The Alien Page 3

  “Hi!’’ Stephen warned. “No responses from you in that direction, my girl. Boris may be only a little above himself after his trip ashore, but there’s a certain wolfish look about him now that I don’t recollect from time past.’’

  “You were too young to notice it. I bet it was there,’’ Ann retorted.

  “Margaret’ll tell us. Was it, Margaret? Did you have to fight for your position?’’

  She turned a pale, set face to them.

  “Sorry,’’ she said, coldly. “I’m afraid I wasn’t listening to you two.’’

  Ann and Stephen exchanged glances but wisely said no more.

  “What on earth is the fellow doing?’’ Colin asked, impatiently, looking at his watch. “Surely it didn’t take him all this time to strip and get into dry things?’’

  “Ogden and I gave him a pretty good towelling to start with,’’ Stephen answered. “He was shivering horribly by the time we’d peeled everything off him. Incidentally, Ogden’s got a wonderful heat up in the kitchen. I don’t know why we’ve all been congealing in here with this piddling little oil stove.’’

  “I told Ogden to use up the fuel that was left,’’ Colin answered, severely. “No point in leaving it lying around till the house is sold. There wouldn’t be any left by then, I don’t mind betting. Not with this weather.’’

  Margaret roused herself.

  “He must be dressed by now. For some time, I should think. Because you’ve been talking to him, too, haven’t you, Ann?’’

  “He was telling us how he got ashore,’’ the girl answered. “Thrilling. I expect he’ll tell you when he’s quite ready.’’

  “D’you mean he was actually dressing with Ann there?’’

  Stephen took an impatient step towards his sister. “For God’s sake,’’ he complained, “can’t you snap out of this very corny, not to say Victorian drama? The poor devil’s had a ghastly time for twenty years. Twenty years! He’s lucky to be still alive. He’ll tell you.’’

  “And jolly lucky to get away today,’’ Ann took up the tale. “He’s been wondering if he could manage it. This is the first time he’s served on a trawler outside the Baltic, though he’s been a sailor now for about seven years. So when they put into the bay here—’’

  “Imagine it!’’ Stephen broke in. “Fishing just outside the three-mile limit, with England there, only three miles away. They had bad visibility several days but when the gale blew out and the snow stopped it was absolutely clear everywhere.’’

  “That was when he decided to have a bash at it,’’ Ann picked up her cue neatly. “He was on deck watch by himself. The others were all below except for an officer in the deck-house. When the light came on at the Head it shone on them as it moved. This made the darkness much blacker just after it passed. You know, the way it does in a car when another car’s headlights—’’

  “We both know that one,’’ Colin said, dryly. “He took advantage of this to untie a raft, collect a paddle of some sort, lower the thing into the water, get on to it without help of any kind and move away silently without attracting anybody’s notice until he was outside the range of their revolvers.’’

  “Did he tell you all this before, then?’’ Ann asked, innocently. “Because that was just about how he did it.’’

  “But not in one continuous operation, as Colin suggests,’’ added Stephen. “Because it’s obvious, as Colin means us to realize, that it couldn’t be done like that. It took him three hours, working a bit at a time, to get ready. Or so he says.’’

  “His English must have improved tremendously since he arrived,’’ said Colin.

  Margaret lifted her hand wearily and let it fall.

  “You don’t believe him, do you?’’ she said.

  “Quite frankly,’’ Colin answered, “I don’t.’’

  “Why not?’’

  “Because Russian security is very thorough, very careful. He’d have been spotted.’’

  “But he’s here!’’ Ann said, with exasperation in her voice. “He actually did get away.’’

  “Or he was allowed to get away. Ordered to, perhaps. He may be here on a mission.’’

  “A mission!’’ Three puzzled faces stared at Colin. “What mission?’’

  “That remains to be seen. You are all pretending to be very slow in the uptake. Have you never heard of spies being put ashore as refugees?’’

  Stephen shook off the suggestion with a violent movement of his head.

  “Rubbish! D’you actually mean cloak and dagger stuff?’’

  “I think he heard that,’’ said Margaret quietly, turning away as Boris came into the room.

