Our Man in Havana

Chapter 2

‘I must be getting important,’ Wormold said. ‘I’ve been invited to make a speech.’

‘Where?’ Milly asked, looking politely up from the Horsewoman’s Year Book. It was the evening hour when work was over and the last gold light lay flat across the roofs and touched the honey coloured hair and the whisky in his glass.

‘At the annual lunch of the European Traders’ Association. Dr Braun, the President, has asked me to make one as the oldest member. The guest of honour is the American Consul-General,’ he added with pride. It seemed such a short time ago that he had come to Havana and met with her family in the Floridita bar the girl who was Milly’s mother; now he was the oldest trader there. Many had retired: some had gone home to fight in the last war -English, German, French but he had been rejected because of his bad leg. None of these had returned to Cuba.

‘What will you talk about?’

He said sadly, ‘I shan’t. I wouldn’t know what to say.’

‘I bet you’d speak better than any of them.’

‘Oh no. I may be the oldest member, Milly, but I’m the smallest too. The rum-exporters and the cigar-men they are the really important people.’ ‘You are you.’

‘I wish you had chosen a cleverer father.’

‘Captain Segura says you are pretty good at checkers.’

‘But not as good as he is.’

‘Please accept, Father,’ she said. ‘I’d be so proud of you.’

‘I’d make a fool of myself.’

‘You wouldn’t. For my sake.’

‘For your sake I’d turn cartwheels. All right. I’ll accept.’ Rudy knocked at the door. This was the hour when he listened in for the last time; it would be midnight in London. He said, ‘There’s an urgent cable from Kingston. Shall I fetch Beatrice?’

‘No, I can manage it myself. She’s going to a movie.’

‘Business does seem brisk,’ Milly said.

‘Yes.’

‘But you don’t seem to sell any more cleaners.’

‘It’s all long-term promotion,’ Wormold said.

He went into his bedroom and deciphered the cable. It was from Hawthorne. Wormold was to come by the first possible plane to Kingston and report. He thought: So they know at last.

The rendezvous was the Myrtle Bank Hotel. Wormold had not been to Jamaica for many years, and he was appalled by the dirt and the heat. What accounted for the squalor of British possessions? The Spanish, the French and the Portuguese built cities where they settled, but the English just allowed cities to grow. The poorest street in Havana had dignity compared with the shanty-life of Kingston huts built out of old petrol-tins roofed with scrap-metal purloined from some cemetery of abandoned cars.

Hawthorne sat in a long chair in the veranda of Myrtle Bank drinking a planter’s punch through a straw. His suit was just as immaculate as when Wormold had met him first; the only sign of the great heat was a little powder caked under his left ear. He said, ‘Take a pew.’ Even the slang was back. ‘Thanks.’

‘Had a good trip?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

‘I expect you’re glad to be at home.’

‘Home?’

‘I mean here having a holiday from the dagoes. Back in British territory.’ Wormold thought of the huts he had seen along the harbour and a hopeless old man asleep in a patch of shade and a ragged child nursing a piece of driftwood. He said, ‘Havana’s not so bad.’

‘Have a planter’s punch. They are good here.’

‘Thanks.’

Hawthorne said, ‘I asked you to come over because there’s a spot of trouble.’

‘Yes?’ He supposed that the truth was coming out. Could he be arrested now that he was on British territory? What would the charge be? Obtaining money on false pretences perhaps or some obscurer charge heard in camera under the Official Secrets Act.

‘About these constructions.’

He wanted to explain that Beatrice knew nothing of all this; he had no accomplice except the credulity of other men.

‘What about them?’ he asked.

‘I wish you’d been able to get photographs.’

‘I tried. You know what happened.’

‘Yes. The drawings are a bit confusing.’

‘They are not by a skilled draughtsman.’

‘Don’t get me wrong, old man. You’ve done wonders, but, you know, there was a time when I was almost suspicious.’

‘What of?’

‘Well, some of them sort of reminded me to be frank, they reminded me of parts of a vacuum cleaner.’

‘Yes, that struck me too.’

‘And then, you see, I remembered all the thingummies in your shop.’

‘You thought I’d pulled the leg of the Secret Service?’ ‘Of course it sounds fantastic now, I know. All the same, in a way I was relieved when I found that the others have made up their minds to murder you.’ ‘Murder me?’

‘You see, that really proves the drawings are genuine.’

‘What others?’

‘The other side. Of course I’d luckily kept these absurd suspicions to myself.’

‘How are they going to murder me?’

‘Oh, we’ll come to that a matter of poisoning. What I mean is that next to having photographs one can’t have better confirmation of your reports. We had been rather sitting on them, but we’ve circulated them now to all the Service Departments. We sent them to Atomic Research as well. They weren’t helpful. Said they had no connection with nuclear fission. The trouble is we’ve been bemused by the atom-boys and have quite forgotten that there may be other forms of scientific warfare just as dangerous.’

