The Looking Glass War (12 page)

It is open in the evenings. They come at about six, detaching themselves with pleasure from the moving crowd, furtive but determined, like men from out of town visiting a disreputable theatre. You notice first the things that are not there: no silver cups behind the bar, no visitors’ book nor list of membership; no insignia, crest or title. Only on the whitewashed brick walls a few photographs hang, framed in passe-partout, like the photographs in Leclerc’s room. The faces are indistinct, some enlarged, apparently from a passport, taken from the front with both ears showing according to the regulation; some are of women, a few of them attractive, with high square shoulders and long hair after the fashion of the war years. The men are wearing a variety of uniforms; Free French and Poles mingle with their British comrades. Some are fliers. Of the English faces one or two, grown old, still haunt the club.

When Woodford came in everyone looked round and Major Dell, much pleased, ordered his pint of beer. A florid, middle-aged man was talking about a sortie he once made over Belgium but he stopped when he lost the attention of his audience.

‘Hello, Woodie,’ somebody said in surprise. ‘How’s the lady?’

‘Fit,’ Woodford smiled genially. ‘Fit.’ He drank some beer. Cigarettes were passed round. Major Dell said, ‘Woodie’s jolly shifty tonight.’

‘I’m looking for someone. It’s all a bit top secret.’

‘We know the form,’ the florid man replied. Woodford glanced round the bar and asked quietly, a note of mystery in his voice, ‘What did Dad do in the war?’

A bewildered silence. They had been drinking for some time.

‘Kept Mum, of course,’ said Major Dell uncertainly and they all laughed.

Woodford laughed with them, savouring the conspiracy, reliving the half-forgotten ritual of secret mess nights somewhere in England.

‘And where did he keep her?’ he demanded, still in the same confiding tone: this time two or three voices called in unison, ‘Under his blooming hat!’

They were louder, happier.

‘There was a man called Johnson,’ Woodford continued quickly, ‘Jack Johnson. I’m trying to find out what became of him. He was a trainer in wireless transmission; one of the best. He was at Bovingdon first with Haldane until they moved him up to Oxford.’

‘Jack Johnson!’ the florid man cried excitedly. ‘The WT man? I bought a car radio from Jack two weeks ago! Johnson’s Fair Deal in the Clapham Broadway, that’s the fellow. Drops in here from time to time. Amateur wireless enthusiast. Little bloke, speaks out of the side of his face?’

‘That’s him,’ someone else said. ‘He knocks off twenty per cent for the old gang.’

‘He didn’t for me,’ the florid man said.

‘That’s Jack; he lives at Clapham.’

The others took it up; that was the fellow and he ran this shop, at Clapham; king of ham radio, been a ham before the war even when he was a kid; yes, on the Broadway, hung out there for years; must be worth a ransom. Liked to come into the club round Christmas time. Woodford, flushed with pleasure, ordered drinks.

In the bustle that followed, Major Dell took Woodford gently by the arm and guided him to the other end of the bar.

‘Woodie, is it true about Wilf Taylor? Has he really bought it?’

Woodford nodded, his face grave. ‘He was on a job. We think someone’s been a little bit naughty.’

Major Dell was all solicitude. ‘I haven’t told the boys. It would only worry them. Who’s caring for the Missus?’

‘The Boss is taking that up now. It looks pretty hopeful.’

‘Good,’ said the Major. ‘Good.’ He nodded, patting Woodford’s arm in a gesture of consolation. ‘We’ll keep it from the boys, shall we?’

‘Of course.’

‘He had one or two bills. Nothing very big. He liked to drop in Friday nights.’ The Major’s accent slipped from time to time like a made-up tie.

‘Send them along. We’ll take care of those.’

‘There was a kid, wasn’t there? A little girl?’ They were moving back to the bar. ‘How old was she?’

‘Eightish. Maybe more.’

‘He talked about her a lot,’ said the Major.

Somebody called, ‘Hey, Bruce, when are you chaps going to take another crack at the Jerries? They’re all over the bloody place. Took the wife to Italy in the Summer – full of arrogant Germans.’

Woodford smiled. ‘Sooner than you think. Now let’s try this one.’ The conversation died. Woodford was real. He still did the job.

‘There was an unarmed-combat man, a staff sergeant; a Welshman. He was short too.’

