The Human Factor

by Graham Greene

  He commented without enthusiasm, ‘Oh, you are here.’

  ‘What’s wrong, Davis?’

  ‘I don’t know. Nothing much. The old liver’s playing it up.’

  ‘I thought your friend said stomach cramps on the telephone,’ Cynthia said.

  ‘Well, the liver’s somewhere near the stomach, isn’t it? Or is it the kidneys? I’m awfully vague about my own geography.’

  ‘I’ll make your bed, Arthur,’ Cynthia said, ‘while you two talk.’

  ‘No, no, please no. It’s only a bit rumpled. Sit down and make yourself comfortable. Have a drink.’

  ‘You and Castle can drink, but I’m going to make your bed.’

  ‘She has a very strong will,’ Davis said. ‘What’ll you take, Castle? A whisky?’

  ‘A small one, thank you.’

  Davis laid out two glasses.

  ‘You’d better not have one if your liver’s bad. What did Doctor Percival say exactly?’

  ‘Oh, he tried to scare me. Doctors always do, don’t they?’

  ‘I don’t mind drinking alone.’

  ‘He said if I didn’t pull up a bit I was in danger of cirrhosis. I have to go and have an X-ray tomorrow. I told him that I don’t drink more than anyone else, but he said some livers are weaker than others. Doctors always have the last word.’

  ‘I wouldn’t drink that whisky if I were you.’

  ‘He said “Cut down”, and I’ve cut this whisky down by half. And I’ve told him that I’d drop the port. So I will for a week or two. Anything to please. I’m glad you looked in, Castle. D’you know, Doctor Percival really did scare me a bit? I had the impression he wasn’t telling me everything he knew. It would be awful, wouldn’t it, if they had decided to send me to L.M. and then he wouldn’t let me go. And there’s another fear – have they spoken to you about me?’

  ‘No. At least Daintry asked me this morning if I was satisfied with you, and I said I was – completely.’

  ‘You’re a good friend, Castle.’

  ‘It’s only that stupid security check. You remember the day you met Cynthia at the Zoo . . . I told them you were at the dentist, but all the same . . .’

  ‘Yes. I’m the sort of man who’s always found out. And yet I nearly always obey the rules. It’s my form of loyalty, I suppose. You aren’t the same. If I take out a report once to read at lunch, I’m spotted. But I’ve seen you take them out time after time. You take risks – like they say priests have to do. If I really leaked something – without meaning to, of course – I’d come to you for confession.’

  ‘Expecting absolution?’

  ‘No. But expecting a bit of justice.’

  ‘Then you’d be wrong, Davis. I haven’t the faintest idea what the word “justice” means.’

  ‘So you’d condemn me to be shot at dawn?’

  ‘Oh no. I would always absolve the people I liked.’

  ‘Why, then it’s you who are the real security risk,’ Davis said. ‘How long do you suppose this damned check is going on?’

  ‘I suppose till they find their leak or decide there was no leak after all. Perhaps some man in MI5 has misread the evidence.’

  ‘Or some woman, Castle. Why not a woman? It could be one of our secretaries, if it’s not me or you or Watson. The thought gives me the creeps. Cynthia promised to dine with me the other night. I was waiting for her at Stone’s, and there at the table next door was a pretty girl waiting for someone too. We half smiled at each other because we had both been stood up. Companions in distress. I’d have spoken to her – after all, Cynthia had let me down – and then the thought came – perhaps she’s been planted to catch me, perhaps they heard me reserve the table on the office phone. Perhaps Cynthia kept away under orders. And then who should come in and join the girl – guess who – Daintry.’

  ‘It was probably his daughter.’

  ‘They use daughters in our outfit, don’t they? What a damn silly profession ours is. You can’t trust anyone. Now I even distrust Cynthia. She’s making my bed, and God knows what she hopes to find in it. But all she’ll get are yesterday’s bread-crumbs. Perhaps they’ll analyse those. A crumb could contain a microdot.’

  ‘I can’t stay much longer. The Zaire bag is in.’

  Davis laid down his glass. ‘I’m damned if whisky tastes the same, since Percival put ideas in my head. Do you think I’ve got cirrhosis?’

  ‘No. Just go easy for a while.’

