Neither Five Nor Three E-Book

Helen MacInnes

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Paul Haydn was on his way home at last, to New York and the civilian life he longed for, after years of War. Yet he would never forget the tormented people, desperate for refuge in Berlin. They had survived the War - but now a new, sinister presence threatened them, their families, the whole of society. Now he discovered that, back home, some of his former colleagues had dangerous political sympathies, that someone was trying to discredit the woman he had once loved. The pattern seemed suddenly familiar. He began to realise why there was such interest in his counter-propaganda skills.

Leseprobe

ALSO BY HELEN MacINNES

AND AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS

Pray for a Brave Heart

Above Suspicion

Assignment in Brittany

North From Rome

Decision at Delphi

The Venetian Affair

The Salzburg Connection

Message From Málaga

While We Still Live

The Double Image

Horizon

Snare of the Hunter

Agent in Place

Neither Five Nor Three

Print edition ISBN: 9781781161562

E-book edition ISBN: 9781781161623

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First edition: December 2012

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

© 1951, 2012 by the Estate of Helen MacInnes. All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

What did you think of this book?

We love to hear from our readers. Please email us at:

[email protected], or write to us at the above address.

To receive advance information, news, competitions, and exclusive offers online, please sign up for the Titan newsletter on our website.

www.titanbooks.com

To Naomi with love

To think that two and two are four

And neither five nor three

The heart of man has long been sore

And long ’tis like to be

A. E. HOUSMAN, LAST POEMS, XXXV

Table of Contents

I. Thesis

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

II. Antithesis

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

III. Synthesis

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

About the Author

I. THESIS

1

The dawn came slowly, cold and clear, thinning out the night sky.

It’s coming slowly, Paul Haydn thought, because we are running ahead of the sun. Then he smiled at his fancy as he looked down at the floor of clouds below him. He watched them change from blanched shapeless ghosts into a foaming sea of sun-streaked waves, their curling crests held motionless, poised but never spent. A traveller, fifty years from now, hurtling through the skies, would find that dawns came even more slowly for planes flying westwards. Or would he be travelling in a plane, fifty years from now? Then suddenly, Paul Haydn noticed that the clouds were no longer a sea beneath him, hiding the real ocean. We’re coming down, he thought, at last we are getting near land, we’re getting near America. Yes, there was a stretch of the Atlantic, a dark grey sheet of corrugated iron. He sat up abruptly, stretched his back muscles and his legs.

His excitement, controlled as he tried to keep it, woke Brownlee sitting beside him. The other passengers in the plane—the two congressmen and their secretaries and the brigadier-general who had accompanied them from Berlin, the silent worried sergeant who had joined the plane at Frankfurt, the three ECA officials returning from the Rhineland—were still slumped in sleep, their faces wiped clean of expression, their troubles, their hopes, their failures, their achievements all forgotten.

“Won’t be long now,” Paul said to Brownlee by way of apology. His smile made him younger, more like the Paul Haydn whom Brownlee had first met in London eight years ago.

Brownlee, still not moving, still gathering all the parts of his mind together that sleep had unlocked and left lying loosely around, answered Paul’s smile slowly. He yawned, stretched his arms, eased the muscles on his neck, and rubbed the blood back into his cheek where, as he had slept, it had rested too heavily against the eagle on his shoulder. He said, his smile broadening, “For a man who stayed away so long, you sound pretty eager to return.”

“I guess I’ve been away long enough,” Paul Haydn said. Then his grey eyes looked sharply at his friend. “And what’s amusing you?”

“The difference that eight years can make in a man.”

“Don’t know if I think that’s altogether funny.”

“You wouldn’t be altogether pleased if eight years left no differences.” Brownlee studied Paul’s face. “When we first met in London in 1942, you were a very new lieutenant in a very smart uniform, an enthusiastic young crusader—”

“On the brash side,” Paul amended. He shook his head as he remembered himself then. “At least,” he added, “I’ve learned that life is not all that easy.” Besides, his watchful eyes seemed to say, I’m not the only one who has changed a lot in eight years. Brownlee was thinner and more worried, his hair was almost white now; and yet, since the war had ended, he had been stationed in Washington, not in Germany as Paul had been. When Paul met him in Berlin only a couple of days ago (Brownlee had been taking the congressmen around the DP camps), Paul was as much surprised by the outward changes in Brownlee as he was by their meeting. A lucky meeting, though. If it hadn’t been for Brownlee, he wouldn’t have had this quick transportation home. And a good meeting, too. He liked Brownlee, even if Brownlee had been his superior officer all through the war.

“Yes, life seemed easier eight years ago,” Brownlee was saying. “In spite of everything, it seemed easier. All we had to do was to win that damned war, and then—if we were lucky—slip back into peace. Everything was more black and white, then. You knew where the dangers lay.”

Paul Haydn only nodded. He was glad of the stir around them as the others in the plane were wakened and warned of the landing ahead. He wasn’t going to get entangled in any more discussions. Brownlee was still very skilful at steering the conversation his way.

Brownlee seemed to be concentrating on fastening his safety belt, too. But he was still remembering Paul Haydn in London, eight years ago, excited about his assignment to the Free French and his work with the underground resistance in Brittany. He had done well in that job, including some extremely active service inside Occupied France. After the Liberation, Brownlee had lost immediate touch with Haydn, but he had kept track of him. Captain in Intelligence, examining German prisoners. Then Frankfurt. Assigned to counter-propaganda. Munich. DP camps. Berlin. And the young, smartly uniformed lieutenant with the friendly grey eyes, the disarming smile, the dark close-cropped hair, and the features which had been so regular that they were almost characterless, had become a major with some faded ribbons on his chest. His smile wasn’t so ready, now. The dark hair showed some grey at the temples. The regular features had lost their pleasant anonymity and gained a determined, capable look. Now, too, his eyes were watchful; more serious, less amused by life; less expectant of good, and yet—with Paul’s essential optimism that even Europe hadn’t altogether withered—still hopeful of finding it.

“Why did you stay away so long?” Brownlee asked suddenly.

