‘I didn’t say anything.’
‘You’re pressing all the time, I can feel it,’ Meadowes said querulously, and sighed. ‘They fell for it, we all did, Committee or not. You know what people are like: if one man knows what he wants …’
‘And he did.’
‘I suppose some reckoned he’d got an axe to grind, but no one cared. There was a few of us thought he was taking a cut to be honest, but well, maybe he deserved it. And the price was fair enough any time. Bill Aintree was getting out: he didn’t care. He seconded. The motion’s carried and recorded without a word being said against, and as soon as the meeting’s over, Leo comes straight across to me and Myra, smiling his head off. “She’ll love that,” he says, “Myra will. A nice trip on the river. Take her out of herself.” Just as if he’d done it specially for her. I said yes, she would, and bought him a drink. It seemed wrong really, him doing so much and no one else paying him a blind bit of notice, whatever they say about him. I was sorry for him. And grateful,’ he added simply. ‘I still am: we had a lovely outing.’
Again he fell silent, and again Turner waited while the older man wrestled with private conflicts and private perplexities. From the barred window came the tireless throb of Bonn’s iron heartbeat: the far thunder of drills and cranes, the moan of vainly galloping cars.
‘I thought he was after Myra to be honest,’ he said at last. ‘I watched out for that, I don’t mind admitting. But there wasn’t a breath of it, not on either side. Goodness knows, I’m sharp enough on that after Warsaw.’
‘I believe you.’
‘I don’t care whether you believe me or not. It’s the truth.’
‘He had a reputation for that as well, did he?’
‘A bit.’
‘Who with?’
‘I’ll go on with the story if you don’t mind,’ Meadowes said, looking at his hands. ‘I’m not going to pass on that kind of muck. Least of all to you. There’s more nonsense talked in this place than is good for any of us.’
‘I’ll find out,’ Turner said, his face frozen like a dead man’s. ‘It’ll take me longer, but that needn’t worry you.’
‘Dreadfully cold, it was,’ Meadowes continued. ‘Lumps of ice on the water, and beautiful, if that means anything to you. Just like Leo said: rum and coffee for the grown-ups, cocoa for the kids, and everyone happy as a cricket. We started from Königswinter and kicked off with a drink at his place before we went aboard, and from the moment we get there, Leo’s looking after us. Me and Myra. He’d singled us out and that was it. We might have been the only people there for him. Myra loved it. He put a shawl round her shoulders, told her jokes … I hadn’t seen her laugh like it since Warsaw. She kept saying to me: “I haven’t been so happy for years.” ’
‘What sort of jokes?’
‘About himself mainly … running on. He had a story about Berlin, him shoving a cartload of files across the parade ground in the middle of a cavalry practice, and the sergeant-major on his horse, and Leo down there with the handcart … He could do all the voices, Leo could; one minute he was up on his horse, the next minute he’s the Guard corporal … He could even do the trumpets and that. Wonderful really; wonderful gift. Very entertaining man, Leo … very.’
He glanced at Turner as if he expected to be contradicted, but Turner’s face was without expression. ‘On the way back, he takes me aside. “Arthur, a quiet word,” he says; that’s him, a quiet word. You know the way he talks.’
‘No.’
‘Confiding. Everyone’s special. “Arthur,” he says, “Rawley Bradfield’s just sent for me; they want me to move up to Registry and give you a hand up there, and before I tell him yes or no, I’d like to hear what you feel.” Putting it in my hands, you see. If I didn’t fancy the idea, he’d head it off; that’s what he was hinting at. Well, it came as a surprise, I don’t mind telling you. I didn’t quite know what to think; after all he was a Second Secretary … it didn’t seem right, that was my first reaction. And to be frank I wasn’t sure I believed him. So I asked him: “Have you any experience of archives?” Yes, but long ago, he said, though he’d always fancied going back to them.’
‘When was that then?’
‘When was what?’
‘When was he dealing with archives?’
‘Berlin, I suppose. I never asked. You didn’t ask Leo about his background really; you never knew what you might hear.’