  ‘Easier said than done. When I’m bored, I drink. You’re lucky to have Sarah. How’s Sam?’

  ‘He asks after you a lot. He says nobody plays hide-and-seek like you do.’

  ‘A friendly little bastard. I wish I could have a little bastard too – but only with Cynthia. What a hope!’

  ‘The climate of Lourenço Marques isn’t very good . . .’

  ‘Oh, people say that it’s OK for children up to six.’

  ‘Well, perhaps Cynthia’s weakening. After all, she is making your bed.’

  ‘Yes, she’d mother me, I daresay, but she’s one of those girls who are looking all the time for someone to admire. She’d like someone serious – like you. The trouble is that when I’m serious I can’t act serious. Acting serious embarrasses me. Can you picture anyone ever admiring me?’

  ‘Well, Sam does.’

  ‘I doubt if Cynthia enjoys hide-and-seek.’

  Cynthia came back. She said, ‘Your bed was in an unholy mess. When was it made last?’

  ‘Our daily comes in on Mondays and Fridays and today is Thursday.’

  ‘Why don’t you make it yourself?’

  ‘Well, I do sort of pull it up around me when I get in.’

  ‘Those Environment types? What do they do?’

  ‘Oh, they’re trained not to notice pollution until it’s brought officially to their notice.’

  Davis saw the two of them to the door. Cynthia said, ‘See you tomorrow,’ and went down the stairs. She called over her shoulder that she had a lot of shopping to do.

  ‘She should never have looked at me

  If she meant I should not love her,’

  Davis quoted. Castle was surprised. He would not have imagined Davis reading Browning – except at school, of course.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘back to the bag.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Castle, I know how that bag irritates you. I’m not malingering, really I’m not. And it’s not a hangover. It’s my legs, my arms – they feel like jelly.’

  ‘Go back to bed.’

  ‘I think I will. Sam wouldn’t find me any good now at hide-and-seek,’ Davis added, leaning over the banisters, watching Castle go. As Castle reached the top of the stairs he called out, ‘Castle?’

  ‘Yes?’ Castle looked up.

  ‘You don’t think, do you, this might stop me?’

  ‘Stop you?’

  ‘I’d be a different man if I could get to Lourenço Marques.’

  ‘I’ve done my best. I spoke to C.’

  ‘You’re a good chap, Castle. Thank you, whatever happens.’

  ‘Go back to bed and rest.’

  ‘I think I will.’ But he continued to stand there looking down while Castle turned away.

  CHAPTER VII

  1

  CASTLE and Daintry arrived last at the registry office and took seats in the back row of the grim brown room. They were divided by four rows of empty chairs from the other guests of whom there were about a dozen, separated into rival clans as in a church marriage, each clan regarding the other with critical interest and some disdain. Only champagne might possibly lead to a truce later between them.

  ‘I suppose that’s Colin,’ Colonel Daintry said, indicating a young man who had just joined his daughter in front of the registrar’s table. He added, ‘I don’t even know his surname.’

  ‘Who’s the woman with the handkerchief? She seems upset about something.’

  ‘That’s my wife,’ Colonel Daintry said. ‘I hope we can slip away before she notices.’

  ‘You
can’t do that. Your daughter won’t even know you’ve come.’

  The registrar began to speak. Someone said ‘Shhh’, as though they were in a theatre and the curtain had risen.

  ‘Your son-in-law’s name is Clutters,’ Castle whispered.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘No, but it sounded like that.’

  The registrar gave the kind of brief Godless good wishes which are sometimes described as a lay sermon and a few people left, looking at watches as an excuse. ‘Don’t you think we could go too?’ Daintry asked.

  ‘No.’

  All the same no one seemed to notice them as they stood in Victoria Street. The taxis came winging in like birds of prey and Daintry made one more effort to escape.

  ‘It’s not fair to your daughter,’ Castle argued.

  ‘I don’t even know where they’re all going,’ Daintry said. ‘To a hotel, I suppose.’

  ‘We can follow.’

  And follow they did – all the way to Harrods and beyond through a thin autumnal mist.

  ‘I can’t think what hotel . . .’ Daintry said. ‘I believe we’ve lost them.’ He leant forward to examine the car ahead. ‘No such luck. I can see the back of my wife’s head.’

