They returned to the house in the near darkness. Iris was too confused to say anything, to think ahead to what this meant—that she just kissed Philip Beauchamp desperately on a sea cliff and might be in love with him. She was just plucking up the courage to ask him whether this meant anything, would they kiss each other again, when Philip stopped and dropped her hand.
“What is it?” she whispered.
He stared at the driveway, steaked with light from the windows, and the car parked in front of the door, and Iris’s ears finally picked up the pandemonium taking place indoors.
“It looks as if your husband’s come home.”
Aunt Vivian had taken charge. She greeted Iris with a perfectly natural “There you are! Did you find the wine you were looking for?”
To which Iris answered coolly, “I’m afraid we’ve already drunk the last bottle. Philip’s going to run back to Highcliffe to get some more. Aren’t you, Philip?” Then she turned to Sasha, who was wrestling Kip and Jack on the living room floor, while Aunt Vivian’s army major lounged on the sofa and a bloated, dark-haired man poured himself a drink at her liquor cabinet. “What a lovely surprise,” she said.
Sasha looked up between the thrashing limbs. “Hope you don’t mind, darling! I’ve brought a friend down for the weekend. I see Davenport’s made himself at home, in my absence.”
“Charming family you've got,” said Major Davenport.
“You remember Guy, don’t you, Iris?”
“Mr. Burgess. How lovely to see you.”
Guy Burgess turned to face Iris. (Saturnine, she thought.) He grinned and saluted her with his drink. “Sorry to turn up uninvited! I’m afraid your husband jolly well insisted I needed a spot of fresh air to clean me out.”
“He’s very wise that way. But I’m afraid we don’t have any spare bedrooms, now that my aunt and cousins are here.”
“Don’t we? I must have miscounted,” said Sasha. “Hope you don’t mind the library sofa, Burgess.”
“Oh, I can make myself comfortable anywhere, I assure you.” He sniffed the air. “Is that dinner? I’m famished.”
Philip Beauchamp never returned to Honeysuckle Cottage that night with bottles of wine, but only Iris noticed. Everyone else was too busy laughing at Sasha and Guy, who took turns with the jokes and the anecdotes, the impressions of various stuffy politicians and uncouth Americans, until the conversation turned—this was Aunt Vivian’s doing—to Whittaker Chambers.
Guy Burgess turned pale. “He’s a bloody Judas.”
“Don’t you mean liar, Mr. Burgess?” Aunt Vivian said innocently. “I mean, surely it’s not true about this Hiss fellow and all the others.”
“I amend. If it’s true, then he’s a bloody Judas.”
Sasha reached for the wine and refilled his glass. His face turned the familiar raspberry pink of his deepest rage. Iris looked back and forth between the two of them and thought, Of course. Fellow travelers. She tried to remember where Guy Burgess worked—was it the British Foreign Office?—my God.
“Hiss,” said Aunt Vivian. “What a name. I mean, it’s too perfect. Snakes, you know.”
Iris looked at the clock and said, “Goodness, it’s far past bedtime. Children, up you go and into your pajamas, chop chop. Brush your teeth. We’ll bathe in the morning.”
They gave up around midnight, Iris and Aunt Vivian, and went to bed while the men continued their drinking and carousing outdoors. Iris stared at the ceiling for an hour or two. Songs and dirty laughter. At last she rolled on her side and fell asleep, only to be woken by Sasha as he climbed clumsily into bed and scooped her into his arms.
“I’m a beast,” he told her.
“I know.”
“I do love you, you know. You and the boys. I’m crazy about you.”
“Funny way of showing it.”
He turned her on her back. He was stark naked, warm and damp-skinned and salty-fresh, like he’d gone swimming in the sea. “I can’t tell you unless I’m drunk. It doesn’t work. I’m only happy when I’m drunk.”
“Were you swimming?”
“Yes. Best way to sober up, a nice cold swim in the sea.”
He kissed her. She stiffened her lips, but he persisted until she yielded. As they kissed, he reached down and pulled her nightdress up and up, until he had to break off the kiss to pass it over her head. Then he moved down to kiss her breasts, and she gave up—stopped fighting this thing, whatever it was, this chemistry still lingering between them, even when she was furious at him. Anyway, he didn’t stink of cigarettes and sin—he was like a sea creature, all washed clean, and she hadn’t slept with him in weeks, and she was hungry for something, for any man at all. His wet hair fell on her skin. They mated like animals, a wrestling match, tangling and rolling and biting. She made him pay for it, by God. In the end, they lay panting, Iris on her stomach and Sasha a dead weight atop her, all four hands gripping the headboard for dear life. Why did they do it like this? Why couldn’t they have tender intercourse anymore, like two human beings who loved each other? He rolled away, and his long limbs caught the moonlight from the window. His nose made a sharp, elegant triangle against the dark wall. For the longest time, until she drifted to sleep, he was her beautiful Sasha again, the father of her children, her warrior, her paladin of peace.
Iris woke at dawn to the shrill noise of all the world’s birds outside the open window. Yesterday was hot; this morning, the sky was cloudy and restless. Sasha lay asleep on his stomach, one arm thrown across her ribs. She untangled herself and slipped out of bed. She ached all over; when she looked in the mirror, she saw red smudges scattered across her breasts and stomach and thighs. She put on some clothes. When she returned to bed to stare at Sasha, she was pleased to see she’d marked him, too. His mouth hung open a little. His hair splayed across his forehead. Iris wondered how he looked after he went to bed with Nedda Fischer—whether they made love like this, snarling and snapping—whether they discussed Marxist theory afterward, among the tangled sheets—the dialectic and all that, the class struggle as the basis of all history—the inevitable revolution—all the things Iris didn’t care about.
She wondered if she should tell Philip Beauchamp what she knew—whether that would be an act of patriotism or of vengeance.
Downstairs, the cottage was still quiet. Not even Mrs. Betts had risen to put order to all the chaos. Iris found Burgess sprawled asleep on the library sofa, covered by a horse blanket; Major Davenport lay on the floor half ensnared by a raincoat. Neither was wearing a shirt; God knew if they had anything on down below. The room stank of male perspiration and of stale cigarettes. Iris picked up the empty bottles of gin from the weary Oriental rug and threw them in the trash. She put on her sturdy leather Oxford shoes and slipped out the kitchen door.