Russian Hide-and-Seek

3

A little later the party was assembled in the drawing-room, where a still white wine and more tea, together with freshly-cut rye-bread sandwiches, were available. Petrovsky, the Tabidzes and, after some delay, Korotchenko settled down at a card-table for solo whist. Tatiana Petrovsky took out her embroidery, a gros-point chair seat. Her daughter, Elizabeth and Theodore placed themselves near by. Speaking for the first time in his hearing, Mrs Korotchenko said to Alexander,

‘It’s very hot. I should like some fresh air. Would you come with me for a turn in the gardens? I haven’t seen them in the light. I don’t want to fall.’

Her voice was harsh and flat, with an idiosyncratic pronunciation of some vowels. Even now she failed to look him in the eye. He noticed that she was thin-faced and thin-lipped, with large ugly ears injudiciously exposed by her short haircut. ‘Of course not,’ he said. Nina and Elizabeth were watching him. ‘I mean of course you don’t want to fall. Of course – I’d be delighted to accompany you.

His brain was operating at several times its usual speed, with two things attaining some prominence: that it was RATHER hot was the most that could fairly be said, and, as he remembered from the small hours of that morning, when he had stumbled out into the open after Mess Night, the moon was almost at the full. But surely…

They moved out by the east entrance, went down the steps and reached the nearest lawn. This was not at all well mown, but any sort of serious fall was most unlikely in the intense moonlight. He was considering just how soon and just how to grab her when she grabbed him. The speed and violence of her assault took him quite by surprise. Her open mouth shoved itself at his; her body pushed and wriggled against him; she took hold of him after a fashion calculated to extinguish at once any lingering doubt of her wishes. His arms were round her, or his left arm was.

Taking her mouth away, she said warmly, ‘Let me go, struggling now.

‘Let you go? But you- ‘Otherwise how can I take my dress off?’ He stepped back. ‘But you-’

With her voice muffled by folds of material she said something he failed to catch. As she tugged and thrust at her clothes his lively consternation resolved itself into a daze of excitement. In about the time it would have taken him to untie his stock she had taken off everything but her white silk stockings and her garters, which looked black at the moment but probably were not in fact. Her breasts, on view in full so much more precipitately than almost anyone could have foreseen, charged him with wonder.

‘Come on, what are you waiting for?’ the lady asked him in a blurred voice. Again he pounced upon her, but again this proved unsatisfactory. ‘Never mind about that,’ she said, and fumbled with his clothing. A moment later she lay down on the grass. ‘Oh do be quick,’ she said. ‘Hurry up.’ Her body weaved slightly and she made sounds like someone in considerable but not extreme pain. When he lay down beside her he got it wrong a third time -’For the love of God, man, will you DO it!’ – and was hauled on top of her; her strength was frightening, but not very. The first response she made was so marked that he thought she must have attained her objective; her continuing movements, however, quite soon undeceived him. More than having her in his embrace he clung to her or was enfolded by her. He found that by going all out he could just stay in the game, so to speak. Finally, at about the critical moment for him, she redoubled her exertions and uttered a long, wavering, stifled cry, stifled as he found by her own hand pressed against her mouth – and a good thing too, for the unstifled version would beyond doubt have been heard clearly enough in the house. He felt a little troubled; it had presumably been a cry of pleasure, but he had fancied he heard something else in it, some darker feeling.

He kissed her cheek; by way of return she took his hands and held them to her breasts, then, not roughly, indicated that it was time to move. Still breathing deeply, he started putting his clothes to rights and she picked up hers. His disquiet had passed and he felt only joy and gratitude.

‘My darling, that was delightful,’ he said, ‘and you’re very lovely.’

She made no reply.

‘When can I see you again?’

‘You mean you want to do that with me again? After you’ve already done it once? What for?’ Dressing at top speed, she looked doubtfully at him.

‘Well, of course I do. We can take longer next time.’

‘Yes, we can,’ she said, as if this was an unexpected but, on reflection, valid point.

‘When, then’?’

‘Tuesday afternoon. Two-thirty.’ ‘I’m on duty at the base then.’

‘So you won’t be able to come, will you?’

‘Oh, I can rearrange it.’

‘All right.’

She had finished dressing and moved off briskly at his side, brushing with her hand at the back of her head. It occurred to him against his will that perhaps she kept her hair short so that leaves, twigs, etc. should not get stuck in it whenever she committed adultery on a lawn or other outdoor surface.

‘Where shall we meet?’