‘How are they going to poison me?’

‘First things first, old man. One mustn’t forget the economics of warfare. Cuba can’t afford to start making H-bombs, but have they found something equally effective at short range and cheap? That’s the important word cheap.’

‘Please would you mind telling me how they are going to murder me? You see, it interests me personally.’

‘Of course I’m going to tell you. I just wanted to give you the background first and to tell you how pleased we all are -at the confirmation of your reports, I mean. They plan to poison you at some sort of business lunch.’ ‘The European Traders’ Association?’

‘I think that’s the name.’

‘How do you know?’

‘We’ve penetrated their organization here. You’d be surprised how much we know of what goes on in your territory. I can tell you for instance that the death of stroke four was an accident. They just wanted to scare him as they scared stroke three by shooting at him. You are the first one they’ve really decided to murder.’

‘That’s comforting.’

‘In a way, you know, it’s a compliment. You are dangerous now.’ Hawthorne made a long sucking noise, draining up the last liquid between the layers of ice and orange and pineapple and the cherry on top. ‘I suppose,’ Wormold said, ‘I’d better not go.’ He felt a surprising disappointment. ‘It will be the first lunch I’ve missed in ten years. They’d even asked me to speak. The firm always expects me to attend. Like showing the flag.’

‘But of course you’ve got to go.’

‘And be poisoned?’

‘You needn’t eat anything, need you?’

‘Have you ever tried going to a public lunch and not eating anything?

There’s also the question of drink.’

‘They can’t very well poison a bottle of wine. You could give the impression of being an alcoholic, somebody who doesn’t eat but only drinks.’ ‘Thank you. That would certainly be good for business.’ ‘People have a soft spot in their hearts for alcoholics,’ Hawthorne said. ‘Besides, if you don’t go they’ll suspect something. It puts my source in danger. We have to protect our sources.’

‘That’s the drill, I suppose.’

‘Exactly, old man. Another point: we know the plot, but we don’t know the plotters, except their symbols. If we discover who they are, we can insist on having them locked up. We’ll disrupt the organization.’ ‘Yes, there aren’t any perfect murders, are there? I dare say there’ll be a clue at the post mortem on which you can persuade Segura to act.’ ‘You aren’t afraid, are you? This is a dangerous job. You shouldn’t have taken it unless you were prepared…’

‘You’re like a Spartan mother, Hawthorne. Come back victorious or stay beneath the table.’

‘That’s quite an idea, you know. You could slip under the table at the right moment. The murderers would think you were dead and the others would just think you were drunk.’

‘This is not a meeting of the Big Four at Moscow. The European Traders don’t fall under the table.’

‘Never?’

‘Never. You think I’m unduly concerned, don’t you?’

‘I don’t think there’s any need for you to worry yet. They don’t serve you, after all. You help yourself.’

‘Of course. Except that there’s always a Morro crab to start with at the Nacional. That’s prepared in advance.’

‘You mustn’t eat that. Lots of people don’t eat crab. When they serve the other courses never take the portion next to you. It’s like a conjuror forcing a card on you. You just have to reject it.’

‘But the conjuror usually manages to force the card just the same.’

‘I tell you what did you say the lunch was at the Nacional?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then why can’t you use stroke seven?’

‘Who’s stroke seven?’

‘Don’t you remember your own agents? Surely he’s the head waiter at the Nacional? He can help to see your plate isn’t tampered with. It’s time he did something for his money. I don’t remember you sending a single report from him.’ ‘Can’t you give me any idea who the man at the lunch will be? I mean the man who plans to .’ he boggled at the word ‘kill’… ‘to do it.’ ‘Not a clue, old man. Just be careful of everyone. Have another planter’s punch.’

The plane back to Cuba had few passengers: a Spanish woman with a pack of children some of them screamed and some of them were airsick as soon as they left the ground; a Negress with a live cock wrapped in her shawl; a Cuban cigar-exporter with whom Wormold had a nodding acquaintance, and an Englishman in a tweed jacket who smoked a pipe until the air-hostess told him to put it out. Then he sucked the empty pipe ostentatiously for the rest of the journey and sweated heavily into the tweed. He had the ill-humoured face of a man who is always in the right.

When lunch was served he moved back several places and sat down beside Wormold. He said, ‘Can’t stand those screaming brats. Do you mind?’ He looked at the papers on Wormold’s knee. ‘You with Phastkleaners?’ he said. ‘Yes.’

‘I’m with Nucleaners. The name’s Carter.’

‘Oh.’

