that her world operated for men and women. Now, she understood that there were other double standards too. Having recognised that, she found herself able to ignore her father’s horror and her own shame at last.
Although the revelations of her character made it easier to deal with herself and her feelings, and gave her a curious and unexpected contentment, they were of no use to her job. It was Jean-Pierre’s feelings and activities she was supposed to be revealing. Her physical surrender to him taught her that he was a gentle and considerate lover, but that was really all. It was true that as the months passed he spoke more freely to her about his passionate love for France, his detestation of General de Gaulle, and his fear that the increasingly effective actions of the Resistance achieved little except savage reprisals against the civilian population, but she could not feel that that was enough.
She conscientiously passed it all on to Suvarov at their weekly reporting sessions in one or another of London’s parks, and received his instructions about new lines of enquiry. She told him of the people – mainly men – that she met in Jean-Pierre’s company and the few things he ever said about his work, but she never knew how useful any of it was or how Suvarov’s other enquiries were going until one meeting in their favourite park in the middle of June 1943.
It had rained the previous day, but as they met under a statue, the sun was so hot that it brought out the sweet, heavy scents of the roses in the borders that led down to the bombed ruins of the old house. She had not seen Suvarov for a fortnight, because he had been away somewhere the week before, and she was suddenly struck by how weary and spent he looked as he stood waiting for her by the statue. As she came up to him his lined face lit in a smile of rare sweetness and he held out both hands. Flixe took them and smiled back.
‘You look so happy these days, Flixe,’ he said spontaneously. It was such an unusual beginning to one of their meetings that she took one hand out of his and laid it on his cheek for a moment.
‘I wish I could say the same, Peter,’ she said gently. ‘But you look ghastly. You’re not ill, are you?’
He shook his head, moved out of her grasp, and then said with considerably more frankness than usual:
‘No, but there’s been a lot on. And we’re getting near the end of this particular search, I think. With all of them we seem to reach a tricky time when we finally begin to draw all the strands together to make the pounce – but we’ve had more successes than failures overall.’ Flixe could not help laughing at his mixed metaphor, but his words began to take on an unpleasant significance as she thought about them.
‘You mean you’re getting the proof about Jean-Pierre after all,’ she said carefully. But it was not carefully enough. He stopped walking, turned, gripped her arms, and looked down into her face.
‘You haven’t fallen for him have you, Flixe?’ he said, with a sharpness in his voice that hurt. ‘God knows I’m the last person who ought to have ignored that possibility, but it simply never occured to me.’
‘Please let me go,’ she said, almost frightened by the tightness of his hands. He took them away at once, but did not move away from her. She hesitated, trying to tell him honestly about the feelings that she had not quite acknowledged to herself.
‘I don’t know. But, Peter, it’s quite difficult to remain entirely detached when a charming, intelligent, delightful, generous man…’ she broke off in some confusion. ‘Takes you out to dine at least twice a week for all these months and you have to pretend to all the kinds of emotions that it is most dangerous to have.’ Silently she added in her mind, particularly when the man you really do love keeps himself protected behind the barbed-wire fence of his seniority, talks to you about how much he cares for your sister, and debriefs you coldly about the effects of the liaison he himself has set up for you.
‘I see,’ he said after a while, frowning. She thought he was angry with her and that hurt too. But at last he said: ‘I’ve even more to apologise for than I’d thought. Flixe, if it weren’t so important I’d get you out of it now.’ When she did not answer, he led her to an old teak bench under one of the immense oak trees and made her sit down.
‘Flixe, you do realise exactly what it is that he’s doing?’ he said at last.
‘If we’re right and it is him.’
‘You’ve got it quite badly, haven’t you? Felicity, could you love a man who is doing his damnedest to wreck all the work that the Fighting French and the Allies are trying to do, who is causing the capture and death of their people and ours, who is trying to arrange to grab France for his rotten conspirators? Who would rather France were utterly ravaged so that there would be nothing and no one in a position to take it over except his organisation? Who doesn’t care whether we or the Germans win, because he thinks he’ll collect what he wants from whoever the victor is?’