‘Come to our house. It’s called The Old Parsonage and it’s about two miles out of the centre of Northampton just off the road to Wellingborough. Most of the English know it by now; we have plenty of official visitors. Ask for the Russian policeman if they don’t understand you. Now when we get indoors I’m going to be rather cool to you. My husband will think you’ve made an approach to me and of course I’ve rebuffed you.

‘My mother isn’t going to like that.’

‘Only my husband will see.’

‘Very well.’ He added, not at all because of what she had just proposed but on general grounds, ‘You’re a sweet girl. You deserve well of me.

When he kissed her she failed to respond, but said in her monotonous harsh voice, ‘That’s extremely kind of you.’

He had by no means settled in his mind that she was a sweet girl; however, she had done as he had wanted, to put it mildly, he had enjoyed himself and, since they had reached the foot of the steps down which they had come an unknown amount of time ago, this must be their private farewell. Ascending, he looked about him at the moonlit gardens, the pond, the faint glimmer of the lake in the distance, and wished with some force that he could have seen the place as it had been in the time of that other Alexander, half a century away. At the top of the steps he looked again, and realised that to anyone standing here what had been going on just now would have been easily visible, and no doubt audible too. Well, time enough to debate the sweetness or otherwise of the girl in question when the next few minutes were safely past.

The re-entry into the drawing-room of the wife of the Deputy-Director and himself came at an unusually lucky moment. The card-players were in a state of some excitement as Mrs Tabidze was about to make good an abundance call; although the stakes were not high (?100 a point) even Korotchenko was too engrossed to do more than glance up briefly. In rather similar fashion, Theodore Markov was entertaining the ladies with a tale about the embezzlements practised by the cashier at his university. Alexander strolled over to the marble-topped table where the wine was, poured himself a glass and nibbled at a chicken sandwich. He would have said that there was no need for him to try to act casually because he felt perfectly casual; it would surely be rather simple-minded to imagine that there had been anything much out of the way in the encounter on the lawn, just a matter of a reasonably personable, normally sexed young buck running into a – well, there must be quite a few women like Mrs Korotchenko round the place and one could hardly expect them to advertise their condition, or rather the downrightness of their nature.

He finished the sandwich, carried his glass of wine across to the card table, where the players were examining their newly-dealt hands, and looked over his father’s shoulder, uncomprehendingly, for he despised the game too much ever to have learned the rules. There was a respectable pile of?100 and?500 coins and?1000 notes in front of Mrs Tabidze. Raising his whiskered face in calculation, Korotchenko gave Alexander a passing look of entire neutrality.

‘I’m afraid you gentlemen are in for another thrashing,’ said Mrs Tabidze with pretended menace. ‘Misere.’

Her husband groaned. ‘Shoulder to shoulder, lads.’

Furtively, Alexander took stock of the rest of the party. His mother, gros-point on lap, was talking in low tones to Mrs Korotchenko, who seemed to be actually responding, or at least paying attention, her display of coolness towards him seemingly ended, if it had ever been. The others had momentarily fallen silent; when his eye reached her Elizabeth was already looking at him and within a second Nina was too. Then they looked at each other. Their expressions were alike, though he could not have said what they expressed. In different circumstances he would have gone over and asked them, but not in these. He decided he would have to stick it out where he was, a policy that achieved its end when Nina leaned over and said, ‘May we go up, mummy?’ – a formula requesting a short leave of absence for the younger guests and members of the household, invariably granted. When the three left, he left with them.

‘Did you have a nice walk, Alexander?’ asked Elizabeth as soon as the drawing-room door was shut after them.

‘Yes, very pleasant, thank you.’

‘She didn’t seem to think so.’

‘Didn’t she?’ he said lightly, then, having thought about it, repeated with more emphasis, ‘Oh, didn’t she?’ So much for only Korotchenko noticing.

‘No, she didn’t. But she should have, eh? – There’s something funny here, Nina. What do you think?’

‘Let’s wait till we’ve got him behind doors upstairs.’

‘I find this atmosphere of inquisition quite intolerable,’ said Alexander, but relief and triumph together saw to it that he spoke with only a poor show of petulance. ‘Theodore, you must protect me.’

‘What can I do? What can two of us do against two of them?’

‘And such a two. One quiet and deadly, the other brassy and violent.’

‘There’s gratitude for you,’ said Nina.

Theodore nodded gravely. ‘You notice they don’t dispute the way you described them.’

‘You notice something else, Lizzie,’ said Nina: ‘the younger one objected to the inquisition, but he didn’t need to ask what it was going to be about.’

