The Judas Boy Page 8

  'It would have been indisputably clear,' said Percival, 'for the most cogent of all possible reasons, that you were quite unable to help us.'

  'You bastard,' said Fielding.

  He reached down, whipped Percival's spectacles from his face, and drew his fist back to strike. Percival blinked up at him.

  'Please return my glasses,' he said: 'I can't see anything without them.'

  The blinking, defenceless eyes were too much for Fielding.

  'Here,' he said, and handed the spectacles tenderly back. 'You should understand,' said Percival equably, 'that we are a perfectly respectable organisation, British and proud of it, with high-level sanctions for all we do. In assisting us you will have nothing to be ashamed of.'

  'What makes you think I'm going to assist you?'

  'You already are. Because in any case at all your mission and your enquiry are exactly what we would wish them to be. Our only suggestion is, now that you've established your qualification in this line, that we should give you the benefit of our own expertise ... in return, of course, for regular reports on your progress.'

  'And if I refuse?'

  'Why should you? You'll be going ahead anyway, so why refuse the valuable support ... the valuable clues ... which we can offer. You see how highly we think of you.'

  Fielding looked south over the harbour. The steamer had disappeared, had probably rounded the cape into the Gulf of Nauplion, from which, he now noticed, the clouds were rising much higher and darker than before.

  'Dirty weather on the way,' said Percival, following his gaze. 'Look, old man. We know, in outline, all there is to know about the Cyprus affair from way back. What we want is for someone to follow it all up and then construct a detailed and water-tight account. That someone is you. We can set you up with all the main headings, so to speak, and tell you exactly where to go to check everything up and fill in the gaps. We'll give you the whole thing on a plate.'

  'Then why not do it yourselves?'

  'Because we, for obvious reasons, can't have anything to do with television. Not directly, at any rate. That's where you come in. Having got up your case, all the quicker and the surer for our discreet and unacknowledged assistance, you then present the incontrovertible facts to a shocked world. Believe me, you'll make quite a sensation.'

  'Which for some obscene reason will also suit you?'

  'Yes, but why should you worry? You may even be glad when you know more about it.'

  Angela came round with more drinks.

  'Lunch in five minutes,' she said. And then, looking away to the south, 'There's going to be a storm.' She shivered slightly, pursed her lips at Fielding, and went over to Detterling and de Freville. Everyone had been very careful, Fielding now thought, to leave Percival and himself undisturbed.

  'You do realise,' he said, 'that even if I agree to do what you want, my employers in the BBC are having second thoughts?'

  'Yes,' said Percival. There are those in high places who want to let sleeping dogs lie.'

  'Why don't you then? You claim to be an official organisation ... British and proud of it'

  'Official interests can differ.'

  'Evidently. So what happens if those in high places prevail with the BBC and the whole thing's called off?'

  'If you tell your friend Tom Llewyllyn what Max and I are going to tell you,' said Percival, 'nothing—but nothing —will make him agree to let it be called off.'

  At lunch it was agreed that in view of the nasty weather which was blowing up Fielding and Detterling would do better to delay their return to Athens until the following day.

  'If it's rough,' Max said, 'the boat can't come into the harbour because of the narrow entrance. It anchors outside the bar and they row you out to it.'

  'Rather alarming? In a rough sea.'

  'They're very clever at it. But if it's really rough,' said Angela, 'the steamer doesn't stop at all'

  Even as she was speaking a grey cloud moved over the face of the sky and the wind gathered strength through the alleyways.

  'Goody.' Angela shivered.

  'That settles it,' said Max. 'I can lend you both pyjamas.'

  'And we shall have more leisure,' said Percival, 'to advise our friend Major Gray.'

  'Advise him about what?' Angela asked.

  Angela did not take much interest in Max's intrigues, but she was rather interested, now that he had risen out of her past, in Fielding Gray. She had her own plans for his entertainment and was therefore anxious to know about other people's in order to avoid unnecessary conflict.

