NINE

Catherine’s operation went as well as could be expected. The bad news was that the tumour was malignant, but the surgeon was confident he had removed it all. ‘We caught it early,’ he said. ‘The prognosis is good.’

‘Is my brain still there?’ was her first question on regaining consciousness. She had tubes attached to her nose, chest and right arm, plugged into a big machine by her bed, and one arm round Clarence, her favourite teddy bear.

‘Yes, my darling.’

‘And did they make a hole in my head?’

‘Yes, but it’s very small.’

‘Can you see it?’

‘No, it’s all covered up. It will soon heal.’

She smiled and drifted back to sleep. Wisps of blond hair peeping from beneath the bandage around her little head, cuddling Clarence, whose head was also bandaged. He shared her pain.

* * *

Gradually life began to return to normal. For the first time in weeks Thompson attended the Friends’ dinner in the upper room in Soho. He arrived late to find them discussing what line to take on the looming war with China. ‘We shouldn’t be under any illusions about China,’ Jock Steeples was saying, ‘it’s an imperial power.’

‘So is America,’ said Stephen Carter.

‘Maybe, but for once the Americans are on the side of the angels.’

‘Angels is putting it a bit strongly. ‘Declaring war over a few uninhabited islands, whether they belong to Japan or not, is utterly reckless.’

‘Fact is,’ said Steeples, ‘the US has a treaty with Japan and has to be seen to uphold it, otherwise it will be Vietnam next and then Taiwan. The Chinese have claims on just about the entire East Sea – everything down to Malaysia. Of course,’ he added, ‘it helps that, this time around at least, the leader of the free world is not a complete moron.’

‘Anyway, there’s not much we can do about it,’ said Mrs Cook, flashing him another of her steely smiles. ‘Except sit tight and pray.’

* * *

Three days later the Chinese announced what their foreign minister described as ‘a temporary suspension’ of their operations in the East Sea, but he took care to reiterate his country’s territorial claims. The US president, in a broadcast to the nation, adopted a notably conciliatory tone. He had always known, he said, that the Chinese were a peace-loving people. The US fleet would be withdrawing to its base in the Philippines.

‘Just shows it pays to stand up to the bastards,’ boomed Farquar when Fred encountered him in the library corridor.

The world breathed a sigh of relief, but no one thought this was the end of the matter. ‘My guess is they’ll go for Vietnam next,’ said Steeples. ‘The US has no treaty with the Vietnamese.’

* * *

A course of radiotherapy lay ahead. ‘What’s radiotherapy?’ asked Catherine when they broke the news. The unfamiliar word rolled slowly from her tongue.

‘They take you to a special room in the hospital. You lie on a bed. They put a mask over your head with a hole in just where the tumour was and then a big machine fires invisible rays at the spot where you were operated on to stop Malfoy coming back.’

‘But I thought they took him out.’

‘They did, but you don’t want him coming back, do you?’ Elizabeth turned away and brushed a tear from her eye.

‘Why are you crying, Mummy?’

‘Because I love you so much.’