Expo 58: A Novel

by Jonathan Coe

  Having driven the length of the avenue, King Baudouin proceeded into the Grand Auditorium, where, shortly after ten o’clock, he delivered his inaugural speech. A speech in which he expressed his view that humanity was standing at a crossroads, and that it faced two paths, one which led towards peace and one which led to destruction. He recommended, on the whole, taking the first of these paths. It was a fine, wise and memorable speech, most people agreed afterwards. A copy of it would later be made available to every hostess who worked at the fair, on a 45-rpm record.

  When the speech was over, but before the crowd had really begun to disperse, Thomas slipped away and pushed and thrust himself through the thronging morass as best he could, making for the Britannia. It took a good half hour to complete the 500-yard journey.

  Terence Rossiter was already there, standing behind the bar and polishing glasses in preparation for the midday opening. In this task he was being assisted by a tall, wiry woman of about twenty-five, with platinum-blonde hair and a hard, world-weary expression. Thomas assumed that this must be Mr Rossiter’s niece, as mentioned on his first visit to the Britannia some weeks ago.

  ‘Not at all,’ the landlord told him. ‘Ruthie was all set to come over, but then she got a better offer. Only last week, in fact. Quite out of the blue. Secretarial work, very well paid, just the sort of thing she’s been looking for. So she could hardly turn it down. Damn nuisance from my point of view, but we didn’t have to worry for long. Miss Knott heard of the vacancy on the grapevine, before it was even advertised, and put herself forward. We could hardly say no. Not many people would be willing or able to come to Belgium for six months, at just a few days’ notice. And she seems very capable.’ He turned to call her over from the other end of the bar. ‘Shirley! Come and meet our lord and master.’

  The blonde woman shimmied over on what appeared to be unfeasibly high heels, and shook Thomas by the hand.

  ‘This is Mr Foley. He works for the Central Office of Information, and is here to see that we don’t do anything treasonable or unpatriotic while going about our business.’

  ‘Delighted, I’m sure,’ said Shirley, giving Thomas a long but not particularly friendly glance.

  ‘The pleasure’s all mine,’ Thomas answered.

  Shirley said nothing to this, but turned and (after one more backwards glance) went back to her work.

  ‘Has His Majesty finished pontificating, then?’ Mr Rossiter asked.

  ‘He has. You didn’t go to watch him arrive?’

  ‘My loyalties are with the Queen of England,’ Mr Rossiter answered, ‘not the King of Belgium.’

  Having made his position quite clear, he too resumed his polishing. Thomas was just about to ask if there was anything he could do to help, when his attention was caught by a small pile of invitation cards sitting on a shelf behind the bar. They were for the Britannia’s opening party tomorrow night, and he had written and designed them himself, back in London, before sending them off to the printers. After that, they were to have been shipped over to the British Council office in Brussels, so he was surprised to find that any of them had ended up here.

  ‘How did you come by these, Mr Rossiter, if you don’t mind my asking?’

  The landlord glanced at the cards and said: ‘Mr Carter brought a few dozen of them over last week. He said we should feel free to pass them on to any interested parties. I distributed a few among the staff, but didn’t use any myself.’

  ‘Good,’ said Thomas. ‘That’s fine. I’ll just –’ (he thumbed through the cards, and removed a couple) ‘– I’ll just take one or two, while I’m here, for . . . for contingency purposes.’

  He kept one of the cards aside for Tony Buttress. Later that day, he slipped the other one into an envelope, addressed it to Anneke, and dropped it at the Hall d’Accueil, where messages could be left for the hostesses and other members of the Expo staff. On the card he wrote: ‘I do hope you can come. Kind regards, Mr Foley.’ But after delivering it, he worried that the wording might sound presumptuous. They had only met once, after all.

  The party was going well. So well, in fact, that by ten o’clock on Friday night, Shirley and the other bar staff were starting to look exhausted. Thomas stood at the bar with Mr Carter and waited patiently to be served. All around them, guests were chattering in loud voices and in a distracting medley of different languages. When Shirley did finally get round to drawing up two more pints of Britannia bitter for them, she found that the barrel was almost empty, and had to summon Mr Rossiter for help in switching to a new one. This process itself took a good while – not least because the landlord had been partaking freely of his own refreshments for several hours, and they could all see that by now he had a glazed, unsteady look in his eye.

  ‘Jeez,’ said a voice to Thomas’s left. ‘Is this how slowly they do everything in Britain?’

  ‘I think things are rather busier, at present, than anyone was expecting,’ Thomas replied, stiffly.

  ‘Is that so? Well I am “rather” thirsty, and getting “rather” tired of standing here and being ignored by this ill-mannered blonde.’

  Thomas turned to get the measure of this speaker for the first time. With one remark, it seemed, all his prejudices about Americans had been confirmed. The man was young, in his late twenties or early thirties, and his hair was crew cut. He wore horn-rimmed spectacles and was brandishing a wad of Belgian francs in Shirley’s direction in a way that struck Thomas as being particularly arrogant. The jacket of his suit was wide-shouldered, his collar was starched and his tie was narrow.

