Goodbye to an Old Friend Read online

  They hurried in and Bennovitch burst into the hall before Pavel could take off his light Russian-style summer raincoat. They both stood there, in the high-ceilinged, timbered hall, with its wide, baronial stairway lined with shields and swords of forgotten battles, just looking at each other.

  No one spoke and Adrian became aware of the slow, sticky tick of the grandfather clock near the beginning of the stairs. It sounds like an old man’s heart, he thought, weak and at any moment ready to stop bothering. He waited, expecting the noise to cease, but it went on, monotonously.

  Bennovitch moved first, very slowly, raising his arms as he walked and then Pavel started forward and they fell into each other’s embrace, the traditional Russian greeting, kissing each other repeatedly on the cheek. Still they said nothing. Adrian saw both were crying.

  Finally Pavel held the smaller man at arm’s length, studying him.

  ‘Alexandre,’ he mouthed, softly.

  ‘Viktor.’

  They hugged each other again and then Bennovitch turned, leading the other man back into the beautiful room with its view of the garden. Pavel kept his arm around Bennovitch’s shoulders protectively, and neither seemed aware that Adrian had followed them into the room.

  They went to a long couch drawn up before the open, dead fireplace, the hearth disguised by horse-chestnut branches cut from the grounds. Adrian edged into an armchair and sat, waiting.

  Pavel spoke first and when he did it was in the dull monotone of the car ride to the airfield.

  ‘He wouldn’t tell me,’ he said, searching Bennovitch’s face as if the other man would have an explanation for the diplomat’s refusal. ‘I asked him, again and again, but he wouldn’t reply.’

  Bennovitch sat motionless, his face ridged in puzzlement. This was not the man he knew, the autocratic, overbearing genius he’d left six weeks before in a massive Moscow laboratory where the technicians jumped at his very presence. This was not the Hero of the Soviet Union, the holder of more awards than any other Russian civilian, the man to whom the scientists of the world looked in awe.

  This was a rambling old man.

  Adrian thought Bennovitch looked disappointed and suddenly he recognized the parallel. He and Binns. Pavel and Bennovitch. Disappointment? Yes, certainly that, but there was more. Each – Binns in him perhaps, certainly Bennovitch in Pavel – had created an ideal, an image without any flaws.

  But now the picture was blurred.

  A man had become superman and there was no such thing. Men were just men and women were just women. He paused, thinking of Anita. Well, almost always.

  Sir Jocelyn had realized it and now he stuttered when they met. Bennovitch was baffled and now he stared in disbelief.

  Sad, decided Adrian. It was a pity people couldn’t keep the perfection they had imagined rather than having to accept reality. It was like shopping in a street market. People always expected a bargain and always got second best.

  ‘Viktor,’ tried Bennovitch. ‘What is it?’

  Pavel looked at his assistant.

  ‘He wouldn’t tell me,’ he repeated, stupidly.

  Adrian had wanted to remain outside their thoughts, hoping they wouldn’t even notice his presence. But now he realized that unless he prompted the conversation the two men would spend their meeting in near-silence.

  ‘Alexandre,’ he said, quietly, introducing himself almost. ‘Viktor met an official from your embassy last night.’

  The uncertainty lifted from Bennovitch’s face and he turned to the other Russian.

  ‘You shouldn’t have done it, Viktor. You should have kept away.’

  Pavel looked at him, the deadness slipping away from his face.

  ‘But Valentina. What about Valentina? And the children.’

  Bennovitch nibbled at his fingers. ‘Do you think I haven’t considered that?’ he said.

  Adrian relaxed, realizing the dam in the conversation had been breached.

  ‘When I left, it didn’t matter, because you were there and they wouldn’t consider any move. But now …’

  Bennovitch stumbled to a halt, unable to express himself.

  ‘They’ll face trial,’ said Pavel, positively. ‘They’ll torture me, by proxy.’

  ‘And me.’

  For a moment, there was silence. Then Bennovitch said, ‘My poor sister.’

  ‘My poor wife.’

  ‘Then why?’