‘Sounds like Sandy Lowe,’ the florid man suggested.

‘Sandy, that’s him!’ They all turned to the florid man in admiration. ‘He was a Taffy. Randy Sandy we called him.’

‘Of course,’ said Woodford contentedly. ‘Now didn’t he go off to some public school as a boxing instructor?’ He was looking at them narrowly, holding a good deal back, playing it long because it was so secret.

‘That’s him, that’s Sandy!’

Woodford wrote it down, taking care because he had learnt from experience that he tended to forget things which he entrusted to memory.

As he was going, the Major asked, ‘How’s Clarkie?’

‘Busy,’ Woodford said. ‘Working himself to death, as always.’

‘The boys talk about him a lot, you know. I wish he’d come here now and then; give them a hell of a boost, you know. Perk them up.’

‘Tell me,’ said Woodford. They were by the door. ‘Do you remember a fellow called Leiser? Fred Leiser, a Pole? Used to be with our lot. He was in the Holland show.’

‘Still alive?’

‘Yes.’

‘Sorry,’ said the Major vaguely. ‘The foreigners have stopped coming; I don’t know why. I don’t discuss it with the boys.’

Closing the door behind him, Woodford stepped into the London night. He looked about him, loving all he saw – the mother city in his rugged care. He walked slowly, an old athlete on an old track.

Avery, on the other hand, walked fast. He was afraid. There is no terror so consistent, so elusive to describe, as that which haunts a spy in a strange country. The glance of a taxi driver, the density of people in the street, the variety of official uniform – was he a policeman or a postman? – the obscurity of custom and language, and the very noises which comprised the world into which Avery had moved contributed to a state of constant anxiety, which, like a nervous pain, became virulent now that he was alone. In the shortest time his spirit ranged between panic and cringing love, responding with unnatural gratitude to a kind glance or word. It was part of an effeminate dependence upon those whom he deceived. Avery needed desperately to win from the uncaring faces around him the absolution of a trusting smile. It was no help that he told himself: you do them no harm, you are their protector. He moved among them like a hunted man in search of rest and food.

He took a cab to the hotel and asked for a room with a bath. They gave him the register to sign. He had actually put his pen to the page when he saw, not ten lines above, done in a laborious hand, the name Malherbe, broken in the middle as if the writer could not spell it. His eye followed the entry along the line: Address, London; Profession, Major (retired); Destination, London. His last vanity, Avery thought, a false profession, a false rank, but little English Taylor had stolen a moment’s glory. Why not Colonel? Or Admiral? Why not give himself a peerage and an address in Park Lane? Even when he dreamt, Taylor had known his limits.

The concierge said, ‘The valet will take your luggage.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Avery, a meaningless apology, and signed his name, while the man watched him curiously.

He gave the valet a coin and it occurred to him as he did so that he had given him eight and six. He closed the bedroom door. For a while he sat on his bed. It was a carefully planned room but bleak and without sympathy. On the door was a notice in several languages warning against the perils of theft, and by the bed another which explained the financial disadvantages of failing to breakfast in the hotel. There was a magazine about travel on the writing-desk, and a Bible bound in black. There was a small bathroom, very clean, and a built-in wardrobe with one coat-hanger. He had forgotten to bring a book. He had not anticipated having to endure leisure.

He was cold and hungry. He thought he would have a bath. He ran it and undressed. He was about to get into the water when he remembered Taylor’s letters in his pocket. He put on a dressing-gown, sat on the bed and looked through them. One from his bank about an overdraft, one from his mother, one from a friend which began Dear Old Wilf, the rest from a woman. He was suddenly frightened of the letters: they were evidence. They could compromise him. He determined to burn them all. There was a second basin in the bedroom. He put all the papers into it and held a match to them. He had read somewhere that was the thing to do. There was a membership card for the Alias Club made out in Taylor’s name so he burnt that too, then broke up the ash with his fingers and turned on the water; it rose swiftly. The plug was a built-in metal affair operated by a lever between the taps. The sodden ash was packed beneath it. The basin was blocked.

