Read sample The More Deceived

1

Lord Edward Corinth stood poised on the balls of his feet, prepared to meet the attack which he knew would be fierce and unforgiving. In the few seconds remaining to him, he assessed his stance and was satisfied. His knees were bent, his feet at right angles, the back foot turned slightly forward. His rear arm was raised to balance the épée he grasped in his right hand, arm outstretched breast-high. Beneath his mask, a trickle of sweat rolled off his forehead on to the bridge of his beaky nose causing him to move his head very slightly.

‘Hold still! Keep your head perfectly still,’ came the cry as he knew it would. ‘No, don’t look at your blade. Always eye to eye.’

Edward cursed silently. His knee, injured in a car accident two years earlier, was quite strong again despite his having fallen awkwardly on it while chasing a girl on the Queen Mary just a month ago but, if he did not move in the next few seconds, it might just betray him.

‘En garde! Lunge! Keep your back foot flat. Good! Lunge – recover – lunge!’

Two hectic minutes later Edward felt his épée taken out of his hand as easily as candy from a child. As he heard, rather than saw, it clatter across the floor, he stepped back and lifted his mask.

‘For God’s sake, what happened? I thought I was just about to flèche.’

His instructor laughed. ‘It was bad of me, I know, but I couldn’t resist it. You laid yourself right open. First I confused your sense of distance by having my arm more retracted than usual, then I went under your arm aiming at the wrist. Always remember, Lord Edward, the best time to attack is when your opponent steps forward. You are tall – taller than me by nine inches – and I had to prevent you using that advantage. I had to keep you at relatively close quarters and attack your blade. You must try not to signal your intentions to your adversary, though. But you did well.’

‘I’m so out of condition, Cavens. I hope you won’t despair of me.’

Fred Cavens, Edward’s instructor and swordmaster, was a graduate of the Belgian Military Institute. Whenever Douglas Fairbanks embarked on a film such as The Black Pirate or The Iron Mask in which he was called upon to bound across the set, sword in hand, duelling with some evil opponent, Cavens was there instructing him and occasionally stepping in for him when the fight became too acrobatic. He also arranged fights for Basil Rathbone and Errol Flynn, both of whom had become close friends.

Edward had once asked him why Belgians seemed to do all the fight arranging in Hollywood and he said, ‘Les Français sont trop difficiles. We Belgians are … more relaxed. You understand?’

Fenton, Lord Edward’s valet, came forward with a towel and helped him remove his sweat-sodden clothes before proceeding to rub him down. They were in his rooms in Albany. Fenton privately considered the dining-room, even when stripped of its furniture and oriental rugs, an inappropriate place in which to take violent exercise and hinted as much now. Edward was adamant.

‘You sound just like my dear departed Aunt Gladys. Of course this is the place to fence in. Do you not realize that these were Byron’s chambers? This was his salle d’armes. He sparred just where we are standing with John “Gentleman” Jackson – “Bruiser” Jackson as he was known in the ring – boxing champion of England during the Regency. And with Henry Angelo he practised with foil and broadsword. It would be ridiculous for any of the other residents to object and they haven’t, have they?’

‘No, my lord, but …’

The telephone rang and Fenton excused himself and went out to the hall to answer it.

‘Saved by the bell, eh? You know, Cavens, Fenton’s the best valet in London but there are times when he makes me feel like a naughty little boy. I had a nanny just like him when I was a child. I had to get rid of her by putting tadpoles in her jam sandwiches.’

Cavens laughed. ‘I shall go now. You remember that I leave for Germany on Friday?’

‘Yes, I gather fencing is fashionable there at the moment. I know Mussolini has been encouraging it in Italy.’

‘In Germany I number Herr Himmler among my students.’

Edward frowned. ‘That man? I thought fencing was a sport for gentlemen.’

Cavens looked embarrassed and Edward felt he had been rude. ‘Ah well!’ he said with an effort at humour. ‘Just because Fascists like to fence doesn’t mean we have to give it up. My friend Verity Browne tells me that Karl Marx also liked to fence.’

Cavens smiled weakly. ‘You know the old joke? The German said to the Frenchman, “After all, when the history of the Great War is written, it will be difficult to decide where the greater measure of blame lies.” “Well, my friend,” the Frenchman says, “the one thing history will not say is that Belgium invaded Germany.”’

Edward smiled wryly. ‘I say, Cavens, it’s very good of you to spare the time to teach me. Are you sure I am not being a bore … wasting your time and whatnot?’

‘No, indeed. You are a natural athlete, Lord Edward, and if it were not for your knee and your …’

‘I know! My great age …’ Edward was about to be thirty-eight.

‘You are not too old. One of my pupils started at sixty. Fencing is like a physical game of chess. It helps to be quick and agile but if you are slower you can fence defensively. If you trained hard enough you could reach Olympic standard.’

‘No, no, Cavens old man. It’s true I did fence a bit at Eton but I hardly did anything when I was at Cambridge … had other fish to fry … so I’m terribly rusty now, as you can see.’

‘While I am away, practise, practise, practise and then practise some more. When I am back we shall continue our search for la botte secrète – the perfect thrust, n’est-ce pas?’

At that moment Fenton re-entered the room. ‘Sir Robert Vansittart is on the telephone, my lord. He wishes to speak to you.’

‘His secretary, you mean?’

‘No, my lord, Sir Robert himself.’

‘Good heavens! What can I have done to deserve this?’

Vansittart was Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs – the Foreign Office’s effective chief. Not a politician but, nevertheless, highly political, he wielded immense power and could promote or vitiate the policy of his political masters. If he supported the Foreign Secretary – at this time Anthony Eden – he could be a most able servant but also a dangerous enemy. What this great man could have to say to him, Edward could not imagine. Wrapped in a towel, he hurried to the telephone half expecting to find one of his friends was playing a joke on him.

‘Sir Robert, I apologize for keeping you waiting. I was just …’

‘Ah! Lord Edward. I am delighted to have caught you. Something has come up which I thought might interest you. Can’t say anything about it on the telephone but I wondered if you were free this afternoon? Forgive the short notice but …’

‘Of course, Sir Robert. I have no engagement I cannot break. Shall I come to your office about three?’

‘Could we say four? I have a luncheon which may drag on. The Italian ambassador … need I say more?’

Edward’s elder brother, the Duke of Mersham, had once reprimanded him for dressing sloppily with the comment, ‘If you cannot dress like a gentleman, you should at least dress like a Conservative.’ Another piece of advice the Duke was fond of repeating was ‘Gentlemen shop at gentlemen’s shops’ and Edward always had. His suits were made in Savile Row by Leslie and Roberts, his boots by Lobb and his hats by Lock in St James’s Street. Thus it was that, when Edward set out for the Foreign Office, he was impeccably dressed in his most sober tie and black pinstripe suit. Fenton had urged him to wear spats but he had declined on the grounds that they were beginning to look old-fashioned. Fenton had pursed his lips and begun to protest but Edward had cut him short.

