Wives at War (53 page)

‘Once I have established myself in Lisbon I'll sell to whoever pays me the best price,' Dominic said. ‘I'm not obliged to honour my promises to the British Government. If the Germans outbid the Italians or the Italians outbid the French, I'll trade with them. How else am I going to make a decent profit?'

‘You are no patriot,' Emilio said.

‘I never said I was,' Dominic told him.

‘What about this man, this American?' Emilio stabbed a finger in Christy's direction. ‘He says nothing.'

‘Me?' Christy said. ‘I saw what happened to your guys in North Africa. I happen to think you're all chickens just begging to be plucked.' He stuck out a hand and waggled his fingers. ‘I want my share, that's all. I don't care who pays me. I get a cut from Uncle Sam and another cut from Dominic on the profit he makes on the side. Nice, eh?'

‘I thought I would have diamonds,' Emilio said.

‘I know you did,' said Dominic. ‘You thought wrong.'

Colour drained from the Italian's cheeks and the muscles around his mouth relaxed; he seemed satisfied, almost pleased with the exchange. Polly was tempted to glance at her husband but instinct told her that it was almost over, that the Communist had been convinced by their performance.

Emilio sat back, nodding. ‘I will need money soon,' he said.

‘How soon?'

‘Three days, four.'

‘All right,' Dominic said. ‘Signor Christy will bring it to you. How much?'

‘Three thousand.'

‘Lire or dollars?' Christy asked.

‘Dollars, American dollars.'

‘I'll do what I can,' said Dominic. ‘It might take me a little longer than four days, though. Are you safe here?'

‘Safe?' Emilio said. ‘Yes, I am safe.' He closed one eye, squinting. ‘Am I safe with your hands, Signor Manone? That is the good question.'

‘You're my money-box, Emilio,' Dominic said. ‘Is that the good answer?'

And, not entirely to Polly's surprise, Emilio agreed that it was.

*   *   *

They reached the level streets behind the square of the Praça do Comercio in the full flush of the evening rush hour. Carts and trams, vans and motorcars flowed along the thoroughfare, and out on the river the ferryboats were thick as gulls on the Tagus's broad green back. A breeze had got up with the turn of the tide. Polly was glad of it for her lethargy had been replaced by tipsy, carefree excitement. Dominic's coolness and control had vanished as soon as he'd stepped out of the
pension.
He had unbuttoned his overcoat and flung it open and had walked with one arm about Polly's waist and one draped over Christy's shoulders as if, in the course of that afternoon, they had become boon companions.

They were looking for a bar to drink to their success in duping the Italian but the arcades around the square were shadowed now and the big, glittering shops that sold the most fashionable goods in Europe were putting up their metal shutters, and some of the lights that turned Lisbon into a fairyland after dark had already been switched on.

They loitered, uncertain, on the edge of the square.

The Mercedes slid sleekly out of traffic and stopped by them. Jamie Cameron rolled down the window and stuck his head out.

‘Well,' he asked, ‘did he bite?'

‘He bit,' Dominic answered, laughing. ‘Oh boy, did he bite.'

‘I rather figured he would,' Jamie said, and then to everyone's consternation drove off again into the traffic without another word.

*   *   *

She lay on her back in the double bed in the darkened hotel room, knees raised and nightdress stretched across her thighs. She was too tense to sleep for now that her part in wooing the Communist was over she felt sure that Jamie Cameron would pack her on to another cargo boat and ship her off home just as soon as he possibly could.

She didn't want to go back to the mangled little mansion in Manor Park Avenue yet, to Fin's shabby office in Baltic Chambers and the shallow life she had been leading in Glasgow ever since Dominic had gone away.

The glimpse she'd had of an undercover war had thrilled her and that afternoon in the high, honey-coloured room in the Alfama, she'd felt as if she'd been playing a part she'd been born to play. Her life so far had been a series of roles directed by other people: the dutiful daughter, the loyal wife, sister, aunt and mother, lover to three very different men. She had grown so used to role-playing that she no longer knew quite who she was or to whom she owed allegiance – the nation, the family, her children, a husband who had used her, or a lover with whom she had fallen out of love.

