"So how's everybody at Honeybrook?" she said, as if vaguely remembering the place.
"Oh, fine, actually. Yes, great. And the wine looks better and better...."
And because partly I was thinking of her as somebody being brave in hospital—too much emotional matter could be harmful—I made up some stuff about the Toiler girls, saying they were bouncier than ever and sent lots of love; and some other stuff about Mrs. Benbow respectfully wishing to be remembered; and about Ted Lanxon's cough sounding a lot better, although his wife was still convinced it was cancer, never mind the doctor insisted it was just a light bronchitis. And she received all this as the welcome news it was intended to be, nodding out of the window and saying artificial things like "Oh, great" and "That's really nice of them."
Then she asked me brightly what plans I had, and whether I had thought of travelling for the winter. So I made up some plans for the winter. And I couldn't remember a time when small talk came so readily to me, or to her, so I supposed we were both enjoying the relief that comes over people when they discover that, after the awful things they have done to each other, they are both upright and healthy and functioning and, best of all, free of one another. Which might, in other circumstances, have been grounds for making love.
"What will you do when he comes back, both of you?" I asked. "Make a home or something? I never really thought of you with children."
"That's because you thought I was a child," she replied. After the small talk we had graduated to big talk, and the atmosphere had tautened in consequence.
"Anyway, he may not come back," she added in a proprietorial voice. "I may go out there. It's God's last good acre, he says. It won't all be fighting. It'll be riding and walks and wonderful people and new music and all sorts of things. The trouble is, it's the anniversary of the great repression. Things are frightfully tense. I'd be a drag on him. Specially with the way they treat women down there. I mean they wouldn't know what to do with me. It isn't that I mind everything being frightfully primitive and basic, but Larry would mind for me. And that would distract him, which is the absolute last thing he needs. Just at the moment."
"Of course."
"I mean he's practically a sort of general to them. Particularly on the logistical front—how to get stuff through, and pay for it, and train people to use it, and so on."
"Of course."
She had evidently heard something in my voice that she thought she recognised and didn't like. "What do you mean? Why do you keep saying of course? Don't be so smooth, Tim."
But I wasn't being smooth, or not consciously. I was remembering my other conversations with Larry's women: "He's bound to be back soon ... well, you know what Larry is.... I'm sure he'll phone or write." And sometimes: "I'm afraid he rather thinks that your relationship has run its course." I was reflecting without fuss that although Larry's love for Emma had undoubtedly been a great passion while it lasted—and for all I knew it was lasting still—actually I had loved her more than he had, and with greater risk. The reason being that women came to him naturally; he just had to reach out for them, and they hopped onto his hand., Whereas Emma for me had been the one, the only one, though it had never been easy to explain this to Larry, least of all on Priddy. And the sum of my contemplations was that I found myself hunting for some clearer sign from him that he loved her, beyond just saying, "Weave and wait for me." And since I couldn't think of one, my next-best thing was to encourage her to go and find him before his ardour fixed on someone different.
"It just occurred to me ... well, you know this anyway, but there are a lot of people in England looking for you both—not just in England. I mean they're pretty angry. Police and people. I mean thirty-seven million isn't the sort of sum that anybody leaves under the plate, is it?"
She granted me a small laugh.
"So I mean that Caucasus might make rather good sense, in a way. Even if you have to sort of tough it out with the other women, so to speak, and don't get to see that much of Larry. For a time, at least. Till things have died down."
"You mean from a practical point of view," she suggested, raising her voice slightly in challenge.
"Well, it's not always the worst point of view, the practical one. The irony is, you see, I'm in the same boat."
"You what? Nonsense, Tim. Why?"
"Well, the powers that be have lumped me in with your operation, I'm afraid. They think I'm part of it. With the result that ... well, I'm on the run too."
"How utterly ridiculous. Just tell them you're not part of it." She was cross that I should aspire to the heights of their shared criminality. "You're terribly persuasive when you want to be. Your signature isn't on anything. You're not Larry. You're you. I never heard anything so absurd."
"Well, anyway, I just thought I'd wander for a bit," I said, feeling obliged for some reason to persist with this futuristic account of myself. "Stay out of England. Out of harm's way. Let things die down."
But it was already clear that she wasn't faintly interested in my future.
"And it wasn't all a wicked Kremlin plot; we know that now," I said conversationally, like someone determined to look on the bright side. "I mean you and Larry and CC—setting me up somehow, using Honeybrook as a safe house or something. I had these awful conspiracy theories when I was low. It was such a relief to discover they were nonsense."
She shook her head, pitying me, and I knew it was a relief to her to discover that I was once more beyond the pale. "Tim. Honestly, Tim. Really."
I was at the door before she realised I was saying goodbye. I considered other things to say—nice things: "I'll always be there if you want me," for instance, or "If I find him I'll give him your love"—but if I had a sense of anything, it was of my irrelevance, so I said nothing. And Emma at the window seemed to have reached the same decision, for she remained looking out as if she were expecting Larry to come striding towards her down the riverbank, wearing one of his hats.
"Yes. So goodbye," she said.
* * *
Contact Sergei, who is arranging to post this letter for me, I read as I lay sleepless. Phone him in English only at the number you know . . . In Zorin's world, it was wise to have a Sergei.
I dialled the number in Moscow, and at the sixth attempt it rang. A man's voice answered.
"This is Timothy," I said in English. "Peter's friend. I would like to speak to Sergei."
"Sergei is speaking."
"Kindly tell Peter I'm on my way to Moscow. Tell him to leave word with a friend of mine named Bairstow. He'll be staying at the Luxor Hotel a few days from now." I spelled Bairstow, then added Colin for good measure.