Blame It on the Bossa Nova (25 page)

I wasn’t fit enough to develop this and sank back exhausted, chewing half heartedly on what he had told me, but definitely taking it all in. After a while I asked him to help me up and he took my weight and supported me to the window. I could see now that my clothes were covered in blood or shit - not literal shit: rubbish, muck. I leaned hard on the side of the window to support myself and looked out, the cigarette still trembling violently between my swollen lips. It was daylight - God knows what time of day. Below I could see the end wall of the pub and the three gardens that had been the route of my odyssey. I could see footsteps in the snow and the tracks where they must have dragged me back. Beyond I could see the blackened stock brick facade of the boarded up terrace, and beyond that the crane of the building site. It wasn’t the Bay of Algiers, but it was as close as I ever wanted to get.

“Good God, Alex,” said Chris when I eventually arrived back at Pavilion Road. “.... I had no idea folk clubs were so rough.”

*****

That January the weatherman was king. Not just in Britain, the whole world was experiencing unprecedented weather conditions...... And he told us about it, every new record, every astounding statistic. The weather distorted life. Each nation seemed hermetically sealed, and each town, each street. Chris daily slid and slithered up to Harrods Food Hall while I slid and slithered to the Australian, a boozer I didn’t like much but was compelled in the straitened circumstances to use on account of its proximity. Fortunately, despite its name, it did not attract the exiled sons of Oz.

After the brief thaw Chris’s social scene re-froze and it was hard to believe that ducks had ever floated on the pond. The waves of hysteria emanating from him intensified. The papers were still littered with brief news items and references to the Bryant Set, as we were collectively known. It seemed hard on Chris, for he had never achieved such pre-eminence in the heroic age of our activities. The coverage was more spasmodic, less intense, in comparison with the surge of the flood tide that had followed the shoot-up story. And I, more and more found myself in the role of Cool Fool to Chris’s embattled Lear. Each morning he would sit in the armchair in the living room, devouring every word of the Times extensive reporting of the Vassall Tribunal, whole pages of transcript. Chris obviously related to it personally. I couldn’t see why, but that was nothing new.

One person who didn’t desert us was the guy in the Humber. He became a permanent fixture, parked across the mews from us. At first Chris either didn’t notice him or wouldn’t admit he existed, so I said nothing. He was jumpy enough without adding to it. I struck up a muted friendship with the guy in the Humber, rather one way. I used to nod to him or, if I caught him with the window down, throwing a fag out, I would pass a comment about the weather. He for his part ignored me, the coquette. I knew his game. Sometimes it was another guy who wasn’t so friendly. He ignored me as if he really didn’t know I was there. The unemployment figures went over seven hundred thousand, driven ever upwards by the lay-offs in the building industry because of the weather. The French Riviera was freezing too we were consoled.

I knew that as soon as I told Chris about our being watched he’d go berserk if he hadn’t yet realized. He hadn’t - He did. On reflection I conceded to myself that I could have chosen a better day to break the news. Vassall’s charlady had taken the stand at the Redcliffe Tribunal hearings on the previous day and then Vassall himself had been questioned. The hearings were building up to a climax. Christopher hadn’t been mentioned but he told me in a moment of great stress that he expected to be. His first reaction was to pick up the phone and try to get through to the Director of Public Prosecutions, but his lemming instinct was thwarted this time by his inability to convince the switchboard operator the other end that he was important enough to be put through. He then dialled another number and left a message for the Attorney General to ring him back. Then he sat down to await the call and agreed to let me make him a camomile tea.

“I’ve got to get out, Alex. I’ve got to get right out of town.”

“Wouldn’t that be seen as a sign of guilt?”

“I’m allowed to move about aren’t I? I am supposed to be innocent.”

“It’s not a good time to go travelling, is it?”

But he just kept repeating that he had to get away. I didn’t know his true position, but the copper opposite was real enough.

“You couldn’t use your car,” I said. He thought about that.

“You’re right. Could you get hold of one?”

I owed the guy a favour. One way and another he’d indirectly kept me in cash and with a roof over my head for the past few months. For a second or two the thought rolled around my brain that I should save him from himself, not aid and abet this stupidity. Then I felt my ribs that still hurt and my balls that still ached, and about what Toby had told me he wanted me to do.