Meadowes shook his head. ‘So here he was with this suggestion. It didn’t seem right, but what could I say? “It’s up to Bradfield,” I told him. “If he sends you, and you want to come, there’s work enough.” Well, it worried me for a bit, to be honest. I even thought of talking to Bradfield about it but I didn’t. Best thing is, I thought, let it blow over; I’ll probably hear no more of it. For a time that’s just what happened. Myra was bad again, there was the leadership crisis at home and the gold row in Brussels. And as for Karfeld, he was going hammer and tongs all over the place. There were deputations out from England, Trade Union protests, old comrades and I don’t know what. Registry was a beehive, and Harting went clean out of my mind. He was Social Secretary of the Exiles by then, but otherwise I hardly saw him. I mean he didn’t rate. There was too much else to think of.’
‘I get it.’
‘The next thing I knew was, Bradfield sends for me. It was just before the holiday – about 20th December. First, he asks me how I’m getting along with the Destruction programme. I was a bit put out; we’d really been going it those last months. Destruction was about the last thing anyone had been bothering with.’
‘Go carefully now: I want the fat as well as the lean.’
‘I said it was hanging fire. Well, he says, how would I feel if he sent me someone to help out with it, come and work in Registry and bring it up to date? There’s been the suggestion, he said, nothing definite, and he wanted to sound me out first, there’d been the suggestion Harting might be able to lend a hand.’
‘Whose suggestion?’
‘He didn’t say.’
It was suddenly upon them; and each in his way was mystified.
‘Whoever suggested anything to Bradfield?’ Meadowes asked. ‘It makes no sense.’
‘That’s rather what I wondered,’ Turner confessed, and the silence returned.
‘So you said you’d have him?’
‘No, I told him the truth. I said I didn’t need him.’
‘You didn’t need him? You told Bradfield that?’
‘Don’t press me like that. Bradfield knew very well I didn’t need anyone. Not for Destruction anyway. I’d been on to Library in London and spoken to them, back in November that was, once the Karfeld panic began. I’d told them I was worried about the programme, I was way behind, could I let it go till the crisis was over? Library told me to forget it.’
Turner stared at him.
‘And Bradfield knew that? You’re certain Bradfield knew?’
‘I’d sent him a minute of the conversation. He never even referred to it. Afterwards I asked that PA of his and she was certain she’d put it up to him.’
‘Where is it? Where’s the minute now?’
‘Gone. It was a loose minute: it was Bradfield’s responsibility whether he preserved it or not. But they’ll know about it in Library all right; they were quite surprised later on to find we’d bothered with Destruction at all.’
‘Who did you speak to in Library?’
‘Once to Maxwell, once to Cowdry.’
‘Did you remind Bradfield of that?’
‘I began to, but he just cut me off. Closed right down on me. “It’s all arranged,” he says. “Harting’s joining you mid-January and he’ll manage Personalities and Destruction.” So lump it, in other words. “You can forget he’s a diplomat,” he said. “Treat him as your subordinate. Treat him how you like. But he’s coming mid-January and that’s a fact.” You know how he throws people away. Specially Harting.’
Turner was writing in his notebook but Meadowes paid
no attention.
‘So that’s how he came to me. That’s the truth. I didn’t want him, I didn’t trust him, not completely anyway, and to begin with I suppose I let him know it. We were just too busy: I didn’t want to waste time breaking in a man like Leo. What was I supposed to do with him?’
A girl brought tea. A brown woolly cosy covered the pot and the cubes of sugar were individually wrapped and stamped with the Naafi’s insignia. Turner grinned at her but she ignored him. He could hear someone shouting about Hanover.
‘They do say things are bad in England too,’ Meadowes said. ‘Violence; demonstrations; all the protests. What is it that gets into your generation? What have we done to you? That’s what I don’t understand.’
‘We’ll start with when he arrived,’ Turner said. That’s what it would be like, he thought, to have a father you believed in: values for their own sake and a gap as wide as the Atlantic.
‘I said to Leo when he came, “Leo, just keep out of the way. Don’t get between my feet, and don’t go bothering other people.” He took it like a lamb. “Right-ho, Arthur, whatever you say.” I asked him whether he’d got something to get on with. Yes, he said, Personalities would keep him going for a bit.’
