A Spy by Nature (2001)

by Charles Cumming

  Keith’s sparse hair is grease-combed and badger grey. He has skin the colour of chalk and puffy hairless arms. A man who looks sixty-five but is probably twenty years younger. Most of his working life has been spent in this building. He wears a light blue sleeveless shirt and black flannel trousers with meandering creases. His shoes, also black, are on their last legs: no amount of polishing could save them now. He looks, to all intents and purposes, like a janitor.

  ‘I’m your Intake Manager,’ he says. ‘If you have any questions about anything at all over the course of the next two days, you come to me.’

  Everyone nods.

  ‘I’ll also be invigilating the Cognitive Tests. You won’t, of course, be permitted to talk to me during those.’

  This is obviously Keith’s big opening-speech gag, and Ogilvy is polite enough to laugh at it. As he smiles and sniggers he looks across and catches my eye. Rivalry.

  ‘Now,’ Keith says, clapping his hands. ‘Do you have any questions about your timetables?’

  I look down at the sheet of paper. It is headed ‘AFS NON-QT CANDIDATES‘, a phrase which I do not understand. I am known only as ‘CANDIDATE NO. 4’.

  ‘No. No questions,’ says Ann, answering for us all.

  ‘Right,’ says Keith. ‘Let’s get started.’

  Keith lumbers down the corridor to a small classroom filled with desks in rows and orange plastic chairs. We follow close behind him like children in a museum. Once inside he stands patiently at one end of the room beside a large wooden invigilator’s table while each of us chooses a desk.

  Ann sits immediately in front of Keith. Matt settles in behind her. He places a red pencil case on the desk in front of him which he unzips, retrieving a chewed blue Bic and a fresh pencil. Ogilvy heads for the back of the room, separating himself from the rest of us. Elaine, who is older than me, sits underneath a single-pane window overlooking the trees of St James’s Park. She looks bored. I position myself at the desk nearest the door.

  ‘I have in my hand a piece of paper,’ says Keith, surprisingly. ‘It’s a questionnaire which I am obliged to ask you to complete.’

  He begins dishing them out. Ann, helpfully, takes two from his pile, swivelling to hand one back to Matt. She moves stiffly, from the waist and hips, as if her neck were clamped in an invisible brace.

  ‘It’s just for our own records,’ says Keith, moving between the desks. ‘None of your answers will have any bearing on the results of the Selection Board.’

  The first page of the questionnaire is straightforward: name, address, date of birth. It then becomes more complicated.

  What do you think are your best qualities?

  And weaknesses?

  What recent achievement are you most proud of?

  These are big subjects for nine o’clock in the morning. I ponder evasive answers, wild fictions, blatant untruths, struggling to get my brain up to speed.

  ‘Of course,’ says Keith, as we begin filling out the form, ‘you’re not obliged to answer all of the questions. You may leave any section blank.’

  This suits me. I complete the first page and ignore all three of the questions, sitting quietly until the time elapses. But the others, with the exception of Elaine, begin scribbling furiously. Within ten minutes, Ann is on to her third page, unravelling herself with a frightening candour. Matt treats the exercise with a similar seriousness, letting it all out, telling them how he really feels. I turn to look at Ogilvy, but he catches my glance and half-smiles. I turn away. No time to see how much, if anything, he has written. Surely he’d be smart enough not to give anything away unless he had to?

  It’s over after twenty minutes. Keith collects the questionnaires and returns to his desk. I turn around to see Ogilvy leaning back in his chair, staring at the ceiling like a matinee idol.

  Keith coughs.

  ‘In just over ten minutes you’ll begin the group exercise,’ he says, leaning to pick up a small pile of papers from the right-hand top corner of his desk. ‘This involves a thirty-minute discussion between the five of you on a specific problem which is described in some detail on this document.’

  He flaps one of the sheets of paper beside his ear and then begins distributing them, one to each of us.

  ‘You have ten minutes to read the document. Try to absorb as much of it as possible. The Board will explain how the assessment works once you have gone into the second examination area. Any questions?’