‘I want to look reliable and … respectable and so forth but I don’t want to look a complete fossil.’

The truth was that Edward wanted to be taken seriously. Over the past two years he had done several jobs – unofficial ones – for the Foreign Office or at the behest of Major Ferguson of Special Branch but he had never met Vansittart. With war looming, he was anxious to establish his position with the powers-that-be on a more formal footing. It was not a question of money. He had plenty of that. It was more that he wanted to be useful … to have a purpose in life … to serve his country and be able to tell himself he wasn’t just a useless coureur de dames. He was easily bored and the idea of office work of any kind filled him with horror. Politics was out of the question. All the hypocrisy, the lies you had to tell and the babies you had to kiss.

There was always the army but he was really too old to imagine he would be allowed to do any real fighting. No, what he was good at – if he was good at anything – was nosing out the truth and he had a feeling that this was where there was a role for him. Not spying exactly but … well, he supposed it was a type of police work. He had been told that Vansittart thought well of him – he had done some useful work preventing a scandal which might have touched the Royal Family – but to be commissioned by him personally … that was something else.

It was a glorious spring day and he decided to walk across St James’s Park rather than take the Lagonda. He had, of course, no idea how he appeared to passers-by as he strode purposefully across the grass, recently mown for the first time that year. Tall, long-legged, with a look on his face which a foolish observer might have mistaken for vacuous, he exuded the confidence – some might say the arrogance – of the upper-class Englishman who had never had reason to doubt his place in the universe. In point of fact he did often doubt himself and, as he scattered the ducks drying their feathers beside the water, he was far from feeling satisfied with his position or rather his reason for existing. He had a good brain. He was, despite his age, still something of an athlete. He had a large circle of friends not just in his own social circle but in neighbourhoods and social classes in which aristocratic young men rarely ventured. He had no wife or child but an amitié – irregular and hard to define – with a young Communist journalist who exhibited an annoying preference for Europe’s battlefields over the joys of Piccadilly.

He twitched his nose and sighed. A child in a perambulator looked at him pityingly and the child’s nanny – a woman the size of a small sofa and of indeterminate age – pushed her charge out of danger with a snort of indignation. Five minutes later he found himself outside George Gilbert Scott’s undeniably impressive building, the epitome of Empire. The Foreign Office, as Scott had planned it, was designed to impress and it certainly did make a statement. Scott seemed to be saying that even the grandest potentate, the richest maharaja, the most self-regarding president was, in the presence of the Queen Empress, of little account. That was the 1870s. Sixty-five years later Queen Victoria was dead and the British Empire had been undermined by a great war which had bled it of its best young men and reduced it to near bankruptcy but the illusion of power lingered on.

Edward wondered if this magnificent building would survive the next war. Stanley Baldwin had said the bomber would always get through, seeming to imply that there was no defence against the new air force of militant Germany. It was a grim thought. As he had a few minutes to spare, he walked round to stand in front of Lutyens’ Cenotaph. With head bared and bowed, he stood for a minute or two remembering his older brother who, had he not been killed in France in 1914, would have been Duke of Mersham. He prayed fervently but without real conviction that Britain would not again be called upon to sacrifice its young men and thought particularly of his nephew Frank, now in America but soon to return home.

At last he entered the great quadrangle and made his presence known to a uniformed porter. After a muffled colloquy on an antiquated telephone, he was led by a frock-coated flunkey beneath the gilded dome, up the grand staircase and along a gallery. They arrived at an impressive door upon which the flunkey knocked. Edward entered a large room in which two female secretaries were clattering away on typewriters. A pleasant-faced young man rose from behind a desk and took Edward’s coat and hat. He then knocked on an inner door and there was a brisk shout of ‘Enter.’

The room was cavernous but Edward’s eye was immediately drawn to Sir Robert’s desk which was stacked with scarlet-and-gold despatch boxes as though he was the Foreign Secretary. A huge vase of flowers stood in the fireplace on either side of which were glass-fronted bookcases full of leather-bound tomes. For a moment he had the impression he was in one of those libraries in great country houses where the books are purely decorative and have never been removed from their shelves. There was a portrait over the fireplace of one of Sir Robert’s distinguished predecessors and two or three other portraits of men in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century dress hung elsewhere around the room. The views from the windows were of St James’s Park.

The man behind the huge desk rose and came round the side of it, his hand outstretched. ‘Lord Edward, how very good of you to come and at such short notice, too.’

Sir Robert ushered him to a small sofa at one side of the room and sat himself down opposite. He was a handsome man, six foot one, strong-jawed with a twinkle in his eye. As Edward shook his hand his first impression was of a man alert and straightforward in a profession tending to the devious. As he knew, Sir Robert was not only a diplomat but a poet, playwright and novelist. His plays had been put on in the West End with some success and a play he had written in French performed to acclaim in Paris. He was a close friend of the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, and had been his principal private secretary. He had become head of the Foreign Office in 1930 at the age of forty-nine and now, seven years later, was at his peak – assured, patrician, some would say arrogant. He had an abiding hatred of Germany – a country he knew well and whose language he spoke fluently – and a great love of France though he despaired of its politicians. As early as 1930 – before Hitler had become a menace to world peace – he had forecast that Germany would demand to become a great power with an army at least the size of Poland’s and would seek union with Austria.

‘My younger brother Nick was a friend of your brother’s at Eton,’ he was saying. ‘I remember meeting him. It was a tragedy – one of so many – his dying like that in the first weeks of the war. It was a great pain to me that I was kept from the battlefield by diplomatic work. Those of us who survived the carnage must do whatever we can to prevent a second bout but it will be a miracle if we can bring it off.’

Edward said nothing but smiled and then, fearing he might seem inane, frowned and muttered, ‘Indeed, indeed.’

Fortunately, the great man appeared not to expect an answer and went on talking. ‘I have heard a great deal about you, Lord Edward, and I was particularly struck by the way you handled that unpleasant business of Mrs Simpson’s stolen letters. Of course, I should call her the Duchess of Windsor now, though I must say it rather sticks in the craw. The point I’m driving at is that it appears you have a talent for discreet investigation and that’s just what I need now … a discreet investigator. You come highly recommended by Major Ferguson of Special Branch.’

Edward had come across Ferguson when he had been trying to retrieve Mrs Simpson’s letters and had then been commissioned by him to protect Lord Benyon on his recent trip to the United States.

‘You want something investigated? A crime?’

‘Not quite that. Have a cigarette? No? Well, you won’t mind if I do.’ Vansittart took a cigarette from a box on his desk and subsided once again into his chair. He was obviously finding it difficult to know where to start.

‘No crime has been committed, or at least none that I am aware of, but there has been a … a lapse in security.’

‘A foreign agent?’ Edward hazarded.

‘No, no, nothing like that,’ Vansittart said hurriedly. ‘Oh dear! I had better be explicit. I need hardly say that anything I tell you is confidential.’