“Yes.... probably.”

“Where could we go?” he said. “.... They’ll know all my friends.”

Friends? What Friends? I thought for a moment, then I decided I could stretch to two favours, if this was what he considered help.

“I know a place... a cottage in Norfolk. I can use it any time I want.”

“Whose is it?” he pounced on me.

“A guy I know from Cambridge. Don’t worry, he won’t even know, we’ll get the keys from the old girl down the road... It’s isolated enough, right at the top, north of Fakenham.”

He brightened up at this, then frowned.

“But can you get a car?”

It was Tuesday.

“Give me a day. I should have one this time tomorrow.”

“Fine.”

“It might take a tenner to clinch it.”

“Fine.”

“Only I haven’t got a tenner.”

*****

That evening I kept an appointment in the Australian. Frank was already sitting in one of the alcoves when I arrived, pushing open the door with a clenched gloved fist in order to prevent my fingers dropping off. I had shuffled to the bar and ordered a large Jamesons with ice before I noticed him.

“.....And how’s me fine smilin’ Broth of a Boyo today?” he shouted in reference to my order.

“..... And a lager and lime for my friend,” I lisped to the barman. I joined him in his cosy nook and started trying to thaw out. I had been early and had been hoping for a few minutes peace and quiet and a read of ‘Catcher in the Rye’ before Frank arrived. It was sticking out of my coat pocket.

“Great book,” said Frank noticing it. I was certain he had never read it.

In the intervening time since his attempt on my life in Tulse Hill and my return from France we had kept in touch professionally, but the relationship had somehow lost its old zing. But because I was shit scared that he was a complete nutter and that the severance terms might be unreasonably drastic I had continued to develop my two mythical contacts, SMARTARSE 2 and SMARTARSE 3. I’d given Frank some stuff on the Common Market negotiations and a forewarning of De Gaulle’s rejection. I’d also kept him informed of the power struggle in the Labour Party and tipped him off that Wilson was going to get the leadership. All harmless stuff out of the ‘A-for-effort’ variety. This had been from SMARTARSE 2, Adrian. SMARTARSE 3 hadn’t gone so well, in fact I was stalling deliberately. Toby’s little chat with me had curbed my initiative and whereas previously I had been contemplating a trip to Cambridge to develop the background and for research generally, the effort now seemed both too great and too dangerous. To break the silence I spoke.

“There’s someone I’ve met through Pascale, I think they could be co-operative. I was wondering if we couldn’t give them a coding.... I was thinking of a change - How about SHITHEAD 1?”

Frank shook his head in vigorous dissent. “... No good, Alex.”

“How come?”

Firstly, all agents recruited by you must have the SMARTARSE prefix .... Secondly, all agents relating to UK activities must have codenames beginning with ‘SM’.”

“Hence SMARTARSE?”

He nodded.

“I see... So it wasn’t entirely personal.”

“Not entirely........”

“Chris is pretty nervous right now,” I volunteered.

“That so?” He seemed only vaguely interested. It surprised me.

“We’re going away this weekend.”

“That so?” He sipped his drink, whatever it was - Nothing ordinary, that’s for sure.

“To the country.”

“Anywhere in particular?”

I wasn’t keen to tell him the truth. I gave a vague answer.

He thought about it for a bit. I looked at him and tried to imagine William Bendix in his place.... He was certainly underplaying the news about Chris.

“Must be off Alex.” He jumped up as he spoke. “.....Things to do, people to see.”

“Of course.”

He paused and looked at me, savouring the disquiet he imagined that accompanied my incertitude of his opinion.

“Good work.”

“What’s that?”

“I said, good work Alex..... You’re on the ball, you’re delivering. That’s what I look for in an ..... Well you know what I look for.”

