The Longest Pleasure (40 page)

She heard the sideboard door close, opened her eyes. Barnes poured himself a drink. He turned his head, smiled at her, raised the bottle. She shook her head. Barnes came across the' room. Now the contempt was back, the mastery of his surroundings. He stood above the day bed, looked down at her, smiling. 'You feel good,' he said.
‘I
like you, Mrs. Hamble. I'll be ready again in half an hour.'

Possession was no longer vacant.

V

Tigran Dus walked quickly, his hands still deep in his coat pockets, his shoes crunching on the wet sand. Galitsin kept pace with him, still twenty yards away. He thought that Tigran Dus had a remarkably good sense of direction. But, then, Tigran Dus was a remarkably accomplished man.

And now it was quiet. The gulls seemed to have moved away, and the river traffic had dwindled. This was because of the mist. As the afternoon closed in, so did the visibility. No doubt only those ships with very important schedules would risk the crowded waters of the Thames Estuary in this fog. But the Marsh End Sands were not crowded. Here it was so empty Galitsin could hear Tigran Dus breathing. Only now and then did he hear the lap of the water. But the wind had died, and the water made very little sound.

Tigran Dus stopped, lit a cigarette, cupping his face and the flame into his hands. He inhaled, and looked behind them. The rising tide had disappeared into the mist.

'We can slow up now, Alexander Petrovich. But I will confess that for a moment, there, I thought we might get our feet wet. It is strange, how far one can walk, without knowing it, when one has an interesting companion.' He began to walk again, his hands back in his pockets. 'So tell me, after your experiences, what do you think of the West? Of England, at any rate.'

'I think it is a very nice place. Comrade Colonel,' Galitsin said. 'But, like every place, one has to belong to enjoy.'

'A profound point,' Tigran Dus agreed. 'And the mere act of receiving citizenship is not belonging enough? They would have given you that, you know.'

'I think that would have been enough. And there are other ways of belonging. You understand that these last few months have been a very confusing period for me, Comrade Colonel. I will have to think very deeply about things, about everything that has happened, in order to arrive at
a
true conclusion about them.'

'Of course, Alexander Petrovich. And I think I sense in your tone a certain relief that it is all over.'

'I am relieved, Comrade Colonel. I am also perhaps
a
little apprehensive as to what comes next.'

'Ah! But that is something we shall have to think about. You know, if I am not going to use you in the field again, it might do no harm to make your entire story public. It would have very good propaganda value. You defected for love, which, if hardly admirable, is hardly treasonable, either. And so you were beaten half to death and left to freeze. True British hospitality.
Pravda
could do very well with that. And presumably, after all that has
happened,
you are not still in love with Irena Szen?
^’

'No, Comrade Colonel,
^’
Galitsin said. 'I do not think I am still in love with Irena Szen.
^’

'I am glad to hear that. I have always considered love ta be an unreasonable emotion. One of the first things I was ever taught, and by no less a person than Lavrenty Beria himself, was that a man in love is a man totally inefficient And in your case, Alexander Petrovich, the affliction was the worst I have known.
^’
He halted, frowned into the mist "Can we have been walking in the wrong direction?
^’

Galitsin watched the wa
ter surging in front of them. 'I
do not think so, Comrade Colonel.
^’
He scratched his head 'I do not understand this at all.
^’

'Ah!' Tigran Dus said. 'Of course, it is that stream we waded across to get out
here. It must be connected with
the sea itself, and so the tide has come in here more quickly than behind us. Ye
s. The sea plays some unexpected
tricks, Alexander Petro
vich. Like a woman. I wonder how
deep that is?
^’

Galitsin stood on the edge of the
Ray Gut. The water
was green now, not brown,
and he could not see the farther
side. And as he stood there, the rising tide soaked his shoes 'It looks very deep, Comrade Colonel. Can you swim?
^’

'No. Nor do I think such
a drastic step is necessary. The
problem merely requires a logical approach.
^’
Tigran Du
s
stooped, drew a large ova
l on the sand, pointing east and
west. 'Let us suppose this is Chapman Sand, on which w
e
are standing. Over there . . .
^’
he dotted the sand north o
f
the oval, 'is Leigh, and the mainland, so this northern edg
e
is the stream in front of us
. Now, we crossed the stream and
walked south, towards the sea, which is this southern edge here. While we were doing
this, the tide managed to creep
along the northern edge, the stream. Now, it seems to m
e
that this water can only have come from the east, becaus
e
there is Southend, and t
he Thames Estuary, and the North
Sea. Am I right?
^’

'I would say so, Comrade Colonel."

'While
over here, to the west, there is Canvey Island where the tide cannot possibly have reached as yet. So w
e
will follow the edge of this stream, Alexander Petrovich, an
d
it will lead us to the island,
which is always above the high-
water mark. From the island we will be able to regain the mainland, I have no doubt. Do you agree?'

'Yes, Comrade Colonel,' Galitsin said.

They walked, their feet squelching in the sand, other sounds muted by the constant trickle of the water beside them. They no longer spoke, and they both kept looking to their left, where they had last seen the tide. Galitsin wondered if Tigran Dus was afraid. He gave no sign of any emotion other than irritation. But fear must be present now, lurking, even in so confident a man as Tigran Dus.

'What is that?' Tigran Dus asked.

