Our Woman in Moscow(47)

They exchanged a look of understanding.

Iris drank her champagne and continued. “Anyway, all will be forgiven in August, if the three of us can survive that long. Will we see much of you?”

“That’s all up to you, my dear. Generally I go down after Ascot and don’t come up to London again until after Boxing Day. But I wouldn’t dream of intruding on your summer holidays.”

“You wouldn’t be intruding at all. How far away is the main house?”

“About a mile, I should think. Enough we shouldn’t be on top of each other.”

“Oh, but I’d be delighted if we were on top of each other!” Iris said, without thinking. Philip turned a little red and started to laugh, and Iris clapped her hand over her mouth. “I didn’t mean—”

“Of course you didn’t. It’s part of your charm.”

Iris looked away and said, “What were the three of you talking about when I came up? You were awfully engrossed in each other.”

“Oh, just business. These hearings in Washington, you know. The—what do you call it?—the Un-American Activities Committee. Such a typically American name. There’s a woman testifying right now who claims to have run a Soviet spy network in the State Department for years.”

Iris didn’t flinch, though her blood ran cold. “Soviets in the State Department? That’s nonsense.”

“It’s all these chaps, you know, bright young things who radicalized at university in the thirties, when the capitalist economies went to pieces. They very fashionably joined the Communist Party as students and wound up recruited by the NKVD, or whatever they called themselves back then, the Soviet intelligence service.”

“But surely they all shed their illusions as they got older?”

“Most of them, of course. I daresay the Nazi-Soviet pact did for a great many. Stalin’s thuggery, the famines. But it’s like a religion, you know. To the true fanatic, everything and anything can be twisted around to prove what you believe in.”

Was it her imagination, or did Philip stare at her with particular focus as he said this? Iris forced a smile, a hopeless shake of the head. “Well, I certainly hope it isn’t true. I hate betrayal of any kind.”

“Yes, you do,” Philip said kindly, “which is why I confess I’ve been dithering a bit with you. Wondering whether to bring the subject up.”

“The hearings, you mean?”

“Not the hearings. It’s about your husband, I’m afraid.”

Iris swallowed down the rest of the champagne. “Sasha? Goodness.”

“Do you mind if we sit?” He gestured to the nearby sofa—a deep, worn leather Chesterfield flanked by a pair of mismatched lamp tables. Iris followed the direction of his arm and sat on the edge of the cushion, holding her empty glass. He sat next to her, against the back of the sofa, more relaxed, at a respectful distance but still close enough to be private.

“I hope it’s not something serious,” she said.

“You may kick me if I’m being officious. It’s only because I consider you a friend, Iris, whom I admire very much. I wouldn’t dream of coming between a man and his wife—”

“Goodness,” she said again.

“—but I’ve watched your distress in silence for the past few months, and I feel the time has come for me to butt in, as they say, because it may do some good. I beg your pardon. I’ll come to the point. We are all sinners, and I don’t judge a man for his sins, and we all drink perhaps a little too much in these circles, yours truly among the guilty. But Digby—stop me at once if I distress you—seems to have, shall we say, passed some point of no return, in recent months.” Philip peered into Iris’s face. “Do you hate me?”

“No. I’d be an idiot to tell you it’s not true.”

“I suppose what I’m asking is whether there’s anything I can do to help. Whether you’re aware of how much, and how dangerous—There’s talk of indiscretion, the kind of thing that can ruin a man’s career.”

“I’m . . . I’m so sorry.”

“For God’s sake, it’s not your fault. Frankly, I think the man’s a fool to go out drinking all night with the lads, when he’s got a woman like you waiting for him at home, and the children, too—wonderful boys. And I wouldn’t have said a thing—I didn’t mean to say a thing, not a word, but—well, there’s a story from a reliable source—the other night, at the Gargoyle—I’ll spare the sordid details, but perhaps one might be wise to convince him to spend all of August down in Dorset. Keep him away from chaps like Burgess and that sort. Good fresh air and family life, I think it would do him a world of good.”

Philip stopped and caught his breath, like a man relieved of a burden. He looked at her anxiously, and Iris gathered herself, because she hated to see Philip so uncomfortable.

“Yes, thank you. I think so, too. I’ve been trying to convince him, really I have. Because of course—well, I’m not a fool. You’re very kind, you’ve been so tactful, but I’m not a fool.”

Philip reached into his pocket and gave her a handkerchief.

“You see I’m arguing nobly against my own interest, because I should very much rather have you all to myself,” he said.