Thus it was that a casual involvement with her took the course of a prolonged adolescence, while a commitment was a return to the heart-stopping trials of childhood. She had surprised me then, to depths unknown. I’d come to accept that music was her only passion — the one thing, besides her father, that she really cared about.
‘You’ve been doing your homework, haven’t you?’ I turned on Basil with some bitterness. ‘How did you dig her out of my life? No one in the department could have known.’
The waiter arrived before Basil could reply and he spoke to him with heavy humour. ‘… yes, don’t forget, a double ration of pancakes …’ For a thin man Basil had an inordinate greed in everything: a fat man was desperately trying to get inside him. He leant forward now and tinkered with the carnations in a small silver vase between us.
‘It’s years since I last saw her — properly,’ I went on when the waiter had left, ‘before I joined the section in Holborn, before I went to Egypt.’
‘Your file, Peter — the forms you had to complete when you came to us: you gave her father as a reference. And why not? He was an old friend — of yours and your family: and a distinguished man. But she was always more than a friend, wasn’t she?’
That was true, I thought — unfortunately. How much better simply to have been a friend of Rachel’s.
And how she would have laughed at the idea — that crystal, mocking, serious laughter, all in one: laughter like a wild bell. Friendship required balance, foresight, discretion — and Rachel had few gifts there. She viewed friendship as a kind of failure, something second-best, a slur on the real potential of human association which she saw in primary colours, in terms only of extravagant love or hate.
‘But I left Holborn nearly ten years ago,’ I said. ‘My file must be pretty dead by now. How did you pick me out of the bag?’
‘The files never die with us, Peter. You know that.’ Basil crushed a carnation bud and put his fingers to his nose. ‘In fact, with computers, they’ve taken on a whole new life. When this Phillips business came up six weeks ago we ran his tape through. Part of it included all official contacts made by or to him while he was in the service: the names of people he’d dealt with overseas and at home here — a complete business directory in fact. We have them on everyone now. Well, there was your name, among some hundreds of others. And I said to myself, well, that’s funny: what’s friend Marlow got to do with Lindsay Phillips? They weren’t in the same section, years between them. A look at your own file and the matter became clear: an old family friend: especially the daughter — a few discreet enquiries. Forgive me.’
‘You could raise the dead, couldn’t you? — with your bloody files. But what “Phillips business”? He was just a diplomat, surely — in the Foreign Office.’
‘He wasn’t. He’s been with us for over 40 years. And he’s disappeared. That’s the business.’
I laughed. ‘This is where I came in, Basil — just like old Henry going down the Nile: you want me to find him.’
Basil nodded. The waiter glided up to us with a feast of goodies, placing them carefully all over the small table, while Basil relished them in advance, seducing the eclairs and undressing the sandwiches with his eyes.
He nodded now again, sagely, licking his lips. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You’re good at finding people: so find him — if he is to be found.’ He took a buttery pancake and manoeuvred a bowl of strawberry jam through the other dishes towards it.
‘How does she fit in?’ I asked, looking over at Rachel. ‘What’s she doing here?’
‘She plays here. Three afternoons a week — in the season.’
‘She used to be better known. I’m surprised.’
‘Why? They pay well.’
I laughed. ‘She never needed money. That used to be our problem: she had too much of it.’
Basil took no notice, biting into his jam-laden pancake. ‘Yes, they pay well,’ he said at last. ‘She needs the practice. But really — she likes an audience, doesn’t she?’
That was true, I thought. Rachel had never really sought private admiration — for she feared the ensuing commitment. In that sphere she preferred to give: to dominate in particular — or else to weep. It was only from a public, I remembered well from her early concerts, that she properly ‘received’ — taking from the eyes of many an approval she refused in her personal affairs. So often ‘unworthy’ — of me, or of life — in the light of a crowd her skin began to glow.
Basil paused before his next pancake and listened to the music. ‘Gluck’s Dance of the Spirits,’ he said. ‘Delicious. She does it beautifully, doesn’t she?’
‘I don’t follow you, Basil.’
‘And beautiful herself, too. Wonder she hasn’t married again.’
‘I hear the last one sank with all hands. That’s probably why.’
Rachel had once tried to be her age — in marriage. But she had failed: not from any lack of fidelity, I’m sure, but because the only fidelity she cared about was impossible: she wished at all costs to be true to herself, while yet ensuring that her soul should surprise her every hour. She walked into a new country each morning and threw away the map at bedtime. I had found it difficult to share these abrupt journeys she made about herself: the young German conductor I’d heard she’d married had obviously found it impossible. In exchange for certainties she offered a complete lack of restraint. But there never had been any real certainty, apart from her father. She and I had separated: the German had moved on, finding her, I suppose, the one score he couldn’t interpret, and she had been left holding mysterious gifts — which only her music could give a satisfactory form to.
Basil continued to look across at her, his eyes becalmed for a moment, trying to focus on some more sensual greed. ‘That nose — straight down from her brow like a ruler and eyes like black ink bottles. Greek god department. No? And that skin …’
‘She used to say anyone really in love with her was queer. Do you fancy her, Basil? Or are you pimping for her?’
He signed, turning back to the table, before considering the merits of the creamy eclairs or the soft almond icing on the Battenberg cake.
‘We’ve been trying to help her, that’s all. I told you — her father disappeared. Two months ago, up in their house in Scotland.’
‘You work for the missing persons bureau, do you?’
‘You don’t understand. Latterly Phillips was head of Nine: the Soviets — as well as Tito and the rest of that Balkan crew down there. That’s been his stamping-ground since he rejoined after the war. And now — thin air. At least there were the bodies left over from the other two, Dearden and McKnight.’
‘They were in Nine as well?’
Basil nodded. ‘Dearden headed a circle out of Zagreb — he was a businessman there — covering Croatia, Slovenia, the Hungarian border areas: McKnight was his case officer, ran him from London — and Phillips, well, he was control — directly responsible for the whole operation.’
‘Head of Section personally responsible? I’m surprised.’
‘Not in this case you wouldn’t be. This was grade A stuff — all the way: the Soviet threat to invade Yugoslavia, grabbing a good-looking Med port, Split or Rijeka: a takeover after Tito’s death — all that. I’ll give you the details later.’