Short of Glory

by Alan Judd

  ‘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 dec
ided 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.

  Clifford fumed. ‘As if I didn’t have enough on my bloody plate without having to play the ambassador’s wife. If I’d known it was going to be such a shambles I’d have got Sandy to come along and do something. As it is, she’s at the bloody hairdresser’s.’

  Organising food, drink, tables and servants prevented Patrick from getting to the telephone. At first he felt a malicious pleasure in Clifford’s exasperation. ‘There’s no meat,’ he said, after talking again to the cook.

  Clifford put his hand to his head. ‘What do you mean, no meat?’

  ‘No meat to eat.’

  ‘Has he ordered any?’

  ‘The cook thinks not.’

  ‘Oh, Christ All-bloody-mighty.’ Clifford put both his hands to his head and turned away. When he turned back his arms hung limply by his side and there was the same hopeless expression on his face as on the servants’. ‘You know what the sodding problem is, don’t you?’ he asked quietly. ‘He works off last year’s diary. He won’t throw it away because there are so many things in it he always wants to remember and never does. Jesus. It’s all very well being eccentric and brilliant and all the rest of it but if you don’t know what sodding day it is it makes you bloody impossible to work for. I mean, I am the head of chancery.’ He prodded his chest with his finger and wrinkled his brow in plaintive appeal. ‘This is an important embassy. I have a lot of responsibility. I shouldn’t be my ambassador’s surrogate wife. He could have got his secretary to do this, or contractors, anyone. Trouble is, he doesn’t think about practical arrangements. Always with his head in the clouds worrying about policy or principles. It’s all very well for him.’ He sat heavily at the table. ‘There’s no time to cook any meat. Just have to serve them with chopped-up potatoes and salad, I suppose.’

  Insensitive and pompous as Clifford usually was, he seemed at this moment an honest trier, unfairly let down. Patrick even forgot for a while about Joanna. ‘Why don’t I take your car and go to the hypermarket and buy up all the cold meat that’s ready to eat?’

  Clifford’s expression was hopeful but wary. ‘That sounds like a good idea. At least, I can’t see anything obviously wrong with it, can you? But it seems too simple to work.’

  ‘It does seem rather simple, yes.’ They both thought, then reminded each other that there were such things as cold hams that needed only to be carved.

  Clifford held out his car keys. ‘Buy as many as you can find. I’ll ring the embassy and get all available women out here. Thank God there aren’t many people coming.’

  It worked in the end. Female help arrived, the food was simple but plentiful and wine did the rest. Those who knew Sir Wilfrid well were pleasantly surprised to find anything. Clifford received a fair amount of jocular credit. There were not too many guests, and ambassadors, fortunately, were thin on the ground. The Dutch ambassador had died of a heart attack some time before and had not yet been replaced. The French ambassador had been recalled because he had gone on safari with his Spanish mistress during the visit of his own foreign minister. The Italian ambassador was at the coast visiting Mafia relatives. The Greek was said to be in Kenya with the French ambassador’s wife.

  Sir Wilfrid talked to everyone. He had bursts of energy, towards the end of each of which he became abstracted and would suddenly remove himself, only to reappear ten minutes later fully charged. Patrick began to wonder whether he was an alcoholic.

  ‘D’you know what he’s doing?’ asked Clifford in a low voice as they squeezed past each other in a crowded doorway. ‘I caught him at it accidentally on the way to the loo. He’s got a telly in the study and he’s watching cricket. England v. Australia, highlights from yesterday at Lord’s. Crafty old bugger.’

  Because there was no disaster Clifford’s manner with Patrick was now friendly and conspiratorial. His eyes brimmed with alcohol and good nature as he introduced him to a Danish first secretary and a German counsellor – ‘bit senior for you, but never mind’. The Dane talked about how a doctor visiting a hospital in a black township outside Battenburg had found it so ill-equipped that some patients had to sleep on the floor with newspapers as sheets. There were rumours of sinister medical experiments.