  The question burst from Bennovitch, suddenly freed from the hero worship and the restrictions under which he had worked for fifteen years. There was no anger from Pavel at the abrupt demand from his assistant.

  ‘I was wrong,’ he admitted. ‘Oh, I was so wrong.’ He stopped, gazing at the floor, embarrassed almost to meet the look of the other man.

  ‘I was worried about the experiments, about the Mars probe and the space platform. It was getting more and more restrictive. I was thinking of defecting months ago …’

  He paused, smiling for the first time.

  ‘Funny,’ he said, ‘I told myself that if I went, then your position would protect Valentina and the children until I could get them out. But you went first from the Helsinki conference …’

  Now it was the turn of Bennovitch to appear embarrassed, as if he owed an explanation.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘I never knew,’ said Pavel, in another aside, ‘I never guessed you were thinking of going over.’

  Bennovitch grinned at him, glad they shared a secret. ‘Neither did I of you. And I thought I knew you so well.’

  Pavel shrugged. ‘Anyway, once you’d gone, there was tremendous pressure. The whole department came under the most fantastic investigation I’ve ever known. It was far worse than anything that happened under Stalin. Everyone was checked and then checked again …’

  He hesitated again. ‘God knows what it will be like now,’ he said.

  He went on. ‘I was hauled before the inner committee …’

  ‘Kaganov?’ interrupted Bennovitch. There was fear etched into the question.

  Pavel nodded. ‘I got the whole lecture. The demands for dossier files on all my staff, everything like that. I had to agree to the employment of two political commissars, actually in the laboratory. And then they told me that the budget would be cut back. I had proved politically unreliable and therefore the work had to come to a standstill until the department had cleared itself of any involvement.’

  ‘You?’ Bennovitch seemed incredulous. ‘They imposed restrictions on you?’

  Pavel nodded. ‘Kaganov seemed to enjoy it. He even quoted a Western axiom to me. “No one is indispensable,” he told me. “Not even you.” ’

  Bennovitch shook his head in disbelief and Pavel smiled at him.

  ‘You’ve no idea of the problems you caused. I was in complete turmoil. You, someone I loved like a brother, had defected. The work in the department was blocked for six months, maybe longer. I wasn’t thinking straight, I thought I was important, more important than I was. I convinced myself that once out, I could get the family out as well. Now I realize that isn’t possible.’

  ‘What did he say last night?’

  Pavel didn’t reply immediately. He sat, recalling the conversation with the diplomat.

  ‘Just that I should come back. That I had disgraced the Soviet Union, but that they were prepared to forgive me and let me go back.’

  ‘Do you believe them?’

  Pavel considered the question, then grimaced, without replying.

  ‘I wouldn’t see them,’ announced Bennovitch, as if the refusal indicated bravery. ‘The English were very fair, they said it was entirely my choice and I decided there was no point.’

  Both men, who were speaking in Russian, appeared to have forgotten Adrian was in the room.

  ‘But I had to know,’ protested Pavel, picking up the familiar theme. ‘I had to try and find out what had happened to them.’

  Silence settled again and Adrian was afraid they had reached another barrier. He sat, re
luctant to intrude.

  Then Bennovitch asked, suddenly, ‘How has the work gone?’

  ‘Well,’ said Pavel. ‘Most of it stopped immediately you left, of course. We began working on the calculations you’d made about flight adjustments after launch. Remember, we didn’t spend much time on them. But the unmanned Mars probe was sending back interesting data. Do you know it recorded solar wind speeds of 350 miles a second?’

  ‘That fast! But that will create just the adjustment difficulties I foresaw.’

  ‘I know. Do you realize how much more important that made your defection? Let me tell you what I considered.’

  Pavel took paper from his pocket and began writing formulae and suddenly the age and indecision and self-pity lifted from him. A change came over Bennovitch, too. The nervousness ceased as he immersed himself in what Pavel was saying, occasionally querying a fact or a calculation. Adrian looked on fascinated as the two men worked, appreciating for the first time how necessary one was to the other. Apart, they were two brilliant scientists, their space knowledge and ideas far beyond those of any Western counterpart. Together they were spectacular, each grasping the idea of the other before the sentence was completely uttered, two men wholly in tune with each other. Like twins, thought Adrian, twins sharing between them an incomparable brain.

