human factor

‘A traitor! ‘

She lost control at the reiteration.‘All right-a traitor then. A traitor to whom? To Muller and his friends? To the Security Police?’

‘I have no idea who Muller is. He’s a traitor to his country.’

‘Oh, his country,’ she said in despair at all the easy clich?s which go to form a judgement. ‘He said once

Iwas his country-and Sam.’ ‘I’m glad his father’s dead.’

It was yet another cliche. In a crisis perhaps it is old clich?s one clings to, like a child to a parent.

‘Perhaps his father would have understood better than you.’

It was a senseless quarrel like the one she had that last evening with Maurice. She said,‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.’ She was ready to surrender anything for a little peace. ‘I’ll leave as soon as Sam is better.’

‘Where to?’

‘To Moscow. If they’ll let me.’

‘You won’t take Sam. Sam is my grandson. I’m his guardian,’ Mrs Castle said.

‘Only if Maurice and I are dead.’

‘Sam is a British subject. I’ll have him made a Ward in Chancery. I’ll see my lawyer tomorrow.’

Sarah hadn’t the faintest notion what a Ward in Chancery was. It was, she supposed, one more obstacle which even the voice that had spoken to her over the telephone of a public call box had not taken into account. The voice had apologised: the voice claimed, just as Doctor Percival had done, to be a friendof Maurice, but she trusted it more, even with its caution and its ambiguity and its trace of something foreign in the tone.

The voice apologised for the fact that she was not already on the way to join her husband. It could be arranged almost at once if she would go alone-the child made it almost impossible for her to pass unscrutinised, however effective any passport they arranged might seem to be.

She had told him in the flat voice of despair,‘I can’t leave Sam alone,’ and the voice assured her that in time ‘, a way would be found for Sam. If she would trust him… The man began to give guarded indications of how and when they could meet, just some hand-luggage-a warm coat -everything she lacked could be bought at the other end-but ‘No,’ she said. ‘No. I can’t go without Sam’ and she dropped the receiver. Now there was his sickness and there was the mysterious phrase which haunted her all the way to the bedroom, ‘a Ward in Chancery’. It sounded like a room in a hospital. Could a child be forced into a hospital as he could be forced into a school?

There was nobody to ask. In all England she knew no one except Mrs Castle, the butcher, the greengrocer, the librarian, the school-mistress and of course Mr. Bottomley who had been constantly cropping up, on the doorstep, in the High Street, even on the telephone. He had lived so long on his

African mission that perhaps he felt really at home only with her. He was very kind and very inquisitive and he dropped little pious platitudes. She wondered what he would say if she asked him for help to escape from England.

On the morning after the press conference Doctor Percival telephoned for what seemed an odd reason. Apparently some money was due to Maurice and they wanted the number of his bank account so that they might pay it in: they seemed to be scrupulously honest in small things, though she wondered afterwards if they were afraid that money difficulties might drive her to some desperate course. It might be a sort of bribe to keep her in place. Doctor Percival said to her, still in the family doctor voice,‘I’m so glad you are being sensible, my dear. Go on being sensible,’ rather as he might have advised ‘Go on with the antibiotics.’

And then at seven in the evening when Sam was asleep and Mrs Castle was in her room,‘tidying’ as she called it, for dinner, the telephone rang. It was a likely hour for Mr. Bottomley, but it was Maurice. The line was so clear that he might have been speaking from the next room. She said with astonishment, ‘Maurice, where are you?’

‘You know where I am. I love you, Sarah.’

‘I love you, Maurice.’

He explained,‘We must talk quickly, one never knows when they may cut the line. How’s Sam?’

‘Not well. Nothing serious.’

‘Boris said he was well.’

‘I didn’t tell him. It was only one more difficulty. There are an awful lot of difficulties.’

‘Yes. I know. Give Sam my love.’

‘Of course I will.’

‘We needn’t go on pretending any more. They’ll always be listening.’

There was a pause. She thought he had gone away or that the line had been cut. Then he said,‘I miss you terribly, Sarah.’

‘Oh, so do I. So do I, but I can’t leave Sam behind.’

‘Of course you can’t. I can understand that.’

She said on an impulse she immediately regretted, When he’s a little older…’ It sounded like the promise of a distant future when they would both be old. Be patient.’

‘Yes-Boris says the same. I’ll be patient. How’s Mother?’

‘I’d rather not talk about her. Talk about us. Tell me how you are.’

‘Oh, everyone is very kind. They have given me a sort of job. They are grateful to me. For a lot more than I ever intended to do.’ He said something she didn’t understand because of a crackle on the line something about a fountain-pen and a bun which had a bar of chocolate in it. ‘My motherwasn’t far wrong.’

She asked,‘Have you friends?’

‘Oh yes, I’m not alone, don’t worry, Sarah. There’s an Englishman who used to be in the British Council. He’s invited me to his dacha in the country when the spring comes. When the spring comes,’ he repeated in a voice which she hardly recognised-it was the voice of an old man who couldn’t count with certainty on any spring to come.

She said,‘Maurice, Maurice, please go on hoping,’ but in the long unbroken silence which followed she realised that the line to Moscow was dead.

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