‘No ma’am,’ said the waitress. ‘Sodas or shakes, tea or coffee.’
‘Assholes!’ said Paul.
Both women heard him but pretended not to have done so.
‘Sodas or shakes, tea or coffee,’ recited the waitress again.
‘Nothing,’ said Paul, denying himself so as to deny them as well.
‘Coke,’ said John. Belatedly he added ‘Please’ but because of the brace it came out as a lisp.
After the woman had gone away with their order, Ruth said to Paul, ‘OK, what was all that about?’
‘Nothing,’ he said, head bent against the table, regretting it now as much as she did.
‘You made a fool of yourself,’ said the woman, nervously aware just how close she’d come to losing control and wanting to reinforce her position, to prevent it happening again. ‘You made a fool of us all.’
Paul said nothing because there was nothing to say.
‘I’m waiting for an apology.’
The elder boy remained silent.
‘I said I’m waiting for an apology.’
‘Sorry,’ said Paul, voice soft and his lips barely moving.
‘And you’ll apologise to the waitress when she comes back,’ said Ruth, building upon her advantage.
‘I think she’s a bitch!’ blurted John, coming to the aid of his beleaguered brother.
Ruth turned to the other boy, looking bewildered between him and the departing waitress.
‘Not her!’ said John, with child-like irritation at being misunderstood. ‘The woman Daddy’s with. I think she’s a bitch.’
‘You don’t know anything about it,’ said Ruth, which was a mistake because since the divorce they’d both attempted the role of guardians and she realised as she spoke that she was diminishing their efforts.
‘We know everything about it, for God’s sake!’ came in Paul, anxious to recover from his previous defeat.
‘I know that,’ said Ruth, striving to maintain a reasonable tone in her voice. ‘I know you’re affected as much as I am – maybe even more so – and I’m sorry, John, that I said you didn’t know anything about it. That’s not what I meant.’
‘What then?’ said the younger boy.
‘I meant that there are some things that occur between grownup, adult people that are difficult for younger people…’ Ruth hesitated, not wanting to cause further friction ‘… grown-up and adult though those younger people are, that are difficult for young people to understand…’ She trailed to a stop, realising how awful the attempt had been.
‘Like going to bed together, you mean?’ said John, anxious to prove his worldliness.
‘That,’ conceded Ruth cautiously. ‘But that’s not all of it. Even the important part of it. There are lots of other things, as well.’
‘Didn’t you go to bed with Daddy?’ demanded Paul, determined upon vengeance.
Ruth felt herself blushing. ‘That isn’t the sort of question you should ask me,’ she said desperately. ‘But you know the answer anyway: of course I went to bed with Daddy.’
‘Then why did he go to bed with her, as well?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Ruth, an admission as much to herself as to the children. ‘I really don’t know.’
‘I hate her,’ said John, proud at having initiated the discussion. ‘Don’t you hate her?’
‘No,’ said Ruth, carefully rehearsed. ‘No, I don’t hate her. And I don’t hate Daddy.’
‘I don’t understand you!’ protested Paul, exasperated. ‘How can you not hate her!’
Not easily, conceded Ruth to herself. ‘Hate doesn’t achieve anything,’ she said.
‘What will, to get Daddy back?’ implored John, who had tears brimming in his eyes when she looked at him.
‘I don’t know, darling,’ she said soothingly. ‘Not yet I don’t know.’
‘Will you?’ he said, with trusting anxiousness.
‘I don’t know that either,’ said Ruth honestly.
The returning waitress stopped the conversation and Ruth smiled up at her, gratefully. Remembering, she said to Paul, ‘Don’t you have something to say to this lady?’
There was a moment when Ruth thought he would refuse but then he said, ‘Sorry,’ louder the second time.
Why was it, wondered Ruth, that sorry had been the most familiar word in their vocabulary for so long now?