‘When you put it like that, no. Of course not. But you see, the Jean-Pierre I know isn’t like that. He’s a warm, clever, witty, handsome, generous businessman – and he says that he loves me and that makes a difference in itself.’
‘Do you believe him?’ Flixe was too absorbed in her own feelings to try to read his in his voice or expression.
‘Oh God, Suvarov!’ she burst out. ‘How can I know? How does one ever know? I think that probably he does – some of the time. But what it means I don’t know.’ She got up from the bench as though she could not bear to sit and listen to his inquisition any longer. After a moment he stood beside her. His voice was gentle but implacable as he carried on.
‘Felicity, hasn’t it occurred to you that he may be trying to do to you what you are trying to do to him?’
‘You mean make me fall for him so that he can find out what you are trying to do and how much you know? Of course I have. If I hadn’t, life would be simple.’
They walked on in silence until they had completed almost an entire circuit of the park. Then Suvarov looked at his watch.
‘Flixe, I’ve got to go in a minute. Listen: I’ve fixed for you to go on a course next week. And as things are it’ll be no bad thing for you to be out of his way for a bit, so I think you ought to take some leave as well. You haven’t had any for months. Take a fortnight. Get out of London.’
‘And go where? On my own. What do you expect me to do for two weeks?’ She could hear the angry resentment in her voice and hated it.
‘The course is just outside Bristol. Why not go on to your mother’s after that? You can ride, walk, rest, see Evelyn … Even find out from your mother what Miss Kingsley was doing in France for three years after the last war.’
‘I’ve already told you that,’ answered Flixe, irritated by what she saw as a diversionary tactic. ‘She was having an illicit affair with a married man. If you want his name or any details I suggest you ask Gerry. She and Anna are incredibly thick these days. An antidote to poor bloody Andrew, I suppose.’ Hearing her voice sounding more and more like her mother’s, she stopped, cursed silently and then looked at him. ‘Peter, I’m sorry. With all the rest the last thing you need is my throwing a tantrum. Forgive me?’
He ruffled her fine fair hair with his right hand. ‘Of course, best of my searchers. But be careful of yourself please, Flixe.’ Then, as though ashamed of the plea, he reverted to a far more official manner than he had used to her in months. ‘Now, about the course. Here’s your railway warrant; you’ll be met at the station and briefed when you get there. OK?’
‘Yes. But what shall I be learning, Suvarov?’ she asked, also reverting to an artificial formality, as though to create a crust over the emotions she had revealed to him.
‘Self-defence,’ he answered drily and she could not resist saying:
‘How appropriate!’
‘That’s my Flixe,’ he said, laughing. ‘Stick to it, sweetheart.’
Chapter Seventeen
The first person she saw as she walked in through the front door of the requisitioned house somewhere near Bristol was her old suitor Johnny Blenkarne. She was suddenly engulfed in resentment against Peter Suvarov. It was bad enough that he should have discovered this particular aspect of her past, but that he should set out to manipulate her out of her feelings for Jean-Pierre by sending Johnny on the same self-defence course seemed despicable. For one moment she was so angry that she almost turned tail, planning to disobey orders for the first time since she had started to work for Suvarov and go AWOL.
‘Flixe! My dear, what luck,’ said Johnny, catching sight of her standing in the doorway. ‘But what on earth are you doing here? I thought you were out of all this kind off thing?’
‘Come on, Johnny, you know better than that. Or have you been sent to try to tease me into indiscretion?’ He roared with laughter at that, and, still grinning, came towards her. He leaned down, kissed her cheek, and picked up her bag.
‘Let me take this up for you, and then we can go and get a drink. D’you know where they’ve put you?’ Flixe, highly surprised to see him changed from a half-drunk, maudlin lover into this cheerful, casual companion, took her bag back.
‘I’m quite capable of carrying this weight, Johnny. I’ll take it up and then meet you in the mess. And,’ she added with a curious smile hovering about her lips, ‘I shall tease you into telling me what’s happened to you.’
