The Avenue of the Dead by Evelyn Anthony

made him sick.
    He leaned back in his chair in the quiet room and closed his eyes. There was so much to think about, so many different lines of action to be reconciled, so many eyes upon him, watching and judging. At fifty-one he was several rungs up the ladder ahead of older men of greater experience. He had everything to gain so long as he didn’t miss his step. So long as that particularly fragile bauble, reputation, didn’t show a flaw. There was no other city in the world where rumour fed upon itself so virulently. Whispers wiped out careers just as cholera destroyed its human victims. He had things to hide. The only person who could expose him was the woman he had married. An English rose, as one sycophantic woman columnist had called her in an early interview.
    â€˜Hallo,’ his wife said. ‘You’re not asleep, are you?’
    It gave him a shock; he had wandered so far away in his mind from the house in Georgetown that he started and spilled his drink.
    â€˜Do you have to creep into a room like that?’
    She closed the door. ‘You usually complain about me being noisy,’ she said. ‘You’re the one with the cat’s feet. Lucky vodka doesn’t stain – I’ll get a cloth.’
    â€˜It’s all right,’ he said. He rubbed the wet mark on his trousers with his handkerchief.
    She sat down and gave him a nervous smile. He knew she had been to the British Embassy, seeing that man Neil again. He was the latest.
    â€˜Had a busy day, darling?’
    â€˜Yes. Very busy.’
    â€˜Who did you see? Did you see the President?’
    â€˜For a few minutes, yes.’
    â€˜What did he say?’
    â€˜Nothing that would mean anything to you,’ he answered. ‘I can’t talk about it, anyway. You know that.’
    â€˜You never talk about anything any more,’ she said. She sighed and he knew that she was preparing herself and him for the usual ritual involving her pre-dinner drinks. ‘I’m tired too,’ she said. ‘I could do with a sharpener.’ She got up and he heard the bottles chink and the ice rattle into the bottom of the glass. She sat down opposite him and said, ‘The Harrises are in town; they asked us to have dinner. I’d said I’d call them back.’
    â€˜What Harrises? I don’t know any.’
    â€˜Yes, you do,’ she insisted. ‘New York – he runs an advertising agency and she was a top model. You remember them. They’re great fun.’
    Edward Fleming looked at his wife and said, ‘You’re right – we did meet them. I didn’t like them. You can call back and say we’re busy.’
    â€˜Why?’ she protested. ‘Why can’t we go?’ The level of the glass of whisky had fallen by half in a few minutes. ‘Why can’t we ever go anywhere except with your awful, boring political friends? Don’t you think I get sick of listening to the same old things over and over again – who’s lobbying for who, who’s making deals over what? Why can’t we be like normal people and just go out and have some fun for a change?’
    â€˜Because we’re not normal people,’ he said suddenly. ‘Your idea of fun is to go out and get drunk in some nightclub with a cheap little ad man from Madison Avenue, and his boring, stupid wife! I’m not going out tonight. And neither are you.’
    She finished the whisky. ‘I am,’ she said. She went to the trolley and filled her glass again. She spoke behind his back. ‘I’m going out with them. I won’t stay here and listen to your insults … Why do you do it, Eddie, why do you keep insulting me?’
    She was standing in front of him now, clutching the drink in her left hand. Never to be free of her. Never to escape that nerve-racking whine of a voice, that deceitful, libidinous look … He got out of the chair.
    â€˜Don’t try and start a