  He now presented a very strange, if not extravagant appearance. His hair and beard, rubbed dry, but not brushed or combed, stood out in a fuzzy mass from his head and face, a youngish, dark Father Christmas or King Lear. The sleeves of the pullover were four inches short and as he had not been able to get into the tweed jacket, he wore it draped over his shoulders with the sleeves tied together across his chest. The flannels, too, were a poor fit. Too wide in the waist he had folded them in several places and hitched them up under a belt. This made them even shorter in the leg than they would have been otherwise. The generally wild, even fierce, effect of all this was softened and made pathetic by a pair of carpet slippers of Ogden’s, the only things he had on that seemed to be of the right size.

  “You look – stupendous,’’ said Stephen.

  “Smashing,’’ said Ann, kindly.

  Boris turned a puzzled face from one to the other.

  “The English having a temporary setback?’’ asked Colin, waspishly.

  “Pardon?‘’ Boris said, in French.

  Colin immediately burst into a rapid flow of Polish. Boris stiffened, then his face set hard. But by the time Colin stopped for want of breath or perhaps stuck for a word, the refugee was obviously deeply moved. His voice, as he answered in the same language, faltered and broke.

  “What’s he saying?’’ Ann demanded.

  “He says,’’ Colin told her, with a disagreeable twist of his lips, “that the sound of his own tongue after so many years is almost painful. He asks me if I know Russian.’’

  Without waiting for an answer he turned back and continued the conversation. To the other three the two languages were indistinguishable, but in fact he spoke now in Russian.

  “Why have you come here?’’ he repeated his former question.

  “To escape. I will ask for political asylum in England.’’

  “Why did you come to this house?’’

  “But I told Stephen and Ann. Because I landed on the beach below here. The tide is coming in still and I made for the foot of the cliffs at once. I did not want to be cut off. I looked for a path. I found one and started to climb. I did not know where I was.’’

  “Why didn’t you walk along the beach to the town? There are no cliffs there.’’

  “I was afraid. First of the tide cutting me off. And then that I might be followed. There was shouting and lights on the water after I got away.’’

  “But no searchlights?’’

  “From the ship, no. The lighthouse was good for that.’’

  “But your trawler had some kind of searchlight?’’

  “Yes.’’

  “They did not use it?’’

  “No.’’

  “I see. So you wanted to leave the beach as quickly as possible?’’

  “Certainly. To find houses – people – help – as soon as I could.’’

  “And you arrived here, though the cliff path comes out on the road several houses down from us.’’

  “I saw the lights here. I knew there would be people.’’

  “You knew who would be here. You expected to find my parents. You were meant to find Mr. and Mrs. Brentwood.’’

  “I don’t understand you.’’

  The others had drawn closer. Colin’s voice, fluent, cold, swept on. Boris’s answers grew shorter, sharper and his
face darkened in anger. Quite suddenly he turned to Stephen and said in English, “I think this man – mad. He imagined I here – here – that I know – him. By his wife—Impossible!’’

  Stephen did not understand this at all, but Margaret did. Flushing crimson, she took a step towards Colin.

  “Are you really accusing him of coming here as a spy? A complicated Russian plot? You’re perfectly crazy, as Boris says. Particularly to suggest it to him to his face.’’

  “Oh!’’ Ann exclaimed. “But how super! You mean the Russians know he was engaged to Margaret and that she married Colin, high up in the Iron Curtain section of the Foreign Office and that his parents lived here and so if they put Boris ashore in Higlett Bay he would simply filter down to Colin with really splendid opportunities. Oh, Boris,’’ she went on, “have you really been cast for such a wonderful melodrama part? Have you really?’’

  Boris shook his head. Her rapid flow of unfamiliar idiom had defeated him. He looked helplessly at Colin, who stared back, fully occupied with mastering his temper and quite unable to answer anyone.

  Stephen broke up the log jam of cross purposes and conflicting emotions.

  “The point, as I see it,’’ he said, loudly and briskly, “is to get out of here and down to Higlett.’’

  “The town – yes,’’ said Boris, eagerly, pleased to pick up a glimmer of sense from the surrounding obscurities. “The town, I want. Your police—I go first to ask. No?’’