  Nobody says a word.

  ‘Right, then. Can I suggest that you begin?’

  This is what it says.

  A nuclear reprocessing plant on the Normandy coast, built jointly in 1978 by Britain, Holland and France, is allegedly leaking minute amounts of radiation into a stretch of the English Channel used by both French and British fishermen. American importers of shellfish from the region have run tests revealing the presence of significant levels of radiation in their consignments of oysters, mussels and prawns. The Americans have therefore announced their intention to stop importing fish and shellfish from all European waters, effective immediately.

  The document - which has been written from the British perspective by a fictional civil servant in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food - suggests that the American claims are nebulous. Their own tests, carried out in conjunction with the French authorities, have shown only trace levels of radiation in that section of the English Channel, and nothing in the shellfish from the area which might be construed as dangerous. The civil servant suspects an ulterior motive on the part of the Americans, who have objected in the past to what they perceive as unfair fishing quotas in European waters. They have asked for improved access to European fishing grounds, and for the French plant to be shut down until a full safety check has been carried out.

  The document suggests that the British and French ministries should present a united, pan-European resistance to face-off the American demands. However, there are problems. An American motor-car company is one step away from signing a contract with the German government to build a factory near Berlin which would bring over 3,000 jobs to an economically deprived area. The Germans are unlikely to do anything at this stage which might upset this agreement. Ditto the Danes, who have an ongoing row with the French over a recent trade agreement. The Spanish, who would suffer more than anyone under any prolonged American export ban, will side firmly with the British and French, though their position is weakened by the fact that the peseta is being propped up by the US dollar.

  It’s a fanciful scenario, but this is what we are required to talk about.

  Keith has given each of us a sheet of blank paper on which to scribble notes, but I write down as little as possible. Eye contact will be important in front of the examiners: I must appear confident and sure of my brief. To be constantly buried in pages of notes will look inefficient.

  Ten minutes pass quickly. Then Keith asks us to gather up our things and accompany him to another section of the building. It takes about four minutes to get there.

  Two men and an elderly lady are lined up behind a long rectangular desk, like judges in a bad production of The Crucible. They have files, notepads, full glasses of water and a large chrome stopwatch in front of them. The classroom is again small and cheaply furnished, with just the one window. Somehow I expected a grander set-up: varnished floors, an antique table, old men in suits peering at us over half-moon spectacles. Something that would at least convey the gravity of SIS. A stranger might walk in here and be offered no hint that the three people inside were part of the most secret government department of them all. And that, of course, is as it should be. The last thing we are supposed to do is draw attention to ourselves.

  ‘Good morning,’ says the older of the two men. ‘If you’d all like to take a seat, we’ll make a start.’

  From his accent he is unmistakably English, yet his suntan is so pronounced he might almost be Indian. He looks well into his fifties.

  There is a table with five chairs positioned around it no mo
re than two feet away from the examiners, within easy earshot. We move towards it and are suddenly very polite to one another. Shall I go here? Is that all right? After you. Ann, I think, overdoes it, actually holding Elaine’s chair for her. I find myself in the seat furthest away from the door, flushed with shirt sweat, trying to remember everything that I have read while at the same time appearing relaxed and self-assured. An age passes until we are all comfortably seated. Then the man speaks again.

  ‘First off, allow us to introduce ourselves. My name is Gerald Pyman. I am a recently retired SIS officer and I’ll be chairing the Selection Board for the next two days.’

  Pyman’s eyes are black holes, as if they have seen so much that is abject and contemptible in human nature that they have simply withdrawn into their sockets. He wears a tie, a smart one, but no jacket in the heat.

  ‘To my left is Dr Hilary Stevenson.’

  ‘Good morning,’ she says, taking up his cue. ‘I’m the appointed psychologist to the board. I’m here to evaluate your contributions to the group exercises and - as you will all have seen from your timetables - I will also be conducting an interview with each of you over the course of the next two days.’

