Chapter Four #2
He stopped.
‘What, Mr Danforth?’ she asked.
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Undecided is my decision, he said decisively. For now.’
She looked at him, then put down her pen.
‘Mr Danforth, may I speak freely?’ she asked.
‘Please do,’ he said.
‘You are not the first person I’ve met who uses humour or flippancy as a defence mechanism,’ she said. ‘In fact, I work quite closely with one on a daily basis.’
‘A hit, a most palpable hit!’ cried Sparks.
‘She still does that, does she?’ observed Danforth, smiling at Sparks. ‘You have my deepest sympathies, Mrs Bainbridge. It must be a living hell being here with her.’
‘There are compensating factors,’ said Mrs Bainbridge.
‘However, the point of this interview is not only for you, Mr Danforth, but for the benefit of the woman with whom we set you up, whoever she may be. You’ve given us superficial requirements for the most part, but your potential match didn’t come to us merely to play-act a society princess to advance your career.
She came here for the same reason everyone comes here: because they want to find someone.
Someone with whom they can fall in love, or be happy with, or, at the very least, who will assuage their loneliness. ’
‘Ah,’ said Danforth. ‘That might be asking a great deal from me.’
‘I don’t think so, Mr Danforth, or you wouldn’t be here,’ she said.
‘I have friends and family in the Diplomatic Service, so I know what life is like in that world. I have been to more than one embassy ball in my time, and have seen Diplomatic Service wives in action, smiling on behalf of their countries as they get their toes trodden upon by visiting dignitaries on the dance floor.’
‘That is an occupational hazard,’ agreed Danforth. ‘I should add dancing as a requirement. Or armoured shoes.’
‘But after all of that pretty artificiality, they still must return home with their husbands,’ continued Mrs Bainbridge, ‘and that is where the real marriage happens.’
‘In bed, you mean.’
‘Nothing so crude as that, Mr Danforth. I mean the act of living with another person at home, when all of the outer trappings and subterfuges have fallen away, and the two of you are confronted with the simple reality of being with each other as human beings.’
‘Is that ever truly simple?’
‘It can be,’ said Mrs Bainbridge. ‘And it should be if it’s going to last. My question for you, Mr Danforth, is what do you want in a woman at the end of a day, when ambitions and artifice have been set aside but there is still the rest of the evening to fill?’
He seemed to deflate in his chair.
‘I thought you said there wouldn’t be any psychoanalysis,’ he muttered.
‘No, but there should be truth,’ she said.
‘At the end of the day, I want a friend and companion,’ he said. ‘Someone with whom I could drop my shields and be myself.’
‘Any ideas as to what sort of woman could do that?’ she asked.
‘Make a duplicate of her, for a start,’ he said, glancing at Sparks.
‘What is it about Miss Sparks that you find appealing?’ asked Mrs Bainbridge.
‘Her intelligence, of course,’ said Danforth. ‘And her forthrightness. She’s always been a straight shooter.’
‘You overpraise me,’ said Sparks. ‘I don’t think of myself that way.’
‘You always have been with me,’ he said. ‘So someone who at the end of the day will be honest about how she feels, and call me out on my failures to do the same. It would be a heavy burden.’
‘Some women might find it lighter than others’ said Mrs Bainbridge. ‘It would be up to us to find her for you.’
‘Do you think you can?’
‘There are no guarantees of success in our profession,’ she said. ‘But we’ve done well by our clients so far. And I think I have a sense of who you are now, Mr Danforth. Miss Sparks, do you have any questions?’
‘I do not,’ said Sparks.
‘Moment of truth, Mr Danforth,’ said Mrs Bainbridge. ‘Would you like to sign up?’
‘Gamble five pounds on a lifetime of happiness?’ he asked, his smile returning. ‘I’ve made worse bets. Yes, Mrs Bainbridge, I will place my marital prospects in your hands.’
‘Then sign here,’ she said, handing him the contracts.
He signed them, then pulled out his wallet, removed a five-pound note and handed it to her.
‘I see there is a clause about the two of you not dating clients,’ he said as she countersigned. ‘That wouldn’t prevent Sparks and me from getting sozzled on a frequent basis.’
‘It would not,’ said Sparks. ‘We could add an extra clause requiring us to.’
‘Let’s keep that non-contractual, if you don’t mind,’ he said, rising. ‘Ladies, this was far more interesting and, I’m surprised to say, more hopeful than I thought it would be. How soon should I expect results?’
‘We will come up with a candidate within the next two days,’ said Mrs Bainbridge. ‘That will give you time to move in to your new flat before your first date.’
‘Astonishing,’ he said. ‘Thank you both. Sparks, call me when you’re ready for some more catching up.’