‘Of course.’

‘Well then, have you met Mr Churchill?’

The question was so unexpected that Edward thought for a moment he had changed the subject but a glance at his face made it clear he had not. Through a cloud of smoke, Vansittart was peering at Edward and expecting a reply.

‘No, I never have.’

‘That’s good!’

Edward looked puzzled. ‘I’m afraid I’m not following you, Sir Robert.’

‘No, of course you’re not. I just wanted to be sure you were not a friend of Mr Churchill’s because that would have made the investigation very difficult … if not impossible.’

‘I have never met Mr Churchill,’ Edward repeated.

‘You are, however, aware of his political opinions?’

‘On foreign affairs?’

‘Yes.’

‘I know from what he writes in the newspapers that he believes Germany is building up an army and air force which we would have difficulty in withstanding in the event of a war. And, I must say, I am sure he is right.’

‘He is right in that, if in nothing much else,’ Vansittart concurred. ‘You do not have to be Talleyrand to see that Germany is a threat to the British Empire. As Mirabeau is reported to have said, “La guerre est l’industrie nationale de la Prusse.” The question is what to do about it. The government is rearming. We are doubling our expenditure on the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force in the next two years.’

‘I am no expert, Sir Robert, but surely one must respond, “too little, too late”?’

‘What more can we do? We are already deeply in debt to the Americans. The government wishes to postpone war, if indeed it is inevitable, by negotiating with Germany – satisfying her legitimate demands and giving her no excuse for further aggression.’

‘I understand. My friend, Lord Benyon, has explained to me how close we are to bankruptcy but, if we give ourselves more time to arm, surely that gives Germany time to do the same? A fellow passenger on my recent trip to the United States was a German Jewish aeronautical engineer. Fortunately for us the Nazis had been stupid enough to hound him out of his job.’

‘Which was?’

‘To work on the new jet engines which would make every fighter we have obsolete. However, if we allow Hitler the time, they will be built.’

‘We too have jet engines in development,’ Vansittart said, ‘but, of course, there is something in what you say. In any case, as you know, it is not my task to make policy but to implement it.’

Edward was aware that this remark was disingenuous. Sir Robert was not a man to leave policy-making to the politicians.

‘But no doubt you would like me to get to the point. It’s a delicate matter. To put it bluntly, confidential information concerning our defences – particularly our air defences – is being passed to persons unauthorized to receive it.’

‘You mean to a foreign power?’

‘No! – at least not as far as we know. The information is being passed to Mr Churchill. The figures he quotes in his newspaper articles and in debates in the House of Commons are uncannily accurate.’

‘So you think someone in the Foreign Office is giving him the ammunition to attack the government? ‘

‘We’re not absolutely certain it is coming from the Foreign Office or perhaps not only from the Foreign Office. You will be shown the complete list of those government officials who are authorized to receive secret information relating to our rearmament programme. These documents are circulated to twenty or twenty-five ministers and top officials and presumably they show them to their senior people though they are not supposed to.’

‘I see. So, if I understand you, one or more of these people is passing secrets concerning our rearmament – facts and figures – to Mr Churchill so he can embarrass the government?’

‘That’s correct.’

‘But what would be that person’s motive? Money?’

‘Probably not. We do not believe that Mr Churchill has ever given any reward for information. I think it is more likely to be from a misguided idea that alarming the British public in this way is patriotic. Of course, nothing Mr Churchill can say or do can alter the situation. As I said to you, we are increasing our armed forces very rapidly – as rapidly as our financial position allows.’

‘And is Mr Churchill actuated by a patriotic desire to prepare Britain for the coming conflict or merely to promote himself?’

‘Ah, well! There’s the question. Personally, I think he is a genuine patriot but he does enjoy irritating his former colleagues. He had hoped to be taken back into government and he may be trying to make such a nuisance of himself that the PM prefers to have him on board rather than rocking the boat from outside. But that’s by the by. Whatever his motives, the situation cannot be allowed to continue.’

‘I have always admired his energy and determination but after Gallipoli …’

‘Quite! Though, it has to be said, that fiasco was not entirely Mr Churchill’s fault.’

‘But he bears the responsibility,’ Edward persisted.

‘He does,’ Sir Robert agreed, getting up from his chair. ‘And he did the honourable thing and resigned. Joined his regiment and fought at the front. I admire him for that. As for Gallipoli, he was impatient … too impatient. The war in France was bogged down in trench warfare. He was prepared to risk anything to find a short cut to victory. He was a young man with the world’s mightiest fleet at his disposal. He was a personal friend of Mr Asquith and could count on the unstinting support the British people always give their navy. He threw all these gifts away in sheer headstrong recklessness. He lost himself trying a short cut in unfamiliar territory and lost others with him. You know, Lord Edward, there is a broad gulf between the man of talent and the man of genius. One may perhaps feel that at the present time, when the empire is going through a most terrible economic crisis and faces the appalling prospect of another war, Mr Churchill’s recklessness may once again imperil us. His facile phrases and unbalanced enthusiams are the last thing we need.’

Vansittart’s bitterness surprised Edward. He must be seriously worried to give vent to his feelings so unrestrainedly. Vansittart, perhaps sensing he had spoken too freely, ceased his pacing and sat down again opposite Edward.

‘Anyway, it is intolerable that top secret documents should be seen by unauthorized people, whatever their motive,’ he ended lamely.

‘I see. So you want me to go and see Mr Churchill and ask him who is giving him this information? I cannot believe I would be successful.’

‘You are a neutral figure – if I may put it that way, Lord Edward. I agree Mr Churchill is unlikely to reveal his sources of information but you can at least warn him that we are aware of what is happening and when we do find our weak link … but there is another way of tackling the problem. When you receive the full list of those who have legitimate access to the figures Mr Churchill quotes so authoritatively, you can interview each of them. There may be fewer than a score – thirty at the most.’

‘I will have to have some letter of authorization if I am to get anywhere.’

‘That goes without saying,’ Vansittart said with relief, making the assumption that Edward had agreed to undertake the investigation. ‘You will be sworn in as an officer in Special Branch. You will have all the authority you need, I can promise you. However, the investigation must be most discreet. No word of our anxiety must reach the newspapers or we shall be pilloried. You understand?’

‘I do, Sir Robert. And I report direct to you?’

‘Myself or Major Ferguson. The fewer people who have to know about this the better. And, by the way, commit nothing to paper. Any report you make should be verbal. We don’t want any memorandum from you being reprinted in one of Lord Weaver’s rags, do we?’

That seemed to Edward to be a warning. Vansittart must know of his friendship with the owner of the New Gazette and other newspapers with little love for the government.

‘There is nothing else you can tell me? You have no suspicions yourself as to who may be talking to Mr Churchill? Presumably Major Ferguson must have made some preliminary investigation.’