‘Highly significant,’ said Elizabeth.

By way of the eastern half of the first-floor gallery they had reached Nina’s sitting-room, which lay directly opposite Alexander’s bedroom with her bedroom opening off it. Objects of various sizes were strewn about: photographs of her parents, of Alexander and of her elder brother Basil (at present serving with the army of occupation in Manchuria), a photograph-album bound in some substance resembling red leather, an ash-wood spinning wheel, an ornamental cage containing a siskin (all the way from home), a full-sized stuffed brown bear, a boruldite quick-kettle and a superb three-inch astroscope. The inevitable music-sounder, instrument and reproducer in one, stood under its hood in the corner. There were also chairs, in or on which they seated themselves, though Nina at once jumped up to hand round cigarettes and tiny silver-rimmed glasses of koumissette. All accepted the first, but Theodore, who disliked sweet drinks, asked for and got soda-water instead of the liqueur.

‘Now,’ said Elizabeth, with the manner of one who calls a meeting to order, ‘what happened out there?’

‘In the sense you no doubt mean, very little,’ said Alexander equably.

‘How much is very little?’

‘There was some kind of embrace.’

‘Come on, darling, we haven’t got all night,’ said Nina. ‘We’re all dying to hear. It won’t go any further.’

‘All right. There was a long, fairly passionate embrace with a certain amount of intimate caressing. Oh, enough to establish that the bosom is real, if you must know.’

Elizabeth shook her shapely blonde head. ‘I’m afraid it’s still not enough. Not nearly enough.’

‘Enough for what?’

‘Enough to explain… Let me show you.

She got up, folded her arms and, advancing first one hip, then the other, minced slowly across the room and back, rolling her shoulders and wagging her head to and fro, lips pushed forward, eyebrows raised. Now and then she held up her hands and examined the nails. While she did all this she hummed, whistled, sang wordlessly. Nina huddled herself up in laughter; Theodore smiled in puzzlement.

‘What’s that supposed to be?’ asked Alexander.

‘You when you came in from the garden, of course, acting a word like Unconcern or Casualness in a mime. Nobody of your age and experience puts on a show like that just for a couple of kisses and a feel-up. How far did you really get, Alexander?’

‘Oh, damn it. Look, if I tell you something, will you promise absolutely not to let it out to anyone? Or refer to it again?’

They all nodded seriously.

‘Well, she said she thought I was very handsome. Like… don’t shoot me… like a Greek god. There. It sounds pretty silly and embarrassing when I tell you three, but when she said it I promise you I felt absolutely marvellous. Quite marvellous enough to make me want to strut about with a big grin on my face. That’s what I was guarding against. It seems I overdid it a trifle.’

Elizabeth laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. Theodore too seemed quite satisfied. Nina smiled thoughtfully at her brother. After a moment she said,

‘If she thinks you’re so handsome, why was she annoyed with you? It’s harder than ever to see the reason for that.’

‘It is odd, isn’t it? But are you sure it was annoyance and not tiredness, say, or…?’

‘Oh yes, quite sure – eh, Nina?’

‘Well, it was something all right, but I wouldn’t swear it was annoyance. She… she was certainly not pleased about something.’

‘Something to do with me?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Nina, ‘there was no doubt about that at all.’

‘Ah. I suppose it could have been… No.’

‘Could have been what?’ asked Elizabeth.

‘It sounds so conceited I can hardly say it, but it’s the only explanation that occurs to me. She was disappointed. That I didn’t go the whole hog.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

‘Well, she seemed so decided when she stopped me, and I haven’t had much to do with females of her age and station. I didn’t want to rush my fences. Fancy me getting it wrong -that way round.’

‘Did you arrange to see her again?’ asked Nina.

‘No. She happened to mention where she lived, and I decided I could always find myself in the neighbourhood and drop in one afternoon when the Deputy-Director is snoring his head off in his office. But I didn’t say anything about that because I wanted to think things over in a more settled frame of mind.’

Nina put out her cigarette with a decisive twist. ‘That was it. She thought that having tried her you came to the conclusion you didn’t want her after all. I’m surprised at you, my love. You’ve probably spoiled your chances there for good.’

‘Just as well, probably. It would have been a lot to take on. But it’s a pity; I think she’s very attractive in an odd way.’

‘It’s odd all right,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Tremendous tits and starved-looking face. And that hair-cut, what’s the idea of that? If she wants to look boyish that’s not the place to start.’

‘Did she talk at all?’ asked Nina.

