‘She noticed the floor,’ Boris shouted. ‘You know how it is with Nina. Petrov didn’t want to tell her but she was stubborn. She thrives on such things. Later, she felt sick.’
‘What am I to make of that?’ asked Ashburner irritably. He fumbled in his pocket for Nina’s note. ‘Read that,’ he said, pushing the scrap of paper into Tatiana’s hand. ‘I think you’ll find it pretty straightforward.’
Tatiana looked at him curiously. ‘Don’t you get it?’ demanded Ashburner. ‘The last line should read, “See you when
I
get back.” After all, she’s the one that keeps disappearing, not me.’
‘Calm yourself,’ murmured Tatiana. ‘You will feel better after a nice hot bath.’ Uttering sugary little cries of reassurance she levered him up off the sofa and took him into the bathroom. She turned on the taps and fetched him a clean shirt belonging to her husband. She begged him not to close the door. ‘There is something wrong with the catch,’ she explained. ‘No one will play the voyeur.’
Removing his clothes, Ashburner thrust the door shut and climbing into the bath fell blissfully asleep. He had a frightening dream in which he was Noah trying to shepherd the animals into the Ark. He had to wrestle with a kangaroo who was trying to stamp a goose to death. In the distance he could see Nina in a rowing boat and he knew she was trying to reach him, but the gap between Ark and boat was widening, not diminishing. He woke, shivering in cool water. Towelling himself dry, he put on the borrowed shirt and, fully dressed, attempted to leave the bathroom. The door wouldn’t budge. He hammered on it for several minutes, but nobody came. Recollecting that he was on the ground floor he opened the window and clambered on to the sill; barking hideously, the wolf dog hurtled from the shadows of the veranda.
12
The next morning, the instant he woke, Ashburner recalled in detail the events of the night. Far from inhibiting him, the remembrance of such ludicrous events afforded him a sense of release. It was as though previously he had been trapped within a monstrous butterfly net; in some miraculous fashion he now regained his freedom. He leapt from his bed without the trace of a headache. Filled with resolve, he sought out Bernard in the breakfast bar on the third floor of the hotel, and pausing only to order a bowl of yoghourt and a pannikin of fried eggs outlined what had to be done.
‘That Fedora girl,’ he said, ‘will have to get hold of another key and gain an entrance. We’ve been far too remiss as it is.’
Bernard found it difficult not to stare at his companion. The plaster on Ashburner’s nose had turned black at the edges, and there was a large rent in the sleeve of his jacket. ‘You’re quite sure,’ he asked, ‘that there’s no reply from her room?’
‘I didn’t say that,’ reprimanded Ashburner. ‘A man answered. Naturally I didn’t understand what he said, but he was obviously annoyed. The whole thing is peculiar. That Boris chap for instance, a perfect stranger, ordering us to go to an exhibition and then taking us out for supper.’
‘People are always taking me out for supper,’ Bernard said. ‘Most of them are strange.’
‘We never even got a peep at the drawings,’ countered Ashburner, whose own social engagements were usually strictly supervised by his wife. ‘And anyway, nobody’s yet explained who he is. And what about Nina being sick on the studio floor? I don’t like the sound of it.’
Bernard thought Ashburner had led a sheltered life, or else he had more imagination than would be expected. ‘You’re making too much of it,’ he said, and waited until Ashburner had eaten his eggs. ‘Look, mate,’ he began. ‘I shouldn’t worry about Nina being off-colour. She’s not actually ill, you know. There’s an explanation.’
Ashburner felt as though he had been punched in the stomach. ‘Do you mean it’s her time of the month?’ he asked. It was terrible to think that Bernard knew her so intimately.
‘How the hell should I know,’ said Bernard. ‘I just meant that she’s not really ill.’
They discussed the situation with Enid while they waited in the lobby for Olga Fiodorovna. Enid yawned repeatedly and sagged against a pillar. She couldn’t be absolutely sure that Ashburner wasn’t making a mountain out of a mole-hill.
‘You seem to forget,’ he protested, ‘that we haven’t set eyes on her for thirty-six hours.’
‘Some of those were in the night,’ she argued. ‘Besides, Bernard saw her yesterday afternoon.’