  'A little piece of journalism he's undertaken,' said Percival. 'Max and I may be able to help. This afternoon?' he suggested.

  Angela glanced quickly at Max, signalling, as clearly as though she had spelt it out, what she had in mind. Max took the point and shrugged good-humouredly.

  'Not this afternoon,' he said to Percival, 'tonight. As you say, we've plenty of time. After lunch, I for one am going to have a siesta.'

  Angela smiled at him gratefully.

  'Snug,' she said. 'Nothing snugger than listening to the storm outside and having a siesta.'

  'Max mind?' said Angela. 'Of course not.'

  She passed a hand along Fielding's flank and up towards his chest, keeping the palm flat as it passed over his hips and his belly.

  'Max knows what I'm like,' she explained, 'and he'd much sooner it was you than one of the local fishermen. Although he's a very civilised man. he's also rather a snob.'

  After lunch Max had disappeared. Angela had firmly offered Detterling and Percival a choice between backgammon and siesta, of which they had elected the former. She had then led Fielding off, allegedly to show him the room which he would share for the night with Detterling, and taken him, instead, to her own.

  'Max generally sleeps here at night,' she said, 'but he uses his own room in the afternoon.'

  After which, she had removed her skirt without ceremony and lain down on the bed in her stockings.

  'Come on,' she said: 'show a bit of courtesy to your hostess.'

  So now Fielding was showing her all the courtesy he could muster, though not without misgiving. Every now and again he would think of his host and his social skill would flag. Then Angela would reassure him and set him going again.

  'Turn over,' she said.

  As the rain rattled against the windows and Angela's fingers ran up and down his spine, Fielding thought of that far off summer during which Angela and her husband (now dead, it seemed) had occupied a house near his parents' on the coast at Broughton Staithe. He had desired her then, and she had first teased and later rejected him, and finally she had betrayed him. She had learnt his secrets and deliberately passed them to his enemies. So that now, now that it was himself, apparently, who was desired; he had the chance of revenge. The chance, he thought, but not the inclination; he was quite happy to lie there while this knowledgeable and still rather attractive woman kneaded his buttocks and his back. Yet why, he asked himself, was he desired? True, Angela could no longer afford to be so choosy as she had been at Broughton, but she could at least have found somebody whose face was still intact.

  'Why now?' he muttered along the pillow. 'Why not then, when I was young ... unspoilt?'

  Angela, who was crouching over him with her stockinged knees on either side of his own, lent forward to talk into his ear.

  'You're still young,' she said, 'and I like you spoilt. Then you were perfect, I admit. But I could never fancy perfection. I've always preferred something that was slightly odd ... even unwholesome.'

  She eased her thumbs up the insides of his shoulder blades.

  'That's why I seduced your friend Lloyd-James. Remember?'

  Fielding remembered very clearly. Somerset Lloyd-James, his school friend and contemporary, had come to stay at Broughton that summer, and Angela had invited them both to her house while her husband was away in London. There and then, she had as good as undressed Somerset under Fielding's eyes and had only paused to order Fieldi
ng out of the house before making Somerset free of her. To this hour Fielding could still see them as they had been when he left the house, Angela's great honey thighs and Somerset's scraggy white ones.

  'But of course,' Angela was saying now, 'if I'd known that evening all that I found out later, it's you I'd have gone for because it was really you that was unwholesome. Somerset was just rather misshapen physically. But you — she ran both thumbs down to the top of the cleft between his buttocks—'you were tainted all the way through. What about that wretched boy at your school who killed himself—what was he called?—'

  '—Christopher,' said Fielding, shivering with his distress at the memory and with the pleasure that came from her busy thumbs, 'Christopher Roland.'

  'Christopher Roland ... What about him?' she said.

  'I loved him, that was all.'

  'You loved him and he killed himself. What did you do to him, Fielding?'

  'Must we talk about him?'

  Somerset Lloyd-James had found out about Christopher and told Angela. Angela had betrayed Fielding to his mother. His mother—

  '—Must we talk about Christopher?' he said. ‘It caused enough unhappiness at the time.’

