Short of Glory (16 page)

On the day when he was to have dinner with Joanna, Patrick took the temperature on the veranda after breakfast. Already he had an energetic interest in the detail of the day. Deuteronomy was in
the corner of the garden beyond the swimming-pool trying to prune a young tree with a pair of shears. Patrick crossed the neatly cut lawn. There was the usual exchange of smiles, nods and greeting
noises. ‘Isn’t it difficult with the shears, Deuteronomy? Wouldn’t it be better to use a saw?’

Deuteronomy smiled. ‘Saw better, yes, massa.’

Patrick had bought the shears for him only the previous week. He pointed at them. ‘It will make them blunt. Also, they won’t cut through the bough.’

Deuteronomy nodded enthusiastic agreement. ‘You buy me shears, massa.’

‘Yes, but they are not good for the tree.’

‘Bad for tree.’ Deuteronomy pointed at the few ineffectual cuts he had made. ‘No good.’

‘No, very bad.’

‘Very bad, massa.’

‘Why don’t you use the saw?’

Deuteronomy rolled his eyes and smiled again. ‘You buy me shears, massa.’

Further conversation was cut short by the telephone. It was Clifford, speaking as though from a bunker under shellfire. Everything was happening, he had no time to waste, Patrick was to come in
early that morning because a meeting had been moved forward. Also, a lot of people had dropped out of the European Community buffet lunch that was being hosted that day by Sir Wilfrid. There was a
possibility of serious embarrassment. Patrick would have to come in and make up the numbers. Of course, all the drop-outs were far senior to him and he mustn’t expect to be invited in future.
In fact, he needn’t stay for the whole thing. He just had to appear, that’s all. Clifford could not waste time talking. He would brief Patrick fully on arrival.

Back on the veranda Sarah and Deuteronomy were standing together. She pointed solemnly at the shears in Deuteronomy’s hand and said that there had been a misunderstanding. Deuteronomy had
not wanted shears at all but a bow-saw. When Patrick bought shears Deuteronomy had assumed that he was unwilling to pay for a bow-saw and so had tried to manage with what he had been given. Sarah
apologised, saying she should have realised, Patrick apologised and then so did Deuteronomy. Patrick said he would get a saw before Deuteronomy came again. They all three smiled. Deuteronomy went
back to the tree and continued to hack at it.

The meeting that morning was one of a series involving what Clifford called the Ministerial Task Force. It comprised himself, Philip, the commercial officer and Patrick. Its purpose was to
arrange the forthcoming ministerial visit. As the series went on minutes were drafted, redrafted, lengthened, filed, rewritten, lost, found, abandoned, resurrected and superseded. Programmes were
drawn up, revised, split, merged, provisionally accepted, provisionally rejected and filed for ever. Clifford spent longer in the embassy with every day that passed. Philip was walled in behind
ever-rising stacks of files. He would not go home whilst Clifford was there. His responsibility was to draft the ministerial political briefing in a form that could be sent to London and combined
with whatever was drafted there. He took as his starting point the discovery by Europeans of that part of the continent. Clifford allocated to himself the statistical presentation of UK-Lower
African trade and financial dealings – what he called ‘the hub and centre of good relations’ – and nominated the commercial officer to prepare the figures. Patrick was
responsible for transport arrangements.

Clifford was incapable of delegation. Every decision taken at each meeting was overturned by subsequent memos which were themselves altered at subsequent meetings. He had never got on with Harry
White, and soon reached the stage of communicating only by memo, save when they argued at Task Force meetings.

The man’s a buffoon,’ he complained, red-faced and pulling at his shirt-collar as if to widen it. ‘Doesn’t understand the first principles of anything. I sent him a memo
yesterday making the point about invisibles and he sent a ridiculous piece of paper back saying he couldn’t see the point at all. Either he was being facetious and therefore daft or he
can’t follow a logical argument and is therefore more daft. It’s Personnel I blame really. They’re at the root of most of our problems.’