Bernard admitted that this was inaccurate. A car had driven away as he had arrived at the illustrator’s studio and someone had waved at him. He had assumed it was Nina. ‘At least,’ he said, ‘Karlovitch told me that she had just left in a car.’
‘There you are,’ cried Ashburner triumphantly, and he paced conspicuously about the lobby in his torn jacket.
When Olga Fiodorovna came, she took the wind out of his sails. Before he could utter a word she announced that Mrs St Clair had been taken ill in the night and had been removed to a sanatorium.
‘A sanatorium?’ he cried. ‘Was that necessary?’ He could only think of tuberculosis. Even Bernard looked shaken.
‘Do you think we have kidnapped your friend?’ Olga Fiodorovna asked crossly. ‘It is a rest home for painters and writers. Here in Russia it is quite normal for creative artists to be treated with respect. Mrs St Clair is evidently over-tired. You can telephone her later. In a day or two she will travel to Leningrad and join us.’
A curious but happy incident took place before they were taken to have lunch with the committee of the Artists’ Union. While Olga Fiodorovna was away pursuing her paperwork, they were again deposited in the English bar of the Hotel Nationale. On her way from the Ladies’ room Enid noticed a British Airways sign in the corridor. Without consulting the others she went up to the seventh floor and entered the offices of the airline. There were two men seated in armchairs and a young woman behind a desk. Enid said she was inquiring on behalf of a friend of hers who had lost his luggage three days ago. She didn’t give a name.
The man seated nearest to the door immediately stood up and said in English, ‘It is at the airport. It’s been waiting since yesterday.’
Startled, Enid expressed her joy and surprise, though as she later told Ashburner she could have been knocked down with a feather. It was a mystery how the man knew to which suitcase she was referring. He telephoned the airport in her presence, gave Ashburner’s correct name, nodded his head and putting down the phone confirmed that she could collect the baggage any time she wished. The second man, who was wearing horn-rimmed spectacles, didn’t say anything. Only when running excitedly down the corridor did she realise that she had seen him on another occasion; he was the aeroplane passenger who had been so preoccupied with his briefcase.
Ashburner, delighted at the news, insisted they abandon their coffee drinking in favour of something stronger. He didn’t care why or how the man on the seventh floor had known about his luggage. ‘Everything here,’ he said, ‘is cloaked in intrigue. I don’t give a hoot as long as I have a change of underclothing.’
He and Enid talked about whether it would be a courteous gesture to buy Tatiana’s husband a new shirt to replace the torn one. It would certainly be courteous, Enid said, but why on earth should he? After all, it had been their animal who had nearly ripped off his arm when he fell out of the bathroom window. And she didn’t suppose they were thinking of replacing his jacket.
‘Will you both come with me?’ Ashburner asked. ‘To that studio by the lake. There’s something bothering me about he place.’
Enid agreed, but Bernard said wild horses wouldn’t drag him back.
When Olga Fiodorovna returned, even before she had time to sit down, Enid cried out: ‘The suitcase – it’s been found.’
‘I regret not,’ said Olga Fiodorovna. ‘But we are doing our best.’ Having heard the whole story and the fact that at this moment the suitcase was waiting to be picked up from the airport, she gave the impression that they had been talking at cross purposes. Of course she was aware that the suitcase had been run to ground; she meant that as yet no one had gone to collect it. She urged them to finish their drinks, because otherwise they would be late for their next appointment.
‘Would it be convenient,’ asked Ashburner, ‘to return to that fellow’s studio in the suburbs? I was enormously impressed by his illustrations and I don’t think I did them justice. I suppose I was thinking more about seeing Nina.’
‘It will not be convenient,’ Olga Fiodorovna said. ‘Your luncheon with the Artists’ Union will go on for hours, and you must remember we are taking the night train to Leningrad.’
‘I see,’ said Ashburner. ‘Well, could I please have the telephone number of that Boris character? We would like to thank him for his kindness.’
Olga intimated that it was part of Mr Shabelsky’s job to be kind to foreigners. There was no need to thank him. Unless they hurried they would be late for lunch.
‘There is every need,’ Ashburner said. He was careful not to look at her. ‘And I don’t think I can go anywhere until I have spoken to him.’
