Reckless by William Nicholson
Quite suddenly, sitting by herself at the kitchen table, Pamela fell into a state of despair. It happened without cause, without warning. She had made herself some toasted cheese, and had cut it up, a little over-obsessively, into tidy rectangles. She was just lifting one rectangle on her fork, it was midway between the plate and her mouth, when her hand froze.
Why eat? We’re all about to die.
The ground fell away beneath her, and she saw that she was resting over a dark void. The slightest movement could topple her into this void, and once falling, she knew she would fall for ever. Terror caused her muscles to tense and her heart to beat rapidly. The darkness came pressing in from all sides. She opened her mouth to cry out, but no sound came.
There’s nothing after all, she said to herself. There’s nothing.
It wasn’t terror at death. To die you must first live. What Pamela felt was the horrified conviction of non-existence.
I am nothing. No past, no future. No meaning, no value. Only empty dark infinite space.
She fled from the kitchen, leaving her modest supper half eaten. She wanted to crawl deep into a hole, to close her eyes, to be safe. She went through her night-time ritual of undressing and washing, clinging to every familiar habit as if it would hold back the darkness; and little by little the terror abated. She had stopped trembling by the time she was curled up in bed. But she could not sleep.
What had happened? Was it Susie‘s engagement? Was it Eugene’s warning that the Russian bear would wake? Or was it the unhappiness she had inherited from her father?
It was in him from the beginning.
Strange images passed through her mind. She saw herself standing naked on stage, and silent men staring at her. One of them was Stephen Ward, with his pinga grande. She was playing Ghosts in the night woods, and there were men in the trees, staring at her. The men were naked, and aroused. She saw Mary watching her, and didn’t want Mary to look, shouted at her to look away. None of this felt like dreams. It was a parade of memories, with which she was helplessly tormenting herself.
She stood on the top step, looking into the great room, and all eyes turned to stare at her revealing costume. Those eyes undressed her. The silk chiffon fell away, the black lace underwear fell away, and she was naked again.
Why am I always naked?
Do you fuck?
Only with friends.
I have no friends. We’re all alone, whether we know it or not. Who said that? Oh yes, Rupert. Can he really be in love with Mary? They’re all fools, all fooling themselves, Susie and Logan, Rupert and Mary, Bobby and Charlotte, all lost in the darkness. Bored people looking for fun, lonely people looking for love.
We must love one another or die. Say it out loud, in the blackness of night, and it reverses itself. We are already dead, and so cannot love one another. The mirror reverses the image. But André, looking through the mirror, sees truly. Desire puts down roots in stony soil.
I shall fall asleep in your arms and the hurting will be over. But in whose arms?
*
Later she heard Hugo come in, and climb the stairs to his bedroom. She could hear all his movements, the bathroom door opening and closing, the whoosh of the lavatory, the pad of his bare feet. Then the landing light went out and his bedroom door closed behind him.
She struggled against the impulse for as long as she could, but she was too afraid, too unhappy. So at last she got out of bed and went softly downstairs to the first floor, in the faint light falling through the landing window. She opened Hugo’s bedroom door as quietly as she could, and crossed to his bedside. As her eyes adjusted, she saw that he was not asleep. He was lying in bed, his eyes open, gazing up at her.
‘Please,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t sleep.’
She drew back the covers and crept into the bed beside him. He put his arms round her and she pressed up close against him, feeling his warmth. Neither of them spoke. She heard his soft steady breathing, and knew that he was not going to sleep, just as she was not going to sleep. They lay wakeful in each other’s arms, waiting.
Then his head bent down, and he kissed the side of her neck, by her shoulder. She stirred against him.
‘I’m frightened,’ she said. ‘There’s going to be a war.’
‘Is there?’
‘The world’s going to end.’
‘Tonight?’
‘Or tomorrow.’
He kissed her again, and she moved against him, desiring his desire.
‘Oh, Pammy,’ he said. Then he turned his face away from her.