“Never could get transport.”

Brownlee grinned. “You always had a surprising sense of duty, I remember.”

“What’s so surprising about it?”

“Because you never seemed particularly respectful about anything.”

“I agreed I was a brash young man,” Paul admitted with a smile.

“With the right impulses,” Brownlee said. “And I’m still betting on them.” His tone was light, but his alert brown eyes were serious. “Given any thought to the proposition I made at lunch yesterday?”

Paul Haydn hesitated. “Not too much,” he said frankly. “You weren’t specific enough, I guess.”

“I couldn’t be. You’ve got to see this thing for yourself, Paul. I’m not a draft board, you know. I want volunteers.”

“Look, I’ve done enough volunteering. When I’m finished with the army, I’m finished. I’ve had enough duty to last me the rest of my life.” His face was once more determined, guarded. He turned his head away and looked out of the window.

“This isn’t an army job,” Brownlee said patiently. “Once you’ve had your leave, run around, settled down and started your career again, come and have a chat with me. By that time, either you’ll know what I’ve been talking about, or you won’t care. That’s when you can give me a definite answer.”

“I’m giving it to you now. Sorry, but I’m—look! There she is! Look—will you look at that?” Paul grabbed Roger Brownlee’s arm as if to make sure that he wouldn’t miss this, either.

It was New York, its clear-cut buildings squared and neat, its towers and pinnacles gleaming in the early sunlight, its silent streets running like straight dark threads below the myriad shining windows. It was New York, cool, remote, beautiful.

“We’re coming in too low,” Brownlee said, glancing worriedly at his brigadier-general and the congressmen.

“Suits me,” Paul said. He didn’t take his eyes away from the window. He said nothing more.

Brownlee took his note-book and pencil out of his pocket and wrote quickly. “Tuck this in your pocket,” he said to Haydn. “It’s my telephone number.” He tore the page from his note-book and held it out.

“At the Pentagon?” That seemed unnecessary, Paul thought.

“No. At my own office. I’m becoming a civilian, too.”

Paul Haydn stared.

Brownlee said, nodding in the direction of the congressmen, “This is my last job in uniform.”

“But—” began Paul, and then stopped. You didn’t ask Brownlee questions.

“Because the job I want to do now is better done as a civilian,” Brownlee said quietly.

“But your seniority, your—” Paul stopped again. If Roger Brownlee was giving that all up, then he was really worried. Paul looked at him, and buttoned the slip of paper safely into his tunic pocket. Then, like everyone else in the plane, he concentrated on the landing for the next minute or two.

“Reporters,” Brownlee said, looking out of the window as he unstrapped his safety belt. “Time I was joining my congressmen, again. Did I tell you they were very upset about the hordes of new DPs all streaming into our Zone?” He was smiling wryly.

“About time someone was getting upset,” Paul answered grimly. Then, as he rose to follow Brownlee who had become very much the capable colonel again, he told himself to forget it, he had had enough of being harrowed and harried, now he was going to cut himself a slice of peace. He was five years behind most of his friends, but he’d still back himself a good slice. There was plenty to go around.

He stopped beside the sergeant. “Are you going straight to the hospital? I’ll give you a lift.”

“The colonel said he’d take care of me, sir,” the sergeant replied. Normally, he would have a cheerful pugnacious look on that square face with its wide mouth. But now, worried by the news of his wife’s illness, he was grim and sullen.

“The colonel may be held back by the reporters: I’ll give you a lift.”

The sergeant picked up his kit and followed Paul. “Her mother wrote,” he began to explain, if only to talk out his troubles, “she said there might be a chance if the wife could see me.”

“Then the sooner the better.”

“Yes, sir.” He looked patiently at the congressmen still asking last questions of the brigadier-general, while the secretaries recounted the bulging suitcases. The ECA men were talking politely if condescendingly to the colonel, who after all had only a military mind. Paul Haydn managed to catch Brownlee’s eye, and he nodded towards the sergeant. Brownlee understood quickly enough. He was that kind of man, Paul thought, as he watched Brownlee speak quietly to the general. In a few minutes, the plane’s exit was clear. The civilians were somehow persuaded not to be photographed from the gangplank, not to pose there while they made their statements to the Press. They were grouped together on the lower eminence of solid ground, and the sergeant and Paul had a free path before them.

Yes, Brownlee was that kind of man, Paul thought as he stepped out of the plane. He gave his last official salute, colonel sir, and caught an answering smile in Roger Brownlee’s eyes.

As he fell into step with the sergeant away from the plane and the little groups of VIPs being photographed, toward the long line of buildings with their stretches of smooth concrete and shining glass, he was still thinking about Brownlee and what he had said yesterday in Berlin. Odd that Brownlee should go off on such a tangent as that... Then Paul remembered these were not the thoughts he had intended to land with. As he left the plane, as he reached good American ground, he was going to have said, “Well, there’s the last of Europe. Here’s where I begin my own life again. Here is where I find peace.” But like most dramatic speeches, it had been left unsaid. Because of Brownlee...

A reporter caught up with them. “And how’s Berlin?” he asked.

“Ask them,” Paul Haydn said with a grin and nodded back towards the plane. “We’re just a couple of guys who hitched a ride.”

“No story?” The reporter, young, eager, stared at them in disappointment. He had been sure that there was a good story somewhere, when a brigadier-general had got off a plane so hurriedly to let a sergeant and a major get out.

The sergeant shifted the weight of his kit. “No story, Jack,” he said decidedly.

“He’ll go far,” Paul said, looking after the reporter, “as soon as he learns to play his hunches.” Then he looked at the sergeant in consternation. “He’s only a kid—why, he’s a good ten years younger than we are!” A new stage in my life, he thought wryly. He began looking at the men who were polishing the glass and steel doors, at the men inside the hallways and waiting rooms, at the men behind the information desks. In this new discovery, he almost forgot to look at the girls. That would have been indeed a sign that to be thirty-three was practically verging on dotage.