It took Olga Fiodorovna almost three-quarters of an hour to contact Boris Shabelsky. In the interim Ashburner ordered more drinks, ate a quantity of peanuts and refrained from apologising to anyone. When he was finally summoned into the corridor of the hotel he thanked the interpreter politely, and making no attempt to pick up the receiver waited until she had reluctantly walked away from him into the bar.
The luncheon given in honour of the English artists and held at the one time home of Prince Nevsky, began as a formal affair. They ate at a long table set beneath the overhang of a massive oak staircase which led up to a gallery hung with paintings. It was impossible for Ashburner to grasp with whom he was lunching. Remembering, let alone pronouncing, the names of the numerous persons introduced to him was out of the question. One face was very like another; only the two women stood out. Enid’s breasts rested on the cloth and sprigs of parsley spiked her blouse; round-shouldered from lack of sleep she slumped against the edge of the table. No sooner had the company sat down than they were on their feet, bidden by Mr Karlovitch to drink a toast of friendship to artists the world over, and more especially those of the Soviet Union and Britain. ‘To a true and frank exchange of ideas,’ he cried optimistically, and raised his glass. Much to Ashburner’s relief, once this token reference had been made the subject of Art was never again mentioned. He was seated between a youngish man dressed like a stockbroker and a bespectacled person who, constantly seized by surprise, pursed his lips from time to time and audibly whistled two or three notes on a rising scale. He and most of his fellow committee-members spoke English or American and had visited London on several occasions during the past few years.
After a quarter of an hour of laboured conversation it became evident that a true and frank exchange would not be achieved. No one had any ideas worth exchanging. They’re just like us, thought Ashburner, neither better nor worse; he had attended many lunches in the City with people he didn’t know, simply for the sake of business. He gathered there were few actual artists in the room. A General was pointed out to him and an Admiral, both retired. He supposed they were Sunday painters, rather like Churchill and Roosevelt. The real painters, he imagined, if they were anything like Boris Shabelsky and his friend Tatiana, were all in homes for the alcoholic.
Quite soon he became involved in a harangue on property values in London and the rise in the cost of living in relation to workers’ wages. The people he addressed didn’t seem particularly interested in his views, and to his astonishment he suspected that he had instigated the discussion in the first place; far from defending beliefs he had held for a lifetime, he realised he was actually implying that the system was unjust and the investing of money immoral. He went further and indicated that educational standards in England, both in the private and the state sector, had collapsed, that consumer madness was rotting the fibre of the people and that a fairer distribution of wealth was vital. He couldn’t think what had got into him. He had never been known to vote Labour, his wife and he owned shares in Burmah Oil, and at the drop of a hat he was always more than ready to criticise the car workers at Dagenham. This is all due to my upbringing, he reasoned. If I am not careful, excessive politeness will have me warbling the Red Flag. Moments later, hearing a man telling Bernard that his wife kept a servant, and hardly able to believe his ears, he cried out ‘A servant, a
servant
?’ in tones of such critical severity that Bernard leaned across the table and ordered him to belt up. ‘You’re overdoing the flat cap and brown boots number, mate,’ he hissed.
There was talk of the Café Royal, the House of Lords, the London Palladium and other places of interest. Ashburner hadn’t been to any of them and he had never even heard of the Round House in Chalk Farm. The food at the Café Royal was apparently excellent, but when two of Russia’s most distinguished ballet dancers
had appeared at the Palladium right-wing agitators had thrown tintacks on to the stage. Ashburner, who had never got the hang of ballet, found this amusing and smiled broadly. Though still anxious about Nina it was difficult for him to remain gloomy in the midst of such cordiality and warmth. He became expert, whenever a toast was proposed, at leaping to his feet and swallowing his measure of vodka at one gulp.
Mr Karlovitch confided that it was always a problem when in London to choose a suitable present to bring home to his young son. ‘Though,’ he said, ‘I am happy shopping for clothes in Bond Street. The material and cut are splendid.’
‘Next time you’re in London,’ advised Ashburner, ‘give me a tinkle and I’ll take you to my Oxfam shop. I always go there for my sports jackets. As for the child, there’s a little shop I know just off the Kings Road. Mickey Mouse tee shirts, pop records, outspoken badges – that sort of thing.’
‘My son,’ Mr Karlovitch said, ‘is very scientific, very technically minded. He is interested in computers.’