Harry was older, hard-working and not very able. He resented not having been promoted. Like Clifford and Philip, he saw the ministerial visit as a chance to shine and like them wished to prevent
anyone else from shining more brightly. Patrick was too new and too junior to be a threat and so Harry took to ringing him several times a day to complain about Clifford and to find out what was
going on. He had a morbid and just suspicion that Clifford was trying to prevent him from even meeting the minister. One day, in a rage, he stormed unannounced into chancery to complain that
Clifford was attempting to remove all references to the commodity futures market from the brief.

‘It’s only because he doesn’t understand futures himself,’ he said, lowering his voice to a whisper and leaning across Patrick’s desk. ‘He can’t see
that they’re the biggest new thing in the financial market since – well, since the wheel – and because he doesn’t understand them he doesn’t want them in the brief. It
might mean that someone else would have to present them. He’s a schemer, nothing but a schemer, but I see his little games.’ He nodded in agreement with himself and pointed at the stack
of files behind which Philip normally sat. ‘And that one, he’s a snake in the grass. You want to watch him from where you’re sitting. I’ve seen his sort before. He’ll
bite you as soon as look at you, he will.’

Patrick eased one of Philip’s files on to his own desk so that Harry should not see the use that was being made of his paper on the deployment of Greater London office accommodation.

Most of the time Philip preserved a passionate silence that was as much a wall as the files around him. He stayed later, grew paler, came in earlier and nibbled at Ryvita biscuits which he kept
in a locked drawer. Once, when waiting for some files from registry, he sat back in his chair and pressed his hands against the sides of his face. ‘Makes you wonder if it’s all worth
it, doesn’t it?’ he said.

Patrick put down his pen. ‘I’ve been wondering that since I got here.’

‘Some of it is, I suppose. One works hard, does what one can, hopes people appreciate it and so on but I can’t help wondering how often the national interest really is served. I
mean, what difference would it make if we simply didn’t do most of what we do? I doubt it would even be noticed. I’m not sure whether it’s because we’re all doing the wrong
things or whether we’re doing the right things wrongly.’

‘D’you ever think of doing something else?’

Philip smiled. ‘Daily. What worries me is that I might end up asking myself the same questions whatever I do. Every post I’ve had has been busy, demanding and largely irrelevant.
I’ve a horrible feeling it might be the same with all bureaucracies. There are exceptions of course but there’s so much wasted time and energy. Perhaps that’s the only way we can
do things – perhaps all human endeavour is like natural selection, a very wasteful process.’ He shrugged. ‘I suppose you could argue in defence of the Office that at least
it’s trying to serve the national interest and trying to demonstrate a way of doing things that would make the world better if more countries did the same. What I suppose I mean is, at least
we’re trying.’

The missing files arrived and Philip withdrew behind them. During the next few days he had no time for further conversation.

Within a week Sandy and the commercial officer’s wife found it necessary not to get on. ‘Not that I give a damn about trade figures or the minister or the whole boring
business,’ she said when she came to pick up Clifford. ‘But the silly little b. decided she couldn’t – simply could not – get on with me and so I thought right,
darling, have it your own way.’ She shrugged. ‘Why don’t you do her a favour? She needs someone. Not that I’d fancy it, I must admit.’

At the very first Task Force meeting Clifford detailed two or three times to Patrick his responsibility for seeing that there were enough cars to take the ambassador and the reception party to
the airport to meet the minister, then to take them to the residence, then to bring the minister to the embassy, leaving his wife with transport, then to see that there were cars for all the visits
that would be made as well as reserve cars in case of mechanical breakdown or ‘driver failure’, as well as to see that cars continued to be provided for normal embassy business.

‘You might have to use your own, of course,’ Clifford concluded.

‘I think it’s still in England.’

‘You’d better organise something else, then. It reflects badly on everyone if people don’t keep up to certain standards.’

Every possible arrangement turned out to be unworkable. Patrick was at first worried but became less so as Clifford passed him ever more memos, each more unworkable than that which it amended.
Because there was no possibility of ensuring that it was all right beforehand it would have to be all right on the day. Clifford’s interventions were so frequent and peremptory that he soon
learned to keep all memos in a folder, adding new ones as they came in and waiting to see how long it was before Clifford arrived back at the programme he first thought of.