“How about a sandwich and some real American coffee?” he asked the sergeant. And the man, forgetting his nagging worry for a moment as he looked round the enormous building alive even at this early hour with people, his own people, smiled.

“Sounds good to me, sir,” he said.

“Yes,” Paul said, listening to the voices around him. “Everything sounds good.” He smiled, too.

* * *

Rona Metford had been sleeping lightly because she had warned herself, last night, that today was a day for rising early, a day for a rigid timetable. The plane, flying so low over Manhattan, wakened her completely. She looked at the small clock beside her bed. “Oh no!” she said. It was five o’clock in the morning.

“There should be a law,” she told the plane’s roar angrily as it receded to leave peace and sleeplessness. Then she remembered there was a law; so she thought bitterly of the pilot, instead.

But her annoyance didn’t last long. Her mind was too full of today’s plans. She lay in bed, stretching comfortably, enjoying its warmth and softness. Outside the blankets, the little room was cool and fresh, partly because of its green curtains against white walls, partly because the early April air had still a sharp edge to it—last week, there had been snow. She could tell from the bright colour of the gently moving curtains that this morning was sunny and clear-skyed. (On grey threatening mornings, their green was cold and lifeless.) That cheered her. At least, her guests wouldn’t arrive for the party tonight with rubbers and heavy coats to jam the tiny hall or with dripping umbrellas to fill the small bathroom.

“Oh, I hope it goes well!” she said to the ceiling. Then she sat up in bed and she looked at Scott’s photograph on the dressing-table. Of course it would go well. She blew him a kiss and pulled the green ribbon off her hair. Last night, she remembered with a smile, last night had been a good night... She looked down at her left hand and its engagement ring. Yes, all her recent worries had been pointless. Last night, everything had been normal again, everything had been happy and gay and all the fears of last month had become so many silly shadows. Scott had told her he loved her, in a hundred ways he had told her. She knew just by the way he had looked at her, had talked for her and laughed with her, even by the way he had fallen silent as he watched her. She was the loveliest girl in the whole place, he had said at the theatre. She was the most wonderful girl, he had said as they danced. She was his girl, he had said afterward.

He does love me, after all he does love me, she thought as she hugged her bare shoulders suddenly: I am the luckiest girl in all New York. And she slipped out of bed to run and open the curtains and welcome a new day. Then she turned to the dressing-table to brush her dark hair—it was too long, now, but Scott wouldn’t let her cut it. Her large brown eyes, emphasised by well-shaped brows and black eyelashes, laughed at her in the mirror. What did Scott say last night about the curve of the lashes, and the curve of her cheek?—Enough, she told herself, or you’ll end by thinking you are Récamier. What sweet nonsense Scott could talk! But as she looked at herself, critically now, she found she was vain enough to be glad that her hips and breasts curved as they did from her slender waist. And she laughed again, and kissed the photograph.

The alarm sounded its warning. Enough, enough, she told herself again, and slipping a dressing-gown around her she ran to the kitchenette to start the coffee. Her quick shower made her still more practical. I’ll get to the office early this morning, she thought as she dressed, and I’ll clear that desk of mine so completely that Burnett will give me permission to leave early and I can be back here by five o’clock. The guests were arriving at six. Scott would come before then, of course. He was the host, tonight. She gave a last look at the photograph, at the rather solemn face which didn’t do Scott justice—he wasn’t so cold and intent as the camera pretended he was. His face was much more gentle than that. In fact, the usual adjective that women used for him was “sweet”; that was the gruesome effect that his charm and his smile combined with his height, fair hair, and blue eyes had on them. But what I like most of all, Rona decided as she pulled the blanket and sheets off the narrow bed, is the way he pays no attention to any of them. In the beginning, when she had first met Scott, he hadn’t wanted to pay much attention to her either. But he did, all the same. She was smiling as she hurried to the kitchenette to stop the kettle whistling itself hoarse.

After breakfast, there was the usual tidying of the two small rooms which Rona called “my apartment” so proudly. (Mrs. Kasprowicz was coming in later, to clean and polish for three hours. At a dollar an hour, Rona could only afford her twice a week.) It was a simple apartment—the top floor of a brownstone house that had been converted into small flats—but everything it contained was Rona’s: Rona’s work, Rona’s ideas. This is something I’ve produced, she thought as she stood looking at the living-room. And then she wondered, as she did at least once each day, where Scott and she would live, and when. Perhaps by this summer, he would feel he had saved enough money. Last night, she thought wryly, had been no help to his budget, but what could she have done? Remonstrate gently? And risk making him angry, risk spoiling the evening? He didn’t like nagging women or interference. He liked to enjoy his impulses, even if they cost forty dollars.

She had started worrying again. So she picked up a pencil and found a shopping pad and gave herself some practical worries to think about. She must order crackers, cheese. Flowers. Smoked salmon, olives, lemons, nuts. Liver pâté from the delicatessen on Third Avenue. Soda water. Scotch for Scott’s father, certainly. Perhaps some of the other men preferred that too. Martinis for the others. Cigarettes, she had nearly forgotten cigarettes. What else?

She must take her party shoes to the cobbler to get the ankle strap fixed. And remind the cleaner to deliver her silk suit by five-thirty. What else, what else? A note for Mrs. Kasprowicz, printed carefully so that there would be no mistakes, about the glasses to be washed and polished. Oh, and ice...she must order extra ice.

Then, with a last quick look around her, she went into the small hall. On the telephone table, near the door, she left the instructions for Mrs. Kasprowicz. She glanced in the mirror that hung over the table, readjusted the angle of her neat white sailor hat and tucked away a stray end of the heavy-meshed veil fitting closely over her face. She pulled on her freshly washed white gloves which matched the piqué waistcoat she wore with her grey wool suit, checked the seams of her stockings, and opened the door. The morning paper was lying at the threshold, in time for an eight o’clock breakfast. She lifted it, decided not to take it with her, and glanced at the headlines. The navy plane was still missing in the Baltic: ten young men who would never come back to their families... New York reservoirs were still low... Further investigations in Washington... The case of Dr. Fuchs was still going on, even if it was over... A Communist demonstration in New York against the President of Chile... Nazi trouble rising once more in Hamburg: desecration of graves.