‘It’s like a dream,’ Turner said softly, looking up at last from his notebook. ‘It’s a lovely dream. First of all he takes over the Exiles. A one-man takeover, real Party tactics; I’ll do the dirty work, you go back to sleep. Then he cons you, then he cons Bradfield, and within a couple of months he’s got the pick of Registry. How was he? Cocky? I should think he could hardly stand up for laughing.’
‘He was quiet. Not cocky at all. Subdued I’d say. Not at all what they told me he was like.’
‘Who?’
‘Oh … I don’t know. There’s a lot didn’t like him; there’s a lot more were jealous of him.’
‘Jealous?’
‘Well, he was a diplomat, wasn’t he. Even if he was a temporary. They said he’d be running the place in a fortnight, taking ten per cent on the files. You know the way they talk. But he’d changed. They all admitted that, even young Cork and Johnny Slingo. You could almost date it, they said, from when the crisis began. It sobered him down.’ Meadowes shook his head as if he hated to see a good man go wrong. ‘And he was useful.’
‘Don’t tell me. He took you by surprise.’
‘I don’t know how he managed it. He knew nothing about archives, not our kind anyway; and I can’t for the life of me see how he got near enough to anyone in Registry to ask; but by mid-February, that Personalities Survey was drafted, signed off and away, and the Destruction programme was back on the rails. We were working all round him: Karfeld, Brussels, the Coalition crisis and the rest of it. And there was Leo, still as a rock, working away at his own bits and pieces. No one told him anything twice, I think that was half the secret. He’d a lovely memory. He’d scrounge a bit of information, tuck it away, and bring it out weeks later when you’d forgotten all about it. I don’t think he forgot a word anyone ever said to him. He could listen with his eyes, Leo could.’ Meadowes shook his head at the reminiscence: ‘The memory man, that’s what Johnny Slingo used to call him.’
‘Handy. For an archivist of course.’
‘You see it all differently,’ Meadowes said at last. ‘You can’t distinguish the good from the bad.’
‘You tell me when I go wrong,’ Turner replied, writing all the time. ‘I’ll be grateful for that. Very.’
‘Destruction’s a weird game,’ Meadowes said, in the reflective tone of a man reviewing his own craft. ‘To begin with, you’d think it was simple. You select a file, a big one, say a subject file with twenty-five volumes. I’ll give you an example: Disarmament. There’s a real rag-bag. You turn up the back numbers first to check the dates and the material, all right? So what do you find? Industrial dismantling in the Ruhr, 1946; Control Commission policy on the allocation of shotgun licences, 1949. Re-establishment of German military potential, 1950. Some of it’s so old you’d laugh. You take a look at the current columns to compare, and what do you find? Warheads for the Bundeswehr. It’s a million miles away. All right, you say, let’s burn the back papers, they’re irrelevant. There’s fifteen volumes at least we can chuck out. Who’s the desk officer for disarmament? Peter de Lisle: put it up to him: “Please may we destroy up to nineteen-sixty?” No objection, he says, so you’re off.’ Meadowes shook his head. ‘Only you’re not. You’re not even half-way to off. You can’t just carve off the back ten volumes and shove them in the fire. There’s the ledger for a start: who’s going to cancel all the entries? There’s the card index; that’s got to be weeded. Were there treaties? Right: clear with legal department. Is there a military interest? Clear it with the MA. Are there duplicates in London? No. So we all sit back and wait another two months: no destruction of originals without written permission from Library. See what I mean?’
‘I get the idea,’ said Turner, waiting.
‘Then there’s all the cross-references, the sister files in the same series: will they be affected? Should they be destroyed as well? Or should we make up residuals to be on the safe side? Before you know where you are, you’re wandering all over Registry, looking in every nook and cranny; there’s no end to it once you start; nothing’s holy.’
‘I should think it suited him down to the ground.’