  She has a kind, refined way of speaking, the trusting softness of a grandmother. The room is absolutely still as she speaks: her words seem to filter through the strands of her fine white hair.

  Each of us has adopted a relaxed but businesslike body language: arms on laps or resting on the table in front of us. Ogilvy is the exception. His arms are folded tight against his chest. He seems to realize this and lets them drop to his sides. It is the turn of the man on Pyman’s right to speak. He is a generation younger, overweight by about three stone, with a pale, rotund face that is tired and paunchy.

  ‘And I’m Martin Rouse, a serving SIS officer working out of our embassy in Washington.’

  Washington? Why do we need intelligence operations in Washington?

  ‘Can I just emphasize that you are not in competition. There’s nothing at all to be gained from scoring points off one another.’

  Rouse has a faint Mancunian accent, diluted by a life lived overseas.

  ‘Now,’ he says, ‘we’ll just go around the table and allow you to introduce yourselves, to us and to each other. Beginning with Mr Milius.’

  I experience the sensation of breathing in both directions at once, inhalation and exhalation cancelling each other out. Every face in the room shifts minutely and settles on mine. I look up and for some reason fix Elaine in the eye as I say:

  ‘My name is Alec Milius. I am a marketing consult-ant.’

  Then I slide my gaze away to the right, taking in Stevenson, Rouse and Pyman, a sentence for each of them.

  ‘I work in London for the Central European Business Development Organization. I’m a graduate of the London School of Economics. I’m twenty-four.’

  ‘Thank you,’ says Rouse. ‘Miss Butler.’

  Ann dives right in, no trace of nerves, and introduces herself, quickly followed by the Hobbit. Then it’s Ogilvy’s turn. He visibly shifts himself up a gear and in a clear, steady voice announces himself as the sure-fire candidate.

  ‘Good morning.’

  Eye contact to us, not to the examiners. Nice touch. He stares me right down without a flinch and then turns to face Elaine. She remains unmoved.

  ‘I’m Sam Ogilvy. I work for Rothmans Tobacco in Saudi Arabia.’

  This information knocks me sideways. Ogilvy can’t be much older than I am and yet he’s already working for a major multinational corporation in the Middle East. He must be earning thirty or forty grand a year, with a full expense account and company car. I’m on less than fifteen thousand and live in Shepherd’s Bush.

  ‘I graduated from Cambridge in 1992 with a First in Economics and History.’

  Bastard.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Ogilvy,’ says Rouse, planting a full stop on his pad as he looks up at Elaine and smiles for the first time. He doesn’t need to say anything to her. He merely nods and she begins.

  ‘Good morning. I’m Elaine Hayes. I’m already employed by the Foreign Office, working out of London. I’m thirty-two and I can’t remember when I graduated from university it was such a long time ago.’

  Both Pyman and Rouse laugh at this and we follow their cue, mustering strained chuckles. The room briefly sounds like a theatre where only half of the audience have properly understood a joke. It intrigues me that Elaine is already employed by the Foreign Office. Surely if she were looking to join SIS, they would promote her internally without the bother of going through Sisby.

  ‘We’d like to proceed now with the group exercise,’ Pyman says, interrupting this thought. ‘The discussion is unchaired. That is to say you are free to make a contribution whenever you choose to do so. It is scheduled to conclude after thirty minutes, at which time you must all have agreed upon a course of action. If you find yourselves in agreement before the thirty minutes are up, we shall call a stop then. I must emphasize the importance of making your views known. There is no point in holding back. We cannot assess your minds if you will not show them to us. So do participate. There’s a stopwatch here. Miss Hayes, if you’d like to start it up and set it on the desk where everyone can see it.’

  Elaine is closest to Rouse, who takes the stopwatch from Pyman and hands it to her with his right arm outstretched. She takes it from him briskly and sets it down on the table, positioning the face in such a way that we can all see it. Then, with her thumb, she pushes the bulbous steel knob at the top of the stopwatch, starting us off.

  It has a tick like chattering teeth.