‘That is true,’ Sir Robert said, rising to his feet to indicate the interview was at an end. ‘He had a hint that one of my people, Charles Westmacott, a junior employee in Desmond Lyall’s section, might have – how shall I put it? – a weakness for Mr Churchill. Major Ferguson made an appointment to see him.’

Edward was on his feet too. ‘Which department is Mr Lyall’s?’

Vansittart hesitated. Then he said, ‘I suppose you will have to know. Lyall is Director of Industrial Intelligence. His job is to study arms deals amongst our European friends and possible enemies and gather and collate industrial intelligence from our people abroad. The department is most secret and must not be referred to outside this room.’

‘And what was the result of Major Ferguson’s meeting?’

‘It never took place. Westmacott disappeared the evening before Ferguson was to interview him.’

‘Disappeared? When was this?’

‘Exactly a week ago.’

‘And no one has any idea where he is?’

‘No. Westmacott left the Foreign Office about his usual time – five thirty or six, we believe – and has not been seen since. Ferguson will brief you but he’s in the dark along with the rest of us. Of course, this may have nothing to do with what we have been talking about but …’

‘Would his knowledge have been useful to the … to other countries? Does he have access to secret documents?’

‘Up to a point. Ferguson will give you all the gen.’ Sir Robert seemed anxious now to get rid of his guest. ‘He saw certain low-level secret documents … He was, as I say, relatively junior but Lyall trusted him. He might have seen more than he was supposed to. Ferguson will arrange for you to talk to Lyall. As you can imagine, Westmacott’s wife is distraught but at least we have kept the news of his disappearance out of the press – for the moment anyway. Lord Weaver and the other proprietors have been most understanding.’

Always, Edward thought, there was this fear of the public knowing what was going on. Government kept control by not permitting the general public to know what was done in its name and what mistakes were made. However, perhaps in this instance there was some justification. As he said his farewell to Sir Robert, he realized he had never actually said he would take on the investigation. His agreement had been presumed. He sighed. No doubt in a few hours he would receive a telephone call from Major Ferguson and feel bound to respond positively. He could not deny that he was intrigued. Mr Churchill was a colourful character. He had seen him once in the House of Commons in full flood and been carried away by his oratory. His friend Marcus Fern admired him and Edward trusted his judgement. In fact, he had an idea that Fern was working for him in some capacity or other. But still, he thought, there was something of the charlatan about Churchill.

2

When Edward got back to Albany he found an irate Verity reading his correspondence and smoking furiously.

‘Oh, there you are. I suppose you forgot you are taking me to the exhibition and then a slap-up dinner before I return to the front line?’

Edward tried to kiss her but she dodged him. ‘Fiddlesticks! Don’t think you can get round me with that sappy stuff. There’s a hundred places I could be, instead of waiting on you. Where have you been, anyway? ‘

‘Simmer down, old thing. I hadn’t forgotten our dinner engagement but I was called to an important meeting at the FO, don’t y’know.’ He spoke loftily but Verity was unimpressed.

‘Huh! I bet you were called in to polish a few boots!’

‘On the contrary, my dear Watson, Sir Robert Vansittart himself wished to consult me on a matter of international importance.’

‘Less of the Dr Watson. Well,’ she added grudgingly, ‘what was so important the FO wanted to talk to you about? Are you to be our next ambassador to Transylvania?’

‘Can’t tell you, I’m afraid. Sworn to silence. Sir Robert specifically warned me against talking to Communist journalists.’

‘Blast you, Edward! Stop teasing. Tell me all about it,’ she commanded him, stubbing out her cigarette in a potted palm.

‘Sorry, I mean it – no can do. You’ll have to get me drunk at Gennaro’s tonight and see if you can loosen my tongue. By the way, where are you staying? You can’t stay here, you know. The managers wouldn’t like it.’

‘I have no intention of staying here. If you want to know, I’m staying with Charlotte and Adrian.’

Adrian Hassel was a painter and his wife a successful novelist. They were friends with whom Verity usually stayed when she was in London, no longer having a place of her own.

Edward saw that she was on edge. She lived on her nerves, eating little and smoking too much, courting danger, choosing to live the uncomfortable and occasionally dangerous life of the war correspondent. He knew from experience that a few days before she went back to Spain, where civil war now raged, she would become nervous and irritable, only regaining her equilibrium when she was actually in the front line. The anticipation was much worse than the reality, she said, but Edward doubted this. She had been out of Spain for a couple of months and the respite had done her good. She had put on a little weight and the dark circles under her eyes had disappeared. She had been with him on the Queen Mary a few weeks before and, although the trip to the United States had not been without incident, she had benefited from sea air and good food. Then she had spent two weeks meeting influential Americans: union leaders, left-wing politicians and Communist Party sympathizers.

There had been relatively few of these last, she had been disturbed to discover, and she had been dogged by FBI agents – at least she assumed they were FBI – who made it clear she was seen by the government as an undesirable. Edward and she had become lovers on the Queen Mary, or rather they had had one brief and interrupted night when, despite his having an injured leg which hurt whenever any pressure was put on it, they had managed to make love. It could hardly have been described as a night of passion but they had sealed some sort of emotional knot, though neither of them could have defined its nature. Verity was not the marrying kind. Most girls of her class were married by twenty-five with a baby or two and a husband at the office all day. She was racketing round the world doing a dirty job which, if it had to be done, most people would say should be left to men to do.

The English knew about war. They had not too long ago survived a particularly bloody one but they had relatively little interest in foreign wars. The civil war in Spain was of crucial importance to Communists and those on the left in politics but these were few in number if vociferous. Most readers of the New Gazette wanted to read about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, who were shortly to be married in France, and the imminent coronation of King George VI. Verity was resigned to seeing her reports from the front relegated to a few columns squeezed on to the inside pages though she had written a series of articles about ‘daily life’ in the United States which had proved popular. As Edward sniffed, she might as well turn them into a book and call it Inside America. Two weeks was surely ample time to get the measure of that great country.

‘I hadn’t forgotten we were dining but I have to admit I had forgotten we were going somewhere first. Give me five minutes to shower and put on a clean shirt. You can entertain me while I change. Remind me where we are going first of all. It might affect my choice of necktie. And, please, don’t tell me about all our Comrades in Spain without clean shirts or neckties. I really don’t want to know.’

Just as he reached his dressing-room, he heard the sound of an épée falling on the floor.

‘Hey! Desist! Leave my weapons alone, woman.’

‘What on earth …? Don’t say you are taking up fencing? At your age …! What are you trying to prove?’

‘I am not trying to prove anything. I was merely taking some exercise that would strengthen my leg and … Can you help me with this collar?’

‘You men!’ Bossily, sword still in hand, Verity bustled into the dressing-room.

‘Here, I say, dash it!’ Edward exclaimed as she tugged at the recalcitrant stud. ‘What are you trying to do? Cut off my … ? Ouch! Don’t do that!’ He had his trousers round his ankles and was therefore at a disadvantage.