  ‘It’s not much to go by.’

  ‘All the same I’m pretty sure of it. We were married for fifteen years.’ He added gloomily, ‘And we haven’t spoken for seven.’

  ‘Champagne will help,’ Castle said.

  ‘But I don’t like champagne. It’s awfully good of you, Castle, to come with me. I couldn’t have faced this alone.’

  ‘We’ll just have one glass and go away.’

  ‘I can’t imagine where we are heading. I haven’t been down this way for years. There seem to be so many new hotels.’

  They proceeded in fits and starts down the Brompton Road.

  ‘One generally goes to the bride’s home,’ Castle said, ‘if it’s not to a hotel.’

  ‘She hasn’t got a home. Officially she shares a flat with some girl-friend, but apparently she’s been living quite a while with this chap Clutters. Clutters! What a name!’

  ‘The name may not have been Clutters. The registrar was very indistinct.’

  The taxis began to deliver the other guests like gift-wrapped parcels at a small too-pretty house in a crescent. It was lucky there were not many of them – the houses here had not been built for large parties. Even with two dozen people one felt the walls might bend or the floors give way.

  ‘I think I know where we are – my wife’s flat,’ Daintry said. ‘I heard she’d bought something in Kensington.’

  They edged their way up the overloaded stairs into a drawing-room. From every table, from the bookshelves, the piano, from the mantel, china owls gazed at the guests, alert, predatory, with cruel curved beaks. ‘Yes, it is her flat,’ Daintry said. ‘She always had a passion for owls – but the passion’s grown since my day.’

  They couldn’t see his daughter in the crowd which clustered before the buffet. Champagne bottles popped intermittently. There was a wedding cake, and a plaster owl was even balanced on the top of the pink sugar scaffolding. A tall man with a moustache trimmed exactly like Daintry’s came up to them and said, ‘I don’t know who you are, but do help yourselves to the champers.’ Judging by the slang he must have dated back nearly to the First World War. He had the absent-minded air of a rather ancient host. ‘We’ve saved on waiters,’ he explained.

  ‘I’m Daintry.’

  ‘Daintry?’

  ‘This is my daughter’s marriage,’ Daintry said in a voice as dry as a biscuit.

  ‘Oh, then you must be Sylvia’s husband?’

  ‘Yes. I didn’t catch your name.’

  The man went away calling, ‘Sylvia! Sylvia!’

  ‘Let’s get out,’ Daintry said in desperation.

  ‘You must say hello to your daughter.’

  A woman burst her way through the guests at the buffet. Castle recognized the woman who had wept at the registrar’s, but she didn’t look at all like weeping now. She said, ‘Darling, Edward told me you were here. How nice of you to come. I know how desperately busy you always are.’

  ‘Yes, we really have to be going. This is Mr Castle. From the office.’

  ‘That damned office. How do you do, Mr Castle? I must find Elizabeth – and Colin.’

  ‘Don’t disturb them. We really have to be going.’

  ‘I’m only up for the day myself. From Brighton. Edward drove me up.’

  ‘Who’s Edward?’

  ‘He’s been awfully helpful. Ordering the champagne and things. A woman needs a man on these occasions. You haven’t changed a bit, darling. How long is it?’

  ‘Six – seven years?’

  ‘How time flies.’

  ‘You’ve collected a lot more owls.’

  ‘Owls?’ She went away calling, ‘Colin, Elizabeth, come over here.’ They came hand in hand. Daintry didn’t associate his daughter with child-like tenderness, but she probably thought hand-holding a duty at a wedding.

  Elizabeth said, ‘How sweet of you to make it, Father. I know how you hate this sort of thing.’

  ‘I’ve never experienced it before.’ He looked at her companion, who wore a carnation and a very new pin-stripe suit. His hair was jet black and well combed around the ears.

  ‘How do you do, sir. Elizabeth has spoken such a lot about you.’

  ‘I can’t say the same,’ Daintry said. ‘So you are Colin Clutters?’

  ‘Not Clutters, Father. Whatever made you think that? His name’s Clough. I mean our name’s Clough.’

  A surge of latecomers who had not been at the registry office had separated Castle from Colonel Daintry. A man in a double-breasted waistcoat told him, ‘I don’t know a soul here – except Colin, of course.’

