Breaking Cover

15

Jasminder was at her desk in one corner of her flat’s living room, writing an article for the magazine, when the phone rang. She thought it might be Laurenz, who was away in Paris on bank business for a couple of days, but it was her friend Emma.

‘Hello, stranger,’ said Emma. ‘Long time no see. Or hear for that matter.’

‘Actually I was about to ring you,’ said Jasminder, telling herself she really had intended to tell Emma about putting her name on the job application form. ‘How are you?’

‘Fine, thanks. Though not as busy you, it seems…’

Jasminder replied cautiously, ‘What do you mean?’ As she spoke she drew the curtains across the window with one hand; the streetlight outside had just come on and was casting a rather nasty yellow glow into the room.

‘I’ve had two visitors this evening. But they weren’t interested in me: they wanted to know all about you,’ announced Emma.

‘Really?’

‘Yes. They were very polite. They showed me identification right away – both were from the MOD. They said they carry out background checks on job applicants who will have access to classified material. Apparently you’re one of them. Talk about a dark horse! Honestly, Jasminder, you might have warned me they’d show up.’

‘I’m sorry. I should have done, but I never thought it would come to anything. I had an interview with a head-hunter for a job, but they told me not to tell anyone about it. I put you down as a personal referee, and I should have asked you first. I’m very sorry. I hope it wasn’t too embarrassing.’

‘What kind of a job is it?’ Emma asked. ‘It must be very important, judging by all the stuff they wanted to know about you.’

‘I’m sorry but I can’t tell you anything at the moment. It’s probably not going to amount to anything anyway.’

But Emma wasn’t so easily to put off. ‘You’re the last person I’d expect to work for some hush-hush part of the Government. What’s got into you? I thought you disapproved of all that spooky stuff.’

Jasminder didn’t know how to respond. It was true that on the face of it the job was unlikely to interest her – she was a most improbable candidate for it. She looked across the room at her bookshelves. The books were all about liberty and civil rights, and the abuses of both by government. There was nothing there to suggest that she might one day end up working for the people she had spent so much of her life criticising. Instead of trying to explain she asked, ‘Did they ask you lots of questions?’

‘Tons,’ said Emma dramatically. ‘Where did we meet, how well did I know you – that sort of thing. Then it got more personal.’

‘What did they want to know?’ asked Jasminder, suddenly feeling invaded.

‘I suppose it’s standard stuff, but it still caught me by surprise. They wanted to know all about your boyfriends. Don’t worry,’ added Emma with a laugh, ‘I didn’t tell them about Oscar.’

He had been an ill-advised fling during a holiday Jasminder and Emma had taken to the Greek islands. He lived in London, but had turned out on their return to be a clingy drip rather than the exotic character encountered in the Paxos sunshine. On the wall Jasminder could see the small watercolour of Gaios harbour, all pinks and blues, that she’d bought on that very holiday.

‘Then they wanted to know if you had debts, or drank to excess. So I said no, of course. Did you take recreational drugs? Any petty theft or shoplifting habits? Any “extreme behaviour”? That’s when I was glad they weren’t asking about me! Then they wanted to know your views on civil liberties and whether I thought that made you a revolutionary and likely to be disloyal to the state. Honestly, Jas, it was like the Inquisition. I got a bit cross at that point and told them you had always been perfectly open about your views and they were shared by lots of very loyal citizens, including myself. That shut them up.’

Jasminder laughed. Emma said, ‘Actually, by the end they almost seemed disappointed by how pure you’ve been. I wanted to invent some peccadillos for you, but other than stealing my chips in restaurants, I couldn’t think of any. Aren’t you going to tell me what this is about?’

‘I will soon enough. I didn’t think they’d want to talk to you. I thought they’d decide I was completely unsuitable.’

‘Well, all I can say is that I have my suspicions. I think you’ve applied for that MI6 job I read about in the Guardian. They were advertising for a Director of Communications. I wouldn’t have thought it was your scene, but good on you if that’s what you want. Maybe you’ll be able to make them think a bit more like the rest of us. When will you be allowed to spill the beans?’

‘Soon probably; when they tell me I haven’t got the job. But I just don’t know exactly.’ And a few minutes later, after Jasminder had promised to fill her in at the earliest possible opportunity, Emma rang off.

Jasminder got up and went into the kitchen, feeling unsettled. She’d left the radio on, but for once she didn’t find the sound of classical music soothing and switched it off in irritation. She hadn’t until now faced the possibility that they might actually offer her the job and didn’t know what she would do if they did. She was pondering this when the phone rang again. This time it was Laurenz calling from Paris.

‘Hello, my sweet,’ he said. ‘I tried you earlier but your phone was engaged.’

‘Yes. I was talking to Emma. You know that job I said I might apply for? Well, I filled in a form and sent it in and now they’ve been to see her to ask questions about me.’

‘That’s good. It shows they’re taking your application seriously. I hope she said nice things about you. What did they ask?’

‘All sorts of personal stuff. They wanted to know about boyfriends.’

‘Did she tell them about me?’

‘No. I haven’t told her about you. I’ve hardly seen her since we met.’

‘So they won’t be coming to call on me then?’

‘No chance. I didn’t put your name on the form. You didn’t come into the category of co-habitant.’

‘Oh, good, because I’d rather you didn’t. What with my wife and all this legal stuff, I don’t want to get some sort of record with the authorities.’

‘Well, we’d better not start co-habiting then.’

He laughed. ‘Not officially, anyway.’