Verity laughed. ‘Men look such asses without their trousers.’

‘You’re such an expert on male attire? Hey! Stop prodding me with that sword. I mean it. Unhand me, girl!’ He drew her to him and relieved her of the sword. He kissed her on the lips and she made no protest except to say, her voice rather unsteady, ‘What about Fenton?’

‘I’ve just remembered, it’s his evening off.’ He hopped about, clinging to Verity with one hand while trying to remove the trousers round his ankles with the other.

With a gurgle of laughter, she pushed him on to the chaise longue. ‘Why is it, whenever I kiss you, you fall over?’ she said when she could breathe again. She was referring to how, on the Queen Mary, Edward’s damaged knee had made him unsteady on his pins. ‘I begin to think it’s a sophisticated seduction technique.’ Although she prided herself on being tough and certainly she instilled fear in both women and men over whom she did not consider it worth taking trouble, she was not half as hard-boiled as she pretended. She loved Edward but felt she would be at a disadvantage if she let him know how much. She was afraid she could never give him what he needed … what he deserved … and she had warned him that she could never be a wife to him. If he still loved her, as he said he did, that was fate and something she knew she could do nothing about.

‘Huh!’ he grunted. ‘Why are women’s undergarments more difficult to negotiate than a minefield?’

‘Ouch! You’re hurting. I suppose I had better do it myself.’ She got up and slipped out of her dress and then removed her brassiere and knickers with a grace and lack of embarrassment which made it all seem so natural. ‘I didn’t mean for this to happen,’ she said as she lay down beside him. ‘The trouble is that, when I get cross, I get … Golly, this bed thing’s narrow. There! You’re sure it’s Fenton’s evening off?’

Edward said nothing. He thought there was something particularly erotic about making love on so respectable a piece of furniture as a chaise longue.

When they had finished and lit cigarettes, he said, ‘We do love each other, then? I mean, I know I love you but … On the Queen Mary … it wasn’t something you regretted?’

‘Don’t let’s have this conversation,’ Verity begged him. ‘We go round and round in circles. Of course I love you. I’m not some tart who gets into bed with just anyone. Let’s change the subject, shall we?’

‘I suppose so. But I like going round and round in circles with you. I always think I might just understand it this time. However,’ he went on hurriedly, seeing a look in her eyes which he knew meant her patience was being tried, ‘you never told me where we are going, before dinner.’

‘Oh my God! Stop whatever it is you are doing …’ – he was in fact stroking her stomach – ‘and get up. We’re terribly late. We were late before this …’ She gestured at the chaise longue.

‘Well then, do we have to go at all?’ Edward replied, lying back lazily, admiring her neat posterior as it disappeared into the bathroom. ‘I bet it’s one of your Communist gatherings where I catch people sizing me up with a view to hanging me from a lamp post.’

‘No, it’s not. Or rather André is a Communist but it’s not a Party “do”,’ she called over the sound of running water.

‘André?’

‘André Kavan. He’s a photographer and he’s got this exhibition in Jermyn Street. That’s what we have to go and see. It’s opening today.’

‘What sort of photographer?’ Edward inquired suspiciously.

‘A great photographer. He has his stuff in Life. You’ll recognize it when you see it.’

‘He’s a war photographer? You met him in Spain?’

‘Not just war but, yes, his photographs of the war in Spain are amazing. It makes me want to give up writing. You know what they say about a picture being worth a thousand words? Well, it’s true.’

Edward, always jealous when he heard Verity enthusing about some man he did not know, wanted to ask if they were lovers and, as if reading his mind, she said, ‘And before you ask, he has a girlfriend – Gerda Meyer. She’s almost as good a photographer as he is. And she’s beautiful, which is rather unfair. I expect you’ll fall for her the moment you see her. All the men do but be warned: she’d eat you for breakfast and have forgotten you by supper.’

‘I don’t need any such warning,’ Edward said with hauteur. ‘My heart is … well, you know where it is.’

‘It wasn’t your heart I was talking about,’ Verity said drily.

‘Really, V, wash your mouth out. When I think that, when I first knew you, you were pure as the driven snow. So how did you meet? On some ruined battlement?’

‘We met in the Ritz in Paris, if you must know. André’s a great friend of Belasco’s. We were all having dinner together.’

Edward was wise enough to say nothing. Ben Belasco was an American novelist whom Verity had met when she first went to Spain and they had had a brief but intense affair. As far as Edward knew, that was all in the past. Certainly he was going to assume so.

‘So is Mr Kavan – your photographer friend – French?’ he asked instead.

‘No, he’s a Hungarian Jew. He was thrown out of Hungary by the Fascists. I suppose Paris is his home now but I think he has a Polish passport. He speaks about ten languages – all very badly. He’s a gypsy.’

It was after seven when they reached the gallery but the party was still going strong. There were a lot of ‘Comrades’ present and Edward was rather proud to be escorting Verity. She was something of a star since her success with her Left Book Club bestseller and her reports from the front in the New Gazette. She had as many enemies as admirers, of course, who liked to gossip about her scandalous relationship with Lord Edward Corinth.

Verity was looking smart in a navy-blue coat with a wide belt covering the slightly creased little black dress which she liked so much. She loved hats and her navy lacquered straw hat with its white ribbon seemed to Edward just perfect. He could hardly believe that she was, in some indefinable way, ‘his’. As she disappeared into the crowd to greet old friends, he was left on his own. He glanced at the photographs on the walls and then looked more closely. They were remarkable. Taken very close up, they were almost indecently intimate but, as he peered at them, the images became grainy and began to dissolve. They revealed faces wrenched out of their normal expressions by the horror of war. There were old women with babies in their laps and dishevelled younger women running across a square staring up at the sky from which it was obvious bombs were raining down. One particularly chilling image was of a Spanish soldier, head thrown back, one hand stretched out, his gun – some sort of rifle – falling to the ground. When Edward looked closer, he was shocked to see that this was a picture of a man caught at the moment of his death. There was no visible enemy, no blood, no gaping wound but there could be no other interpretation. A bullet had checked him as he ran and stopped him dead. Edward saw that the photograph was captioned ‘Soldier falling’.

He was distracted by someone calling his name. He turned to see a flaxen-haired man of his own age. Edward’s polite smile left his face as he recognized one of his least favourite people, one David Griffiths-Jones. He was Welsh but that in itself would not have prejudiced him in Edward’s eyes. There was much more: he was a published poet much admired by left-wing critics; he was a senior figure in the Communist Party and was well known in Spain as a ruthless organizer and committed Stalinist. Worst of all, he had been Verity’s first lover and, though he had abandoned her when it had suited him, Edward still feared his malign influence over her.

‘Corinth! Still slumming, I see. Do you think we workers at the coal face have a certain glamour or is it mere inverted snobbery? I certainly never expected to see you here. Do you know our André? But, of course, I am being stupid. Verity must have brought you. Where is she? Ah! I think I see her hat. So you two are still … friends?’