As she laid the paper with a frown on the hall table, the ’phone rang. I’ll be late, she warned herself, but she lifted the telephone. She was hoping it wouldn’t be Peggy, her sister, calling to say that she and Jon couldn’t come to the party because the baby was sick or they couldn’t get a sitter. But it was Scott’s voice that answered her. “Hello, darling,” he began. And she forgot all her worries, public and private.

* * *

Scott Ettley had been wakened at five o’clock, too. His apartment, only a few blocks away from Rona’s, lay almost underneath the incoming plane. He listened for engine trouble, and then—reassured that he wasn’t going to be killed in his bed with the biggest hangover he had had in weeks—he cursed the pilot as heartily as his splitting head would let him. He made out the time with some difficulty on his watch. Oh, God!... He stared angrily at the darkened room, at the litter of living—the scattered clothes, the misplaced books, the tailored cover of the divan which he had ripped off last night, no, it was this morning, and left lying beside his shirt on the floor. He pushed an overflowing ashtray farther away from his nose, and then pulled the sheet over his head as if to blot out all the joys of a bachelor apartment.

Waking is always hell, he thought. Or I’m getting old. Twenty-nine. I can’t take night club air and the great indoor spaces any more. Twenty-nine, and already giving up the simple pleasures of the poor. Forty bucks, that was what simple pleasures cost nowadays. Forty little bucks. But Rona had enjoyed it. Made up to her for the quarrel last week. My fault, of course. She never says it, but she might as well. I know it was all my damned fault. And why am I admitting it now, anyway? Just to add the final touch of joy on a lousy morning at five o’clock and sleep all gone and this head spinning like an empty boat in a whirlpool? He groaned in pity, and lay with his eyes closed. Because he was so sure that sleep had gone, it came drifting back.

When the alarm went off, it was ten minutes to eight. He felt slightly better. But waking, he told himself again, was always hell. Slowly, he sat up. He stayed sitting on the edge of his bed, looking down at his crumpled pyjama legs. Then he groped for his slippers, couldn’t find them, and padded into the bathroom on his bare feet. His reflection in the mirror made him feel worse, but a cold shower pulled him half-back into life. He remembered then that he must call Rona.

“Hello, darling,” he began, and listening to her voice he began thinking of her as she had been last night. “Hello, beautiful... did you enjoy it?... Did I? It was the best evening we’ve had in a long time. Let’s have some more. To hell with the cost, Rona. Are we living, or are we living?” He listened to her laugh, and wished he could manage one like that at this hour. “Honey,” he said, “by the way—I can’t meet you for lunch today. Sorry, got to go out of town... No, I’ll be back in time for the party. Don’t worry. Sorry about lunch, though... I meant to tell you last night, but I was enjoying myself too much, I guess. Forgive me, darling?”

He replaced the receiver. He was smiling now. Rona was pretty wonderful. In spite of Orpen’s sneers about mantraps, Rona was wonderful. But the smile left Scott Ettley’s face as he thought of Nicholas Orpen, of Rona, of his father, of all the complications in his life. All that was enough to drive him back into gloom, away from the moment of pleasure when he had listened to Rona’s laugh over the telephone. Orpen was wrong about Rona. Rona was understanding, Rona was pliable. It was the only way to be happily married—to take the girl you wanted when she was still impressionable and mould her into someone who would be yours forever. Orpen was right about most things, but he was wrong about Rona.

Ettley shaved and dressed with care, choosing a dark grey flannel suit, a fresh white shirt, a navy silk tie. Conservative, he told himself with a grin. He left the apartment before nine, complimenting himself on his speed and efficiency. (He would have time, after all, for a cup of coffee. He might even walk to the office.) He closed the door and double-locked it, leaving behind him the disordered room with yesterday’s shirt and stray socks and the bed-covers still lying abjectly on the floor. Marija, who came in to pick up and clean each day, would have everything in order for his return. She was a quiet Esthonian who had never learned enough English to be able to take out her citizenship papers. She was a reliable woman. Orpen had recommended her: he knew her husband.

I must see Orpen tonight, Scott Ettley was thinking as he reached the street. It was a cool, fresh morning. The small trees spaced along the sidewalk were in bud, their black thin branches dusted with green. He skirted an empty ash can, a couple of milk bottles, a dog straining at the end of a leash. I must see Orpen. This waiting and wondering is getting me down. Tonight, I’ll see him.

Then he remembered Rona’s party. After it, no doubt, his father would insist on taking Rona and him to dinner. Her sister and brother-in-law would be drawn in, too. One of those family evenings with Duty raising her ugly head. And every time his father made a tactful allusion to weddings, Rona would try not to look embarrassed, yet her cheeks would colour and her eyes would find something interesting to watch on the other side of the room. But getting married wasn’t so easy, not at the moment. Perhaps by Thanksgiving, perhaps by then. Rona would wait another six months: she was his, she trusted him. Some day he could explain to her, and that would make everything clear to her. She would understand. They could be happy together, in spite of what Orpen said.

He stopped for a moment at the corner newsstand and read the morning’s headlines. He didn’t even bother to buy a paper. Just the same old stuff, ground out day after day. And then he went into Schrafft’s, sat at the counter, and drank a cup of strong black coffee. He caught sight of himself in the mirror behind the bubbling coffee-pots—a fair-haired man, well-fed, well-dressed, with a look of prosperity about him. He turned sharply away from the mirror, paid the clerk, and left.

2

Rona Metford left the office just after half-past four.

“Where’s she going?” the new typist asked, catching a glimpse of Rona as she passed the open door of the large room where fifteen tables and fifteen typewriters stood in neat rows.

Mrs. Hershey, In Charge, looked up with a frown. She did most of the important typing for the Architecture Department, and so she felt she had to defend Rona. Besides, she liked Rona Metford and she didn’t like new girls who thought they were running the magazine after three weeks on its staff. “When you’ve been working here nine years and become assistant editor of the Architecture Department and learned to finish your job by half-past four, no doubt Mr. Burnett will let you leave early whenever you are giving a cocktail party.”