‘There’s no restriction,’ Meadowes observed simply, as if replying to a question. ‘It may offend you, but it’s the only system I can understand. Anyone can look at anything, that’s my rule. Anyone sent up here, I trust them. There’s no other way to run the place. I can’t go sniffing round asking who’s looking at what, can I?’ he demanded, ignoring Turner’s bewildered gaze.
‘He took to it like a duck to water. I was amazed. He was happy, that was the first thing. It tickled him, working in here, and quite soon it tickled me having him. He liked the company.’ He broke off. ‘The only thing we ever really minded,’ he said with an unexpected smile, ‘was those ruddy cigars he smoked. Javanese Dutch I believe they were. Stank the place out. We used to tease him about them but he wouldn’t budge. Still, I think I miss them now.’ He continued quietly: ‘He’d been out of his depth in Chancery, he’s not their sort at all, and the ground floor didn’t have much time for him either in my opinion, but this place was just right.’ He inclined his head towards the closed door. ‘It’s like a shop in there, sometimes: you have the customers and you have one another. Johnny Slingo, Valerie … well, they took to him too and that’s all there is to it. They were all against him when he came, and they all took to him within a week, and that’s the truth of it. He’d got a way with him. I know what you’re thinking: it flattered my ego, I suppose you’d say. All right, it did. Everyone wants to be liked and he liked us. All right, I’m lonely; Myra’s a worry, I’ve failed as a parent and I never had a son; there was a bit of that about it too, I suppose, although there’s only ten years between us. Perhaps it’s him being little that makes the difference.’
‘Go for the girls, did he?’ Turner asked, more to break the uncomfortable silence than because he had been preparing questions in his mind.
‘Only banter.’
‘Ever hear of a woman called Aickman?’
‘No.’
‘Margaret Aickman. They were engaged to be married, her and Leo.’
‘No.’
Still they did not look at one another.
‘He liked the work too,’ Meadowes continued. ‘In those first weeks. I don’t think he’d ever realised till then how much he knew by comparison with the rest of us. About Germany, I mean, the soil of it.’
He broke off, remembering, and it might have been fifty years ago. ‘He knew that world too,’ he added. ‘He knew it inside out.’
‘What world?’
‘Post-war Germany. The Occupation; the years they don’t want to know about any more. He knew it like the back of his hand. “Arthur,” he said to me once, “I’ve seen these towns when they were car p
arks. I’ve heard these people talk when even their language was forbidden.” It used to knock him clean off course sometimes. I’d catch sight of him deep in a file, still as a mouse, just fascinated. Or he’d look away, look round the room, for someone with a moment to spare, just so he could tell them about something he’d come across: “Here,” he’d say. “See that? We disbanded that firm in 1947. Look at it now!” Other times, he’d go right off into a dream, and then you’d lost him altogether; he was on his own. I think it bothered him to know so much. It was queer. I think he almost felt guilty sometimes. He went on quite a lot about his memory. “You’re making me destroy my childhood,” he says one time – we were breaking up some files for the machine – “You’re making an old man of me.” I said, “If that’s what I’m doing you’re the luckiest man alive.” We had a good laugh about that.’
‘Did he ever mention politics?’
‘No.’
‘What did he say about Karfeld?’
‘He was concerned. Naturally. That’s why he was so glad to be helping out.’
‘Oh sure.’
‘It was trust,’ Meadowes said defiantly. ‘You wouldn’t understand that. And that was true, what he said: it was the old stuff we were trying to get rid of; it was his childhood; it was the old stuff that meant the most to him.’
‘All right.’
‘Listen: I’m not holding any brief for him. He’s ruined my career for all I know, what there was left after you finished with it. But I’m telling you: you’ve got to see the good in him too.’
‘I’m not arguing with you.’
‘It did bother him, his memory. I remember once with the music: he got me listening to gramophone records. Mainly so that he could sell them to me, I suppose; he’d worked some deal he was very proud of, with one of the shops in town. “Look,” I said. “It’s no good, Leo; you’re wasting your time. I get to know one record so I learn another. By that time I’ve forgotten the first one.” He comes right back at me, very fast: “Then you ought to be a politician, Arthur,” he says. “That’s what they do.” He meant it, believe me.’
A Small Town in Germany Page 12