‘Still friends, yes. How is it in Spain? I gather Madrid is shortly to fall to the rebels.’

‘The reports of Madrid’s imminent demise are, I am pleased to say, an exaggeration. Comrades from all over the world have rallied to her defence. The legitimate government will prevail despite the cretinous behaviour of the so-called democracies. Thank goodness for Comrade Stalin!’

David was being disingenuous as usual. There was no chance of Madrid withstanding General Franco’s onslaught for very much longer. Moreover, the ramshackle alliance of anarchists and left-wing parties which had made up the Popular Front – the elected government of Spain before the civil war – could never be glued back together. Like Humpty Dumpty, that alliance was shattered beyond repair. If, by some miracle, Franco failed to win the war, a Communist regime would seize control of the country, taking its orders direct from Moscow. This was the reality and the reason neither France nor Britain would come out in support of either side.

‘Have you met my friend Guy, by the way? He was up at Trinity with you, or was he a year or two after your time?’

‘Guy!’ Edward said, grasping the hand of a man with blue eyes and tight wavy hair. He had a boyish, healthy look and a charming smile that made Edward smile back but his fingernails, Edward noted, were dirty and badly bitten and, at a second glance, he wondered if his high colour was not fuelled by alcohol.

‘Trinity and, before Cambridge, we were inky boys at Eton together, though we were not in the same house,’ Guy cut in. ‘But our paths haven’t crossed since we came down from the University. I don’t remember you being a Marxist, Corinth?’

‘No, certainly not. As David says, I am here with a girl, Verity Browne. Do you know her?’

‘We all know Verity,’ Guy said smoothly. Seeing Edward’s face fall, he added, ‘But don’t worry, Corinth. Don’t you remember? Even at Cambridge my sexual preferences did not incline towards the female of the species.’

Edward was taken aback. He did remember now that Guy Baron was spoken of as ‘one of those’ but he never expected him to admit it so openly. He was spared from having to answer by Verity’s reappearance. She had in tow a black-haired, black-eyed young man – in his late twenties or early thirties, Edward guessed – with an engaging grin and the dishevelled air of the artist. His shirt – vaguely military in style – was half in and half out of his black trousers and torn at the elbow. He was deeply tanned. Edward was immediately alarmed. True, Verity had talked about a girlfriend but this young man looked as though he might not attach much value to the idea of monogamy.

‘This is André, only we call him “Bandi”. Don’t you think he’s the most wonderful photographer? Oh, Bandi, this is Lord Edward Corinth.’

The two men shook hands. ‘I haven’t yet had a chance of looking at your photographs except the ones just behind me here. The crush, don’t y’know, but I am very impressed. Where did you take this one of the falling soldier? It’s an extraordinary image.’

‘Outside Madrid,’ André answered laconically.

‘Amid so much horror,’ Edward tried again, ‘do you not want to do something – apart from taking photographs, I mean?’

‘Do something?’ the young man repeated in his complicated accent, a ripe mixture of several Continental languages. ‘What do you suggest I do?’

‘I am sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude but, if you see a child in pain, don’t you want to do more than take a photograph?’ Edward knew he was being gauche but he could not stop himself. The photographer seemed too good to be true. He needed taking down a peg or two. ‘Don’t you want to intervene?’

André was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘I do intervene. These photographs,’ he waved his hand at the wall, ‘they “intervene”. They say that here is pain and suffering. The innocent always suffer. Even you must have noticed,’ he added with studied insolence. ‘But why should I bother … bah!’

He turned away and was soon engrossed in conversation with Guy Baron. Verity looked at Edward in amazement. ‘What did you do that for? I thought the one thing you were was polite but I see I was wrong.’

Before he could defend himself, she had flounced off. Edward’s heart sank. What had possessed him? They were amazing photographs and all he had needed to do was say so. Instead he had accused the photographer of being a heartless voyeur. It was inexcusable and he ought to apologize. He sighed. It was going to be one of those evenings when he could do nothing right. He had visualized a romantic dinner at Gennaro’s with the girl he loved and then perhaps, if he were lucky, back to bed. Now she would leave for Spain and there would be bad blood between them. He must do something to put matters right.

He looked around wildly for something he might do and found himself looking into the green eyes of a flame-haired girl who was offering him a cigarette and laughing. ‘I guess you need this.’ She had a slight American accent and Edward was immediately charmed. ‘Bandi can be a mite touchy about his art.’

‘Bandi? Oh, you mean Kavan.’

‘Yes, André. Some of us call him Bandi. Don’t ask me why.’

Edward was always attracted to redheads and this one with her monkey face and freckles, her slightly twisted smile and the wicked gleam in her eye was – as black-haired Verity had forecast – hard to resist.

‘Can photography be an art?’ he asked in genuine surprise.

‘Oh, don’t let’s get into that. It’s true a few years ago Bandi was just another news photographer but things have changed since his stuff started appearing in Life. But you have to admit, they are good.’

‘I haven’t seen much of them yet but, as I tried to tell him, the ones I have seen are remarkable. I wonder, however, if my response is adequate? That’s why I asked you if they were art. It might alter how I feel about them.’

‘How do you feel about them?’

‘I suppose I want better captions.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning when I look at these pictures I feel sympathy and, in a general way, I would like to do something about the pain they expose – heal the wounded, stop the bombs and soothe the frightened child – but I know, after a good dinner tonight, I will hardly remember them. Only if Verity talks about her experiences in Spain and I argue with her will these photographs start to be important to me. Only with words to back them up will these images mean something. I’m sorry, I’m being pompous. Verity would have stopped me ages ago.’

‘Someone said that a photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know.’

‘Yes, that’s good. I’m not sure what it means, but it feels right. You must be Gerda Meyer? Verity told me about you. To be accurate, she told me I wasn’t to fall for you but you are going to have to help by not looking at me like that.’

Gerda turned away her head. ‘Sorry! Was I staring? I suppose I was surprised. From what Verity told me, I was expecting to see a silly-ass, music-hall aristocrat with nothing in his face but a monocle.’

Edward found himself laughing again. ‘Perhaps it was unwise of Verity to talk to each of us about the other. It leads to … expectations. Let’s complete the introductions though. Perhaps you mistake me for someone else. I’m Edward Corinth.’ They shook hands solemnly. ‘You were in Spain with Verity? At the siege of Toledo?’

‘With Bandi, really. We’re lovers – at least some of the time.’ She laughed. ‘Have I shocked you?’

Edward shook his head. ‘You are a photographer too, aren’t you?’

‘I think so but Bandi can be rather dismissive. You must know from Verity how difficult it is being a woman and a war reporter. Do you want to see some of my photographs? No one else does. They’re over there in the corner.’

‘Of course. I would like that very much.’

He followed Gerda across the room. A sequence of about thirty photographs of what was clearly a Spanish village devastated by war met his gaze.