“Nine years. Good grief!” the new typist said in disgust. “And she isn’t even married yet.”

Miss Guttman looked up from the filing cabinet. “We don’t all rush to grab the first man that asks us.” She exchanged a small smile with Mrs. Hershey—just a couple of old-timers putting Miss Pert in her place—and came back to her desk. Talking of Rona Metford though... “Guess who I saw in the street today?” she asked in a lowered voice.

Mrs. Hershey couldn’t.

“Paul Haydn! He didn’t see me...too busy looking at a windowful of ties.”

Mrs. Hershey was impressed enough to stop her work, even if it kept her late. “Paul Haydn in New York? Well!”

“I heard rumours that the magazine wants him back here.”

“There have been plenty of rumours. But will he come?”

Miss Guttman shrugged her thin shoulders. “He was in uniform, a general or something, perhaps he’s staying in the army.”

“It might be difficult for him here,” Mrs. Hershey said. “I mean, with Rona Metford and all that.”

“He’s forgotten long ago. He wasn’t the kind of man to let a broken engagement worry him. Wasn’t that why she broke it, anyway—all those women in Europe?”

“Oh, you can’t believe all you hear,” Mrs. Hershey said good-naturedly. “He couldn’t help it if the girls liked him.” She shook her head, pushed a grey curl back into place, and her plump white face looked regretful. She had been sorry when Rona Metford and Paul Haydn had broken off, for she had seen the beginning of their love affair right here in this office; there was nothing like a touch of romance to brighten up life and they had looked so well together, just right, as if they’d never be the ones to disappoint Mrs. Hershey.

“He’s like all men,” Miss Guttman said gloomily. She looked down at her neat figure in its excellent black suit, and then admired her carefully kept hands. They looked nicer ringless, anyway, she decided. “I think I’ll get a waistcoat, white piqué,” she announced suddenly. “Wonder where she bought that one she wore today? Touches of white, that’s what’s new this spring.”

“Too much laundering,” Mrs. Hershey said. Then she suddenly remembered that she was to take care of her grandson tonight, so she couldn’t waste any more time at all. Her expert fingers raced over the electric typewriter. “My son and daughter-in-law are going to see South Pacific,” she explained, her eyes on the clock.

“And I’ve got seats for The Cocktail Party tonight,” Miss Guttman said, also suddenly remembering the time. “They say it’s good.” She began typing too.

Couple of old cows, the new typist thought politely. But she was feeling depressed because three weeks of typing and shorthand had turned out to be more work and less glamour than she had imagined when she had told her friends she was going to become a secretary. She stared defiantly at Mrs. Hershey for inflicting all these letters on her—the dullest, silliest letters of no importance at all—and was startled to see that Mrs. Hershey was watching her table.

But Mrs. Hershey was remembering the morning, nine years ago, when she had pointed out that desk to a dark-haired girl with large brown eyes. “Rona Metford,” the girl had said nervously, “I’m Rona Metford.” She had been seventeen then, straight from high school. And more willing to learn than some of those college graduates who wanted to work on a magazine nowadays. Mrs. Hershey looked severely at the new girl. (She’ll have to go. Lazy, inefficient, blaming all her troubles on other people. As if we didn’t earn most of our own troubles: pity they hadn’t taught her that in college.) Then she pulled back her attention to the last letter she had to type. She slipped a sheet of paper, carbon and second sheet neatly in place and typed the date expertly to balance the elegantly embossed heading—trend: a magazine for living. In all her fifteen years with Trend, Mrs. Hershey had never quite decided what that really meant. Perhaps that was why so many people bought it, just trying to find out.

“I don’t care,” Miss Guttman said suddenly, her blonde palomino-rinsed head turned towards Mrs. Hershey. “I’m going to get a white piqué waistcoat.”

Mrs. Hershey nodded placatingly, frowned at a word, and typed on.

* * *

The white piqué waistcoat which had aroused Miss Guttman’s envy was now getting out of the elevator and arousing passions of a slightly different nature in the men hurrying through the lobby.

Joe, the elevator operator, was finishing the story which he had begun on the twenty-third floor about Monday at Jamaica. “Fifty-to-one shot. Breezed in.”

“It paid the rent, then?” Rona asked with a smile.

“Sure did. Paid the rent all right.” He grinned and added, “This week.”

“Good night, Joe.” Rona hurried past the row of elevators toward the entrance of the building, before he could add the inevitable phrase that his life was just a series of ups and downs.

“Good night, Miss Metford.” Joe’s voice sounded cheated of a laugh, but in another half hour or so he would have plenty of customers coming down from the upper floors. He knew them all, had seen them come and go. Not many of them could say they had been working here in this building for twenty-one years. Miss Metford was leaving soon—so they said. Engaged to that nice-looking young fellow with the fair hair and blue eyes. But he wasn’t waiting for her, down here in the lobby, tonight. She wasn’t expecting him, either, for she was walking past the Coffee Shop where they usually met, out into Fifth Avenue through the big swing doors.

Rona turned east towards Madison, walking quickly, keeping to the right of the sidewalk to prove she was now an old New Yorker. Tonight, she didn’t even glance at the hats and dresses and ties and shirts and books and glassware which were so invitingly displayed in the small shops all along the street. At Madison Avenue, busy, less formal than Fifth but with its own elegance and high-priced look, she had to wait for a traffic light. And looking up and down the avenue, looking at the buildings with their varied lights and shadows, looking at the spring evening sky so high and blue, looking at the white clouds so admirably placed to balance the skyscrapers, she fell in love with her town all over again. Each evening, waiting at Madison and East Fifty-fourth Street, she’d look at the sky, and then at the buildings, and then at the buses and taxis and people, and—no matter how tired or annoyed or worried she had been that afternoon—her spirits would lift. Today, she had been happy and excited so that now she felt like singing. The vision of herself gaily skipping across the avenue, hitting a high note, made her smile. The woman beside her, draped in a silver-blue mink stole, her enamelled face expressionless under a riot of roses, looked at Rona curiously for a moment. A man watching both of them, kept his thoughts to himself. And then the traffic lights changed to green, the buses and taxis lined up, and the three of them crossed Madison quickly, adeptly, now only intent on their own private business.

