Here Comes the Sun (15 page)

‘Um.' Staff thought for a moment, then rather shamefacedly removed his coffee-cup. ‘Even so,' he said.

‘Exactly,' Ganger replied, leaning forward. ‘Even so. We just can't afford to give those guys any more ammunition than we can help, and this crazy young kid of . . .'

‘Not mine,' Staff couldn't help saying. ‘You found her, remember.'

‘Maybe, yes, but . . .'

‘And you nagged her into joining.'

‘Okay, yes, we're talking details here. It was your idea too. You didn't stop me.' There was a frown on Ganger's face; a very incongruous sight, like Genghis Khan in a dinner jacket. ‘That doesn't alter the fact that we've got
to be careful, both of us. It's a good idea, don't let's screw it up.'

‘It was my idea to put her in Records,' Staff pointed out. ‘And it was you who made sure she was on hand when the sun got stolen. In fact, I'm not so sure . . .' He stopped abruptly, aware that he'd been thinking aloud.

‘Sure,' Ganger replied. ‘I put those kids up to it. We needed a new sun. The old one was a goddamn liability.' He leaned closer forward still. ‘Now you see what you're implicated in, huh?'

Staff half-rose; then he sat down again. ‘You lunatic,' he said. ‘What did you want to go and do something like that for?'

‘Never you mind,' Ganger answered, infuriatingly. ‘My department has a cross-departmental brief. I have to keep several things going at the same time.'

‘Is that an explanation?'

‘Yeah. Trust me.'

‘Oh.' Staff bit the rubber on the end of his pencil in half and spat out the result. He was nervous when people from that particular department said ‘Trust me'; he couldn't help but visualise the scene, many years ago now, when one of them had said, ‘Go on, eat the bloody apple; trust me.' Of course, that sort of thing couldn't happen now, not with the New Covenant and mortals being so depressingly litigious, but old habits die hard. ‘I think,' he said decisively, ‘we ought to call the whole thing off. You're right,' he added quickly. ‘You've convinced me.'

Ganger was taken beautifully by surprise. ‘Hold on, now,' he said. ‘I didn't say we should call it off. All I said was . . .'

Staff smeared a bewildered look on his face. ‘You said she was becoming a liability,' he replied. ‘I agree with you. By the way, what on earth possessed you to agree to all those demands of hers - pay and so forth? You
realise that she's only down on the books as a trainee.'

‘Wait a minute, now.' Ganger was distinctly flustered, and his smile was melting and dripping down the side of his mouth, like jam on the run from a doughnut. ‘I couldn't help it,' he said. ‘The kid's got personality, I guess. She just sort of came at me.'

‘Right,' Staff replied, nodding. ‘And now I think it's about time she came at somebody else around here.'

Another silence. In the corner of the room, unnoticed by anybody at all, one of the hidden microphones went wrong and began broadcasting the BBC World Service to its receiving station.

‘Like who?' Ganger said cautiously. ‘I think you're up to something.'

‘Me?' Staff did a very creditable impression of startled innocence. ‘I've never been up to anything in my entire life. I was just thinking that, if she's been attracting hostile criticism from certain quarters, then it's about time we turned her loose on her critics. What do you reckon?'

‘I don't know.' Ganger stood up and walked across to the window, inadvertently treading on another hidden microphone and squashing it flat. The device in question had been installed by the trainee, and nobody had told him about putting them where they won't get trodden on. ‘That could make things worse, you know? The last thing we want to do is precipitate a confrontation.'

‘Don't we?'

‘Well, not that sort of confrontation.' Ganger was starting to exhibit signs of great tension; that is to say, he appeared perfectly normal but his shoelaces were untying themselves and then weaving themselves back into fantastically intricate knots. ‘What did you have in mind, anyway?'

Staff smiled; at least, he drew his lips across his face like the curtain of an old-fashioned proscenium-arch
theatre. ‘Nothing too dramatic,' he replied. ‘I just think that the girl's proved herself perfectly capable in the field, so why not try her out in administration? After all,' he added carelessly, ‘she can't get up to much mischief sat behind a desk all day, can she?'

‘I don't know,' Ganger replied, and his face was a blank. ‘Can she?'

Staff leaned back in his chair and put the tips of his fingers together. He was enjoying himself.

‘Let's find out,' he said. ‘Oh, and by the way.'