‘I mustn’t,’ he said, his voice muffled in the pillow.
‘Just let me stay with you,’ she said. ‘Just for tonight.’
‘I don’t think I can bear it.’
‘Don’t send me away.’
‘Oh, Pammy.’
She stayed in his bed, in his arms, all through that night. They slept after a while and woke with the dawn. Hugo got up first, and went to look out through the curtains at the street outside.
‘The world hasn’t ended,’ he said.
Pamela, waking slowly, stretched her cramped body. She saw him by the window, watching her.
‘You all right?’ he said.
‘Mmm.’
‘Nothing happened,’ he said. ‘Nobody needs to know.’
‘Nobody needs to know that nothing happened?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I was frightened. I wanted you to hold me.’
He left the window and came to the bed. He sat down beside her and stroked her cheek.
‘Now you must go back to your room, and I’m going to make everything here be as if you never came. And we’re going to forget all about it.’
‘All about the nothing we did, that never happened.’
He bent down and kissed her cheek.
‘There. Enough. No more.’
She got slowly out of his bed, and moved slowly across the room to the door. In the doorway she looked back at him and said, ‘Thank you for not sending me away.’
He said nothing. She went out onto the landing.
I’d be safe with Hugo, she thought.
52
By Saturday morning, it was becoming clear in Moscow that the US attack on Cuba had not yet been launched. Khrushchev’s mood changed again.
‘You see,’ he told his colleagues in the Kremlin. ‘They were trying to force my hand. This has all been a trick to present us as the guilty ones. But I have stood firm. I have been reasonable. They have no excuse for the invasion they want.’
He was beginning to regret the tone of his overnight letter. In the cool light of day he saw that there was less to fear than he had thought. So far no answer had been received.
He reread his letter.
‘There is nothing here to be ashamed of,’ he said. ‘I am on the side of peace. Who can dispute that? As for the missiles, well, there’s no mention of them. I refer to our military specialists in Cuba. That can mean what I choose it to mean.’
‘Are you proposing, Nikita Sergeyevich,’ said Mikoyan, ‘that the missiles remain in Cuba?’
‘No, no,’ said Khrushchev. ‘We must not be obstinate. The missiles are a bargaining counter. We will take them out, but on our own terms. The world will see that we have given the Americans a taste of their own medicine, and as a result the Americans have been taught restraint.’
‘I’m not following you, Nikita Sergeyevich.’
‘I was standing on the shore of the Black Sea at Pitsunda when I had this idea,’ said Khrushchev. ‘I was gazing across the water at the American nuclear missiles in Turkey. We will offer to withdraw the missiles from Cuba if the Americans take their missiles out of Turkey.’
He turned to his colleagues and beamed at them.
‘Simple. Fair. A victory for peace. Let us send a new letter at once. So you will see, comrades, that without a shot being fired, we will achieve a victory.’
*
Jack Kennedy sat sprawled across his chair, tappin
‘There’s nothing there that says Khrushchev’s willing to take the missiles out,’ said Rusk.
‘Twelve pages of fluff,’ said McNamara.
‘He’s playing for time,’ said General Taylor. ‘There’s only one way we’re going to get those nukes out, and that’s we go in and take them out.’
‘You could be right,’ said Kennedy.
‘Just say the word, Mr President. We’re set to go, first light on Monday.’
Ted Sorenson came in with a ticker-tape transcript. He handed it to the president.
‘New letter from Khrushchev. Just come over Moscow radio.’
‘Another letter?’
Kennedy read the letter out loud. It was a revised deal. The Soviet chairman offered to withdraw the offensive missiles from Cuba if the United States withdrew its missiles from Turkey.
The ExComm members stared at each other.
‘That wasn’t in last night’s letter, was it?’ said Kennedy.
Rusk turned to an aide.
‘Check this out. Is this part of last night’s letter, or is this a new letter?’
‘We have to ignore this,’ said Mac Bundy. ‘We can’t trade away the missiles in Turkey.’
