The Four-Gated City

Margaret’s second call was hysterical. She had shouted that Mark was ruining her life. The very least he could do was to have Mrs Ashe. On being asked please, to explain Mrs Ashe, Margaret had muttered, after a silence, something about Hilary Marsh – restoring confidence in that quarter. And at last it had all become clear to Mark, but so suddenly that he had simply put down the receiver.

Hilary Marsh, the correct unnoticed gentleman from the election party, had been Margaret’s friend for many years. He was in the Foreign Office. Weeks ago he had been to Margaret, to ask what she knew about her son Colin’s connections. Margaret knew nothing. She had said that Mark did, but Mark would never talk to her, he was always so wrong-headed, always had been. Hilary Marsh had suggested that it might be a good idea if a very old friend of his, Mrs Ashe, lived in the basement. She was a sensible sort of woman, and could keep an eye on Mark for both of them.

Mark having digested this, he rang back his mother to ask how she proposed to explain this attempt to spy on him. She said, cold: ‘You have no right to talk to me about spying!’ Then, as he remained silent, she had screamed: ‘You’ve ruined my life. You’ve ruined John’s career!’ And had rung off.

It turned out that John Patten, in his capacity as representative of British Culture, had been going on a lecture tour to America. But the Americans had not been happy about this, since he was the husband of the woman who had given birth to Colin Coldridge. They had made unofficial and tactful representations to the body who employed John Patten. This body had been excessively apologetic and had quite understood America’s feelings in the matter. After a long committee meeting, someone had suggested that it would be better if nothing were made public, but that the lecture tour on Contemporary British Literature might be postponed. Everyone agreed. The chairman telephoned John Patten while the meeting was still in progress. He asked them to wait while he thought it over – which would only take a few minutes. He asked Margaret what she thought. Margaret rang her old friend Hilary Marsh, who thought this procedure would be best for everyone concerned.

Mark offered these facts to Martha; sat waiting for her to explain them. He looked extremely ill. He was trembling. He kept dropping his cigarettes. The gap between what a Coldridge believed was possible, and what was happening, had widened to the point that he was in a kind of collapse. Martha suggested he should go back to bed and stay there that day. He went.

It was time to get Paul up. He was sitting cross-legged on his pillow, waiting for her. He said: ‘Am I going to live here now?’

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘I’m afraid you’ll have to, Paul.’ This was almost cool: her mind was with Mark, so near a breakdown. It was not a tone anyone had used with Paul before.

He gave her a very long thoughtful stare. Then he got out of bed. Sally’s child had not been good at dressing himself. He dressed himself, slowly but competently, while she sat and watched.

‘Now we’ll have breakfast,’ she said. Obedient, he came down to the kitchen. He sat, obedient, while she cooked. He was looking at the window, which showed nothing. Martha went to see if the attendant journalists were there. But no, only a box of groceries left on the step by the delivery people.

She was about to open the door to fetch them in when Paul said: ‘I want to go for a walk.’

‘We can’t go for walks yet,’ said Martha.

‘You don’t want them to tell me my daddy is dead,’ he said. Then he pushed the plate of eggs off the table, laughed as it crashed, and ran upstairs crying to his bedroom.

Martha opened the door to get in the groceries, and found Miles Tangin there.

‘Good morning,’ he said affably.

She tried to shut the door, but his foot was in it.

‘Nothing new to tell me?’ he inquired.

‘Nothing.’

‘May I ask who you are?’

‘Certainly, I’m working for Mr Coldridge.’

‘Living here?’ he inquired. There were two expressions on his face, superimposed, as it were. At any rate, he managed to convey simultaneously a camaraderie of understanding for her situation: he was a man of the world, after all! – and the salaciousness with which he proposed to tell the story to the public. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Find out. It’ll give you something to do.’

‘Come, come,’ he said. ‘You’re not in any position to use that tone, you know.’

He was now propped against the door-frame, holding the door open. He was looking past her at the mess of broken eggs and bits of china on the floor.

‘His wife’s in a loony-bin, I hear?’

She remembered that on the stove was the frying-pan, with hot fat in it. She fetched the frying-pan and stood facing him.

‘In your face if you don’t get out,’ she said.

‘Temper, temper, temper!’ he said softly. He was arranging on his face the smile that says: I admire a woman of spirit. Then, seeing she meant it, he looked ugly. She came nearer, with the pan poised.

‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘while you’ve been chasing this juicy story, have you ever thought of that child?’

And now a great wash of sentiment: the blond, goodfellow’s face was all soft and sad. ‘But I’m only doing my job,’ he said. ‘But I can tell you, that poor little chap keeps me awake at nights.’

‘And I shall do mine if you don’t get out.’