  There was a smash of breaking china. Mrs Daintry’s voice rose above the clamour. ‘For Christ’s sake, Edward, is it one of the owls?’

  ‘No, no, don’t worry, dear. Only an ashtray.’

  ‘Not a soul,’ repeated the man with the waistcoat. ‘My name’s Joiner by the way.’

  ‘Mine’s Castle.’

  ‘You know Colin?’

  ‘No, I came with Colonel Daintry.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘The bride’s father.’

  Somewhere a telephone began to ring. No one paid any attention.

  ‘You ought to have a word with young Colin. He’s a bright lad.’

  ‘He’s got a strange surname, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Strange?’

  ‘Well . . . Clutters . . .’

  ‘His name’s Clough.’

  ‘Oh, then I heard it wrong.’

  Again something broke. Edward’s voice rose reassuringly above the din. ‘Don’t worry, Sylvia. Nothing serious. All the owls are safe.’

  ‘He’s quite revolutionized our publicity.’

  ‘You work together?’

  ‘You might say I am Jameson’s Baby Powder.’

  The man called Edward grasped Castle’s arm. He said, ‘Is your name Castle?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Somebody wants you on the telephone.’

  ‘But no one knows I’m here.’

  ‘It’s a girl. She’s a bit upset. Said it was urgent.’

  Castle’s thoughts went to Sarah. She knew that he was attending this wedding, but not even Daintry knew where they were going to end up. Was Sam ill again? He asked, ‘Where’s the telephone?’

  ‘Follow me,’ but when they reached it – a white telephone beside a white double bed, guarded by a white owl – the receiver had been put back. ‘Sorry,’ Edward said, ‘I expect she’ll ring again.’

  ‘Did she give a name?’

  ‘Couldn’t hear it with all this noise going on. Had an impression that she’d been crying. Come and have some more champers.’

  ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll stay here near the phone.’

  ‘Well, excuse me if I don’t stay here with you. I have to look
after all these owls, you see. Sylvia would be heartbroken if one of them got damaged. I suggested we tidied them away, but she’s got more than a hundred of them. The place would have looked a bit bare without them. Are you a friend of Colonel Daintry?’

  ‘We work in the same office.’

  ‘One of those hush-hush jobs, isn’t it? A bit embarrassing for me meeting him like this. Sylvia didn’t think he’d come. Perhaps I ought to have stayed away myself. Tactful. But then who would have looked after the owls?’

  Castle sat down on the edge of the great white bed, and the white owl glared at him beside the white telephone as if it recognized him as an illegal immigrant who had just perched on the edge of this strange continent of snow – even the walls were white and there was a white rug under his feet. He was afraid – afraid for Sam, afraid for Sarah, afraid for himself – fear poured like an invisible gas from the mouth of the silent telephone. He and all he loved were menaced by the mysterious call. The clamour of voices from the living-room seemed now no more than a rumour of distant tribes beyond the desert of snow. Then the telephone rang. He pushed the white owl to one side and lifted the receiver.

  To his relief he heard Cynthia’s voice. ‘Is that M.C.?’

  ‘Yes, how did you know where to find me?’

  ‘I tried the registry office, but you’d left So I found a Mrs Daintry in the telephone book.’

  ‘What’s the matter, Cynthia? You sound odd.’

  ‘M.C., an awful thing has happened. Arthur’s dead.’

  Again, as once before, he wondered for a moment who Arthur was.

  ‘Davis? Dead? But he was coming back to the office next week.’

  ‘I know. The daily found him when she went to – to make his bed.’ Her voice broke.

  ‘I’ll come back to the office, Cynthia. Have you seen Doctor Percival?’

  ‘He rang me up to tell me.’

  ‘I must go and tell Colonel Daintry.’

  ‘Oh, M.C., I wish I’d been nicer to him. All I ever did for him was – was to make his bed.’ He could hear her catch her breath, trying not to sob.

  ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’ He rang off.

  The living-room was as crowded as ever and just as noisy. The cake had been cut and people were looking for unobtrusive places to hide their portions. Daintry stood alone with a slice in his fingers behind a table littered with owls. He said, ‘For God’s sake, let’s be off, Castle. I don’t understand this sort of thing.’