‘That’s easy, my dear,’ he said in the same happy voice. ‘I’m out. Grounded. No more flying. I pranged in the drink – God how I hated their wretched slang – and was pretty ill with pneumonia, exposure and so on and so I’m flying a desk from now on. Calloo, callay, oh frabjous day! I’ll tell you all the rest later, old girl. Hurry up. I want to buy you some gin.’
Even Suvarov, Machiavellian pastmaster of the art of manipulation though he might be, could not have wrought such a change in Flying Officer Blenkarne, thought Flixe as she walked upstairs with her luggage. Having unpacked her few clothes, she reported to the CO, was told that reveille would be at six o’clock the following morning, lights-out would be at ten-thirty and that until then she was free to fraternise in the mess as she chose.
Johnny introduced her to the other early arrivals for the course and then took her off to a small table in one corner of the room, carrying their drinks. When they were sitting down, he raised his pink gin and smiled at her deliberately over the top of the glass.
‘Here’s to you, Flixe. You know you’ve changed too; but I can’t quite work out how or why.’
She smiled, sipped her gin and It and then shrugged.
‘Yes, Johnny, I’ve changed. But nothing like to the extent you have. Tell me about it. I mean, last time we met – what? Nearly two years ago – you were…’ She broke off, unable to think of a polite enough way to describe the pathetic creature in the nightclub. He laughed again and put a heavy hand on her shoulder.
‘I know: a drip, a twerp, a weasel. A dead loss, frankly. But, Flixe, I was so jolly frightened. The whole bloody time. I think the only time since I joined the RAF that I wasn’t afraid was when my kite was actually shot to bits and I had to bail out. I’d spent all those months expecting it, wincing as flak hit the tailplane, almost feeling my backside roasted as I crashed, imagining every disaster I’d ever heard of, and then there I was, floating peacefully down into the drink, stars overhead, other poor buggers still waiting to get it; nothing I could have done any more. I just hit the water, got rid of the’chute as instructed, inflated the Mae West, and lay back like the Chinese say you should.’
A smile from Flixe acknowledged his allusion to rape. She raised her glass to him.
‘Well, Johnny, here’s to you. I think you must have been incredibly brave to go on going up there if you felt like that.’
‘You always did know how to make a fellow feel terrific, Flixe,’ he said after a while. ‘But it’s not true: I didn’t have any option. I had to go up. But don’t I bless that Jerry who shot me down? God, how I do.’
‘Oh, Johnny, I’m so glad—’ she was beginning, but he interrupted her.
‘Never mind me, though, old girl. Tell me about you, and what’s taken away that brittleness.’
‘Was I brittle, Johnny? I’m sorry for that, too, then.’
Flixe could not, of course, tell him by which route she had arrived at her present state of mind and existence, but they had plenty to talk about without any true confessions from her. She enjoyed herself hugely, removed from not only her responsibilities but also from two men who had been causing her such anguish. By the time they went into dinner, she had already forgiven Suvarov for putting her in touch with Johnny again; but as they drank their fairly disgusting Brown Windsor soup, he told her that he had been ordered on to the course long before she and Suvarov had had their painful discussion in the park and she realised that she had been overestimating his Machiavellian talents, and let herself relax.
Before she and Johnny parted for the night he held out his hand as they stood at the foot of the elegant, curving staircase.
‘Friends, Flixe?’
‘Friends, Johnny,’ she agreed, taking his hand and giving it a squeeze. ‘What fun! I came on this course expecting it to be hell, but I think I’m going to enjoy it.’
‘I know I am, whatever they have in store for us tomorrow. Good night, angel-eyes.’
And they did enjoy it, both of them. The various instructors allowed them to pair up for any exercises where two were needed to work together, and they collaborated and competed like two prep-school boys vying for a single place in the First XI. Johnny was fitter by far than Flixe, despite his recent illnesses, and could easily outrun her, but when it came to the unarmed combat exercises that were the culmination of the course she did better than he, and far better than either of the other two women on the course.
