London Match. Len Deighton

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СКАЧАТЬ the afternoon light was fading and the room was dark. There was just a rim of daylight on her straw-coloured hair and the red glow of the fire’s light on her hands and face.

      Nanny came in and exchanged amiably noisy greetings with Gloria. They had spoken on the phone several times and the similarity in their ages gave them enough in common to allay my fears about Nanny’s reaction to the news that I had a ‘girlfriend’.

      To me Nanny said, ‘The children want to make toast by the fire in here, but I can easily do it in the toaster.’

      ‘Let’s all sit by the fire and have tea,’ I said.

      Nanny looked at me and said nothing.

      ‘What’s wrong, Nanny?’

      ‘It would be better if we eat in the kitchen. The children will make a lot of crumbs and mess on the carpets and Mrs Dias won’t come in again to clean until Tuesday.’

      ‘You’re a fusspot, Nanny,’ I said.

      ‘I’ll tidy up, Doris,’ Gloria told Nanny. Doris! Good grief, those two were getting along too nicely!

      ‘And Mr Samson,’ said Nanny tentatively. ‘The children were invited to spend the evening with one of Billy’s school friends. The Dubois family. They live near Swiss Cottage. I promised to phone them before five.’

      ‘Sure, that’s okay. If the children want to go. Are you going too?’

      ‘Yes, I’d like to. They have Singin’ in the Rain on video, and they’ll serve soup and a snack meal afterwards. Other children will be there. We’d be back rather late, but the children could sleep late tomorrow.’

      ‘Well, drive carefully, Nanny. The town’s full of drunk drivers on a Saturday night.’

      I heard cheers from the kitchen when Nanny went back and announced my decision. And tea was a delight. The children recited ‘If’ for Gloria, and Billy did three new magic tricks he’d been practising for the school Christmas concert.

      ‘As I remember it,’ I said, ‘I’d promised to take you to the Greek restaurant for dinner, have a drink or two at Les Ambassadeurs, and then drive you home to your parents.’

      ‘This is better,’ she said. We were in bed. I said nothing. ‘It is better, isn’t it?’ she asked anxiously.

      I kissed her. ‘It’s madness and you know it.’

      ‘Nanny and the children won’t be back for hours.’

      ‘I mean you and me. When will you realize that I’m twenty years older than you are?’

      ‘I love you and you love me.’

      ‘I didn’t say I loved you,’ I said.

      She pulled a face. She resented the fact that I wouldn’t say I loved her, but I was adamant; she was so young that I felt I was taking advantage of her. It was absurd, but refusing to tell her that I loved her enabled me to hang onto a last shred of self-respect.

      ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. She pulled the bedclothes over our heads to make a tent. ‘I know you love me, but you don’t want to admit it.’

      ‘Do your parents suspect that we’re having an affair?’

      ‘Are you still frightened that my father will come after you?’

      ‘You’re damned right I am.’

      ‘I’m a grown woman,’ she said. The more I tried to explain my feelings to her, the more amused she always got. She laughed and snuggled down in the bed, pressing against me.

      ‘You’re only ten years older than little Sally.’

      She grew tired of the tent game and threw the bedclothes back. ‘Your daughter is eight. Apart from the inaccurate mathematics of that allegation, you’ll have to come to terms with the fact that when your lovely daughter is ten years older she will be a grown woman too. Much sooner than that, in fact. You’re an old fogy, Bernard.’

      ‘I have Dicky telling me that I’m fat and flabby and you telling me that I’m an old fogy. It’s enough to crush a man’s ego.’

      ‘Not an ego like yours, darling.’

      ‘Come here,’ I said. I hugged her tight and kissed her.

      The truth was that I was falling in love with her. I thought of her too much; soon everyone at the office would guess what was between us. Worse, I was becoming frightened at the prospect of this impossible affair coming to an end. And that, I suppose, is love.

      ‘I’ve been filing for Dicky all week.’

      ‘I know, and I’m jealous.’

      ‘Dicky is such an idiot,’ she said for no apparent reason. ‘I used to think he was so clever, but he’s such a fool.’ She was amused and scornful, but I didn’t miss the element of affection in her voice. Dicky seemed to bring out the maternal instinct in all women, even in his wife.

      ‘You’re telling me. I work for him.’

      ‘Did you ever think of getting out of the Department, Bernard?’

      ‘Over and over again. But what would I do?’

      ‘You could do almost anything,’ she said with the adoring intensity and the sincere belief that are the marks of those who are very young.

      ‘I’m forty,’ I said. ‘Companies don’t want promising “young” men of forty. They don’t fit into the pension scheme and they’re too old to be infant prodigies.’

      ‘I shall get out soon,’ she said. ‘Those bastards will never give me paid leave to go to Cambridge, and if I don’t go up next year I’m not sure when I’ll get another place.’

      ‘Have they told you they won’t give you paid leave?’

      ‘They asked me if unpaid leave would suit me just as well. Morgan, actually; that little Welsh shit who does all the dirty work for the D-G’s office.’

      ‘What did you say?’

      ‘I told him to get stuffed.’

      ‘In those very words?’

      ‘No point in beating about the bush, is there?’

      ‘None at all, darling,’ I said.

      ‘I can’t stand Morgan,’ she said. ‘And he’s no friend of yours either.’

      ‘Why do you say that?’

      ‘I heard him talking to Bret Rensselaer last week. They were talking about you. I heard Morgan say he felt sorry for you really because there was no real future for you in the Department now that your wife’s gone over to the Russians.’

      ‘What did Bret say?’

      ‘He’s СКАЧАТЬ