When one has worked in an office where mind-reading is the norm rather than the exception, one can't help noticing nuances of expression, just as a telephone can't get away from the fact that there are always people wanting to talk through it, regardless of whether it's in the mood. Ganger's face remained blank, but one of his shoelaces broke spontaneously. ‘Yes?' he said.

‘While we're on the subject of bugging.'

‘Mm?'

‘I saw a psychiatrist yesterday,' Staff said. He waited for some pleasantry or other from his interlocutor, and then went on: ‘I told him - quite untruthfully, as it happens - that for the last few weeks I've had this extraordinary idea that someone's been listening to my thoughts. Inside my head, I told him. I didn't expect him to take me seriously, of course, but he did.'

‘So I should think,' Ganger muttered.

‘Well, he wasn't your run-of-the-mill shrink,' Staff admitted. ‘In fact, he's the head departmental analyst, so he's used to that sort of thing, I should imagine. And do you know what he suggested I should do?'

Ganger beamed. ‘Go on,' he said, ‘you tell me.'

‘He said,' Staff went on, ‘that it's not a particularly uncommon condition in our line of work. He said - and this is just what he told me, mind - that the only odd
thing about it was that I'd noticed. Funny he should say that, since I was making the whole thing up, wouldn't you say?'

‘Hilarious.'

‘Anyway,' Staff went on, ‘the point he was making was that apparently, one of our own departments, or at least a department of what you might call an associated agency, has perfected a technique of mental bugging, just so's they can keep tabs on what the rest of us are thinking. A bit spooky, that, if it's true.'

‘You've got my hair standing on end,' Ganger said. ‘Do go on, please.'

‘Oh, there's nothing to worry about,' Staff said reassuringly. ‘Apparently, there's a very simple solution to the problem.The boys in the research lab tumbled to it almost immediately. All you've got to do is
this
and . . . I say, are you all right?'

Ganger, who was sitting bolt upright with a face as white as the proverbial sheet, nodded his head stiffly. His hair really was standing on end, Staff noticed.

‘Sorry?' he said. ‘I didn't catch what you said.'

‘IIII sssaiiiid yyyyyesssssss, IIIIyummm ffffiynnn, thannnnnx,' Ganger hissed. His eyes were bloodshot and he was starting to vibrate. ‘WWWWwouldddddd yyyy kkkkkindllleeeee sssstopppp ddddoinggg thattttt nnnow, pppppl?'

‘According to my friend the shrink,' Staff continued, looking away and affecting not to notice anything unusual, ‘it's just a question of earthing the interloper into one's brainwaves. It's easy once you've got the knack, he says, though how you'd ever know you were doing it right beats me. Still, he says there's enough electricity inside the average person's head to fry an intruder like a sausage. I'm sure he's exaggerating. What do you think?'

‘Gggggggggggggg.'

‘Anyway,' Staff said, making a very slight movement, after which Ganger stopped looking like a cross between a straight-backed chair and a pneumatic drill and slumped on to the floor in a heap, ‘it's just as well nobody's been trying to monkey about with the inside of
my
head, because he'd know he'd been in a fight if he did. My dear chap, what are you doing on the floor?'

‘Resting,' Ganger croaked. ‘I've had, you know, sort of a hard day.' He reached out a trembling hand and picked up the lenses of his glasses, which were all that was left, apart from a few droplets of melted plastic in the worn pile of the carpet. ‘I think I'll get back to my office and do something.'

‘Capital idea,' Staff replied. ‘Mind how you go.'

‘I will.' Ganger lifted himself on to his knees with an effort and crawled to the side of the desk.

‘Want to borrow a comb?'

‘Thanks,' Ganger mumbled. ‘Don't think I'd have the strength to lift one right now, but maybe I'll take you up on it later.'

‘Please yourself,' Staff said, picking up a file and opening it. ‘You know what? The one thing that really cheers me up about this whole business is knowing that, come what may, you and I are on the same side. You know, implicit mutual trust, that sort of thing. It's a great comfort to me, it really is.'

‘Um.'

‘Cheerio, then.'

‘Ciao.'

 

‘Profiteroles,' said the Lord High Cardinal. ‘I should live so long.'

The Count of the Stables winked at him. ‘Go on,' he said, ‘be a devi . . .' He checked himself. ‘Go on,' he said. ‘Tomorrow you can have a salad.'