He looked for some instrument to probe under the lip of the plug. He tried his fountain pen but it was too fat, so he fetched the nail file. After repeated attempts he persuaded the ash into the outlet. The water ran away, revealing a heavy brown stain on the enamel. He rubbed it, first with his hand then with the scrubbing brush, but it wouldn’t go. Enamel didn’t stain like that, there must have been some quality in the paper, tar or something. He went into the bathroom, looking vainly for a detergent.

As he re-entered his bedroom he became aware that it was filled with the smell of charred paper. He went quickly to the window and opened it. A blast of freezing wind swept over his naked limbs. He was gathering the dressing-gown more closely about him when there was a knock on the door. Paralysed with fear, he stared at the door handle, heard another knock, called, watched the handle turn. It was the man from Reception.

‘Mr Avery?’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m sorry. We need your passport. For the police.’

‘Police?’

‘It’s the customary procedure.’

Avery had backed against the basin. The curtains were flapping wildly beside the open window.

‘May I close the window?’ the man asked.

‘I wasn’t well. I wanted some fresh air.’

He found his passport and handed it over. As he did so, he saw the man’s gaze fixed upon the basin, on the brown mark and the small flakes which still clung to the sides.

He wished as never before that he was back in England.

The row of villas which lines Western Avenue is like a row of pink graves in a field of grey; an architectural image of middle age. Their uniformity is the discipline of growing old, of dying without violence and living without success. They are houses which have got the better of their occupants, whom they change at will, and do not change themselves. Furniture vans glide respectfully among them like hearses, discreetly removing the dead and introducing the living. Now and then some tenant will raise his hand, expending pots of paint on the woodwork or labour on the garden, but his efforts no more alter the house than flowers a hospital ward, and the grass will grow its own way, like grass on a grave.

Haldane dismissed the car and turned off the road towards South Park Gardens, a crescent five minutes from the Avenue. A school, a post office, four shops and a bank. He stooped a little as he walked; a black briefcase hung from his thin hand. He made his way quietly along the pavement; the tower of a modern church rose above the houses; a clock struck seven. A grocer’s on the corner, new façade, self-service. He looked at the name: Smethwick. Inside, a youngish man in a brown overall was completing a pyramid of cereal foods. Haldane rapped on the glass. The man shook his head and added a packet to the pyramid. He knocked again, sharply. The grocer came to the door.

‘I’m not allowed to sell you anything,’ he shouted, ‘so it’s no good knocking, is it?’ He noticed the briefcase and asked, ‘Are you a rep, then?’

Haldane put his hand in his inside pocket and held something to the window – a card in a Cellophane wrapper like a season ticket. The grocer stared at it. Slowly he turned the key.

‘I want a word with you in private,’ Haldane said, stepping inside.

‘I’ve never seen one of those,’ the grocer observed uneasily. ‘I suppose it’s all right.’

‘It’s quite all right. A security inquiry. Someone called Leiser, a Pole. I understand he worked here long ago.’

‘I’ll have to call my Dad,’ the grocer said. ‘I was only a kid then.’

‘I see,’ said Haldane, as if he disliked youth.

It was nearly midnight when Avery rang Leclerc. He answered straight away. Avery could imagine him sitting up in the steel bed, the Air Force blankets thrown back, his small, alert face anxious for the news.

‘It’s John,’ he said cautiously.

‘Yes, yes, I know who you are.’ He sounded cross that Avery had mentioned his name.

‘The deal’s off I’m afraid. They’re not interested … negative. You’d better tell the man I saw; the little, fat man … tell him we shan’t need the services of his friend here.’

‘I see. Never mind.’ He sounded utterly uninterested.

Avery didn’t know what to say; he just didn’t know. He needed desperately to go on talking to Leclerc. He wanted to tell him about Sutherland’s contempt and the passport that wasn’t right. ‘The people here, the people I’m negotiating with, are rather worried about the whole deal.’

He waited.

He wanted to call him by his name but he had no name for him. They did not use ‘Mister’ in the Department; the elder men addressed one another by their surnames and called the juniors by their Christian names. There was no established style of addressing one’s superior. So he said, ‘Are you still there?’ and Leclerc replied, ‘Of course. Who’s worried? What’s gone wrong?’ Avery thought: I could have called him ‘Director’, but that would have been insecure.

‘The representative here, the man who looks after our interests … he’s found out about the deal,’ he said. ‘He seems to have guessed.’

‘You stressed it was highly confidential?’