  ‘May I see your invitation?’ Thomas asked.

  The American turned. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘The reason this party is so crowded, and this bar is so busy, is that there seems to be a large number of people here who were not on the original guest list.’

  ‘Is that so?’ The American turned away again, and whistled loudly to attract Shirley’s attention.

  ‘I suppose,’ said Thomas, ‘that you’re attached to the American pavilion.’

  ‘You suppose correctly.’

  ‘May I ask in what capacity?’

  ‘Well. Why not take a look at my card?’ The American reached into his pocket. ‘Or even this – because, what do you know? It seems to be an invitation to this party. And look what it says here – my name. Edward Longman, Research Engineer, US pavilion.’

  He held the card up for Thomas’s inspection, briefly, defiantly. Thomas was suitably abashed.

  ‘Look, old man, I’m terribly sorry, I –’

  ‘Old? I’m only twenty-seven, pal. Though I shall be well into my thirties by the time I manage to get a drink in this dive.’

  Shirley at last placed two pints of bitter in front of Thomas and Mr Carter.

  ‘Serve this gentleman next,’ said Thomas, handing her a twenty-franc note. ‘And when you’ve done that, take a fifteen-minute break.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘We’re too busy.’

  ‘Never mind that. You look worn out.’

  ‘But Mr Rossiter will –’

  ‘Mr Rossiter will just have to like it. Come and join us. We’re sitting at that table in the corner.’

  ‘All right. Thanks ever so, Mr Foley,’ Shirley said, and took the money off him with a grateful smile.

  Thomas stayed at the bar a few minutes more, chatting with Mr Carter and trying to engage Edward Longman in conversation; but he abandoned the attempt when it became clear that all his overtures were going to meet with monosyllabic rebuffs. He said goodbye to his British Council colleague and went back to rejoin Tony Buttress at their corner table. By the time he reached it, Shirley was already there. She was drinking bitter lemon and Tony, well into his third pint, was laughing somewhat stupidly and gazing into her eyes with woozy enthusiasm.

  ‘Hallo, Thomas old boy,’ he said. ‘Got any ciggies on you?’

 
Thomas took out his packet of Player’s Navy Cut, and offered it around.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ he asked Tony.

  ‘She’s just been telling me her name,’ he explained. Shirley stared back at him with tired resignation, as if she had heard this joke many times before. ‘Took me a while to get it.’

  ‘Get it?’

  ‘Well, haven’t you cottoned on yet? Shirley. Shirley Knott. Surely not. Don’t you see?’

  ‘Ah.’ Thomas smiled. ‘Do you know, it’s taken me till now to realize . . .’

  ‘Do people ever tease you about it?’ Tony asked her.

  ‘Oh, no. Never. I don’t know why – it never seems to come up.’

  Finally noticing the sarcasm, Tony said: ‘Look, I didn’t mean any offence. I just found it, you know, rather amusing . . .’

  Shirley leaned towards him and Thomas was surprised to see her manner change, with impressive rapidity, from the abrasive to the flirtatious.

  ‘Never mind, luvvie. You’ve got nice eyes. I could forgive most things to a man with eyes like that.’ Tony blushed and drew back slightly. ‘What brings you here, anyway? To the Expo, I mean.’

  ‘Oh, I’m in the British pavilion. Got a technical job there.’

  ‘Technical? What do you mean?’ Shirley asked, and Thomas thought that if she was faking her interest, she was making a very convincing job of it. Before Tony had a chance to enlighten her further, however, a commanding, but musical voice interrupted the conversation.

  ‘Mr Foley, I believe? Mr Thomas Foley?’

  Thomas and his companions looked up. Standing over them was a very tall, dark-haired man with a slim, athletic build. He wore a light-grey suit and carried, in one hand, a pint glass of beer, and in the other, a packet of Smith’s potato crisps. When he smiled down at them, he showed a set of brilliant white teeth. Even Thomas could see that this man was handsome; almost dangerously so.

  He stood up to shake hands with him uncertainly.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘I’m Thomas Foley. To whom do I . . . have the honour of speaking?’

  ‘My name is Chersky. Andrey Chersky. But I don’t suppose for a moment that you have heard of me. Here – my business card.’

  Thomas looked at the card. It was in Russian, so – apart from confirming Mr Chersky’s identity – it did not enlighten him very much.

  ‘May I join you for a few moments?’ Mr Chersky asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  He sat down, and at the same instant, Mr Rossiter hurried over to the table.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he said to Shirley.

  ‘Mr Foley said –’

  ‘I don’t give a damn what he said. Can’t you see how busy we are? Get back behind that bar.’

  With an angry sigh, Shirley rose to her feet. She held out her hand to Tony Buttress.

  ‘It’s been lovely meeting you,’ she said. ‘Do come by again, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  She said a short farewell to Thomas, and also to Mr Chersky, holding his eyes in a brief, appraising glance. But it was Tony whose gaze followed her the most wistfully as she squeezed through the crowds of customers on her way back to the bar.