‘Not cheerful, I’m afraid, but it is necessary to tell the truth especially the truth no one wants to hear.’

Edward was transfixed. Beneath photographs of jubilant troops at Barcelona’s train station captioned ‘Off to Fight the Insurgents at the Aragon Front’ were pictures of what looked like a whole village in flight – men, women and children, most on donkeys but some in or on ramshackle vehicles, all with that bewildered look of refugees turned out of their homes by the brutal hand of war. The contrast seemed to say it all. How war shatters illusions, destroys lives and brings – not much-vaunted freedom – but despair.

‘It was a place called Cerro Muriano. I took them a few months ago. It makes one sick to the stomach, doesn’t it?’

’I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say. They are magnificent. They wrench at your heart.’

‘There are many worse scenes,’ she said grimly. ‘Dead bodies and so much grief but I didn’t think them suitable for a fashionable London art gallery.’

‘And for people like me to gawp at,’ he said looking at her.

‘That too,’ she agreed.

Edward turned back to the black-and-white images on the wall and saw a group photograph of soldiers – some arm in arm – standing on or leaning against an armoured vehicle. ‘Isn’t that David?’ he said suddenly.

‘David Griffiths-Jones? Yes, of course, you know him, don’t you? He’s very good-looking, don’t you think?’

Edward looked at her suspiciously. He thought he might be being teased. He was. He smiled. ‘Yes, very.’

‘But you don’t like him?’

‘No, I don’t like him’ he agreed. ‘I expect he sees this whole exhibition in terms not of art but propaganda. You have to admit, powerful as they are, these photographs provide a one-sided view of the war. There’s no room here for any atrocities carried out by Republican troops.’

‘We can’t be on both sides of the fence. My pictures aren’t faked if that’s what you’re getting at.’

She sounded angry but Edward was imperturbable. He liked this girl but he did not like the feeling that he was being manipulated. Perhaps it was the presence of Griffiths-Jones, so pleased with himself, which made the hair on the back of his head stand up. ‘I didn’t say they were. I simply said that there are other atrocities which have not been photographed.’

‘It’s not my job to be “balanced” or “fair”,’ Gerda said, going red about the ears. ‘I just take photographs of what I see.’

She spoke fiercely and Edward was quick to apologize. ‘Forgive me. It’s just what I said. Give me the context and I’ll read these images and make sense of them. I admire your photographs and the courage it took to get them but in this place, surrounded by so many Comrades, I feel as if I am being told what to think and feel.’

He waited for her to stalk off or slap his face and watched as she thought about doing both of these things but then her irrepressible smile lit up her face.

‘I can see why Verity finds you so irritating but it’s probably why she respects you. You just refuse to toe the Party line, don’t you?’

Edward did not answer but turned once more to the photographs.

‘And that face. I know it … Who is that?’

‘You’ve just been talking to him – Guy Baron.’

‘Of course! How stupid of me. He was fighting in Spain?’

‘No. He was just over for a few days “observing” but he rather fancied himself in fighting gear. I gave him a gun to hold and took his photograph. He was frightfully pleased.’

‘So David’s a friend of yours?’ he said.

‘Not really. He doesn’t have “friends”, you know – just comrades. Anyway, he’s a bit ruthless for me. There was this pal of mine – an English writer. He wasn’t very good at fighting. In fact they called him a coward. He wanted to leave the front line. David had a long talk with him and persuaded him to go back to the fighting. Secretly, he arranged for him to go to a place where he would be certain to be killed.’

Edward looked at the girl with horror and then said slowly, ‘I can believe it.’

They gazed at each other in silence for a moment and there was an understanding.

Verity came through the mob. ‘You don’t mind, do you, Edward? I’ve asked David and Guy to eat with us tonight. Oh, I see you’ve made friends with Gerda. How do you like him? He’s not bad for an aristo, is he?’

Edward hated Verity when she was like this, making smart remarks in bad taste, but realized she was still angry with him for being rude to André. He caught a glance from Gerda and stifled his angry retort. ‘Not at all. Why don’t you and André come too?’ he asked her. ‘Or are you being wined and dined by the gallery?’

‘I’m sure we’d love to come. I’ll just ask Bandi. Won’t be a moment.’

She went off to find him. Verity said in a loud whisper as soon as her back was turned, ‘I wish you hadn’t asked her. André’s all right but she’s a nothing.’

‘Verity! I’m ashamed of you. She’s not a nothing. She’s a highly talented photographer. Have you looked at these?’

‘And you lust after her.’

‘I say!’

‘Well, that’s why you invited her. Admit it. She’s not … faithful to André … leads him a merry dance.’ She was suddenly contrite. ‘I shouldn’t have said she was a nothing. She is a very good photographer and brave … much braver than me. She says she has to be near … always nearer to get the photograph that tells the truth. She’s been almost killed dozens of times. But I still don’t like her.’

‘And I don’t like David but I suppose I’ll have to put up with it.’

‘Oh, cheer up. You’ll enjoy renewing old friendships and flirting with Gerda.’

‘And I’ll end up paying for all of them. It’s a funny thing about Comrades, they regard it as undemocratic to pay their own bills.’

‘Think of it as your contribution to the redistribution of wealth,’ Verity said, squeezing his arm. ‘Don’t sulk. I think it a great compliment that David and Guy want to eat with you. After all, you are the enemy.’

Just as they were leaving the gallery, in bustled their old friend the Rev. Tommie Fox. Tommie had been at Eton and Trinity with Edward and then, to the amazement of his friends, had refused to join the family firm and earn a good living doing not very much. Instead, he had been ordained and was now a Church of England vicar. His father had still not forgiven him. Tommie had recently moved to a new parish in Hoxton and was always roping in his friends to help entertain ‘my boys’, as he called them. Edward admired him enormously. He was hardly ever daunted by the impossible odds against which he struggled. Poverty and its attendants, dirt and disease, were endemic in the slums and Tommie found himself ministering as much to the body as the soul.

Hoxton had its quota of respectable lower-middle class but poverty bred not only crime but political extremism. Like flies on a dung heap, Mosley’s bully boys trawled the slums recruiting the unemployed and inciting hatred for the Jews and for enclaves of ‘foreigners’ – Italians and French principally but also dozens of smaller immigrant communities – refugees for the most part who, according to Mosley, had stolen their jobs. The black uniforms and boots were also a powerful inducement to join the British Union of Fascists. The semi-military ‘get-up’ gave the new recruits a spurious sense of importance and having someone who seemed to need them made the BUF very attractive. The Communists also recruited in the slums but their appeal tended to be to the better educated and there were not many of those in Tommie’s parish. There were moments when he seriously thought a new war was exactly what his boys needed. Army life would harness so much wasted energy but, when it was borne in on him that he was recommending death and destruction to solve a social problem, he knew he was giving way to despair. There had to be another way.

