‘She lets her intelligence trickle away in complaints, self-pity and self-indulgence.’
‘You are rather intolerant.’
Before Harriet could reply to this, they heard a step behind them and glancing round saw a figure that was familiar but, so unlikely was the setting, unfamiliar.
‘Good heavens,’ said Guy, glad of diversion. ‘It’s Yakimov.’ Harriet said: ‘Don’t let talk to him.’
‘Oh, we must have a word.’ And Guy hurried out of reach of her restraint.
Yakimov, in his long full-skirted greatcoat, an astrakhan cap on top of his head, his reed of a body almost overblown by the wind, looked like a phantom from the First World War – a member of some seedy royal family put into military uniform for the purposes of a parade. As he tottered unhappily forward, his gaze on the ground, he did not see the Pringles. When stopped by Guy’s exuberant ‘Hello, there!’ his mouth fell open. He did his best to smile.
‘Hello, dear boy!’
‘I’ve never seen you in the park before.’
‘I’ve never been before.’
‘What a magnificent coat!’
‘Yes, isn’t it!’ Yakimov’s face brightened a little as he turned a corner of the coat to show the worn sable lining. ‘The Czar gave it to m’poor old dad. Fine coat. Never wears out.’
‘It’s splendid.’ Guy stood back to admire the theatrical effect of the coat, his appreciation such that Yakimov’s gaze went to Guy’s coat in the hope of being able to return these compliments, but no return was possible.
Guy said: ‘It makes you look like a White Army officer. You should have a peaked cap. A sort of yachting cap.’
‘M’old dad had one; and a beard like Nicholas II.’ Yakimov sighed, but not, it seemed, over these glories of the past. His whole body drooped. Now he had come to a standstill, he seemed to lack energy to proceed.
Harriet, who had been watching him, felt forced to ask: ‘What is the matter?’
He looked up: ‘Not to tell a lie …’ he paused, at a loss for a lie to tell. ‘Not to tell a lie, dear girl, I’ve been rather badly treated. Given the push. Literally.’ He laughed sadly.
‘From the Athénée Palace?’
‘No. At least, not yet. No, I … I …’ he stared at the ground again, stammering as though his troubles were so compacted that they dammed the source of speech, then speech burst forth: ‘Given the push … flung out. Flung out of a taxi in a distant part of the town. Quite lost; not a leu on me: didn’t know where to turn. Then someone directed me across this God-forsaken park.’
‘You mean, you couldn’t pay the taxi?’ Harriet asked.
‘Wasn’t my taxi, dear girl. McCann’s taxi. McCann flung me out of it. After all I’d done for him.’ Yakimov’s lips quivered.
Guy took his arm, and as they walked towards the main gate he persuaded Yakimov to describe exactly what had happened.
‘McCann got me out of bed this morning at some unearthly hour. Rang me up, and said he wanted to see me. Said he was in the hall, just leaving for Cairo. Well, dear boy, had to get m’clothes on. Couldn’t go down in m’birthday suit, could I? Thought he was going to ask me to keep on the job. Didn’t know whether to say “yes” or “no”. Hard work, being a war correspondent. Comes a bit rough on your poor old Yaki. Not used to it. Well, got myself titivated. “Shall I accept the job, or shan’t I?” kept asking m’self. Felt I ought to accept. War on, y’know. Man should do his bit. Thought I’d done a good job. If I couldn’t get “hot” news in the bar, always got a warmish version of it. Well, down I went – and there was McCann, fuming. But fuming! Said he’d be late for his ’plane. Bundled me into the taxi with him before I knew what was happening, and then started on me. And what do you think he said? He said: “Might have known you hadn’t a clue. All you could do was collect rumours and scandal”.’
‘Really!’ said Harriet with interest. ‘What scandal?’
‘Search me, dear girl. I never was one for scandal. “And you did yourself damned well,” he said. “Two hundred thousand lei for a month’s kip. What’s my agency going to say when they have to pay that for the balderdash you’ve been sending home?” Then he stopped the cab, put his foot on m’backside and shoved me out.’ Yakimov gazed from one to the other of his companions, his green eyes astounded by reality. ‘And I’ve had to find m’way back here on m’poor old feet. Can you imagine it?’
‘And he didn’t pay you for the work you did?’ Guy asked.
‘Not a nicker.’
‘I suppose he paid the hotel bill?’
‘Yes, but what has he said to the blokes there? That’s what I’m asking m’self. Very worried, I am. Perhaps, when I get back, I’ll find m’traps in the hall. It’s happened before. I’d have to move to the Minerva.’
‘But that’s a German hotel.’
‘Don’t mind, dear boy. Poor Yaki’s not particular.’
They had reached the Calea Victoriei and there Yakimov looked vaguely about him. Recognising his whereabouts, he smiled with great sweetness and said: ‘Ah, well, we mustn’t worry. We’re in a nice little backwater here. We should get through the war here very comfortably.’ On this cheerful note, he set out to face the staff of the Athénée Palace.
Turning in the opposite direction, Harriet walked with Guy as far as the University gate. There he gave her two thousand-lei notes. ‘For lunch,’ he said. ‘Take Sophie. Go somewhere nice,’ and he went off with what seemed to her the speed of guilt.
Sophie opened the door in her dressing gown. Her face shone sallow for lack of make-up: her hair was pinched over with metal setting-grips.
In a high, vivacious voice she cried: ‘Come in. I have been washing my hair. Most times I go to the Athénée Palace salon, but sometimes – for an economy, you understand? – I do it myself. You have not been before in my garçonnière. It is not big, but it is convenient.’
She talked them up the stairs. In the bed-sitting-room – an oblong modern room with an unmade bed and an overnight smell – she pushed some clothes off a chair and said: ‘Please to be seated. I am unpacking my laundry. See!’ She lifted a bundle in tissue paper and gazed into it. ‘So nice! My pretty lingerie. I love all such nice things.’
Looking round for a clock, Harriet noticed a photograph frame placed face downwards beside the bed. There was no clock, but Sophie wore a watch. Harriet asked the time. It was a quarter to twelve.
‘The appointment with the landlord is at twelve o’clock,’ said Harriet.
‘Ah!’ Sophie, who was now unpacking her laundry, seemed not to hear. She lifted her underwear, piece by piece, with a sort of sensual appreciation. Smoothing down little bows, straightening borders of lace, she opened drawers and slowly put each piece away. When this task was completed, she threw herself on the bed. ‘Last night,’ she said, ‘I was out with friends, so this morning I am lazy.’
‘Do you think we could go soon?’
‘Go? But where should we go?’
‘Guy said you would come with me to see the landlord.’
‘But what landlord?’
Harriet explained her visit and Sophie, lying propped on one elbow, looked troubled: ‘He said you would call to see me. A friendly call, you understand, but he did not speak of a landlord.’ Sophie looked at her fingernails, then added as one who understood Guy better than Harriet did: ‘He arranges so many things, he forgets to explain, you know.’
‘Well, can you come?’
‘But how can I? I must first have my bath. Then I must dress. It will take a long time because I meet a friend for lunch. And my fingernails. I must put on more varnish.’ Sophie spoke as though these activities might be a little selfish but were all the more endearing for that. She gave a laugh at Harriet’s blank face and rallied her: ‘You can see the landlord by yourself. You are not afraid?’