  ‘A most . . . attractive girl,’ said Mr Chersky, to no one in particular, as he took his first sip of beer. Then he addressed Thomas: ‘Forgive me for imposing my company on you like this, but I’ve been most anxious to meet you this evening.’

  ‘Really?’ said Thomas, nonplussed.

  ‘Allow me to explain. I am a journalist, and an editor. I will be in Brussels for the next six months, attached to the Soviet pavilion, where I have the task of producing, every week, a magazine for the entertainment and instruction of our visitors. The name of the magazine . . . Well, you can probably guess it. Sputnik.’ He smiled. ‘I know. It is not the most original name. But sometimes the obvious thing is also the right thing to do.’

  He stopped, at this point, to attend to his packet of crisps. Having torn it open, he extracted a crisp and stared at the unfamiliar object with amused wonderment. ‘Forgive me for asking,’ he said, ‘but one is supposed to eat this, yes?’

  ‘That’s the general idea,’ said Tony.

  Thomas realized that the two men had not been properly introduced, and remedied the situation at once. After which, Mr Chersky began to nibble tentatively at his crisp, and offered the packet around.

  ‘What a curious taste,’ he said. ‘Is this really what the British like to eat? It’s extremely bland, and I would imagine has very little nutritional content.’

  ‘They’re only meant to be a snack,’ said Thomas.

  ‘Besides,’ said Tony, ‘you haven’t put any salt on.’

  ‘Salt?’

  ‘Well, with this brand, you see, there’s supposed to be a little blue envelope thingy in there, with salt inside.’

  Mr Chersky rooted around in the packet, and found the salt sachet at the bottom. Looking to the others for guidance, he cautiously tore it open, found the salt inside, and shook it over the remaining contents.

  ‘Fascinating,’ he said. ‘I should have expected nothing less from the British. Such a resourceful nation. This is the genius that enabled you to conquer the globe.’ He took the torn sachet and placed it carefully inside his wallet. ‘I shall keep this to show to my colleagues,’ he explained. ‘Or perhaps even send it to my nephew back home.’

  ‘Tell me more about your magazine,’ Thomas prompted.

  ‘Of course. You may take a look at our first issue.’

  From an inside jacket pocket, he produced a single large sheet of paper, unfolded it carefully, and laid it out on the table before them. Sputnik consisted of only four pages, but within those pages there were many different articles printed in small, dense type. Much of it, inevitably, was given over to pieces eulogizing recent achievements in satellite technology, but there were also some paragraphs about other scientific inventions and about advances in the mining industry, together with a short essay on modern Soviet cinema.

  ‘You’re publishing in English, then?’ Thomas asked.

  ‘Yes, of course. Also French, Dutch, German and Russian. We have an experienced team of translators working for us at the embassy in Brussels. Please –’ (he slid the magazine over to Thomas) ‘– I would like you to keep it.’

  ‘Really? That’s terribly decent of you.’

  ‘In return,’ said Mr Chersky, with his most charming smile, ‘I would very much appreciate your advice. You see, your employer, I believe, is the Central Office of Information in London, and this is an organization which we admire very much in Russia. The kind of propaganda you deal in is really something that in my country, at the moment, we can only aspire to. So . . . elegant, and so subtle. We have very much to learn from your activities.’

  ‘Now hold on a minute,’ said Thomas. ‘What we do at the COI can hardly be described as propaganda.’

  ‘Really? But what else would you call it?’

  ‘Well, as our name suggests, we deal in information.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s not as simple as that. In your publications and your exhibitions, you select certain pieces of information, and reject others. You present them in a certain way. These are political choices. We’re all doing it. That’s why we are all sitting here in Brussels. We’ve come to sell ourselves to the rest of the world.’

  ‘No, I deny that. I deny it emphatically.’

  ‘Very well. I have six months to bring you around to my point of view. In the meantime, will you help me?’

  ‘How can I help?’

  ‘I’m sure,’ said Mr Chersky, ‘that your time at Expo 58 is going to be extremely busy. And I cannot offer to remunerate you, in any concrete way, for the assistance you might be good enough to offer. But it is my sincere hope, nevertheless, that you might sometimes be prepared to cast
your eye over our simple publication, and share with me any thoughts you have about how we could improve it. If, for this purpose, we might enjoy the occasional friendly meeting, I would be more than grateful.’

  ‘Well,’ said Thomas – highly flattered, although he was trying not to show it – ‘I’m all for friendly meetings.’

  ‘Really?’ Mr Chersky smiled another of his brilliant smiles. ‘And perhaps . . . Perhaps this fine establishment itself could be our rendezvous.’

  ‘Why not? Capital idea. Absolutely capital.’

  ‘Mr Foley, you do me the greatest of honours.’

  ‘The pleasure’s all mine. What are we here for, after all, if not to promote precisely this sort of exchange?’

  ‘You are right,’ said Mr Chersky, ‘And although I did put forward a more cynical interpretation in my earlier comments, allow me to offer at least a partial retraction. Tonight is not the time to be cynical! The next six months are not the time to be cynical! I will go further, and say that 1958 is not the time to be cynical!’