Rona cut up Madison for a couple of blocks to see how the new building was coming along. Like everyone who had lived in the city for some years, she took a proprietary interest in all the tearing down of old buildings, the piling up of new ones. Only a few months ago, the bulldozers had been biting into the debris of this block. Then the piles had been driven deep for the foundations, the steel girders had started mounting, the concrete had been moulded. Now the building was reaching up into the sky, a fretwork of steel and concrete, and the large open space where the bulldozers had worked was a vast ground floor, black and cavernous behind its protective boarding. There, under bare electric bulbs, mounds of supplies lay in a confusion that the workmen seemed to find orderly. In another month or two, all this would be gone, to the last speck of dust. And the ground floor would have its displays of delicate dresses, or porcelain and crystal, of fragile hats and precious jewels, against a background of soft pale colours and polished mirrors and thick carpets. Modern magic, Rona thought; and standing at the rough gateway cut into the wooden boarding she watched an electrician at work on the long reels of lead piping exposed in an unfinished pillar, with the awe that Cinderella must have felt for the old lady with her wand.

But to see better—although, of course, she mustn’t spend more than a minute tonight—and to be out of the way of workmen clearing debris on to a truck, she moved farther along the temporary wooden gangway and put her eye to one of the square holes cut for “sidewalk-superintendents” in the fence. Beside her, a small boy was watching through another square hole cut obligingly at a three-foot height, while he resisted all attempts by his mother to drag him away. She was saying, “But Billy, we’ve seen it! And the men are leaving now. They’ve nearly all gone.” It was true, although the very junior sidewalk-superintendent didn’t want to believe it. Or perhaps the huge ground floor, still unbroken into rooms, fascinated him by its size. It seemed all the bigger because only a few men, busy on overtime, were left to emphasise its loneliness. “I’ll build a house just like that,” the little boy announced, and decided to leave and get home and start right away. His mother ran after him.

Time for me to leave too, Rona thought, and she turned away. A tall man in uniform stepped aside to let her pass over the narrowed sidewalk. Then, even as she had passed, his arm suddenly went out and he gripped her by the elbow and pulled her back. Startled, she looked up at him and saw a dark-haired man with strong eyebrows, a face that was now more handsome than good-looking, a pleasant mouth beginning to smile, serious grey eyes now losing their surprise. “Rona!” he said. “Rona...”

She stood staring at him. She half-opened her mouth. When she did speak, her voice was incredulous. “Paul Haydn!”

They stood there, blocking the sidewalk. Then he dropped her arm. “Look,” he said, smiling, “we’d better get off this catwalk before we are arrested for obstruction.” That took a minute, a minute that gave them time to regain themselves a little, a minute that took away all the naturalness of their voices and made them suddenly self-conscious.

“I wondered who the girl was,” he began, and she looked at him. She was thinking, he hasn’t changed at all, the same old Paul, he looks different except when he smiles, but he’s the same old Paul wondering who the girl was. He noticed the look, and he went on, “The girl who had enough sense to admire a good job of work.” He said it simply, and she felt ashamed of herself. She had often imagined this meeting, and she had dreaded it. Now it was here, and there was no reason for those fears at all. At the first moment—well, that had been surprise. But now—we said we’d be friends, she told herself, it’s all over and we are only friends.

She gave him a warm smile and said, “I’m glad to see you, Paul. You’re looking well. And very impressive.”

“Oh, this!” He glanced down at his uniform. “None of my old clothes would fit, and the new suits needed alterations. I’ll look less conspicuous in a few days.”

“Are you coming out of the army?” She was surprised.

“You didn’t expect me to stay in it forever, did you?”

“It seemed that way,” she said.

He looked across the street at one of the small smart bars. “Come and have a drink and give me the news. I’m all out of touch with everybody.”

“I can’t. I’m sorry. I’m late. I’ve got to rush.”

“Still living with—what was her name?”

“Molly Anders? Oh, no, she married.” There was a moment of embarrassment for Rona. But Paul Haydn didn’t seem to notice it. She was thankful for that. Yes, he thought of her as an old friend. He had probably had so many girls since she had last seen him that she was only a faded piece of the past. Then she smiled at herself, for she didn’t quite like that description; but it was at least, a pleasantly safe position. She held out her hand. “Goodbye, Paul. I must go.”

He kept her hand, saying, “Have a heart, Rona! I’ve been walking around New York all day. I’ve only talked to my tailor and a couple of clerks, and the waiters and taxi drivers. Couldn’t you let yourself be a little late tonight? ...No?” He let her hand go. “All right,” he said, with a grin, “I’ll walk along with you. Is that okay?”

“Of course. It isn’t far. I live just a few blocks across town.” She began walking quickly, and he went with her. “I’ve some people coming in to see me,” she explained, “and I’ve got to get things ready.” For a moment, she had the impulse to ask him to come; he’d know nearly everyone there. Then she decided against that. “Have you seen many of the old crowd?” she asked instead.

“I just got in this morning.”

“You mean, this is your first day in New York? Since when?”

“Since 1945,” he admitted. “I was on leave here then, but I spent most of it in Colorado. I haven’t been in New York, properly, since 1942. It’s a queer feeling. I went down to Washington Square, today, just to have a look at my old apartment. It’s gone—nothing but a gaping hole and a lot of bulldozers moving in. And that building you were watching, what used to be there? I was trying to remember when you almost passed me by.”

“It was a gallery. Art collections and things. Remember?”

“And where is it now?”

“Moved uptown. The city’s moving uptown.”

“So I saw. No more trolley cars on Fifty-ninth, business offices on Park Avenue, the UN building towering over the East River, and Radio City settling into a respectable middle age.”