  ‘At least there are hospitals, unlike in the rest of Africa,’ said the German in careful but faultless English. He swallowed his ham, drank more wine and changed the subject to the topic of the day. This was the story that the body of the Dutch ambassador, a very large man, had been too big even for the outsize coffin and there had been some unseemly compression of the corpse. Someone said that one of the crew of the plane that took it back had talked of amputation but this the German did not believe. He laughed heartily and took more ham. The Dane looked serious and shook his head.

  A servant summoned Patrick to the telephone, saying that the embassy wanted him. When he reached it whoever it was had hung up. He assumed it was Joanna again and rang to see if there was a message. The girl in reception said it was the other girl, now gone off, who had been trying to get him. A man had come to see him, she did not know who but he was very insistent, the other girl had said. He said it was urgent. Patrick thought of McGrain and said he would come in, in case the man returned. He was grateful even for this excuse to leave the lunch, having discovered he had left Joanna’s number at the embassy.

  On the way out he met Sandy. ‘It hasn’t finished already, has it?’ she asked, touching her neat hair. She wore a blue trouser-suit which made her look older and less feminine.

  ‘No, I’m leaving early. They’re all enjoying themselves.’

  ‘Has Clifford noticed I’m not there?’

  ‘I don’t know. He hasn’t said anything. He seems fairly pleased with life.’

  Thank God for that. How’ve you been able to skive off already?’

  ‘I’ve got to see someone in the embassy.’ He told her about McGrain. As he spoke he was aware of himself trying to charm. It was not so much that she appealed to him now as that she had before; also, he was carried along by the momentum of his own speech.

  She laughed. ‘Come on, I’ll give you a lift.’

  ‘You can’t. You’re late now. You’ll be later still. I can take the official car.’

  She opened her bag and took out the keys. ‘No, I’ll run you in. It won’t take long and if they haven’t noticed yet it doesn’t matter. Anyway, I never see you these days. Come on.’

  She drove jerkily when sober. ‘Why don’t you come to see me?’

  He tried to respond playfully. ‘Should I?’

  ‘How’s your lady-love?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Don’t play the innocent, it doesn’t work with me.’

  ‘I’m seeing her for the first time tonight.’

  ‘I thought you were a quicker worker than that.’

  ‘I thought you were.’

  ‘Shows us both how wrong we can be, doesn’t it? Light me a fag.’

  He took one from her packet, lit it and puffed at it himself a couple of times. She took it in her lips without touching his hand.
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br />   ‘What about Jim?’ she asked.

  ‘He knows I’m seeing her.’

  ‘Does he mind?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘He must do. We’re not all like you.’

  ‘Wouldn’t I mind, then?’

  She looked at him. ‘I don’t know. P’raps you would. It’s hard to imagine.’

  As she left the motorway she swore at another driver who cut in front of her. Patrick decided he was attracted to her again because she was paying him attention.

  ‘I don’t know Joanna very well,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what she wants. I mean, she’s got her kid and she’s got her man. Maybe she wants something else. She seems very nice.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She laughed. ‘God, you’re passionate.’

  She asked about Sarah, Snap, Deuteronomy and the house before dropping him near the embassy in a no-stopping area, causing traffic to pile up behind. He got out quickly. She pouted coquettishly. ‘Don’t worry, I wasn’t going to kiss you goodbye. You don’t have to run.’

  The caller was not McGrain. He was described as young, presentable and English. He had asked first for the ambassador, then for Patrick. He had said something about being on to something and needing more money. He had left no name but would call again some time.

  Patrick did not want to encourage speculation. ‘Perhaps it was someone I knew at university. Messing about, you know.’

  ‘He was very serious,’ the receptionist said. ‘Perhaps he was a DBS, I don’t know. He didn’t seem very distressed. I’ll call you the moment he comes in again, if he does, but he said he was going away tonight.’ She giggled. ‘You could throw him out, like you did with that other one. I’d love to see it.’

  His office was empty of Philip for once. He rang Joanna but she was out, the maid didn’t know for how long. He said he would ring back.