The unrest was centred in Shemkha, which was fortunate because Sokol was not sure he could have contained the protest if it had started in the Azerbaijan capital of Baku. It was from the KGB centre in Baku, of course, that the reports came and because he was so alert to the problem Sokol responded at once, ordering that Shemkha should be sealed and moving extra militia from Tbilisi in bordering Georgia and from Rostov and Donetsk as well. Sealing the town was only the first step, until he could get there himself on the long flight from Moscow. On the way from the airport Sokol gazed out at the parched fields of the tropical part of the Soviet Union, realising how crop failures of this province had been compounded by the grain failures on the Steppes: people were slow moving and actually, in cases, already emaciated. He went immediately to Shemkha and from the car radio system ordered that the leaders of the revolt should be assembled, for his arrival. There were four of them, a city physician and a factory technician and two farmers. The physician, whose name was Bessmertnik, was the reluctant spokesman, a bespectacled, stutteringly hesitant man. Sokol heard the complaints out, a litany of promised but never realised grain deliveries from the chairman of the city committee and spoilation through transport confusion and delays of food that did arrive. He ordered the immediate arrest of the committee chairman and transport authority head and detained Bessmertnik and one of the farmers as well. The hearing was brief- at Sokol’s instructions – in every case the charge of anti-Soviet activity, which covered any and every transgression. They were found guilty, also at Sokol’s instructions, and shot within an hour of the verdict. The official Soviet airline Aeroflot is subordinate to KGB orders and Sokol used fifteen aircraft from their transport fleet to fly in grain and vegetables. The entire operation took only a fortnight and the day after his return to Moscow there was a congratulatory memorandum from Aleksai Panov. Sokol was grateful for the recognition but knew it wasn’t what he wanted for the promotion upon which he was so determined; it wasn’t a coup.
Chapter Five
Brinkman settled in carefully, not because of the repeated advice to do so but because it was obviously the way to proceed, cautiously; to be cautious about his assessments and be cautious about making friends and be cautious about his new colleagues. Realising it was the traditional practice – something upon which they had budgeted, in fact – he bought from the departing Ingrams their car and their specially-adapted stereo unit and a few pieces of kitchen equipment. He moved in the day after they left Moscow. The place was cleaned and tidied, as Lucinda Ingram had promised – she’d even left a vase of flowers as a welcoming gesture in the main room – but it was not clean enough for Brinkman, who made the maid do it all over again while he was there, to ensure she performed the task properly. The maid was a bulging, overflowing woman named Kabalin who muttered something under her breath when he told her to clean again and who appeared surprised when Brinkman, who hadn’t heard what she said, continued the instructions in his perfect Russian, intent upon stopping any insubordination – even whispered protests from a servant – before it began. He knew she would spy upon him, officially, of course; that was one of the standard warnings. Probably steal, too. Which was why it was important to establish the proper relationship from the beginning. It wouldn’t affect the spying but it might lessen the theft if she realised at once that he wasn’t a weak man, prepared to tolerate laxity.
At the embassy Brinkman remained polite, even humble, grateful to people who identified the various departments, courteously introducing himself to the head of each, joining the various clubs and organisations that existed within the building, to relieve the existence of Moscow and – maybe the most important of all – never indicating that because he was an intelligence officer, which most of them knew even though they shouldn’t have done, that he considered himself in any way superior to them or beyond the rules and regulations that they had to obey. During the official welcoming interview the ambassador, who asked to be remembered to his father, repeated the invitation to approach him personally if he encountered any difficulty and as he had done at the Ingrams’ party, Brinkman thanked the man politely. At a subsequent meeting with the Head of Chancery, whose name was Wilcox, Brinkman let the offer be known, apologised for the intrusion of his father and assured Wilcox – quite honestly – that he had no intention ever of going over the man’s head. Like letting everyone else know he didn’t consider himself different, because of the certain dispensations allowed him as a security man, it let Wilcox know he didn’t want any special favours. And by being open about it, Brinkman took out insurance against Sir Oliver mentioning it to Wilcox himself.