‘Oh yes, without stopping. Except when I… stopped her. All about her house and the visitors they keep having. She’s probably shy of anything approaching a throng. Or in awe of that hairy-faced husband of hers.’

‘Any children?’

‘She didn’t mention any, so I rather suppose not.’

‘I rather hope not.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘I don’t know. I’m just glad I’m not her daughter.’

‘How funny. I don’t go round imagining what it’s like to be the son of any chap I meet who happens to be about old enough.’

‘Of course you don’t.’

‘Of course? Is that because I’m a man?’

‘No, because you’re you.’

‘I don’t know what you’re getting at, but I can tell easily enough that it isn’t very friendly.’

Elizabeth had been listening to the latter part of this duologue with some impatience. Now she said, ‘Can we please not have a discussion of Alexander?’

‘I don’t see why you should object if I don’t.’

‘Who says you object? You adore any and every discussion of you. Some of the rest of us don’t share your passionate interest in the topic.’

‘If I’m going to allow you to go on coming here, Elizabeth, I must ask you not to dictate the conversation.’

‘Alexander!’ cried Nina.

‘What’s the matter? I was only-’

‘Have you forgotten already what mummy said to you?’

‘When I’ve just been told I’m in love with myself? Anyone would think-’

‘I’m going,’ said Elizabeth. She had turned very red. Nina caught her by the shoulders and remonstrated with her while Alexander said loudly that she could go where she pleased as far as he was concerned. It was soon clear that she would fight her way out of the room if necessary. At this point Nina released her and it was Theodore who barred her way.

‘If you go now you’ll find it very difficult to come back,’ he said quickly. ‘And you’re going to want to, in spite of how you feel at the moment.’

Within what might have struck some people as quite a short space of time Elizabeth had resumed her normal manner. She even smiled ruefully at Alexander, who patted her on the cheek. Nina took her hand.

‘Come with me,’ she said. ‘Three new frocks await inspection.’

‘Three!’

‘Three. You remember that woman in Towcester I went to in the spring? Well, it seems her daughter…’

The two girls disappeared into the bedroom. The men could hear them opening cupboards and drawers, chattering, giggling, Elizabeth imitating someone, Nina scolding. In silence Theodore brought out a small pipe and started to fill it.

‘That was good work,’ said Alexander.

‘Nothing at all. What is she exactly?’

‘She’s supposed to be hopelessly in love with me. I can’t think why; I’ve never laid a finger on her.’

‘Really? Pretty enough, I should have thought.’

‘Yes, but too confoundedly difficult. Imagine what she’d be like with a bit of power over you.

‘M’m.’

Theodore lit his pipe and sat back in his chair. He was staring at the ceiling now, but earlier his eyes had hardly left Alexander for several minutes on end, as Alexander was naturally well aware. After another half-minute Theodore said lightly,

‘What really happened out there?’

‘What? Oh, just what I said. Do you want details?’

‘No, no. Tell the truth – you fucked her, didn’t you?’

‘No. It looks as though I could have done, but I didn’t, like a fool.’

‘Very much like a fool. How old are you, Alexander? Nineteen?’

‘Twenty-one.’

‘Are you? Of course I’m twenty-eight, with that much more experience. But I should have thought anybody not a female or a child could have seen that Mrs Korotchenko was ripe for the plucking.’

‘Well I couldn’t, and if that makes me a female or a child that’s most unfortunate for me, but I can always call the servants and have you thrown out, but now I look at you I think I could probably manage it myself. Without much effort, in fact.’

‘Hold on!’ said Theodore as Alexander rose to his feet. ‘I was just trying to irritate you into admitting it. Come on, you old reprobate, you fucked her, didn’t you? You can tell me. I swear I won’t pass it on to anybody.’

‘For the very last time, I didn’t. And incidentally swear by what?’

‘That’s a very interesting point, but we haven’t time to go into it now. Do you swear you didn’t?’

‘Well of course I do, by anything you care to name. What’s this all about?’

‘Your only bad line so far, but we’ll let that go too. Do you swear by the honour of your country and of your regiment and of your family?’

‘Why not? I so swear.’

Theodore looked hard and very seriously at Alexander. ‘My profound congratulations and my heartfelt apologies. I’m truly sorry I had to do this to you.’

‘You’re mad.’

‘You can relax now. Not more than three minutes after you and Mrs Korotchenko had left the drawing-room, your mother asked your sister to fetch her sewing-basket from the room on the other side of the hall. I offered to go myself.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘I found the basket easily enough, but before I returned to the drawing-room with it I pulled back the curtain and looked out. Pure curiosity.’