She slid a hand down and cupped her stomach. The rise and fall of her breath and the heat of her body under the sheet were soothing, then she heard the door click open and Dominic enter the room.

‘Polly, are you awake?'

‘Yes.'

They had eaten dinner together, the three of them, in the crowded dining room on the ground floor. They had talked about Hitler and air raids, Poland and the desert war, about Babs and Rosie, about New York and the vast continent of North America where her children were happy and secure. They hadn't talked about the future, though, her future or anyone's future.

‘Where have you been hiding?' Polly said.

‘In the bar.'

‘With Christy?'

‘Yes.'

‘Still talking about the war?'

‘No,' Dominic said. ‘Talking about you.'

She pressed her hand into her stomach and sat up.

He lingered by the door, separated from her by acres of brown carpet, his overcoat folded over his arm. He looked, she thought, like a hospital visitor, awkward and perhaps even a little embarrassed, unsure what to say. She reached up and switched on the lamp above the bed.

‘What did Christy tell you?' she said.

‘That you turned him down.'

‘That I … what?'

Dominic shifted the overcoat from one arm to the other. ‘He thinks you only took him in because he had a thing going with Babs.'

Polly leaned back against the bolster, hands above her head. All she needed to say now was ‘Yes' and Dominic would believe her. Dominic had always wanted to believe her, to turn her lies into loyalty. He would believe her and come to bed, make love to her as if nothing had happened since the last time they had been together in the big gloomy room in Manor Park. What harm could there be in endorsing Christy's tactful lie? What harm would it do Babs now?

She linked her fingers together, high over her head.

‘No,' she said. ‘I took him in because I wanted him for myself.'

Far away, as in a dream, she heard accordion music, more Parisian than Portuguese; an exile, a refugee perhaps perched on a stool in a bar across the square or in a cold corner of the railway station, playing to assuage his loneliness.

‘Do you know where Christy is right now?' Dominic said.

‘No.'

‘He's in a room three doors down the hall.'

‘Is he?' Polly said.

‘Do you want to go to him?' Dominic asked.

She unlocked her fingers and let herself fall forward, her back bowed, the light from the bed-lamp shining down on her. She rested her forehead against her knees and closed her eyes.

‘I won't stop you,' Dominic said. ‘I won't do anything to stop you.'

‘I don't want to be with Christy.'

She raised herself up on her hands. He came to the foot of the bed and looked down at her. He wanted her as any man would want her but now there had to be something more, something that at least resembled love.

She said, ‘I want to be here with you.'

‘Why, Polly? Because I'm your last best option?'

‘No, because you're my husband.'

It sounded too glib and banal to be anything other than a lie.

She scanned his face anxiously, fearful that he was about to tell her that their marriage was over, that vanity and fickleness had finally caught up with her and that her role as his wife and the mother of his children had been written out at last. She had sense enough to say nothing, though, to meekly await his decision, his forgiveness.

He tossed the overcoat to one side and seated himself on the bed.

‘God, but you can be pretty stupid sometimes, Polly.'

‘Thank you,' she said. ‘Thank you very much.'

‘Why do you think I brought you here?'

‘You didn't bring me here, other people did that.'

‘Wrong again, Poll,' he told her. ‘I went to a great deal of trouble to bring you to Lisbon. Do you think it was easy negotiating with Jamie Cameron, squaring up to the US Intelligence services and the Immigration authorities when, as it were, I didn't have a leg to stand on?' He moved closer, his voice as soft as a whisper. ‘If I'd come back to Scotland to fetch you, our Kenny would have had me locked up. Oh yes, there's quite enough outstanding in Kenny MacGregor's little black book to bring me to trial and probably convict me. He might be my brother-in-law but he's a copper first and foremost and he's never really forgiven me for getting away with murder out at Blackstone Farm.'

‘Did you kill my father?'