  'Yes, we must,' she said. 'It excites me to talk about him.'

  'Turn over, Fielding ... It excites you too, doesn't it?'

  As indeed it did. For all the misery, the guilt, the despair which Fielding had once felt about the boy, for all the sadness which he still felt and the almost unbearable recollections of his mother's part in the affair, talking about Christopher had excited him beyond anything which Angela's ministrations could have achieved, skilful as they were.

  ‘Show me, Fielding. Show me what you did with Christopher.’

  'I ... Nothing. I wanted to be very gentle. So I put my arms round him, and I kissed him, and then he ... trembled ... and it was all over.’

  Angela chuckled and ran her finger-nails along his arm.

  'Poor little Christopher. And the next time?'

  'There wasn't a next time. Christopher wanted there to be, but at first I didn't, because he was ... changed somehow, and anyway I was afraid we might be found out. There'd been talk already ... Go on, Angela, don't stop.'

  'All right, if you go on about Christopher.'

  'Well ... later on, when I thought it was safe ... I wanted to do it again. But it was too late, because Christopher ... because ...'

  'Because Christopher was dead.'

  'Don't stop.'

  'Fielding. Show me what you would have done. What you would have done to Christopher if be hadn't been dead.'

  Later on, Angela said:

  'What did he look like, the boy you wanted to do that to?'

  'I don't really know how to put it. He was ... so finely made, so strong ... and yet so soft I can't think of anyone like him. But yes,' said Fielding, 'yes, I can. Yesterday in Athens I saw a statue ... in that portico the Americans have built ... a statue of a boy playing the flute. The same legs, firm yet tender. The same lips, the same chin, the same face.'

  'Now,' said Angela, 'I'm going to be Christopher. I'm going to imagine what he'd have done to you ...'

  At dinner they all reassembled, some having had a more interesting afternoon than others. Although the wind was still screaming down the alleyways, the rain had stopped, and Max proposed that Fielding should accompany Percival and himself to the tavern down by the harbour.

  'Angie would only be bored by the discussion.' Max said, 'and you can tell Detterling about it later if you want to. He can stay here and keep Angie happy.'

  'Backgammon?' said Detterling to Angela.

  'We'll see when they've gone,' she said.

  For the second time that day she looked gratefully at Max.

  Max, Percival and Fielding sat at a table by the window of the Taverna Poseidon. Pressure lamps hissed and a group of sailors, in a far corner, muttered about the price of fish. Outside, the wind swept the empty quay under the dim electric light, while the waters of the harbour slapped heavily at the rows of moored caiques.

  'If it's only half as strong as this tomorrow,' Max said, 'they'll never get the steamer inside the bar of the harbour.'

  Spiros, the tavern-keeper, brought them a large can of wine, three tumblers and a plate of wizened apples.

  'What do you say, Spiros? Will the wind keep up?'

  Spiros turned down the corners of his mouth and moved away. The sailors, observing this, nodded to each other in approval: one did not give valuable information to stratagers just for the asking.

  'Disagreeable fellow, that,' said Max: 'they all are here. They don't mind tourists in the summer, if only because they can cheat 'em rotten, but they hate it if you stay for any length of time. They think you're prying into their secrets.'

  'Have they got any?'

  'None. But their ancestors were pirates and they've inherited the pirate mentality. They regard this island as their lair and they don't care for people hanging about on it.'

  'Least of all rival pirates,' said Percival; 'one does see their point. But they ought to be grateful to you. If you start up a casino here, it'll bring 'em more tourists to cheat rotten.'

  'I've as good as decided against the place and they know it. I'll be moving on very soon.'

  'Where next?'

  'It occurred to me that the Cypriots might be interested.

  'I'm told they want to build up their tourist trade.'

  'What a lot of time we all spend.' said Percival, 'thinking about that wretched little island.'