‘Is that what it’s called?’

‘I didn’t expect to see anything in particular, but I saw… Well, you know what I saw.’

‘Yes.’

‘How did you come to be so insanely reckless? The two of you would have been out of sight if you’d walked another twenty or thirty metres. Couldn’t you have waited?’

‘I could, but she couldn’t, evidently. She literally grabbed me and I was quite unprepared. I had no time to think at all.’

‘I see. Why do you think she put on that annoyed look afterwards?’

‘Well, she told me she was going to do it so that her husband would think I’d made advances to her which she took amiss, but I wonder now if the explanation I invented a moment ago might not be nearer the mark only she was doing it on purpose. In other words, she intended to give the impression that she’d had expectations of me which I’d failed to fulfil. Which in turn would mean she must hate her husband very much. Well, we already have reason to suspect she may not be crazy about him. What are your congratulations for?’

‘For the ingenuity with which you disarmed the suspicions of two very inquisitive girls, and the fortitude that made you able to withstand my violent assault on your pride.’

‘Thank you. The second was comparatively easy. I wasn’t going to throw away at that stage what it had taken me so much trouble to establish. It was just bad luck for me that you looked out of that window when you did.’

‘Don’t worry, the secret’s safe with me.’ Theodore relit his pipe. ‘Did you in fact arrange to see her again?’

‘There’s not much point in denying it at this stage.’

‘You know, you’ve surprised me. Not by your sexual adventure but by your conduct since.’

‘I’ve surprised myself rather. But then I have a strain of low cunning which tends to come to my rescue when I really need it.’

Again Theodore stared at his companion. Then he said, ‘You’re an interesting fellow, Alexander. I’d like to have a real talk with you some time. The trouble is I have nowhere to invite you. My lodgings are vile, there are no restaurants nearer than Oxford…’

‘I know, I have the same trouble with girls, don’t you?’

‘Well, it looks as though I might start to, if things go my way.’

‘She likes you – I know that look of hers.’

‘And you approve?’

‘Of course I approve! My little sister and my old friend Theodore – a new friend who seems like an old friend. I’ve thought of something. Would it appeal to you to come out and dine at my mess one night?’ When he saw Theodore hesitate, he went on, ‘I can have you fetched and taken back, if that’s a problem.’

‘Oh… thank you, for the invitation too – I didn’t know civilians were admitted to guest-nights.’

‘The regimental mess is pretty well sacrosanct except for an occasional dignitary from London or Moscow, but in the week we eat at the squadron, just half a dozen of us. It might amuse you, the food’s not bad and afterwards we can slip away on our own; that’s more or less expected. Now next week’s orders aren’t out yet – would tomorrow night be too soon? I’ll get in touch with you at the Commission about the details.’

Soon afterwards Nina and Elizabeth, the latter now in possession of all the relevant facts about the new frocks, returned to the room. Both turned looks of unfocussed but keen suspicion on the two young men. Nina said that they should all return to the drawing-room.

‘I should be going altogether,’ said Theodore.

‘Not before you’ve played us something,’ said Nina.

‘Dear God, I thought I’d got out of that.’

‘People don’t get out of things with Nina,’ said her brother.

‘It’s a family characteristic,’ said Elizabeth.

When, at the dinner-table an hour earlier, Mrs Tabidze had called for the brandy-decanter, Alexander had felt very much inclined to pour the whole of its contents over her, with the option of going on to set light to them. It was not that he resented her calling him a young whippersnapper (she was far too old and ugly for him to care one way or the other what she thought of him); the feeling aroused in him, though violent, was much more impersonal than that. The moment came back to him now because the last piece of dialogue had induced the same hostility, even though he had contributed to it himself. What was it that he found so distasteful? Something to do with style, something to do with intention, something to do with being taken outside life and into… a funny story? A parlour game? But why should that matter? For almost the first time in his life, Alexander sincerely wished he knew more and could think better.

In the drawing-room the card-game had just ended, with Korotchenko and Mrs Tabidze dividing the spoils with winnings of about?10,000 each, enough for a bottle of good-quality spirits and a packet of five cigarettes. Much to Alexander’s surprise, his mother and Mrs Korotchenko were in animated conversation; perhaps his extempore patter about shyness in a company of any size had happened to come somewhere near the mark. Nina clapped her hands for silence and announced that Mr Markov would play and sing some of the English songs he had come across in the course of his researches for the Cultural Commission.