  “They can wait for a couple of hours,’’ Stephen answered. “You’re coming straight to our hotel and the best meal they can put on for you. It’s an occasion, damn it!’’

  “He must go straight to the police station,’’ Colin said, firmly.

  “Oh, have a heart!’’

  “I repeat, straight to the police station. You will lay yourself open to various charges if you take him anywhere else.’’

  “I’m not going to abandon him to cocoa, bread and marge. That’s flat.’’

  Ann, who on hearing Stephen’s plan had gone into the hall to fetch her coat, now came back with it on and a scarf tied round her head. Boris looked at her with renewed admiration.

  “This custom has arrived here?’’ he asked, making gestures to indicate her headgear. “Like the peasants in my country?’’

  “It began in the war,’’ Margaret said, pulling out her own scarf from the pocket of her fur coat. “When everyone gave up wearing hats.’’

  “I find it – most becoming,’’ Boris said, gravely, glancing from one to the other.

  Outside, the engine of Stephen’s car came to life, hicupped and died. A few seconds later it burst out again and settled down to a steady hum.

  “Come along,’’ Ann said, taking Boris firmly by the arm. “You’re coming with us.’’

  Boris looked thoughtfully at Colin and then back at the girl.

  “I go – first – to the police,’’ he said, gravely.

  “We’ll see about that,’’ she answered. “I think we ought to go first to the hotel and get some sort of overcoat for you.’’

  This brought Boris, who had begun to move, to another dead stop.

  “My clothes,’’ he said.

  “Ogden!’’ Colin called out in a loud voice. “Bring this man’s wet things here, please.’’

  Ogden, who had prepared for this moment, appeared immediately with a round, heavy bundle, wrapped in an old piece of canvas.

  “Best I could do, sir,’’ he said, handing it to Boris. It was clear that he addressed himself to the latter, not to Colin.

  “I thank you for – everything,’’ Boris said with feeling.

  “You’re welcome, I’m sure,’’ Ogden insisted.

  Colin said nothing, nor did Boris look again in his direction. But as he reached the door he turned to bow politely to Margaret.

  “À bientot,’’ he said, gently, and went away with Ann still holding him by the arm.

  There was a silence in the room, broken by Ogden.

  “That poor gentleman has some stories to tell, I’ll be bound,’’ he said, his general excitement getting the better of him. “Scars! You’d hardly credit it. Back. Beatings, that was. Ankles. Chains, he said. Right arm broken some time, he didn’t tell us how. Burns on his hands and chest, deliberate—’’

  “Stop!’’ Margaret screamed. She clapped her hand to her mouth and turned, groping for a chair.

  “Get out!’’ Colin said, furiously.

  Ogden, wounded, but aware that he had forgotten himself, said with dignity, “Beg pardon, I’m sure, m’m. But it made me wild to see it. On our side, too, wasn’t they? The Poles and the Russians, both? Criminal lunacy, I call it.’’

  Before Colin could repeat his order, which he was about to do, even more forcibly, Ogden disappeared, making his way back to the kitchen where Mrs. Ogden had just finished tidying up. He relieved his feelings by describing to her, in full detail, the various marks of brutality he had noticed on the fugitive’s body.

  “Won’t be no trouble him getting asylum or whatever they call it,’’ he said. “Not when he says what they did to him.’’

  “I should hope there won’t be trouble, as you call it. With him a friend of the family? What an idea!’’

  “I don’t know so much about friend,’’ Ogden returned, stubbornly. “In my opinion Mr. Colin isn’t too pleased he’s turned up.’’

  “How d’you know he isn’t pleased? It’s his way. Always did object, from a child, to anything out of the ordinary.’’ She pulled her felt hat down more firmly. She had already removed her overall and rolled it up in a bundle with several other of her possessions. “Are they ready to go? I can’t do no more here myself. There’s just the cistern to empty, when you’ve turned off the main. That and lock up. They can leave it to us if he’ll trust you to do it.’’

  “Better ask him, then,’’ said Ogden, gruffly. “I’m seeing to the boiler here.’’ He had no wish to go back into the other room at present.

  Once Ogden had gone Margaret managed to pull herself together. Colin, more exasperated than ever, watched her sit up, blow her nose, attend to her make-up and adjust her head scarf.