He went, and she locked the door.

That evening the Coldridge story acquired a new element, in a piece by Miles Tangin. The previously mentioned sinister female figure now appeared as some sort of watchdog or guardian of Mark Coldridge. There were links, hinted at, with the Soviet Embassy. She had a foreign accent. She was under orders of silence. For some days, the vigilance of the reporters was redoubled: it had shown signs of slackening off. Martha had to be careful to move around the house so that she could not be seen from the windows.

Upstairs in one room Paul lay on his bed, playing with the cat. She brought food to him there. And in another room, Mark lay in the dark, smoking and thinking. After a while he got up, went down to the study and very carefully read all the newspapers from the start of the affair until the present time. There were several weeks of them; and they included the serious newspapers, the popular Press, and the high-class magazines that were studying the subject of treason in depth, and in articles that had a very high intellectual tone.

When he had done this, Mark said that he had finally understood the meaning of the old saying that the last refuge of a scoundrel was patriotism.

He sounded rather cool about it. He was still ill though, or at least, looked ill. But he was in possession of himself. And he had made a decision. He was going down to the country, to stay with his old nurse, who had looked after himself and Colin, and he would take Paul with him.

‘And what about Francis, it’s going to be holidays again in a month?’

‘He can come to Nanny Butts’s too – it’ll be quiet there. And perhaps things will have blown over.’

When he and Paul were ready, suitcases packed, he said: ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to be a decoy.’

Martha put on a coat, made herself seem indifferent, and walked openly out of the front door. A group of men waiting there at first seemed stunned. At her impertinence, at daring them? At any rate, she had gone several yards before they chased after her. One of them offered her a hundred pounds for the story. She smiled. He put it up to two hundred. She smiled again. She went around the corner and into a café. They all came in with her. She kept them there, discussing the possible sale of her revelations about the Coldridge household, until she judged Mark and Paul had got well away. Then she walked back to the front door. The car had gone. Mark Coldridge had gone. ‘Nice work,’ said one of them, laughing. But others, professionally hating, scowled and muttered, like parodies of journalists in a bad film, or in a comedy.

Inside the house, was now only Martha. She went openly in and out, smiling politely at two hopeful journalists who remained. Then at one. But he went too. Then, peace, until Miles Tangin knocked at the front door and asked to be admitted. He had a proposition, he said. She was angry. He was affable. His manner was that of a wronged man concerned to give explanations. There was a genuine reproach for her lack of understanding. She should have retired to sharpen her anger, and set it on guard. But she let him in. Curiosity had a lot to do with it. Curious, she sat listening while he offered her one thousand pounds for the story of Mark’s mistress. He accepted her refusal with the remark that everyone had their price, but that the story was not worth more. He seemed to expect she would feel belittled by this; he even made a consoling remark: If Mark had a larger reputation, then more than one thousand pounds would have been forthcoming. Of course, if there were any justice, his reputation would be larger. It turned out that he admired Mark for having written the best novel for his money – Miles Tangin’s – since All Quiet On The Western Front. If he, Miles Tangin, were a critic, that would be put right, but for his sins, he was a journalist. Only for the time being: he was writing a novel. He also admired Mark for (he hoped Martha would not take this amiss) his taste. The house must be empty, if Mark was away? He did not think Martha ought to take it like that, all was fair in love and war. Anyway, he’d be making the suggestion again later: she was his cup of tea, all right. Meanwhile he was busy, he was off to the country to find Mark Coldridge. There’s a lot of Britain,’ said Martha.

‘No, dear, there isn’t. When one of these upper-class types go to the ground he’s at an old teacher’s, or nanny. I know how their minds work.’

He left, affable.

She telephoned Mark, to warn him. But a journalist had already appeared at Nanny Butts’s cottage. Mark was coming back to London.

He came that evening. He had been to his old school, explained the situation to the headmaster, and Paul was already installed.

And now, said Mark, they are welcome to me. He dictated a short piece for the Press saying that he stood wholeheartedly behind his brother in whatever action he had seen fit to take. Asked if he was a communist, he said he was, if that made him one.

And now, silence.

Mark was in his study. He stayed there. What sort of a state he was in, she did not know. His manner was cold, abrupt, but agitated.

She was in her room trying to see what was likely to happen next, trying not to be taken by surprise by events. The immediate facts were that Francis would be home soon, after what must be an awful time; Mark had been writing the usual weekly letters, but had not mentioned the sensational news which every paper had carried for weeks: Francis must surely have seen the newspapers. Paul, in a state of shock, had been dumped in a school which, ‘progressive’ or not, was still a boarding-school. Mark, as far as she could see, was in a state of shock. He certainly wasn’t dealing with the problem, now pressing, of finance.