  ‘Can I just say to begin with that I think it’s very important that we maintain a tight alliance with the French, though the problem is of their making. Initially, at least.’

  Ann, God bless her, has had the balls to kick things off, although her opening statement has a forced self-confidence about it which betrays an underlying insecurity. Like a pacesetter in a middle-distance track event, she’ll lead for a while but soon tire and fall away.

  ‘Do you agree?’ she says, to no one in particular, and her question has a terrible artificiality about it. Ann’s words hang there unanswered for a short time until the Hobbit chips in with a remark that is entirely unrelated to what she has said.

  ‘We have to consider how economically important fish exports are to the Americans,’ he says, touching his right cheekbone with a chubby index finger. ‘Do they amount to much?’

  ‘I agree.’

  I said that, and immediately regret it, because everyone turns in my direction and expects some sort of follow-up. And yet it doesn’t come. What happens now, for a period of perhaps five or six seconds, is appalling. I become quite incapable of functioning within the group, of thinking clearly in this unfamiliar room with its strange, artificial rules. This happened with Lucas and it is happening again. My mind is just terrible blank white noise. I see only faces, looking at me. Ogilvy, Elaine, Ann, Matt. Enjoying, I suspect, the spectacle of my silence. Think. Think. What did he say? I agree with what? What did he say?

  ‘I happen to know that annual exports of fish and shellfish to the United States amount to little more than twenty or thirty million pounds.’

  The Hobbit, tired of waiting, has kept on going, has, in effect, dug me out of a hole. Immediately attention shifts back to him, allowing me the chance to blank out what has just happened. I have to think positively. I may not have betrayed my anxiety to the others, nor to Pyman, Rouse or Stevenson. It may, after all, have been just a momentary gap in real time, no more than a couple of beats. It just felt like a crisis; it didn’t look like one.

  Stay with them. Listen. Concentrate.

  I look over at Elaine, who has taken a sip from a glass of water in front of her. She appears to be on the point of saying something in response to the Hobbit. She has a perplexed look on her face. You happen to know that, Hobbit? How can someone happen to know something like that?

  Ann speaks.


  ‘We can’t just abandon exports of fish and shellfish to America on the grounds that they only bring in a small amount of revenue. That’s still twenty million pounds’ worth of business to the fishing community.’

  This is the humanitarian angle, the socialist’s view, and I wonder if it will impress Rouse and Pyman, or convince them that Ann is intellectually unevolved. I suspect the latter. Elaine shapes as if to put her straight, moving forward in her chair, elbows propped on the table. A woman in her twenties who is not a socialist has no heart; a woman in her thirties who is still a socialist has no brain, etc. But instead she ignores what Ann has said and takes the conversation off on a different tack. We are all of us rushing around this, just trying to be heard. Everything is moving too fast.

  ‘Can I suggest trying to persuade the Americans to at least accept imports of fish from European waters that are not affected by the alleged nuclear spillage? We can accept a temporary export ban on shellfish, but to put a stop to all fish exports to the US seems a bit draconian.’

  Elaine has a lovely, husky voice, a been there, done that, low-bullshit drawl with a grin behind it. All the time the examiners are busy scribbling. I have to operate at a level of acute self-consciousness: every mannerism, every gesture, every smile is being minutely examined. The effort is all-consuming.

  A pause opens up in the discussion. My brain fog has cleared completely, and a sequence of ideas has formed in my mind. I must say something to erase the memory of my first interruption, to make it look as though I can bounce back from a bad situation. Now is my chance.

  ‘On the other -‘

  Ogilvy, fuck him, started speaking at the same time as me.

  ‘Sorry, Alec,’ he says. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Thank you, Sam. I was just going to say that I think it’s going to be difficult to make a distinction between fish and shellfish in this instance. Nuclear contamination is nuclear contamination. The Americans have a very parochial view of Europe. They see us as a small country. Our waters, whether they be the English Channel or the Mediterranean, are connected geographically in the minds of the Americans. If one is polluted, particularly by nuclear waste, then they all are.’