eleven

A FEW EVENINGS LATER I’D JUST GOT IN when there was a ring at the doorbell three flights down. I inched open the front window, leaned out and saw Colin standing on the steps below and looking upwards. I chucked him down the keys.

‘Alan not about? I was just passing – I’ve had a grilling at King Street. Just had to have some human company before the final assault on the north face of Paddington.’

‘King Street?’

‘You know, Party HQ, you met me there that time.’

Notting Hill was hardly on a straight line between Covent Garden and Paddington. It was proof of how quickly their friendship had waned that Colin had to make such a feeble excuse to drop in.

We sat at the kitchen table with our tea and cigarettes.

‘A grilling? That sounds a bit grim.’

‘The Party seems so different now. Perhaps I’m seeing too much of the grey men in charge. D’you know the reason the London District Secretary hauled me in? It was actually to ask why I wasn’t married! The Party has no time for bohemian behaviour, I gather. Communists are family men and women and having children is a communist duty. More socialists are needed in the world. In France the Catholic Church and the Parti Communiste Français unite to condemn birth control!’ He spoke with immense bitterness.

‘But I thought you said they believe in equality for women.’

‘Perhaps it was partly an excuse,’ he muttered, more to himself than me. ‘During the war there were none of these problems.’ He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. ‘There was a good side to the war. I know that sounds strange, but the comradeship of the ordinary soldiers was wonderful, you know, they had such simplicity and bravery. It was inspiring. Glad I refused a commission. And being in the Party was almost a plus; the chaps were ready to hear the message – no, that’s wrong, they knew it already, knew Britain had to change. I mean, I didn’t ram it down their throats, didn’t even talk about the Party as such …’ He sighed. ‘It’s just that things were black and white then, I suppose, but now it’s all gone grey again.’

He lit a cigarette, then struck a second precious match, for no good reason. It was the only box we had. He frowned, knocked non-existent ash off the end of his cigarette, played with a teaspoon. ‘I actually feel I did something in the war, struck a blow for socialism.’ He was jabbing the teaspoon handle into the soft wood of the kitchen table. ‘You know I thought I’d seen Enescu in Bucharest?’ he said abruptly. ‘I’m pretty sure. There was a crowd of people like him at the Athénée Palace. Out in the countryside peasants were starving all over the show, but in Bucharest there was this brittle bourgeois culture … corrupt, cynical … black marketeers, contact men, everyone on the make. I suppose he bribed his way out of the country.’ He paused. ‘I bet he was in Berlin, making movies for the Nazis – or under the Nazis, anyway. He’s too young to have been there in the twenties, before they came to power.’

‘You don’t know that!’ I exclaimed, too sharply. ‘You haven’t any proof.’

He looked at me grimly, misunderstanding my insistence. ‘So Hugh and Alan are going ahead, are they.’ It wasn’t a question.

That was what this visit was about, then. He’d hoped to find Alan, to have it out with him. ‘You should talk to Alan. I’m sure it isn’t like that.’ I knew I was blushing. We both knew it was a lie.

‘But Alan seems to be avoiding me.’

The silence was awkward. Finally with an effort, Colin spoke. ‘That’s not really what I came about. It’s this whole Titus Mavor thing. I had a very unpleasant session with that shifty little copper, and he wants to see me again. Some fool told him about the row in the Café Royal – y’know, that time? He came on pretty strong. He made it fairly plain I’m a suspect.’

‘A suspect? You? How can you be a suspect? That’s just absurd!’

‘It’s true I couldn’t stand Mavor, but … why did he taunt me about the Party?’ He ran his hand through his thickly springing hair, then made a face. ‘Oh, why do I ask, that was Mavor all over. He just likes making mischief, always has – well, did – playing people off against each other, picking up gossip, spreading scandal and rumour. Poisonous character.’ Colin frowned at his empty cup. I poured him some more tea. ‘Saying what he did! That was malicious.’ He looked at me. ‘Do you believe all the anti-communist propaganda that’s flooding out these days? I suppose you do – everyone does. Even Alan’s fallen for it.’