“Sure do.” I remained sitting as he towered above me. He hovered like a preying mantis for a second or two, giving me the old ‘civilization is only a thin veneer’ bit. Then he turned and left abruptly hoping, no doubt, to unhinge me further by his unpredictable behaviour. I got up and ordered another Jamesons. I let the barman pour it into the old glass to mix with the melting ice. It was only when I went back to the alcove that I saw his briefcase on the seat - An obvious trick. I put it next to me for safekeeping and opened my book. Inside two minutes he’d be bounding back for it, he was too much of a pro to forget it. I wondered what had been his oblique motivation in leaving it.

Half an hour later it was obvious that he wasn’t coming back. The pub was still half empty, not bristling with cold war veterans at all. I undid the straps and tried the lock. It wasn’t locked. ... Very strange. Inside there were four thin manilla files. All were foolscap size and had white adhesive labels with rounded corners, two thirds of the way up, centrally positioned - A tidy mind. The first said ‘SMASHERS’ 1, 2 and 3. Pretty boring stuff, centred around communist activity in the Hoover factory on the Great West Way, shop-floor politics.... Poor, misguided Frank. How could revolution ever take seed and flourish in such utopian surroundings as the Hoover factory on the Great West Way? The second file was titled ‘SMOKESCREEN’.

Its contents concerned the efforts of an embryonic Scottish Nationalist group based in the Edinburgh University School of Architecture. One of their wilder schemes involved not only the theft of the Stone of Scone but its symbolic installation as foundation stone of a re-built Hadrian’s Wall. Forget Cuba, forget Berlin; here was the business that really had Kennedy burning the midnight oil. At this point I began, not for the first time, to question Frank’s sanity. I turned to the next file – ‘SMOOTHYCHOPS’ confidently expecting to find further evidence of his dementia. The smile that had formed, if not on my lips, at least somewhere between my stomach and throat, froze as I looked at page one. ‘SMOOTHYCHOPS’ - Ronald Peregrine Forsythe, MP. Born: 5th May 1911, etcetera, etcetera - Fuck me. Ronnie Forsythe. I read at speed, skipping lines that didn’t contain pronouns, or at least interesting nouns or verbs. He was giving Frank the lot. Or at least all he had to give. As we were now beginning to adjust to our new role as minor world power this meant that Ronnie wasn’t overburdened with important military intelligence to impart despite his cabinet status. However, there was quite a bit on Porton Down, Klaus Fuchs, the Vassall business and a guy called Philby who I’d never heard of, also another guy called Blunt who apparently was big in the art history world. In fact I even remembered glancing over something written by him a year or two previously. I briefly read further. The gist of it seemed to be that Blunt was getting some kind of Royal Pardon for his role in getting Burgess and Maclean out of the country in the early fifties. This was in exchange for his eternal silence - The embarrassment would have been too much for the Government to take following everything else. Not for the first time I basked in the security that an education at a major public school gives one. Five Star Insurance indemnified at Lloyds. It may not set you up for life any more but it sure as hell ensures that you don’t go down the plughole with the plebs when the shit starts to sink. It also struck me that as long as the U.S. continued to give us information which they regarded as secret they were going to remain extremely interested in our security, particularly as our security seemed to be intent on continuing in the sixties as it had left off in the fifties. Furthermore, it struck me - and this in a slightly humorous, ironic kind of way - that there was money to be made in this business by anyone who knew the right way to go about it.

The file at least put my perceptions of Ronnie in a new perspective. His behaviour at Battersea Park that night took on a fresh hue, that of the subordinate shitting himself in the presence of his boss - Sure, physical intimidation had played a significant part in Ronnie’s reactions, but if he was also on the payroll, and obviously on a far greater screw than me, then that explained a great deal. I turned to file four. If life was a Tom and Jerry cartoon then there would have been a spiky edged Alex shape in the wall behind me and a lot of jagged brickwork with daylight and snow streaming in ‘SMARTARSE’. I opened it. ‘Alexander Guy Marshall, student.’ - Student? ‘Born: 16th June 1940, Northampton.’ The record went on to detail minor events in my life, there were no major ones; it described the circumstances of my recruitment and omitted the circumstances of my attempted termination in Tulse Hill. Another section of what looked like a standard form listed my contacts - Chris, Ronnie, Sandie, Pascale and subsequent sheets gave details of my sub-agents and the information I had passed on from them. Another sheet recorded payments made.