Arcadia

12

Henry Lytten, the man who dutifully taught his students and whose reputation, such as it was, centred on a deep knowledge of Elizabethan pastoral, had once had a more turbulent life. He was, after all, one of those rare people with a facility for languages and the analysis of texts. He had mastered French and Italian with ease at an early age; another accomplishment of his months in bed as a child was a decent knowledge of German, which he taught himself with only a dictionary, a grammar and his father’s copy of Schiller to practise on.

School taught him little except the art of survival, but an encouraging father sent him off regularly as he approached manhood to travel through Europe. There his conversational skills were honed and he learned much about the people whose languages he was coming to know perfectly.

Such abilities were rare, and in 1939 they saved Lytten from some of the more obvious miseries of war. They were too valuable to be shot at; once he was called up he was rapidly transferred to intelligence — something of a misnomer at the start of hostilities — where initially he spent his time interpreting intercepted communications which flooded in over the airwaves. Eventually he began to do more, and was sent to France, parachuting into the Corrèze to liaise with the scattered Resistance movements. Then, his work done there, he was attached once more to the army as it moved into Germany itself, and stayed there for several years.

He left all of this as soon as he could; what he saw and did in those years confirmed his disenchantment with reality, and he escaped back to his books the moment he was allowed to do so. But he was too valuable to be let go entirely. Not only did he know many people who remained in the Service, he retained also a quite extraordinary instinct for documents — what they said, what they meant, and what they implied about their authors and recipients. It was part of his past, and so remained part of his present. Several times he had decided to have no more of it; every time he would be summoned by Portmore, now the head of the Service. ‘We need you still, Henry,’ he’d say in that regretful way he had. ‘Your duty.’

He could never refuse. Portmore was one of those people whose patriotism and self-sacrifice was so exceptional everyone else seemed slightly mean in comparison. He had taken on the most dangerous of missions in the war, been wounded, captured, tortured, and come back for more. He couldn’t understand anyone who would not want to give their entire life to their country, who did not relish the game of cat-and-mouse with worthy adversaries, be they German, Russian or — as he saw it — American. Portmore had recruited Lytten in the first place, trained, advised, guided and protected him. He was a father figure, a model and an inspiration. The only person Henry was in awe of, but he was at least in good company. The man was accepted by all as the Service’s greatest asset, able to operate with the same skill and success in Whitehall as in the Balkans; the only worry was what would happen when he finally retired and left them all leaderless. He knew from old contacts that others were wondering the same thing, and discreetly positioning themselves accordingly.

So Henry never refused a request, always obliged; Portmore had this strange ability to make everyone feel indispensable, as though the future of the Empire — what was left of it — depended on them alone. Every now and then someone would show up at his door, or the telephone would ring and a familiar voice would summon him to lunch in London. ‘Just a small job, if you could see your way to helping us out...’

Lytten would reluctantly put aside his life, vowing it would be for the last time. Every now and then he would, also, suggest to a promising student that they have a little chat with a friend of his who worked for the government. He never really understood why he offered up sacrifices of young men to a life which he had so hated himself.

He never talked of this to anyone, of course. Of the three regular drinking companions who still remained to meet in the pub, all had had what was termed ‘a war’; that is, they had done and seen things which would traumatise most generations of men. They had done their best to pack the experience away in a corner of their memory and forget it. It had no importance for their lives now and, besides, these were people brought up to control their emotions, not to explore them. Lytten had gone into the war cheerful, extroverted, optimistic. He came out of it locked in himself. Only a few people noticed, and they never mentioned it. It was not their business.

The past can be hidden, but never entirely forgotten, Lytten knew this too. Indeed, his story as it evolved depended on it. ‘We are our past,’ so he had said to Rosie. Sooner or later it returns. That was why the only unexpected thing about the ring at the doorbell at ten in the evening a few days after that conversation was its timing. Certainly, Lytten gave no sign of surprise when he opened the door and saw the heavily muffled figure, covered in a dark overcoat with a hat pulled down over his face in the gloomy light of the porch.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Dinner at high table. I couldn’t stand the prospect of pudding, so I thought I’d just drop in. Catch up with an old friend, you know. I hope you weren’t off to bed?’

‘That is just where I was about to go,’ Lytten said. ‘Go away.’

‘Good. I’d hate to disturb you. I’m soaking and cold. Do you have any brandy?’

Sam Wind took off his coat, folded it over Lytten’s arm as though he were a coat rack and walked briskly through to the little table by the fire in the study, on which stood two glass decanters.

He poured himself a generous measure, swept Lytten’s unmarked essays from the spare armchair and sat down on it with a sigh, stretching his long legs towards the fire and twiddling his toes to warm them up. He was an angular man with a mop of greying hair and a melancholic face that these days was set in a permanent expression of disappointment. He had delicate hands with bony fingers which he cracked alarmingly when he made a point, and his clothes were expensive but scruffy, with hand-made shoes that hadn’t been polished in weeks.

‘It’s bloody awful out there,’ he remarked. ‘It’s not meant to be winter yet. I hate this country.’

‘I thought you were in the business of loving it, reverencing it and defending it with all your heart and soul?’

‘Only between the hours of nine and five, Monday to Friday. Rest of the time I am free to detest the grubby little dump.’

‘It is good to see you, Sam,’ Lytten said, ‘but I really was going to bed.’

‘I’m sure you were. But you know me well enough to realise I do not walk a mile on a cold night just to visit you.’

He picked up the battered brown briefcase he’d put beside the armchair, pulled out a sealed envelope and tossed it over.

‘What’s this?’

‘How should I know? That’s your job, it seems. Orders from on high, from God himself. I’m just the messenger boy.’

‘How is Portmore these days?’

‘Flourishing, flourishing. How he does it, I do not know. He has this annoying habit of seeming to get younger and more vigorous as the years go by, unlike the rest of us. He sends his best and requests that you do yours. Read, figure it all out, tell us what you think.’

‘What if I don’t want to?’

Sam looked at him doubtfully. ‘Next week some time would be appreciated.’

‘Very well, Sam. As you command.’