‘Will do,’ she said. ‘Goodbye, Tony.’
‘Good day, Mr Danforth,’ said Mrs Bainbridge.
They watched as he left. When they heard the door downstairs open and close, Gwen went to their office door and shut it.
‘I’m exhausted,’ she said, returning to her chair and collapsing into it. ‘How did you manage to keep up pretences for an entire relationship when you were on that assignment?’
‘I could drop the act when I wasn’t with the target,’ said Iris. ‘I wasn’t living with him, fortunately. God, I couldn’t bear hearing Tony praise me for my honesty today when it was nothing but deception. Each word he spoke was another twist of the knife. I thought you did quite well, by the way.’
‘It wasn’t easy,’ said Gwen. ‘He’s very likable.’
‘He is.’
‘Much of that is a pose, though,’ said Gwen. ‘He needs to be liked, so he becomes likable. He’s concealing something. Any ideas as to what?’
‘No,’ said Iris. ‘Deep-rooted communism, perhaps?’
‘And now you’re concealing something,’ said Gwen. ‘What’s going on? Did something happen between you last night that you haven’t told me about?’
‘He sort of proposed to me,’ Iris confessed.
‘Sort of? What is a sort of proposal?’
‘It was couched in a way that meant he didn’t expect it to be taken seriously.’
‘When a man who shows the world a frivolous face makes a frivolous proposal of marriage, it might be serious underneath.’
‘That’s too convoluted for me to figure out,’ said Iris. ‘In any case, I turned him down without further discussion.’
‘Also frivolously?’
‘Actually, quite seriously,’ said Iris.
‘Because that would have contradicted our assignment.’
‘Right,’ said Iris. ‘And because I am not in the marrying mood at the moment. Even if I was, it wouldn’t be Tony.’
‘Why not, if you don’t mind my asking?’ asked Gwen.
‘Because I do want children,’ said Iris. ‘I want to leave someone behind to make a better job of changing the world than I have. All right, we should contact Miss Lowle and have her come in to brief her.’
‘Please tell me you don’t want to do that this afternoon. She’d have to come in after office hours.’
‘I’ve already deprived you of one hour with Sally,’ said Iris. ‘I won’t take a single minute more. Tomorrow is fine.’
Gwen met Sally at Istanbul, a Turkish restaurant on Frith Street not far from his Soho flat.
‘Ever eaten here before?’ he asked as he opened the door for her.
‘Not when it was this place,’ she replied. ‘I vaguely remember this location from before the war. Italian, perhaps?’
‘Yes. Battaglia’s was here. Istanbul opened in 1940, just in time for the Blitz.’
‘They’ve stayed in business. Good for them.’
The restaurant couldn’t have been more than eighteen feet wide, yet every available inch of space was crammed with tables packed with businessmen rehashing the day’s deals over small plates of olives and mashed vegetables.
A young Bengali man in a dinner jacket and bow tie presided over a long table in one corner covered with bowls of salads and rice dishes, while another waiter whirled like a dervish through the room, deftly distributing plates of various types and forms of meats on skewers.
He looked at Sally with trepidation, the usual look inspired by a man of that height coming into any establishment that would be expected to feed him.
‘Smells divine,’ said Gwen.
‘The owner used to be the chef at the Turkish embassy,’ said Sally as they wedged themselves into a table for two across from the salad table. ‘The ambassador wanted to take him back with him, but he had enough encouraging whispers from salivating Londoners to set up shop here.’
‘What do you recommend?’
‘Shish kebab if you like things ground and spiced, shashlik if you like them cubed and marinated. Or is it the other way around? Either way, you can’t go wrong.’
They sorted out the differences with the waiter, who was accustomed to English ignorance of the menu.
‘How was work?’ Sally asked after they placed their orders. ‘Any interesting lonely people wander in?’
‘Actually, we have a new client whom you may know,’ said Gwen.
‘Really? Who?’
‘Anthony Danforth. He was a year ahead of you at Cambridge, I believe.’
‘Danforth?’ he exclaimed. ‘He came back?’
‘Apparently so,’ she said.
‘I can’t believe it,’ he said, shaking his head in wonderment. ‘Of all the bloody nerve.’
‘You knew him, I take it.’
‘He was a— well, I can’t exactly say rival for my affections for …’
He stopped.
‘For Iris, you were going to say,’ she prompted him. ‘It’s all right to speak of that. I’m not jealous.’
‘I only fell for her because I hadn’t met you yet,’ he said hastily. ‘And I don’t know that I can call him a rival when she never felt anything for me other than friendship.’
‘Which has been considerable.’
‘It has,’ he agreed.
‘Then what was Mr Danforth to her?’