‘Of course I didn't kill your father. Your father took off, limped off, and that's the last any one of us has ever heard from him. Is that what you thought? That I was a murderer as well as a crook?'

‘What are you doing here, Dominic; in Lisbon, I mean?'

‘Making myself useful.'

‘As a spy, as an agent of the United States Government?'

‘My father's dying. He won't last much longer. When he goes, my brother will take over what's left of the racket in Philadelphia which, these days, is mainly a stranglehold on union labour, protection writ large. I want nothing to do with it, nothing. I'm sick of all the finagling. I'm sick of being known as Carlo Manone's heir apparent. Jamie Cameron's offered me a deal, a job if you like, and I've accepted it. As of now, Polly, I'm working for the Co-ordinator of Strategic Services, whatever the hell that means.'

‘And Christy?'

‘Christy too. We'll be working together here in Lisbon, at least for the next half-year or so.'

‘Funding the Italian?'

‘Making contacts, trading with the enemy, gathering whatever information we can about all sorts of things: Vichy France, Franco's manoeuvres to keep sweet with Hitler, the trade in arms that come pouring through so-called neutral ports, anything and everything that might serve the free world.'

‘Do you want me to join you, to become a spy too?'

‘No.' He shook his head. ‘I want you to go to New York, settle on Staten Island and look after our kids. I want you there when I come home.'

‘New York?' Polly said. ‘I – I can't, Dominic. I can't abandon Mammy and my sisters. My home – our home's in Scotland, not America.'

‘Not now, Polly. Your place is with me and with the children.'

‘I thought they'd all but forgotten me?'

‘They have,' Dominic said. ‘And that isn't right, is it?'

‘What about Patricia?'

‘Oh, come September she'll marry Jamie Cameron and be gone.'

‘Are you sure about that?' Polly said.

‘As sure as one can be about anything.'

She leaned forward again, resting her brow against his thigh. He might have touched her then, stroked her hair, kissed the back of her neck, for her position was unconsciously submissive. But he was too shrewd to press her and sat quite still, his hands by his sides.

‘What – what if you don't come back?' she murmured.

‘Where else would I go?'

‘I mean, if you … like Jackie?'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘That.'

She looked up, frowning. ‘Is that what the money's for, the forty thousand pounds banked in Scotland? It's not to start a new life after the war, is it? It's insurance, Dominic, insurance in case you—'

‘Protection,' he said. ‘Yep, it's protection, darling, protection of a sort that my brother would never condone, would never understand. If anything happens to me then you and the children will be well taken care of.'

‘And you brought me here…'

‘All the way to Lisbon in the middle of a war, yes.'

‘… just to con me into doing what
you
want, what
you
think's best, to convince me that you're a jolly good fellow with only my interests at heart?'

‘No,' he said. ‘I brought you here because I love you.'

‘Dominic, I—'

He placed his forefinger against her lips. ‘Ssshhh, you don't have to tell me anything. You don't have to say anything right now. Think about it, take your time, make up your mind, and when you do I'll be here.'

‘Here? Where?'

‘Right here,' he said, patting the bed. ‘Beside you.'

‘For now, you mean?'

‘No,' he said. ‘For always.'

21

‘What's wrong, Mrs H.?' said Archie. ‘You're not your usual jovial self this morning. Have I said something to offend you?'

‘Lord, no,' Babs said. ‘It's not you.'

‘What then? Won't you tell me?'

‘It's Easter.'

‘It is,' said Archie, ‘or will be soon; a time of rejoicing for all us Christians. The Lord is risen and all that. I always liked this time of year when I was teaching, and not just because we broke up for a holiday. Come to think of it, I liked all the festivals and fancy days. Hallowe'en, Christmas, Easter – they all had their special signs and symbols, their traditions. You could sense the excitement for weeks beforehand. For some of the kids anticipation was the best part of it, cutting out masks, making costumes, practising carols and drawing cards, painting hard-boiled eggs at Easter. Good fun all round.'

‘Will you go back to teaching?'

‘Absolutely,' Archie said. ‘But you haven't answered my question.'