  Suddenly he saw their incredible importance. And realized too, how far ahead Ebbetts was planning to use that importance. Adrian felt admiration for the Prime Minister and then immediately begrudged the feeling. Always right. The politicians were always right and by the time the memoirs were written, the excuses had been established.

  The door opened at the far end of the long room and one of the security officers entered.

  The two Russians stared at him and momentarily Pavel’s face clouded, as if he had forgotten where he was and was about to rebuke a worker for intruding into a laboratory where a vital conference was being held.

  Then Adrian said, ‘Thank you,’ and they were both reminded of him and the mood was broken.

  ‘I’m being taken away?’

  There was surprise in Pavel’s question.

  ‘For a while …’ began Adrian, but then Bennovitch cut in. ‘But this is ridiculous. Madness. Why should we be parted?’

  ‘Because we have decided it should be so,’ replied Adrian, abruptly. The authority had to be maintained.

  ‘Oh,’ said Bennovitch, punctured.

  ‘From one master to another,’ said Pavel and there was a hint of the mockery of their first meetings.

  ‘Come now, Viktor,’ replied Adrian, mocking too, ‘That’s not so and you know it.’

  Pavel smiled and said, ‘Yes. Yes I know it,’ and the remark registered. It was the first time Pavel had conceded that what he had found might be better than what he had left behind. An improvement, judged Adrian. Very slight, but an improvement.

  ‘We’ve got to go to the other house,’ he said, an unnecessary explanation. ‘We will probably decide to put you together by the end of the week.’

  Pavel and Bennovitch looked at each other and then back at Adrian, resigned.

  ‘We’ll meet tomorrow?’ Bennovitch asked Adrian. The Englishman nodded.

  ‘Good,’ said the tiny Russian.

  The windows of the car in which they returned to Pulborough were completely blackened and then curtained. Pavel smiled at the protection.

  ‘You make me think I’m valuable.’

  ‘I don’t have to tell you that. You know your value,’ replied Adrian. He was happy that the Russian thought the protection was for his benefit.

  ‘How was it, meeting Alexandre again?’ asked Adrian.

  The Russian thought about the question.

  ‘Good,’ he said, inadequately. ‘It was good to see him.’

  ‘The work won’t be interrupted,’ offered Adrian, hopefully, trying to reinforce the other man’s decision to defect. ‘In two months, maybe less, you could be in your own laboratory again, working at just the same degree of experimentation as you were before.’

  Pavel ignored the encouragement. He closed his eyes against the pale interior light of the car and was silent for a long time.

  Then he said, ‘Valentina, oh God, Valentina,’ and Adrian realized that the whole day had been wasted.

  ‘It took place,’ reported Kaganov.

  ‘What happened?’ Minevsky managed the question just ahead of Heirar.

  ‘Just what we expected,’ continued the chairman. ‘He could talk of nothing except his wife and family. London say he asked at least ten times.’

  ‘They didn’t answer, of course,’ anticipated Heirar, safely.

  ‘Of course not,’ agreed Kaganov.

  ‘What about the boy?’ asked Minevsky, suddenly reminded. ‘Are we still keeping him down on the border?’

  ‘No,’ dismissed Kaganov. ‘That brat is important. He’s being moved tomorrow. We’ve got to show we’re serious.’

  ‘ “Men of our word”, as the British might say,’ quoted Heirar, amused at his own joke.

  ‘Always that,’ laughed Kaganov. ‘Always men of our word.’

  Chapter Ten

  Adrian had been in the office for forty-five minutes before Miss Aimes arrived. Momentarily, she seemed startled to find him there, her hand darting up to her head, as if the coiffure might have slipped.

  ‘I didn’t think you were coming in today,’ she said and then stopped, aware she was revealing a weakness.

  ‘There were things to do,’ said Adrian. He stopped, uncertain. Then he added, ‘Things I haven’t been able to do because you weren’t here.’

