But this Iris seemed equally real. This Iris felt as if some wound in her chest was knitting together right now, under the sweetness of sherry on Philip Beauchamp’s breath—like the scent of home, the smell of something that’s loyal to you.
She put her arm around Philip’s neck and rose on her toes. She caught his stutter of hesitation on her lips and kissed it away. From the house and the driveway drifted the sound of voices, but she was too busy kissing Philip Beauchamp’s suddenly fierce mouth to notice or care what the rest of the world was doing right now, the real world she still belonged to.
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.”