‘No he hasn’t,’ I said stoutly. ‘Nor me. I have an open mind. I’m trying to understand it all.’

‘Everything was different in the war. The Soviets were our allies. In Bucharest … the Red Army had arrived. I was only there a short time, but it was –’ He broke off, then started again. ‘I’m a Communist, Dinah. I don’t believe in petty national interests. I believe in the revolution. But I’m not sure the Party does believe in revolution any more. And our allies have changed now, of course.’ His smile was bitter. ‘One ought to have known it was too good to last.’

I didn’t know what to say. After a bit he looked up as if he’d forgotten I was sitting there. He shook his head. ‘That shifty little inspector. He near as anything accused me.’

‘Honestly, Colin, you must be reading too much into it. It’s so utterly far-fetched.’

‘You’re so young, you’re so innocent, Dinah,’ he said, rather sadly, ‘you couldn’t possibly understand how difficult it’s all become.’

Oh, why did they all insist on treating me like a child? ‘You could try me.’

He smiled then. ‘You’re lovely, do you know that.’

I felt uncomfortable. His gaze was a little too intimate.

‘You’re so sweet. You really are.’

My face was hot. ‘I’m not.’ I hoped he wasn’t going to make a pass. That would be awful. ‘I’m sure you’re worrying unnecessarily.’

He shook his head. ‘I even wondered if someone was trying to frame me.’

‘Frame you!’ I thought he’d taken leave of his senses.

‘There’s something else. So much I can’t talk about.’ He smoked ferociously. ‘Oh well, it’ll pass. Everything happening at once, I suppose that’s what’s got me down.’

‘What do you mean, things you can’t talk about? You can talk to us – to me. You’d feel better if you got it off your chest. Everything’s worse if you bottle it up and hug it to yourself.’

He looked at me, seemed suddenly to make a decision. His mood seemed to change. Now he spoke calmly, but it was the calm of resignation. ‘You see, I’m in love with someone I shouldn’t be in love with.’ He looked at me very hard. And then of course I understood. I didn’t know what to say. It was a declaration – well, not quite, but as near as. It was awful, not because he didn’t attract me at all, but because even to broach the subject as obliquely as he had seemed like disloyalty to Alan. Yet I couldn’t help feeling flattered; and even that flicker of delight was a kind of disloyalty to Alan too.

‘Oh, Colin … I’m so sorry …’

His attempt at a smile managed only to be a grimace. ‘Not your fault, is it.’

Silence again. After a while he shook his head violently, as if his ears were air-blocked, managed a more normal smile, came back to earth. ‘It’s awfully good of you to have listened to all this rot. It must be the weather getting me down.’

His parting shot as he stood poised at the top of the precipitous flights of stairs was: ‘You know, I don’t think Alan quite realises how lucky he is to have you. You’re so – so clear, Dinah, and so lovely.’

After he’d gone I sat at the kitchen table for quite a while. I lit a cigarette. Alan said the Party substituted for relationships in Colin’s life. I’d thought it was heroic to devote yourself to a cause, even if, as everyone was saying these days, the cause was a misguided, or more likely, a sinister one. But now I knew Colin had hidden depths. My thoughts melted into a sort of daydream. It was flattering to think that Colin was sweet on me. Carrying a torch for me – ‘I just want to start/A little flame in your heart.’ Of course I didn’t want Colin to be in love with me, and would never give him any encouragement, that would be cruel, but … the thought of having a hopelessly languishing admirer was romantic. I supposed that was how Gwendolen felt about Stan.

Alan came home and I told him Colin had been round. Alan frowned. ‘Oh, God. How was he?’

I knew Alan felt guilty, but now I thought about it I was quite surprised that Colin had said so little about the film and Radu. ‘He’s worried about the inspector,’ I said. ‘He thinks he’s a suspect.’

‘That’s absurd.’

‘I know. I told him.’

In a way I think Alan was relieved that Colin seemed not to be bearing too much of a grudge. ‘I’ll talk to him,’ he said, ‘I daresay we can pull a few chestnuts out of the fire. After all, nothing’s decided.’

But there he deceived himself.