“It must have been a frightening welcome for you.”

“It’s what I get,” he agreed, “for thinking everything stood still while I was away. But actually it’s more exciting than frightening. It’s good to see people building. It’s good to see them confident.”

“That’s what I keep thinking,” she said eagerly. “But some people go around talking about the country being in the grip of hysteria—the bomb, and spies, and all that. And I just can’t quite see how they can believe it, if they’d use their eyes and look around them. We may all be worried underneath, but you don’t get this kind of confidence with hysteria, do you?”

He steered her safely across the double width of Park Avenue, circumnavigated a small flotilla of baby carriages and tricycles returning, with balloons flying, from a visit to the Central Park Zoo, and led her along a quieter stretch of side street to the neon signs of Lexington. “You’re very serious, nowadays,” he said, watching her face with a smile.

“Not altogether, I hope.” She smiled back. “After all,” she reminded him, “I was only eighteen when you last saw me. That isn’t exactly a serious age.”

“You still look very much the same, if you want to know. I’d have recognised you at once if it hadn’t been for the hat. Don’t you wear it on the back of your head any more? And what’s all this veiling for? Camouflage?” But there was a compliment in his voice, and she felt unexpectedly pleased. She looked at him, still smiling, but she said nothing. He seemed much older, much older than he ought to be. But she couldn’t tell him that. He had a quick glance for everything, everyone on the street, and not just for the prettiest girls either. He seemed—she wasn’t quite sure of the word: capable, perhaps. Capable and reliable. She almost laughed. Perhaps it was the uniform, she thought. Paul Haydn had been famous for his charm, in the old days, but reliable? Clever and erratic, they had said about him: life came too easily for him. It probably did, even now.

His grey eyes were watching her. They were amused.

“What’s the verdict?” he asked.

She flushed a little. “You’re—you’re different,” she said lamely.

“Is that bad or good?”

Her colour deepened. She laughed openly. “I wouldn’t know.”

“No,” he said, and he was serious again. There was a pause. Then he said, suddenly, “I heard in 1945 that you were married. To a man in the navy.”

“Just gossip, Paul. But I am getting married, now.” She drew off the glove on her left hand, and said, “There it is.”

“Very handsome,” he said, glancing at the ring, and then concentrating on leading her through the maze of traffic on overcrowded Lexington. “And is he?”

“Of course!”

“He must be a nice guy.”

“Why?”

“To make your face light up like that when you talk about him.”

“He’s a wonderful guy,” she said softly.

Paul Haydn studied a cleaner’s shop with interest. Then he said, “I’m glad, Rona.”

She said, as simply as she had spoken when she had shown him Scott’s ring, “I’m glad you’re glad, Paul.” And with that, she buried their past completely.

“What about your job at Trend?” he asked suddenly. “I heard you were practically running the Architecture Department. Good for you.”

“Just more gossip. I’m only an assistant to Mr. Burnett. I imagine what should go inside a room once he has decided its shape. I’m not fully qualified yet, you see.”

“You mean as an architect?” He was surprised. “Still following that idea? Then you got a college degree?”

“Yes, I made it. Part-time work and night classes. That sort of thing.”

“Not as much fun as Vassar, I’d imagine.”

“No.” She smiled. “Still, it was either that way or nothing.” She halted, looking up at the quiet brownstone house in front of them. She pointed out the green window boxes on the top floor. “My apartment. Now, I’ll have to dash in and start spreading canapés like mad.”

“Sorry I kept you late. But it was good to see you again.” He held out his hand and gripped hers.

“That’s the strange thing about this city—the way you meet people so unexpectedly.”

“Yes. Now I really know I’m back in New York.”

She looked along the familiar street, and she saw it as it must seem to him: a tight wall of houses, busy at this hour, yet lonely, with strangers hurrying to their homes. She said impulsively, “Paul, why don’t you come to the party? Jon Tyson will be there.”

“Jon?” He was delighted to hear the name again. “And how’s Jon?”

“He married Peggy—my sister, remember? He teaches history up at Columbia University. Yes, and they’ve two children. Didn’t you know?”

“I’m a bad letter writer,” he reminded her. Especially, he thought, when I wanted to cut myself off from everything I remembered.

“You’ll know quite a lot of the other guests, too. They’d love to welcome you home. Why not come? It would save you a lot of telephoning in the next few days.”

Paul Haydn hesitated. He looked at the lonely street. “Swell,” he said. “I’d like to see them all.”

“I said six o’clock.” She glanced at her watch. “Heavens!” She waved and ran up the steep flight of steps, with the same light graceful movements he now remembered so well. He saluted and turned away. Behind him, an elevated train rattled over Third Avenue. He avoided two children shakily trying out their new roller skates, a dog straining on a long leash across the sidewalk toward a hydrant.

On Lexington Avenue, he went into the first bar he could find, a small place blazing with neon signs outside, stretching its capacity to the last inch inside with booths for eating, welcoming its customers with a blast of music and cold air-conditioning. The early clients were gathered round the bar near the entrance. Uninhibited tweed jackets, Paul noted, and ties strong enough to knock you over. There were some women too. A blonde with pointed breasts and good legs looked at him haughtily. Soldiers are out of favour, he thought, for he hadn’t had time yet to catch up on the new poses in the fashionable magazines. He decided that it was a pity though that a pretty girl’s hair should be so ragged—as if mice had been gnawing at it overnight—and he chose a seat at the far end of the bar where his uniform wouldn’t annoy her.

He looked at the men; they seemed prosperous and well-fed, a peaceful crowd. Even the arguments were good-natured, and the loud voices had no harsh sneering edge. It would be easy for someone coming in here as a foreigner to start generalising: easy to forget that most of the men here must have been just the right age for the war. When we demobilise, we demobilise, he thought. In one way—remembering Berlin as he had seen it only twenty-four hours ago, remembering the new refugees with their small bundles of belongings and the new fears—that idea worried him. In another way, he was cheered: it was good to see people who had been first-rate fighting men throw off regimentation so quickly. The gloomy predictions of some columnists five years ago didn’t make much sense now. The adjustment problems were drinking a beer or a rye after a day’s work and making vague plans for definite relaxation this evening.