‘Thank goodness!’ Tommie exclaimed. ‘I thought I might have missed you.’ He kissed Verity and shook Edward’s hand so heartily it was almost painful. He was built like a rugby prop forward and had indeed gained a blue at the University but his first love was boxing, which was unusual for a vicar. You could tell from his squashed nose and cauliflower ears that he was a fighter but his expression was all sunshine and amiability. The boxing school he had begun in a disused warehouse was one of the most popular parts of the youth club he had set up.

‘Verity invited me,’ he explained to Edward, ‘but I got caught up. There was a rumpus and by the time I had broken it up … well anyway. Has Verity told you about it?’

‘Told me about what?’

‘Sorry, Tommie, I quite forgot.’

‘Typical! The thing is, we’re having a football match the day after tomorrow – three o’clock – Old Etonians against my boys. One of my pals has pulled out at the last moment and so I need you. You’ll say yes, won’t you, old boy?’ he finished breathlessly.

From time to time Edward had ‘done his bit’, as he thought of it. Eton had a ‘mission’ in the East End to which he had gone most holidays. Now he helped Tommie whenever he could. He liked teaching and found that most of the youths did not resent his presence once they saw he was not going to ‘put on airs’.

‘Oh, do I have to?’ he wailed. ‘I’m too old to play football. It’s not my game and my knee’s only just got right.’

‘You must!’ Tommie insisted. ‘We can’t let them down and you are my last hope. I’m scraping the barrel. Tell him, Verity.’

‘Don’t be a weed, Edward,’ Verity backed him up. ‘Guy’s playing and lots of your old friends. It’ll be like one of those school reunions or gaudies – isn’t that what you call them? – you boys love so much. I was never at a school long enough to be invited to a reunion,’ she added wistfully. ‘I’ll bring Bandi and Gerda. It will amuse them to see the primitive rituals of savages. Bandi will take photographs and Gerda … she can mop your brow when you fall in the mud.’

‘Oh God! Must I? Why should your lads want to play games with Old Etonians? It’s much more likely they want to kill us.’

‘Nonsense!’ Tommie said, putting an arm round Edward’s shoulder and squeezing.

‘There’s a good little man,’ Verity said patronizingly. ‘You do what this nice vicar tells you.’

Some hours later they sat round a table at Gennaro’s, the ruins of their meal in front of them, cigars and brandy to hand. Edward was feeling rather ill and resentful. The extravagant manner in which the restaurant was furnished was making his eyes ache. It had been redecorated since he had last eaten here and he did not like the result. The pink lamp-shades in the shape of exotic birds offended him and the maze of mirrors dazzled him. He knew he would be picking up the tab and it irked him. He hated them all – the red-faced, self-satisfied Guy Baron, the hard-eyed David Griffiths-Jones and the half-drunk André who he suspected was stroking Verity’s leg under the tablecloth. Tommie had wisely refused to accompany them, saying he had a Mothers’ Union meeting to attend. Only the presence of Gerda made the party tolerable. She sat beside him, a cigar in her mouth, her eyes narrowed against the smoke, patiently listening to him tell stories of Africa, occasionally squeezing his hand.

‘You know,’ Baron was saying, ‘when David was in Moscow last month he had a pretty little comsomolka all to himself – slim, ardent, red bandana round her hair…’ He hummed the ‘Internationale’. ‘“Who was nothing shall be all …”.’

‘Basta!’ David said, but not angrily. It was as if Baron was a naughty schoolboy – too charming to be thoroughly irritating.

‘And you found the Soviet Union lived up to its promise? Is it truly a classless society?’ Edward had no idea why he chose to bait Griffiths-Jones but it did not matter. David saw the question not as a challenge but an opportunity to lecture his flock on ‘the promised land’.

‘Soviet Communism is based on genuine social equality. To engage in socially useful work is a universal duty.’ He looked at Edward with loathing. ‘There is no exemption from this duty for possessors of wealth, owners of land or holders of high office. There is a single social grade, that of producer by hand or brain. This is what is meant by a classless society. But the principle of social equality goes much further. It extends to relations between the sexes – everyone lives in an atmosphere of group responsibility and freedom from servility. What is even more unique is the absence of prejudice as to colour or race …’

At this last assertion, Baron exploded with laughter. ‘And what about buggers? Is there prejudice against them?’ He was obviously determined to needle David. ‘No prejudice! Even you cannot believe that, David. Take India, for instance. I am convinced of the incompetence and futility of the Party and the Comintern when I look at their policy. They want the British to leave India before its historic task is complete. The Labour Party agrees! Surrender and grovel. Only Mr Churchill and the right of the Conservative Party see what must be done in India.’

Baron relapsed into a drunken stupor but Edward smiled. Would Mr Churchill welcome such an ally, he wondered?

‘What does Baron do?’ he asked Gerda in a low voice.

‘Do? He picks up boys and drinks. That’s what he does.’

‘He doesn’t have a job?’

‘He works for the BBC. He is in charge of a programme called “This Week in Parliament”. He likes talking to politicians. Don’t ask me why.’

When the party broke up, David Griffiths-Jones and Baron went off together. They were sharing a house in Chester Square. David said, insincerely, ‘Good to see you again, Corinth. Shall I ever convert you to my way of thinking? No, I suppose not.’

Baron, very drunk, seemed about to kiss him and Edward backed away. Instead, he shook him by the hand. ‘I like you, Corinth,’ he said solemnly. ‘We must see each other again. You’re in the telephone book? There are things …’ His voice tailed off and he looked about him vacantly. Griffiths-Jones pushed him into a taxi but, in a last burst of energy, he leaned out of the window and said, ‘Thank you for the … party. Very white of you, old man.’ Giggling, he sank back into his seat as the taxi accelerated away.

Verity, who was also rather the worse for wear, refused to let Edward take her back to the King’s Road. She kissed him wetly and said, ‘When I get back from Spain … shall we … you know, live together? Oh God, why does my head ache so? Kiss me, Edward. Tell me I’m not drunk.’

Edward had never seen her drunk before and did not like it. His alert, bossy, irritating bird of a girl had softened at the edges. She had let her defences fall and it made her rather ridiculous but he excused her. She was shortly to return to war-ravaged Spain and she knew now what to expect. He guessed she must be frightened and he knew she had every right to be. She had to go. She could never live with herself if she funked going back. As for what she had said about their living together, he knew that to be a pipe-dream. Not only was it quite impossible socially but, more to the point, he knew she valued her independence too highly. He had resigned himself to the idea that he would never to be able to live with her but whether their love could survive on snatched moments of sex and the odd week or two in London he did not dare guess.

He kissed her forehead and put her gently into a taxi, murmuring words of reassurance. Gerda and André, who were going in the same direction, said they would see her home. Gerda threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the lips. André did not seem to mind and Verity was already asleep. The taste of her intoxicated him and he walked back to Albany in a state of wild frustration, angry and ashamed of himself.