A very secret affair
“Three, two, one, cue music.”
The strains of Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” floated across the airwaves, then faded as the captivating tones of Rosanna Green, the host of Five Times Two welcomed the radio audience to the show.
“Good evening and welcome to our weekly ten-minute slot looking at what’s hot in the world of books. With us tonight is Susan Ridgeon, wife of the late author John Ridgeon who died last year. Her new book, Housewife Spywife, based on her life with John is out next week.”
Rosanna leaned towards the microphone. “Welcome. You were married to your late husband for nearly fifty years. He was a very private man. He never promoted his work, did he?”
Susan smiled. “True but he wasn’t the person you think he was.”
“In what way? Was he a complicated man?” Rosanna enquired.
“There was nothing complicated about John,” she replied with a slight chuckle. “His life was an act in many ways. He enjoyed writing mostly. After being in espionage for many years, he enjoyed the solitude. Pipe and slippers man, really."
“Well, I can’t believe…sorry, did you say espionage?”
“Yes, no one knew it. He didn’t want it known. When we met, he told me he was a cultural attache with the Foreign Office. Part of his cover, I suppose. He never talked about it to anyone.”
“Intriguing. Tell me more.”
“You’ll need to buy the book, but a taster perhaps. We met at a party. My brother’s date had cried off and I was there just to make up the numbers. John was there. First impressions can be off-putting. I found him awfully condescending, although most men in our circle suffered from that symptom. Anyhow, he invited me for lunch the next day at the Ritz.“
Rosana smiled, “ Why did you decide to go if you found him condescending?”
“No one turns down an invitation to the Ritz, my dear. It was a revelation actually. John was charming. He regaled me with tales of the exotic places he’d visited as a cultural attache. I was quite taken with him.”
“So he didn’t tell you he was a spy?”
“Well, I don’t think spies actually tell you they’re spies, do they? Wouldn’t that defeat the object? Hello, Mr. Khrushchev, can I read your secret file? Oh, and by the way, I work for MI6.”
“So you became a couple?”
“Not at first but we kind of grew into each other. At the time, women married men for what they could get out of it. He was surprisingly good in bed, which helps.”
Rosana laughed. “When did you discover he was a spy?”
“The first inkling I had was by accident. He was away in West Africa on a business expo, although it turned out he was helping to plot a coup d’etat, something I didn’t know about at the time. We had two cars. He had an E-type Jag whereas I had a Mini. Both are iconic of course. John told me that on no account was I to drive the Jaguar as it was a government car and I wouldn’t be insured. Well, my Mini had a flat tyre and I was taking my great aunt back to Gloucester so I borrowed the Jag. It was great fun but there were a lot of buttons that weren’t on my Mini. We were halfway down the A48 where Great Auntie pressed what she thought was the radio. It wasn’t.”
Rosana leant in. “What was it?”
”An ejector seat. She shot out of it and just missed a road bridge.”
“Goodness, was she ok?” Rosana asked.
“Oh yes. Thought it was jolly fun. She parachuted down near a pub. When I found her she was eating an enormous ploughman’s lunch and was half-cut. There was nothing in the manual about an ejector seat.”
“So it was then you suspected there was more to it?”
“Well, when John returned he blamed Jaguar. Said it was a faulty spring.”
“Did you believe him?”
“I may have been expected to, as a devoted wife, but no. I was obviously naive but he could lie for Britain. That was his line of work in effect. I found he had several passports in different names and I also found a gun under our bed. He told me it was a replica he used for protection when he was away on FO business but when Vlad broke into the house…”
“Vlad?”
“Yes, a Russian assassin I learned later. He was there to kill John.”
“Oh my God. What happened?”
“I pleaded that John was just a cultural attache but he said that John was a spy. We were in our bedroom and facing death,”
“So how…”
“I played the role he expected. I collapsed on my knees and sobbed. Vlad dismissed me as a weak capitalistic wife and turned his attention to John. That’s when I reached under the bed and grabbed John’s gun. I shot him. I really had no idea it was real.”
“You shot him?” Rosana looked flabbergasted.
“Yes, till death us do part and all that and I wasn’t ready to die. I was only twenty-five. John came clean, MI6 got rid of the body and later recruited me. I turned out to be a better spy than he was. I had more of a killer instinct apparently. A few years later, Johnny decided to turn his hand to writing. Spy novels were much more lucrative.”
“He wrote about his exploits?”
“No. Mine. John named the title character Mike Steel. Men tend to read spy novels and they prefer a masculine hero. John was really more Smiley than Bond. A desk spy. I was the mouse that roared in the end. Funny thing, marriages. You don’t really know who or what you’re signing up for but I guess that was true for both of us.”
“Susan Ridgeon, thank you and good luck with the book. From Five Times Two. Goodnight.”
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