“Just back?” the barman asked, filling Paul’s empty glass, glancing at his service ribbons and then at his face. “You’ll get used to it,” he said reassuringly. “Once had a couple of them things.” He nodded to the ribbons on Paul’s chest. “Guess the old woman stowed them away in the attic along with her wedding dress.” Then his dark, heavy and thickening face concentrated on polishing the glasses until they shone like crystal. His strong broad hands arranged them delicately in their neat pyramid in front of a gleaming mirror. Over his shoulder, he’d throw in a remark to each conversation: the drought, the Dodgers’ chances this year, the plane missing over the Baltic, the Rangers in the play-offs at last, this new play called The Cocktail Party and what right had any of those psychiatrists to send a good-looking girl to be pegged down for the ants to eat?

The blonde girl had met a friend almost as pretty as she was, with the same hauteur and mice-gnawed hair. (Can this be a fashion? Paul wondered in dismay.) They were both losing something of their grand manner in a heated discussion about ranch-type houses. Paul Haydn, keeping his eye on his glass, hoped that whatever type of house it was, it wasn’t as ugly as its name. Or should he have said “new-type name”? He repressed a grimace, for the barman might think aspersions were being cast on his excellent Martini. Yes, Paul thought, one slipped quickly back into the old routine after all: he was half-way to becoming an editor again with an aversion for nouns being used as adjectives. He paid and left the cosy comfort of the bar, avoiding the blonde’s carefully ignoring eye. He came out on to the busy sidewalk, hesitated. He was still undecided whether he ought to accept Rona’s invitation or not. It was scarcely six o’clock yet.

He argued with himself around the block. Rona had made one thing very clear by the invitation: they were friends, nothing more. She would never have asked him to join the party if she had felt any other emotion when she met him. Not Rona. It was just as well to get that straight, especially if he were going to take his job with Trend again. (He wished the magazine would change that damned name, though: what once had seemed on the smart side, now seemed comic. Like a cute inscription on a book’s fly-leaf, seen years later when the clever touch made you shudder.) But perhaps he wouldn’t become an assistant editor again in Trend’s Feature Department. Perhaps he’d find something else for a change. Then he wondered, as he had wondered vaguely for the last month, why he should have been given this late chance to return to his job with Trend. What was wrong with the man who had taken his place at the end of the war? In 1945, Trend had been a little stilted when he hadn’t rushed back to his job with them, especially (they reminded him coldly) especially since they had kept it open for him as they had agreed in 1941. Yet, a few weeks ago, when he had written them hesitantly about a recommendation to help him get started once more in New York, their reply had been effusive. (Come right home, the sooner the better, we love you. Salary advanced to cover war-service years, Feature editorship when Crowell retires next year. Come home, come home, start at the old stand in May.) Flattering, to say the least. Reassuring. Useful, too. But what about the poor devil who had been assistant-editing meanwhile? Ditched? And why? No doubt with a wife and kids: that kind of unfortunate always had hostages to fortune.

I don’t like it, Paul thought. Sure, the magazine game was a hard one. Here today, failed tomorrow. Yet Trend for all its fancy title was a fair-minded place. Its reputation was solid. But I don’t like it, Paul thought: I’m not going to be the cause of ditching some guy with a couple of kids to keep in shoe leather.

He looked up at the green shutters on the top floor of the brownstone house. Perhaps Rona knew what was happening at Trend, perhaps she could tell him the score.

Is that the only reason why you are walking up these steps? he asked himself suddenly. But it was too late to answer that question: he was already inside the glass doorway of Rona’s house, his finger was already pressing the button beside the little white card with “Metford” in its neat script.

3

Paul Haydn pressed the bell again. Behind him, the roller skates were still grating shakily over the sidewalk. Some more dogs were straining towards the interesting hydrant. People, homeward bound, glanced at no one. An elevated train roared up Third Avenue.

Then the front door gave a hoarse warning rattle, as Rona released its catch from upstairs. He grabbed the handle too late, and found the door had locked itself again. He shook his head and grinned. You’ve a lot to relearn, he told himself. Again he pressed the bell. And this time he was ready, and got in. He was still smiling at himself as he went up the narrow flights of stairs past the doors to the other apartments. He heard Rona’s voice calling, “Stop for breath on the second landing!”

She was waiting at the door of her apartment. “Oh!” she said when he came into sight. She was obviously dismayed.

“I’m too early?” He looked at his watch in alarm. It was just one minute after six o’clock. He backed down a step.

“No.” She was laughing now, holding the door open. “I needed someone to help with the ice. Come in, Paul. Welcome!”

“Sorry, Rona. Give me a few days to break army habits.” He entered the small hall, cursing himself. He had forgotten that six o’clock for cocktails in New York meant six-thirty with luck. He looked round, searching for some place to lay his cap. He put it on the little telephone table, but it looked too conspicuous, too possessive lying there. He picked it up again, and stood holding it, feeling still more uncomfortable.

Rona took it and dropped it on a chair inside the bedroom. “The cloakroom for tonight,” she explained. “Now, here’s where I’m having a slight battle with the shrimps. I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t thought they were a better idea than smoked salmon.” She led him into the kitchenette. She tied an apron—a white organdie thing with roses and frills—around the waist of her elegant black suit. Paul looked at her, then at the neat white miniature kitchen, then at the platter of food which she was arranging with some care.

“They’re being obstinate, today,” she went on. She concentrated on removing the few remaining shrimps from their hard transparent cases. “Coy, that’s what they are. And yet if you hurry them, you mash them into pieces.”

He kept looking around him as she talked. She was more embarrassed than he had been by his promptness, but she was doing her best to tell him to stop feeling worried. “This where you keep the ice?” he asked, his voice aS casual as hers. He didn’t tell her that, flushed with all the rush and excited by her party, she was the prettiest girl he had seen since he had said goodbye to her.