  They stared at each other in complete silence. It felt good, very good. Adrian sat at his desk, on his trouserprotecting pad with his pen-and-pencil tray like a demarcation line between them, warmed by the feeling. He should have done it ages ago, prevented her attitude getting as bad as it had, but now he’d stopped it. Now he was imposing his authority and he enjoyed the experience. Yes, it was very good.

  ‘I came back last night,’ he pressed on. ‘But the office was empty, thirty minutes before it should have been, otherwise I could have warned you I wanted to make a prompt start. I had …’

  He stopped, enjoying his suddenly discovered hardness. Did Ebbetts feel like this that day in the small office off the Cabinet Room when he had imposed his will? Is this how powerful men felt, subjugating the weak?

  ‘I had,’ he picked up again, emphasizing the irony, ‘hoped we could have done everything in this first hour.’

  He halted again, taken by a sudden thought. He’d ask her … no, not ask, he’d tell her she had to work late. He’d demand that she stay until he returned from the second day’s meeting between Pavel and Bennovitch and clear the backlog that had accumulated. There was a lot to be done, several days’ work in fact, but it didn’t matter. After all, he had nowhere to go, that evening or any other.

  Today Jessica Emily Aimes, spinster, fifty-three, of Ash Drive, Bromley, Kent, was going to be put in her place. He’d crush her truculence and her bossy attitude and for his few remaining days in the department enjoy a proper relationship with the woman.

  Christ, how she’d hate working late.

  ‘So …’ he began, enjoying the build-up, ‘I’d like you to …’

  ‘Your wife rang.’

  She cut him off decisively, a person who had waited for her moment of interruption to achieve the maximum impact.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your wife rang.’ She allowed a momentary pause, while her eyes swept the unpressed suit and grubby shoes. ‘I asked her how her mother was, you having told me how unwell the poor lady was and how your wife had to go to the country to care for her …’

  Another pause, for a staged smile of uncertainty.

  ‘She didn’t seem to know what I was talking about,’ she completed.

  Adrian hunched behind the pen-and-pencil set, head turned towards the empty window, to avoid her direct stare. Despite their complaints, the maintenance people h
adn’t cleaned the window-sill and the chocolate was parched, like a dried-up riverbed. It wouldn’t be today, not now. Today she’d won. Again. Perhaps tomorrow.

  ‘What did she want?’

  ‘She asked me to give you the address of a solicitor,’ said Miss Aimes and again there was that smirk. She handed him a piece of paper. Runthorpe, Golding and Chapel, Pauls Mews, London EG2. Very respectable-sounding, he thought. I wonder how many lesbians Mr Runthorpe had acted for in the past? Still, who said it was a man? Perhaps it was a Miss Runthorpe, all part of Anita’s new set of friends.

  ‘You wanted to ask me something?’

  Adrian looked at her, puzzled. ‘What?’

  ‘You were complaining of my being late and going to ask me something,’ reminded Miss Aimes, confidently.

  ‘Oh, it was nothing,’ said Adrian. ‘Nothing at all. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.’

  Miss Aimes wouldn’t let go.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Adrian, ‘quite sure.’

  They reversed the routine the second day, bringing Bennovitch across country to Pulborough. Pavel had seemed surprised, at first, as if expecting to go to the other man, but then he accepted the change without comment. The scientist was withdrawn, grunting reactions to Adrian’s attempts at conversation while they awaited the other Russian.

  Bennovitch waddled in, like a newborn bear on show at a zoo for the first time. Adrian noticed that the nervousness was subdued, the hands not automatically in his mouth now.

  As before, the two men embraced and immediately began talking.

  ‘I’ve worked on the solar wind speeds, during the night. Look.’

  Bennovitch produced his calculations proudly, anticipating praise. Adrian remembered the jottings of the previous day. What had happened to them? A mistake he realized. He’d have to collect them. Had Pavel taken them? He couldn’t remember.

  The two men launched into a technical discussion of calculations. And in Russian, mused Adrian. That would take some translation and analysis. But that didn’t matter. Ebbetts was getting what he wanted, the information that the two men possessed, and in two weeks’ time he’d initiate his diplomacy and get something from every side.