Margaret and Barbara travelled to Vienna and Prague and Budapest, and then Italy, from where regular postcards announced that they were seeing all the sights and attending all the opera houses. Mark was too busy to join them: he hardly wanted to leave Berlin, the sense of imminent political chaos enthralled him. And he spent a great deal of time with Karl, who was being particularly affectionate.
Finally a telegram arrived: ‘SAILING CHERBOURG 18 OCTOBER STOP IN PARIS FROM 14 OCT STOP DO COME IF POSSIBLE STOP STAYING HOTEL DE SEINE STOP M’. He went.
They had three days in Paris. Barbara and Margaret were a little febrile, perhaps anxious to be on their way home. They ate meals in small restaurants off the Faubourg Saint-Germain. They walked along the Seine: ‘It’s a good place to say goodbye to Europe.’ On the last evening they promenaded in the Jardin des Tuileries, admiring the precise gravel paths and the regimented hedges. Barbara suggested she might have dinner alone at the hotel, she was tired, but ‘No’, they said, they wanted her company. Her presence made things easier: the chaperone system had its advantages.
On their last morning he accompanied them to the Gare du Nord.
They stood on the platform to say their goodbyes, wondered when they would meet again. ‘It’s been delightful,’ said Barbara, ‘but I must go and check the luggage.’ The platform seemed immensely long, stretching towards the Atlantic and the United States.
‘You know,’ said Margaret, ‘that question you asked me. In Munich.’
‘Yes.’ She was certainly going to say no.
‘You’ve never mentioned it again.’
‘I didn’t want to be a bore. I was waiting. . .’
‘Yes, I see that. Have you changed your mind?’
‘No. . . Have you decided?’
‘Yes, yes, I have. At least – I think I have. You see it’s so complicated. I mean, would we be happy? I’m not a very easy person, you know.’
‘So it’s no.’
‘I’ve hesitated such a long time, because I would like to say yes. I think the things one fails to do are worse than the things one does do – I must get on this train. I think we should see how it goes. I mean, it may work, it may not work. . . If I’m going to marry anyone, I’d like it to be you.’
‘Then. . . you mean yes?’
‘Yes, I think I do, yes, I do.’ The porters were slamming the doors, a late traveller hurried up the steps, friends of passengers made scrambled exits. ‘I really must get on, d’you think that clock is right? I just didn’t want to blub. . . I’ll send you a telegram from the ship. Dear Mark, darling, I do mean yes.’ The train doors were slamming, all but hers, she held onto the handle until a porter said, ‘Madame part ou non?’
‘Oh my God,’ she said, ‘why is it always the wrong time to do anything?’ And with a rapid kiss and a sobbing laugh she climbed into the train.
A moment later her face appeared at the window beside Barbara’s. They waved their handkerchiefs as the train steamed past the blank ugly walls of the Dixième Arrondisement and towards the New World.
Mark stood for a long time in the station, unable to leave its comforting anonymity. His mind went back to Berlin, and to the man there whom – he had to admit it to himself, since he’d been forced to admit it to the person in question – he loved. He wandered into the street and walked through the squalid neighbourhood. There, at least, he would not meet anyone he knew.
It was natural, what he was going to do. It was natural, and right.
What was he going to say to Karl, who would be so pleased to see him when he went back to Berlin? Would he say, ‘I am going to be married. We can no longer meet’? How would he bring himself to say that?
But then he loved Margaret. Yes, he loved Margaret. He would be happy with her. If he married Margaret – when they married – he would not have to lead a double life. He would stay in the Diplomatic Service, and with her at his side he would rise even faster. There would be no gossip about his being over-emotional. And he could do his writing later in life, there was no especial hurry.
He thought of Karl, and of the discussions with Karl’s friend, who was indeed a rich and powerful man, though he’d annoyed Mark by taking it for granted from their first meeting that he was a homosexual. But the man had been impressed by Mark (or so Karl said later) and had offered him very generous terms. And The Observer remained interested in taking him on. Karl had become impatient. He’d said, more than once, that as soon as Mark had left the Diplomatic Service they would move in together, there’d be no need for all this secrecy.
Mark would smile and try to look enthusiastic. To live openly with another man. . .
Marriage was much the safer option. And Margaret was very special.
He stopped in front of a shop window that displayed an unappetising selection of breads and cakes. He saw himself in the glass. He was shocked to see that tears were running, very slowly, down his cheeks.