Theodore duly offered half a dozen pieces, all short, under two minutes. He showed himself to be possessed of enough, or more than enough, skill and imagination for what he saw as the deceptively simple keyboard writing and also of a pleasant light baritone voice. Quite by chance, the piano had stayed free of damp and so was not grotesquely out of tune. Of those who noticed that it was not in tune (both Korotchenkos being tone-deaf), some, like Nina, thought this was pleasingly congruent with the outlandish material, while others, like Elizabeth, supposed Theodore to be somehow distorting the pitch on purpose for greater effect. All the songs were well received but by common consent the last of the set was best. Although the structure again was simple, two related strains each repeated once, Theodore brought out a blend of vivacity and melancholy in the music that proved, to this Russian audience, recognisable even if unfamiliarly expressed. Cries of approval as well as handclaps followed the final triumphant chord.

‘Most enjoyable,’ said Mrs Tabidze. ‘But could you explain it a little, Mr Markov? I’m afraid my English is far from what it should be. What does it mean, locked ‘em in the Old Kent Road?’

‘Actually it’s knocked ‘em, ma’am, struck them, hit them. The words are obscure, they’re largely slang, or more accurately argot. My theory… but you don’t want me to expound my theory at this time of night.’

His hearers assured him that they did.

‘The composer and lyric-writer was a certain Albert Chevalier. Now the French community in London was never very large; it was mostly confined to the catering trade. But it seems to have been cohesive, never assimilated by the traditionally xenophobic English. I take this song to be one of defiance, an assertion of French pride and independence in the heart of a foreign land, in the old, historic, quintessentially English road to Kent.’

‘But it’s an English song,’ said Elizabeth.

‘It became one. The English always imported or naturalised large parts of their culture, right to the end. During the Patriotic War of 1941-5, when they and the Hitlerites showed great hostility towards one another for a time, a hostility that as you know erupted more than once into armed actions like the bombing of the London docks and the Dieppe raid, the English translated and took over a German song called “Lilli Helene”. Musically speaking, too, the song I’ve just performed could never have been an English product. Not… not sufficiently direct.’

‘Fascinating,’ said Nina.

When the guests left, Alexander looked in vain for some signal from Mrs Korotchenko to confirm their arrangement for the following Tuesday, but he already knew enough about women not to be cast down by this omission of hers. He was tired and heavy-eyed and yet had no desire for sleep, or so he told himself. Should he have a last glass of wine? Unable to think of any arguments for or against the proposition he nevertheless returned to the drawing-room, which had the desolate look of all newly-emptied human resorts. While he was gazing inattentively at an opened bottle his father came in.

‘Ah, there you are, my boy. Are you away early tomorrow?’

‘Not especially, papa.

‘Commissioner Mets is coming to breakfast to discuss general policy. I though you might care to turn up as well.’

‘With anything particular in mind?’

‘The Commissioner might be interested to hear your views; you know some of the problems better than I do. It was just a thought.’

‘A very nice one. I’d love to come.’

‘Excellent. Eight o’clock. Try not to be late. Oh -Alexander…’

‘Yes, papa?’

‘You… you and Mrs Korotchenko and your turn in the gardens. I take it you, you DID, eh?’

Alexander had had fully ten seconds’ notice of a question on these lines, long enough to think things out as follows. There could be no point in shocking his father, who all the same appeared so far from shocked by the idea that it would be strange if he were to be much shocked by the fact, though on previous form, that of a sort of liberal puritan, some shock, unthickened with reproaches, was to be expected. That left the scales about level; what tipped them was the thought that it was too late at night for another elaborate exercise in dissimulation, especially for such trivial stakes. And there might well come a time when paternal possession of the fact in mind would be vital. Promptly enough to stand to win a couple of extra marks for supposed fearless honesty, he said, ‘Yes, I did.’

Petrovsky gave a great laugh. ‘I knew it! You young devil!’

‘How did you know, papa?’

‘Because I know you, that’s enough. Fancy that! I tried to get old Tabidze to take a bet, but he wouldn’t.’

‘What did you say to him? How did you put it?’

‘Put it? I just said to him, out of the Korotchenko fellow’s hearing of course, I said, “What do you wager there isn’t a spot of kissing going on outside at this moment?”, and as I say he wouldn’t take me. He said, “I wouldn’t stake ten pounds against that young spark doing anything in that line you care to name.” You see, he knows you too.’

Alexander took his turn to laugh and his father soon joined in. The pair of them went on for some time, like people in a play.

They did a lot of laughing in that house.