‘Can’t we?’ said Kennedy.
‘You want to blow NATO to hell? What’s it going to look like, sacrificing our allies’ security to look after ourselves?’
‘What’s it going to look like,’ said Kennedy, ‘making war on Cuba because they threaten us with missiles, while we’re saying the Soviets shouldn’t mind the nukes in Turkey?’
‘Mac’s right,’ said Sorenson. ‘You can’t do this.’
‘I don’t see it either,’ said Bobby. ‘We can’t ask the Turks to give up their defence system.’
‘So what do we do?’
‘We could just ignore the second letter,’ said Bundy. ‘Tell Khrushchev you want to deal with his interesting proposals of last night.’
‘Can we do that?’
There was silence in the room. Bobby got up and went out.
‘If you’ll forgive me, sir,’ said General Taylor. ‘There’s only one way this is going to end, and the longer we delay, the fewer options we have.’
‘We haven’t fully exhausted the possibility of negotiations, General.’
‘Of course not, sir,’ said Taylor. ‘But we all know the boys in the Kremlin have read their Sun Tzu.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘Chinese. Fifth century BC.’
He pulled out a small notebook and read from it.
Speak in humble terms, continue preparations, and attack.
Pretend inferiority and encourage the enemy’s arrogance.
The crux of military operations lies in the pretence of accommodating to the designs of the enemy.’
He put his notebook away.
‘Like I said, you’re being played, Mr President.’
Kennedy stared back at Taylor, tapping his teeth with his pencil.
Bobby came back into the room, brandishing a book.
‘Remember this, Jack?’
‘Another book,’ said Kennedy. ‘Great.’
‘You read it last summer. The American Senator, by Anthony Trollope.’
‘Summer before,’ said Kennedy.
Bobby had the book open at a marked passage.
‘You told me about this back then. We called it the Trollope ploy.’
‘The Trollope ploy? What the fuck is this, Bobby?’
‘Arabella Trefoil is desperate to get Lord Rufford to marry her. They go for a ride in a carriage, they’re alone together, and they’re flirting. He kisses her, but she can’t get him to the point.’
He read from the book.
‘She flung herself onto his shoulder, and for a while she seemed to faint. For a few minutes she lay there, and as she was lying she calculated whether it would be better to try at this moment to drive him to some clearer declaration, or to make use of what he had already said without giving him an opportunity of protesting that he had not meant to make her an offer of marriage.’
He looked up with a grin.
‘You get the strategy? She hasn’t received her proposal, but she decides to act as if she has. When she gets home from the carriage ride, she simply tells her mother that Lord Rufford has proposed. And he’s caught.’
‘Summer’s over, guys,’ said McNamara, impatient with this distraction. ‘What do we say to Khrushchev?’
‘We do like Mac suggested,’ said Bobby. ‘We answer the first letter, and act as if we never got the second letter.’
‘Why would he buy that?’
‘What choice has he got?’
‘You know what?’ said McNamara. ‘I’m with the president on this one. Pull out the Jupiters. We all know they’re a heap of junk.’
Lyndon Johnson snorted with disgust.
‘I call that backing down,’ he said. ‘We’ve already got Soviet ships coming through the blockade. We’re looking kind of old and tired and sick, I’d say.’
‘Ships are not coming through the blockade,’ said Bobby sharply.
‘Start on the Jupiters,’ said the vice president, ‘and next thing you know you’re pulling out your planes, and your technicians, and your fucking pants. Then you’re standing there buck naked, and your dick don’t look so big anymore.’
‘So what do you propose?’ said the president. ‘We have to get those missiles out of Cuba.’
‘Blast ’em out,’ said General Taylor. ‘The only language they understand is force.’
Kennedy nodded. Then he turned to his brother.
‘Bobby: this Trollope ploy. Why don’t you and Ted draft me something?’
‘You got it.’
Bobby and Ted Sorenson left the Cabinet Room. An aide entered with a note for Bob McNamara. He scanned it rapidly.