The Lord High Cardinal shrugged. ‘You convinced me,' he said. ‘Or there's the
zuppa inglesi
.'

‘Nah. That's for thin people. C'mon, go for it.'

‘Okay.'

‘Right,' said the Count of the Stables. ‘That's six profiteroles. Hey, Rosa, six profiteroles over here.'

‘I got it,' replied the Emperor's sister. ‘Just give me a moment, will you? We got no help again today.'

The County Palatine clicked his teeth. ‘You want to get shot of that kid,' he said, ‘she's no good to you.'

Rosa gave him a withering look, the sort of look that scours roses of greenfly and lifts impacted grease off the inside of neglected ovens. ‘You know how hard it is to get help - even crummy help - this time of the year? You don't. You let me run my business, okay?'

She scuttled off under a ziggurat of dirty plates. The Electors sighed.

‘She works too hard,' opined the Lord Treasurer.

‘It's a shame,' agreed the Count of the Stables. ‘We should find her a reliable waitress.'

The Count of the Saxon Shore grunted. ‘Anything that'd improve the service round here would be fine by me. You can get peptic ulcers waiting too long between courses.'

A match flared at the end of an eight-inch cigar. ‘You've gotta look after your health in this life,' commented the Lord High Cardinal, ‘because if you don't, nobody else will.' He burped smoke, like a dragon with carburettor trouble, while the other Electors exchanged surreptitious glances. They had an uneasy feeling that the Lord High Cardinal had just made a pronouncement
ex cathedra
; in which case, somebody really ought to write it down. ‘Anyway,' he continued briskly, ‘to business.'

The Electors stifled a selection of sighs and yawns. A working lunch, in their view, was a truly wonderful idea,
but not nearly as truly wonderful as a plain ordinary lunch, hold the work. Still, they had a Duty.

‘Well,' said the Lord Treasurer, ‘I did the books last night, and they're looking pretty healthy. We got,' he reached in his coat pocket for his spectacles and yesterday night's wine list, ‘we got income, seventeen point four four six four four million kreuzers, expenditure seventeen point four four six three nine million kreuzers, capital reserves nil, income transferred to capital account nil, fixed assets nil, short term liabilities nil, written down balance fifty kreuzers, transferred to cash account fifty kreuzers. Okay?'

The County Palatine frowned. ‘What does that mean, Tony?' he asked.

‘It means,' replied the Treasurer with a grin, ‘today we can afford to leave a tip.'

The Electors nodded their approval, and the Lord High Cardinal cleared his throat.

‘Policy review time next, folks,' he said. ‘Anybody got anything to say about our policy?'

‘I think our policy is just great, Rocky. What do you say, Tony?'

‘Yeah, it's a great policy, Rocky. Where's that damn broad with the goddamn sweet?'

‘Okay.' The Lord High Cardinal pencilled a little tick on the back of the menu. ‘Now then, what's next? Oh, nuts, I forgot the minutes of the last meeting. Anybody take any minutes last meeting?'

‘Nah.'

‘Okay then, approved as drawn.' The Lord High Cardinal raised his eyebrows and scratched them with the end of his pencil. ‘That just leaves Any Other Business, guys,' he said. ‘Hold on, though,' he added, as Rosa approached with a tray, ‘here it comes now.'

When they had finished Any Other Business, and the
Count of the Saxon Shore had had Extra Any Other Business with a side order of whipped cream, they sat for a while thinking and breathing heavily, until the arrival of the coffee recalled them to the next item on the agenda.

‘Date of next meeting,' said the Lord High Cardinal. ‘Thursday all right with you guys?' The Electors nodded. ‘Okay, Thursday at twelve fifteen. Meeting closed. Hey, Rosa, where's the toothpicks? I got a big fat lump of veal gristle lodged behind my bridgework. You want me to choke to death here?'

Coffee was traditionally taken in silence, or at least without articulate speech, to give the Electors an opportunity to ruminate on the decisions they had just taken and if necessary review them or supplement them with a brandy or a small shot of grappa. It was, above all, a moment of tranquillity, essential in the headlong life of a monumentally important officer of state. Sometimes, however, something happened to spoil it; for example, the proprietor's sister tripping over her feet and depositing a plateful of tagliatelli verdi in the lap of the Count of the Saxon Shore.