  “Ready?’’ he asked, at length.

  “Yes.’’

  They were in the hall when Mrs. Ogden came out of the kitchen. Colin agreed at once to everything she proposed. His only wish just now was to leave Margaret at the hotel and go on to the police station.

  As they were moving off in his car Colin told her this. She did not speak, so he went on irritably, “I don’t want Stephen playing the fool over this. It isn’t a thing to be taken lightly.’’

  That roused her.

  “I don’t think Steve is taking it lightly. I don’t think giving a good meal to a hungry, cold, shocked man is a comedy act at all.’’

  “The police are quite humane. They can and do provide proper food when necessary. The point is he must go to them first.’’

  “He intended to. Didn’t you hear him say so?’’

  “I don’t know that I can trust him.’’

  Margaret stared through the windscreen at the piled snow drifts, white and sparkling in the beam from the headlights. She said, passionately, “Don’t you think he has suffered enough?’’

  Chapter Four

  The London home of the Brentwoods was in Kensington, lying between Notting Hill Gate and the High Street, but closer to the former. It did not form part of a square, but simply one of a row, with gardens at the back and a mews beyond the gardens. Being situated on the side of a hill the garden lay at a lower level than the front of the house, so that to reach it you had to walk down iron steps from a small iron balcony which led out of the ground-floor drawing-room. The tradesmen’s entrance, still marked as such at the Brentwood establishment, simply ran down an inclined path beside the house to semi-basement kitchen premises, whose main source of light at the back was a large window, strongly barred, lying underneath the iron balcony. In the front an area window provided a disto
rted view of the street and the front door.

  Unlike many of the houses in that district the Brentwoods’ was as broad as it was high. It had rooms on either side of the front door and a mere two storeys in all. This fact, in contrast with most of the other roads in the neighbourhood had to be repeated and impressed upon the Ogdens for several months after they settled there. Even in June they were still grumbling mildly over the perpetual ‘up and down’ which they so much resented. And from unshakeable suspicions of damp, mildew and other troglodyte menaces, they had moved on, as summer advanced, to hints of suffocation, oven-life and melting.

  They did not, however, threaten to return north. Their devotion to Colin, which he found touching and Margaret a surprise, was entire. They could not understand why the Brentwoods had found servants so difficult to get and so impossible to keep, before they themselves took the post. But they simply accepted the general reference to foreigners without attempting to discover the details of their failure. They even tried to tolerate the Swiss au pair girl, Louise, who was staying on to complete her year with the Brentwoods. Between themselves they felt they were protecting Mr. Colin from inevitable exploitation by such people. At any rate Mrs. Ogden had now reduced the kitchen to order and restored the pots and pans to a proper condition of bright cleanliness after their misuse in preparing the ‘foreign messes’ that Louise had inflicted upon the household.

  The Brentwoods submitted to this return to tradition with thankfulness, tinged on Margaret’s part with a small guilt. Colin was merely thankful. It served to keep fresh his memory of his home, without which life for him would be dark indeed. Eating Mrs. Ogden’s roast beef and Yorkshire pudding took him back firmly to his boyhood. This and other manifestations of continuity, of permanence in his present circumstances, were very necessary to him. They made unharassed work possible, relieved anxieties he could barely control and tears he refused to acknowledge openly, but from which, on that account, he suffered all the more.

  Margaret’s small guilt derived from her knowledge that she was so much better off than her friends and that this happy state was none of her own doing, but solely Colin’s. She had always understood her very real debt to him. It did not improve their relationship, rather the reverse. The more he loved her, the more he gave her, the more she resented her failure to equal his gifts, even to admire the giver. Not only in his attitude to herself but in his whole life and attainments. It was some quality in herself that stopped her, that drove her to criticize even his friends for praising his brains, his hard work, his loyalty. When her own friends, envying her new freedom from housework and cooking said, “Colin again! My dear, you’re the luckiest woman I know,’’ she felt like slapping their faces. And then the guilt returned. For it wasn’t only the Ogdens she must thank Colin for. It was Boris. The small uncomfortable guilt of March had grown into the delicious guilt of June.