‘Looks like they shot down a U2.’
Sudden silence in the room.
‘Is the pilot dead?’
‘Major Rudy Anderson. Brought down by a Soviet SAM missile over Banes, east Cuba.’
‘Fuck!’
‘That’s it, isn’t it?’ said Paul Nitze, assistant secretary of defence. ‘They’ve fired the first shot.’
53
‘Panic meeting,’ shouted Macdonald, racing down the corridor outside Rupert’s office. ‘Get off your arses!’
Mountbatten was gathering the defence staff in the big conference room. Mountbatten himself sat grim-faced at the head of the long table as officers and advisers poured into the room.
‘What the hell happened?’ whispered Rupert to Shaw.
‘Shooting over Cuba,’ said Shaw.
Sir Kenneth Cross, chief of Bomber Command, was half shouting at Mountbatten.
‘We need the go order now! We follow the drill. We use the BBC to call all personnel off leave.’
‘No,’ said Mountbatten, ‘we do not use the BBC. We do not alert the press. The PM is adamant on this.’
‘My bombers are sitting targets! I must give the signal to disperse! Damn it, Dickie, the rockets could start coming in any minute.’
‘We’re to take no overt measures.’ Mountbatten looked round and saw that the room was now full. ‘Ken, brief the room.’
Sir Kenneth Strong, director of the Joint Intelligence Bureau, spoke from a paper in his hand.
‘Cuban anti-aircraft batteries have fired on US low-level reconnaissance planes. Ground-to-air missiles have fired at and hit a high-level reconnaissance plane. The plane is down, the pilot presumed dead.’
‘They shot down a U2?’ said Cross.
‘Yes.’
‘The Soviets or the Cubans?’
‘We don’t know.’
‘The pressure on the United States to retaliate is now over-whelming,’ said Mountbatten. ‘We must plan for the likelihood of an American
Strong picked up again.
‘Information coming out of Cuba shows their defence forces on invasion status. We have reports that Castro is demanding the Soviets launch a first strike.’
‘A first nuclear strike?’
‘What else?’
‘There’s no way Cuba can be defended by conventional weapons,’ said Pike. ‘From Castro’s point of view, it’s nukes or surrender.’
‘Gentlemen,’ said Mountbatten. ‘There are two issues here. How we support our allies in the event of war. And how we defend the United Kingdom.’
‘Right now we’re at Alert Condition Two,’ said Cross. ‘I can have the V-force at Alert Condition Three in two hours.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Rupert, ‘but I’m not following this. The V-force carries nuclear bombs. How can we defend the United Kingdom with nuclear bombs?’
‘We deter attack,’ said Cross.
‘When? Before the missiles come in, or after?’
‘This isn’t the time for this debate, Rupert,’ said Mountbatten.
‘Do we activate the Civil Defence?’ said Hugh Stephenson. ‘We have half a million trained volunteers across the country.’
‘How about the Regional Government HQs?’
‘Not yet,’ said Mountbatten.
‘Can I get this clear?’ said Cross. ‘We do nothing until the Soviet bombs actually hit us?’
‘We do nothing,’ said Mountbatten.
*
Rupert accompanied Mountbatten on the short walk to the Old Admiralty Building.
‘For pity’s sake!’ said Rupert. ‘Why won’t Macmillan offer to mediate?’
‘There’s offers of mediation coming out of everyone’s ears,’ said Mountbatten. ‘The UN, the pope, you name it. Khrushchev says yes to every one of them. Even to that chump Russell. As far as the Americans are concerned, it’s just so much Soviet propaganda that allows them to keep working on getting their missiles combat ready. You want Harold to join that camp?’
‘So we’re heading for war.’
‘Kennedy wants those missiles out. He won’t believe anything Khrushchev says about peace until then.’
‘This is madness.’
‘The shooting’s started now, Rupert. The best we can hope for is that it stops short of going nuclear.’