Galitsin's heart bounded, a mixture of relief and disappointment. He ran towards the shadow, and found it only to be the remains of a boat, half covered with sand, littered with seaweed, rising out of the mud. 'A wreck, Comrade Colonel,' he called.

'A sad sight,' Tigran Dus remarked, and stood beside him, no longer twenty yards away. But Galitsin knew there was no need for personal involvement now. The matter was in the hands of the sea, and the sea would not let him down. 'Perhaps,' Dus suggested, 'the English are such a humourless people because they see too many sights like this. Sad. Let us hurry, Alexander Petrovich.'

Galitsin walked round the wreck, stood with his back to it, stared into the mist. 'There is water just over there, Comrade Colonel.'

Tigran Dus looked over his shoulder at the Ray Gut, a few feet behind them. 'It is too late to change our minds, Alexander Petrovich,' he said. 'We must keep on this way. And hope.'

Galitsin hurried at his heels. 'Should we not pray, Comrade Colonel?'

Tigran Dus glanced at him. 'You may do so if you wish, Alexander Petrovich. I hold no man guilty for his innermost thoughts. But the desire to pray, to an invisible, non-existent deity, is only the outcome of fear. That ninety-nine per cent of mankind is in a permanent state of fear is no excuse for them. Or for you.'

'And you are not afraid, Comrade Colonel?'

‘I
would not like to drown, Alexander Petrovich. But, then, I do not expect to drown. We have come a long way. The island must be just over there.'

'And If I to
ld you that you must drown now.’

Tigran Dus frowned. 'I do not understand you, Alexander Petrovich.'

'We have been following the stream,' Galitsin said, 'because you assumed it would eventually lead us to the island. It will not do so. It leads
us into the sandbanks between C
anvey Island and the mainland. I would say we are in the centre of those sandbanks now, and the rising tide is between us and Canvey Island, just as the stream is between us and the mainland. And as the tide is rising faster than we can walk, we cannot hope to outstrip it.'

Tigran Dus walked in silence for some minutes. 'If you know this, Alexander Petrovich,' he said at last, and half to himself, 'then you must have known all along that we were not going to reach safety, once the stream was too high to be crossed. Then you must have planned this. But you will drown yourself, Comrade Captain.'

'Yes, Comrade Colonel.'

'You are a quite remarkable fellow, Alexander Petrovich. There is much more to you than I had supposed. And I have always considered myself a judge of men. Why do you hate me so, Comrade Captain?'

'I am not sure, Comrade Colonel. At first I admired you, respected you, loved you, even, for saving my life, for being everything I felt a man should be.'

'And then?'

'And then
I came to realise that far from
being admirable, you actually personify everything that is wrong with the Soviet Union.'

'And killing me will alter the Soviet Union?'

'No, Comrade Colonel. There i
s also a personal matter, between you and me.'

'Of course. Helena.'

'So many things, Comrade Colonel. I only knew what I must do.'

Tigran Dus nodded thoughtfully, glanced to his left, where the water was now only fifteen feet away. 'And you do not think that telling me all this, at this stage, may have been a little premature? I could shoot you now.'

'I would appreciate that, Comrade Colonel. I am not so brave as you.'

'Ah! Then I shall cer
tainly not shoot you, Alexander
Petrovich. In any event, I do not agree with you. As I have told you before, you are a man of astonishing courage, especially when you are alone. Presumably you have never been quite so alone, facing death, as we are now.' He sighed, placed his hands on his hips, gazed into the water. 'It is an end I had never anticipated.' He turned. 'A man like you, Alexander Petrovich, capable of so devious and determined a plan, would be invaluable to the Fourth Bureau. Is there no way we can escape this?'

Was it possible that fear was at last beginning to break through that veneer of total certainty, total dedication? 'You could run, Comrade Colonel,' he said. 'As you say, land cannot be all that far away.'

'Then let us run, Comrade Captain.'

'I am enjoying the walk, Comrade Colonel.'

Tigran Dus gazed at him for a moment, then at the tide; the sandbank on which they walked was hardly six feet wide. Tigran Dus started to run, quickly at first, but rapidly settling into a jog-trot. Within seconds he was swallowed in the mist. Galitsin walked, even slower than before. He thought how ironical it would be if Tigran Dus, by running, did reach land. The water seeped in, so quietly, so silently, and soaked his shoes. One could not achieve orgasm with a slowly rising tide any more than with a slowly falling tide. It was a strange way to die, in the quiet and the mist, the silence and the loneliness. But it was very reminiscent of life itself, a slow but inevitable process.

The water surged around his ankles. It was very cold, and sent shivers up his spine. But the shivers had fear in them as well.

He should think about something. Something pleasant. Wendy, marching across Dar
t
moor, discussing interminable irrelevancies with Janet and Jerry and Bill. And thinking of him? He hoped so. Perhaps if he thought about her with sufficient concentration she would find herself thinking about him without intending to.

'Galitsin!'

The voice wailed through the mist. The water was to his knees.
Galitsin waded through the gentl
e waves, feeling the sand crumbling beneath his shoes. Tigran Dus was on his knees, the water lapping at his throat, gasping for breath. 'Help me, Alexander Petrovich!'

Galitsin grasped his shoulders, pulled him to his feet. 'There was no land, Comrade Commissar?'