The meeting that morning was already in progress. The other two were seated but Clifford stood by his desk, tapping it with the edge of his clipboard to add emphasis to what he was saying. His
belly bulged threateningly against the lower buttons of his shirt and he kept passing his hand over his bald patch. He had just received the unwelcome news that the inspectors were to come within a
few weeks of the ministerial visit. He went on about this until Harry White asked if they could get started on Task Force business as he had another meeting to attend. Ignoring this, Clifford then
explained why Patrick was invited to the EC buffet lunch that day. It wasn’t the normal monthly lunch at which EC heads of mission entertained each other but the occasional buffet lunch to
which wives and members of staff were invited. The purpose of the lunches was the maintenance of ‘good relations’, a widely quoted phrase referring less to the real relations between
states and peoples than to the reciprocity of congratulation obtaining between a very small number of officials.

However, there had been so many regrets this time, that ‘Patrick and people like him’ were being invited to avoid embarrassment. ‘It’ll be at the residence. You
won’t need to stay till the end.’

Most of the time Clifford’s rudeness was not annoying: it seemed personal to Clifford rather than to the victim. Patrick was more concerned with what he would say to Joanna that evening.
It was odd that he could form no clear picture of her. The idea of her filled him with warmth and excitement but when he tried to picture her face he could see clearly only her hair and her arms
when she folded them under her breasts. Her voice, though, was as clear as when she was with him.

After another intemperate intervention from Harry, Clifford turned to the purpose of the meeting. He first revised the ground rules of Philip’s political briefing. Philip frowned but said
nothing. He then made new suggestions for Patrick’s transport arrangements, changing everything that had been decided at the previous meeting, only quoting the reasons he had given then. Next
he argued with Harry about how much time should be given to precious metals other than gold.

Patrick mentally rehearsed his own arrangements. He had booked a table at an Italian restaurant not far from the city centre. This meant they would have to travel and could thus have more time
together. He had not taken up Jim’s suggestion of the roof garden restaurant since he would have felt that Jim was then controlling the evening. Jim’s remarks on parting had sounded
deliberately casual, a sign of unease that now made Patrick more confident.

Clifford’s and Harry’s argument was as inconclusive as most. When Harry stood to go he fired a parting shot about signs that one of the cipher clerks was operating a currency fiddle.
Clifford said he had no time to worry about that sort of thing and demanded a shortened version of the brief on precious metals other than gold by close of play.

He turned to Patrick as a way of turning his back on the commercial officer. He held out his hand. ‘Message for you.’

It was a telephone message taken by the receptionist saying he should ring Joanna. His first thought was that she wanted to postpone or even cancel the evening. Perhaps Jim had caused trouble.
Then he persuaded himself that she more likely wanted to check on the time he would call for her.

‘Friend of yours?’ asked Clifford.

‘Well, I know her. We met at Philip’s, remember?’

‘You’re fishing in deep waters there, you know, with Jim Rissik on the scene. Which reminds me, have you spoken to him about any police arrangements for the visit?’

‘No. I’m saving it till I see him again about the Whelk business.’ There was no point in discussing the visit until it had been decided where the minister was going and what he
was to do. He turned to go.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Back to my office.’ He intended to ring Joanna.

‘No, you’re not. You’re coming to the residence with me. We’ve got to organise this lunch. Make sure everything is there. Come on.’

Patrick imagined shooting Clifford. Not in anger or hatred but neatly, calmly, with a single loud shot. ‘All right,’ he said. He would ring from the residence. He now felt as anxious
as he had been secure some minutes before.

At the residence they found Sir Wilfrid’s staff, supervised by his cook, in lethargic disarray. One was missing, another had cut his forearm in the garden and bled all over the veranda,
two were with the cook peeling potatoes, the only thing they could find to do. There was little food because Sir Wilfrid had warned the cook a few days before but had not named the day until he
left for work that morning. As in any diplomatic house, there was plenty to drink.