A Delicate Truth A Novel

wasn’t going to be Suzanna. It was going to be her own bloody father, in his own time and in his own way.
    And with these uncoordinated thoughts resounding furiously in his head he strode back across the fog-ridden courtyard to the house.
     
    *
     
    Deploying all available stealth lest he rouse Suzanna from her morning sleep, Kit shaved and put on a dark town suit, as opposed to the country effort he had mistakenly worn for that shit Crispin, whose role in this affair he would drag into the daylight if it cost him his pension and his knighthood.
    Surveying himself in the wardrobe mirror, he pondered whether to add a black tie out of respect for Jeb and decided: too demonstrative, sends the wrong message. With an antique key that he had recently added to his key-ring, he unlocked a drawer of the commander’s desk and extracted the envelope to which he had consigned Jeb’s flimsy receipt and, from beneath it, a folder marked DRAFT containing his handwritten document.
    Pausing for a moment, he discovered almost to his relief thathe was weeping hot tears of grief and anger. A quick glance at the title of his document, however, restored his spirits and determination:
    ‘ Operation Wildlife , Part I: Eyewitness account by HM Minister’s Acting Representative in Gibraltar, in the light of additional information supplied by Field Commander, UK Special Force’.
    Part II, subtitled ‘Field Commander’s Eyewitness Account’ would remain forever pending, so Part I would have to do double duty.
    Progressing softly over dust sheets to the bedroom, he gazed in shame and marvel at his sleeping wife, but took good care not to wake her. Gaining the kitchen – and the one telephone in the house from which it was possible to speak without being overheard in the bedroom – he went to work with a precision worthy of the devious Bell.
    Call Mrs Marlow.
    He does, keeping his voice down; and yes, of course, she will be more than happy to spend the night at the Manor, just as long as it’s what Suzanna wants, because that’s the main thing, isn’t it? – and is the Manor telephone working again, because it sounds perfectly all right to her ?
    Call Walter and Anna, dull but sweet friends.
    He does, and wakes Walter up, but nothing’s too much trouble for Walter. Yes, of course he and Anna will be happy to drop by this evening and make sure Suzanna isn’t feeling neglected if Kit can’t make it back from his business appointment till tomorrow, and is Suzanna watching Sneakers on Sky, because they are?
    Take deep breath, sit down at kitchen table, write non-stop as follows, no self-editing, crossings-out, marginal notes, et cetera:
Darling Suki,
A lot has come up regarding our soldier friend while you were asleep, and the net result is, I’ve got to trolley up to London as a matter of urgency. With luck the whole thing will be thrashed out in time for me to catch the five o’clock back, but if not I’ll take the night sleeper even if I can’t get a berth.
    Then his pen started running away with him, and he let it:
Dearest You, I love you terribly, but the time has come for me to stand up and be counted, and if you were able to know the circumstances you would agree wholeheartedly. In fact you’d do the job a sight better than I ever could, but it’s time I rose to your standards of courage instead of dodging bullets.
    And if the last line on inspection read more starkly to him than the rest, there was no time for a second draft if he was going to make the eight forty-two.
    Taking the letter upstairs, he laid it on the dust sheets in front of their bedroom door and weighted it with a chisel from his faded canvas tool-bag.
    Delving in the library, he found an unused A4 On Her Majesty’s Service envelope from his last posting, inserted his draft document and sealed it with liberal quantities of Sellotape, much in the manner that he had sealed his letter to young Bell last week.
    Driving over the windswept moonscape of Bodmin Moor, he enjoyed symptoms of release and levitation. Alone on the station platform among unfamiliar faces, however, he was seized with an impulse to hurry home while there was time, grab back the letter, get into his old clothes and tell Walter, Anna and Mrs Marlow not to bother after all. But with the arrival of the express train to Paddington, this mood, too, passed, and soon he was treating himself to the full English breakfast ‘at seat’, but tea not coffee, because Suzanna worried about his