Iris decides to speak up. “What about Sumner?”
Ruth whirls to face her. “Have you heard anything?”
Her blue, terrified eyes tell Iris everything she wants to know. She breathes out a zephyr of relief and considers whether she should tell Ruth what she knows, or whether such a tender fact would only make things harder for her sister if—well, Iris refuses to consider the If. There’s always hope, isn’t there?
“No,” she says. “But Philip’s in close contact with the Americans. He’ll give us any news, the instant he gets it.”
Ruth turns away to face the sea. Over the edge of her shoulder, Gregory’s red face stares amazed at Iris. She rises from the grass and comes to stand next to her sister, who vibrates with energy or emotion or something, Iris isn’t exactly sure what. Like a dam struggling to hold fast against a weight of mighty floodwater. Gregory’s clean, puppy scent gathers them together.
“You didn’t have to do it,” Ruth says. “You could have let Digby defect on his own. Washed your hands of him. You knew by then what the bastards were capable of. You could have stayed behind and married Beauchamp. You were already pregnant—you had the boys—you had every reason to stay safe in England.”
“Wouldn’t you have done the same, though?”
“God, no. Take the children and walk straight into the jaws of the lion? When I had a fellow like Beauchamp madly in love with me? You’re crazy.”
Iris runs her index finger along the perfect crest of Gregory’s ear. “Ruth, I spent most of my life just trying to be safe. Trying to hide from what scared me. Letting other people control what happened to me. Then I realized the idea of safety itself is just a delusion. Life is risky. And hiding isn’t living.”
Gregory starts to drowse against Ruth’s shoulder. His little head bobbles and rests against the soft green knit of Ruth’s cardigan. His eyes lose focus. There’s some connection between these two—the kind of atomic bond that would set most new mothers buzzing with jealousy, but instead gives Iris the same feeling she used to get when the priest at St. Barnabas laid his hand on the children’s heads and said Christ’s blessing be upon you.
Iris continues, “I remember sitting there by Philip’s bed, day after day, not sure if he would live or die. I thought about what Sumner told me, about a mole right inside the American intelligence service, right near the top, and operatives and agents were dying because of him. I thought about how I had stood by Sasha so stupidly all those years, telling myself that he was only following his ideals. I realized I was culpable, just as if I’d pulled the trigger that nearly killed Philip.”
“Good old Fox,” Ruth murmurs.
“Anyway, I went back to Sumner and told him I would do it—I would convince Sasha to defect—but I knew he wouldn’t turn on the Soviets. I would have to do it myself.”
“I’ll bet Fox loved that.”
“He was skeptical. But I won him over. I said it was the last thing anyone would expect. I said I was invisible to them, just some silent woman pushing a baby in a pram. And I was right.” Iris touches Gregory’s cheek. “Mummy did it, didn’t she? She found the bad man.”
“Sitting there in Washington all along. The fox guarding the henhouse.”
“Well, they haven’t caught him yet. Still on the lam, the last I heard.”
“They’ll catch him. I’ll bet the FBI has never hunted a man down so ferociously. Dogs after a rat. Of course, his wife claims she never knew a thing.”
“And I’m sure everyone believes her, too,” Iris says grimly.
“Except Fox. I guess you taught him a thing or two about housewives.”
The breeze picks up a little, lifting the ends of Iris’s hair. She’s about to suggest they put Gregory back in the pram, head back to the house, when Ruth speaks up, a little raspy—
“What if they never find him?”
“Fox? Oh, darling, they’ll find him—he’ll turn up—he’s indestructible—”
“No, I mean Sasha. I mean your husband.” Ruth turns her head and looks at Iris over the tuft of Gregory’s pale hair. “Or was it all an act?”
“It wasn’t an act. Not completely.” Iris pauses. “Anyway, he sacrificed himself for us, didn’t he? In the end, he loved us more than them.”
“Then what about Beauchamp?”
Iris stares at a fishing smack, all by itself on the choppy Channel, beating off the leeward shore. In the liquid morning air, she can see every detail—the pure white sail against the blue water, the fisherman untangling his net in the stern.