  'Mind you,' said Max. 'I'd still need a Greek to front for me. I wouldn't trust the Cypriot Government to deal square with an Englishman. Not yet. Perhaps never ... after what's happened. Which brings us.' he said to Fielding, 'to the information which Leonard here says you're after. Shall I tell you why I don't trust the new Government in Cyprus?'

  'Because the Cypriots dislike us.' Fielding said.

  'But that's just the point. They don't dislike us. They never have. Which makes it all so much more sinister. If they'd just hated us, anyone could have understood their behaviour. But since, on the contrary, a lot of them even loved us, you'll agree that something very peculiar must have happened to set 'em off.'

  'Enosis,' said Fielding; 'all that hysteria about self-determination. Surely you don't need to look any further.'

  'You're taking the superficial view,' Max said. 'Of course they were ready to do a bit of shouting about Enosis and the rest of it, but they certainly didn't intend to have any real unpleasantness, any more than they did in the thirties. They just wanted a little excitement to liven up public holidays.'

  'At first, possibly. But once they knew they had official support in Athens—which they hadn't had in the thirties— they began to take it seriously.'

  'Superficial again,' said Max. 'British rule had its faults, but at least it was solvent and it was secure. It meant honest government, however short-sighted. Why reject this in favour of absorption by a corrupt and semi-bankrupt Balkan state, which would have taxed Cyprus into the sea and taken half its young men as conscripts?'

  The ethnic tie,' said Fielding. 'Besides, the Cypriots wanted to think they were choosing for themselves. They may have liked us but they hadn't chosen us. Here was their chance to assert themselves—with full encouragement in Athens from their own kith and kin.'

  'There was encouragement all right.' said Max; 'but the most important part of it did not come from their Athenian kith and kin.'

  'Oh come, come, come. I know the mainland Greeks don't care for their Cypriot cousins as much as they sometimes pretend to, but they were quite happy to lend a helping hand. If only to annoy the Turks.'

  'Happy to break a few windows and shout a few slogans, yes. Not to spend good money.'

  'Then where did the money come from?'

  'Where does money always come from these days?' Leonard Percival said.

  There was a long silence. Spiros came to their table, took away their wine-can although it was by no me
ans empty, and returned with a full one. The sailors grinned at one another. Spiros had cheated the strangers of a good six drachmae.

  'You're not going to tell me,' said Fielding at last, 'that the Americans—'

  '—Look,' said Max. 'In the old days, as Detterling has told you, I used to spend the greater part of my money keeping myself informed. It started as a small service to check up on the people who came to my chemmy game— whether their credit was good; but one thing led to another and in the end I had correspondents all over Europe. Good ones too. Leonard here, for example, was one of them for years ... supplementing his meagre official income.

  'Now, although I had to give up this amusing hobby some time ago, in the middle fifties my network was at its best, and one of the things I found out was this. The Americans, though they find us useful and don't really resent the little influence we still exercise, cannot and will not tolerate any survival of the imperial image. They cannot and will not suffer our retention of foreign possessions. This is not so much a matter of policy on their part as of sentiment: as long as any British colonies exist, they cannot forget that America was once a colony itself. Only by wiping out our entire colonial empire can they wipe out the indignity of their own colonial past. There are other consideration—it is much easier, for instance, to get American goods and industries into a place once you've got the British administration out of it—but paramount is the determination, as you might say, to trample on the redcoats.'

  'Neurotic envy,' Fielding said.

  'Very probably. What made them so furious about Suez, for example, was not what we were doing but the fact that we were the people doing it, in our old territories and in the good old way. With kettle drums and drawn sabres, which by this time, on the American reckoning, should have been safely rusting in museums. Anyway,' Max continued, 'the anti-colonial sentiment, whatever its psychological origin, is so strong that the United States, from time to time, have gone as far as actually to encourage and finance the subversion of our colonies. Secretly, of course, so secretly that on an official level no one even has to dream about it. But none the less Uncle Sam's helping hand has often been decisive ... in Kenya for one place ... and in Cyprus for one more.'