‘Oliver called this morning and told me you were resigning from the committee.’
‘I’ve been thinking about it for a long time.’ She looked at him. ‘Is that what was upsetting you?’
He shrugged. ‘I suppose I thought it was because of what happened after the club luncheon.’
‘No,’ she said carefully. ‘I’d been thinking about it for months.’
‘Because I promise you, Mary, I won’t step out of line again.’ She felt a flare of panic. This was not a promise she was looking for. ‘What’s a mild flirtation among old friends,’ she said lightly. Old friends, not brother-and sister-in-law.
‘It’s a hell of a time to be resigning.’ Cy reverted to the subject. ‘There are some tough moments on the horizon. We’re going to be facing some of the problems this morning.’
She decided not to get side-tracked about the agenda. ‘My note to Oliver was just an informal warning that I was thinking it was time I left,’ she said. ‘If you think this is a bad time, I’ve no objection to staying on for a month or two.’
‘I have a feeling I’m going to need all the support I can get, Mary. If you’d put the resignation on hold…’
She touched his arm. ‘For a month or two. OK?’
‘OK.’ He turned to her and grinned. But, to Mary, his mouth was tight with the effort he made. Not as it was the night he had kissed her. Not as it was the night he had plunged his tongue deep into her mouth.
Driving fast through the club gates he swung into the parking lot. As he got out of the driver’s seat to open the car door for her she weighed the possibility of one more effort. Fin didn’t play polo and Sunny didn’t visit with friends every weekend. She let her skirt ride like a twenty-year-old as he opened her door but Cy was looking across at the club entrance. Mrs Rose and her son Jason were standing under the awning talking to Colonel Savary.
Cy waved to them. Mary pulled down her skirt and got out of the car. Standing in the sunlight she could feel his impatience to start towards the entrance.
In the tourette room the members of the Meyerick Fund Committee took their cue from Cy Stevenson’s worried, abstracted expression. While they waited for the Reverend Hector Hand to arrive, Cy stood alone at the window, hands deep in his pockets. The moment Hector Hand entered the room Cy swung round and moved towards his seat. The reverend raised a palm in greeting, received no response and with mumbled apologies sat down.
There was a scraping of chair legs on the polished plank floor. As it faded into silence Cy said: ‘Emergency meeting of the Meyerick Fund is in session.’
‘I think this is the first emergency meeting we’ve had since my husband founded the society,’ Mrs Rose said. ‘He was, as you know, a very organised person. I think he felt generally that emergency meetings were a bad thing.’
‘He was a careful man,’ Hector Hand said. ‘Careful as well as caring.’
‘I’ve called you together,’ Cy said, ‘because of the very serious situation that has developed. I think by now you probably all know the nature of the problem.’
Mary looked blankly at him. The others, she was aware, seemed to be nodding in agreement. ‘What is the problem, Cy?’ She frowned. Why hadn’t Cy said anything in the car?
‘Quatch has been arrested and brought to trial.’
‘What are the charges?’ Mrs Rose asked.
‘We’re dealing with a totalitarian state,’ Cy said. ‘I don’t imagine the precise charges matter a lot.’
‘They might,’ George Savary said. His presence was heavy in the room, his eyes seldom seemed to leave Cy’s face. ‘I must remind you, Cy, that there’ll be Western journalists there.’
‘Exactly,’ Cy said. ‘It’s a show trial. Quatch has been accused of a whole bag of crimes. That’s the way a government like this operates. Plenty of foul weather cover.’
‘It would help to know the precise charges,’ Mary said. ‘If you know them, that is, Cy.’ She kept her voice low and unhurried but she was wondering how long he had known about this development.
‘The charges,’ Cy said, ‘would, I guess, fill several pages. I don’t have access to that information. All I know from a limited newspaper piece and a few enquiries is that the principal charges relate to various offences described as abuse of power.’
‘In other words, corruption,’ Savary said.
Cy nodded briskly. ‘Corruption.’
‘So what are we faced with?’ Hector Hand asked. He was considering his reputation.
‘We’re faced with the trial of Quatch,’ Cy said, pouring himself a glass of water. ‘We’re faced with the fact that he will undoubtedly admit that he received payments from an American fund. Possibly, even probably, our fund will be mentioned in court.’
‘This is serious,’ Hand said. ‘Will Quatch say that the payments were passed on to the coastguard and the like to facilitate the escape of refugees?’
‘What do you think, Hector?’ Cy said, tipping back on his chair. ‘In Vietnam today, you’re better off accepting the rap for pure corruption – dollars in a Swiss bank – than a political offence. Treason.’
‘It will seem therefore that we are paying this Mr Quatch for no visible reason,’ Mrs Rose said. ‘Surely nobody on either side will believe that.’
‘No,’ Cy said slowly. ‘My guess is that in order to keep it personal, in order to avoid a capital sentence for treason, Quatch will claim the money was being paid to him for other reasons.’
‘What sort of other reasons, Cy?’ Mary said, watching him carefully.
‘We can’t tell at the moment. Could be any wild story, Mary. And now,’ Cy got up and lifted the phone, ‘I don’t know about the rest of you but I could use a drink.’
‘My husband specifically ruled out drinks during a trust session,’ Mrs Rose said sharply. ‘A celebration like last time, he considered outside the basic rule. But essentially he believed that alcohol blunts the judgement.’
‘Since this is an emergency session I guess the formal rules don’t apply,’ Jason Rose said. ‘Why don’t you just order yourself up a drink, Cy?’
Cy spun in his chair. ‘Anybody else?’
‘Sure, I’ll take a scotch and water,’ Jason said. His mother subsided in her chair.
‘OK.’ Cy gave his orders over the phone and sat down.
‘I don’t mind telling you I’m worried, Cy. Concerned,’ Hector Hand said.
‘I think we all are,’ Jason said. ‘We all appreciate we could be in for some pretty ugly publicity.’
‘As of this moment,’ Cy said, ‘we don’t even know whether the Meyerick Fund will be mentioned by name. But in the meantime I’ve given our bank orders to despatch nothing more to Switzerland.’
Mrs Rose fixed Cy with her withering look. ‘What do we do now?’
‘We wait,’ Cy said. ‘We wait until we discover what wild accusations Quatch is going to bring against us.’
‘You anticipate wild accusations?’ Savary said.
‘I do,’ Cy said briskly. ‘For the reasons I’ve given.’
‘Can you guess what sort of wild accusations?’ Savary was making it obvious to everybody round the table that he was probing.
‘I’m not a Vietnamese politician,’ Cy snapped.
A knock on the door broke the silence. Vic Impari entered and served Cy and Jason with their drinks.
Pausing until Impari had left, Cy let his eyes move across the faces of the trustees. ‘No point in trying to disguise the fact that we’re about to enter heavy waters.’
‘And when that happens?’ Savary said.
‘When that happens,’ Cy finished his drink in a final mouthful, ‘we close ranks and refute any Vietnamese allegations. We all know what the money was given for.’
Mary found herself nodding vigorously. Her eyes came to rest on George Savary, angrily hunched forward. ‘I agree,’ Mary said firmly. ‘This is the time for everybody on this committee to give Cy our full support.’ She turned back to Oliver Digweed. ‘I want you to destroy the letter I sent you, Oliver. This is no time for committee resignations.’