‘This is only my second trip to Cuba. Gay spot, they tell me,’ he said, blowing down his pipe and laying it aside for lunch.

‘It can be,’ Wormold said, ‘if you like roulette or brothels.’ Carter patted his tobacco-pouch as though it were a dog’s head -‘my faithful hound shall bear me company’. ‘I didn’t exactly mean… though I’m not a Puritan, mind. I suppose it would be interesting. Do as the Romans do.’ He changed the subject. ‘Sell many of your machines?’

‘Trade’s not so bad.’

‘We’ve got a new model that’s going to wipe the market.’ He took a large mouthful of sweet mauve cake and then cut himself a piece of chicken. ‘Really.’

‘Runs on a motor like a lawn-mower. No effort by the little woman. No tubes trailing all over the place.’

‘Noisy?’

‘Special silencer. Less noise than your model. We are calling it the Whisper-Wife.’ After taking a swig of turtle soup he began to eat his fruit salad, crunching the grape stones between his teeth. He said, ‘We are opening an agency in Cuba soon. Know Dr Braun?’

‘I’ve met him. At the European Traders’ Association. He’s our President.

Imports precision-instruments from Geneva.’

‘That’s the man. He’s given us very useful advice. In fact I’m going to your bean-feast as his guest. Do they give you a good lunch?’ ‘You know what hotel-lunches are like.’

‘Better than this anyway,’ he said, spitting out a grape skin. He had overlooked the asparagus in mayonnaise and now began on that. Afterwards he fumbled in his pocket. ‘Here’s my card.’ The card read: ‘William Carter B. Tech (Nottwich)’ and in the corner, ‘Nucleaners Ltd.’ He said, ‘I’m staying at the Seville Biltmore for a week.’

‘I’m afraid I haven’t a card on me. My name’s Wormold.’

‘Met a fellow called Davis?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Shared digs with him at college. He went into Gripfix and came out to this part of the world. It’s funny you find Nottwich men everywhere. You weren’t there yourself, were you?’

‘No.’

‘Reading?’

‘I wasn’t at a University.’

‘I couldn’t have told it,’ Carter told him kindly. ‘I’d have gone to Oxford, you know, but they are very backward in technology. All right for schoolmasters, I suppose.’ He began to suck again at his empty pipe like a child at a comforter, till it whistled between his teeth. Suddenly he spoke again, as though some remains of tannin had touched his tongue with a bitter flavour. ‘Outdated,’ he said, ‘relics, living on the past. I’d abolish them.’

‘Abolish what?’

‘Oxford and Cambridge.’ He took the only food that was left in the tray, a roll of bread, and crumbled it like age or ivy crumbling a stone.

At the Customs Wormold lost him. He was having trouble with his sample

Nucleaner, and Wormold saw no reason why the representative of Phastkleaners

should assist him to enter. Beatrice was there to meet him with the Hillman. It was many years since he had been met by a woman. ‘Everything all right?’ she asked.

‘Yes. Oh yes. They seem pleased with me.’ He watched her hands on the wheel; she wore no gloves in the hot afternoon; they were beautiful and competent hands. He said, ‘You aren’t wearing your ring.’ She said, ‘I didn’t think anyone would notice. Milly did too. You are an observant family.’

‘You haven’t lost it?’

‘I took it off yesterday to wash and I forgot to put it back. There’s no point, is there, wearing a ring you forget?’

It was then he told her about the lunch.

‘You won’t go?’ she said.

‘Hawthorne expects me to. To protect his source.’

‘Damn his source.’

‘There’s a better reason. Something that Dr Hasselbacher said to me. They like to strike at what you love. If I don’t go, they’ll think up something else. Something worse. And we shan’t know what. Next time it mightn’t be me I don’t think I love myself enough to satisfy them it might be Milly. Or you.’ He didn’t realize the implication of what he had said until she had dropped him at his door and driven on.

Milly said, ‘You’ve had a cup of coffee, and that’s all. Not even a piece of toast.’

‘I’m just not in the mood.’

‘You’ll go and over-eat at the Trader’s lunch today, and you know perfectly well that Morro crab doesn’t agree with your stomach.’ ‘I promise you I’ll be very, very careful.’

‘You’d do much better to have a proper breakfast. You need a cereal to mop up all the liquor you’ll be drinking.’ It was one of her duenna days. ‘I’m sorry, Milly, I just can’t. I’ve got things on my mind. Please don’t pester me. Not today.’

‘Have you prepared your speech?’

‘I’ve done my best, but I’m no speaker, Milly. I don’t know why they asked me.’ But he was uneasily conscious that perhaps he did know why. Somebody must have brought influence to bear on Dr Braun, somebody who had to be identified at any cost. He thought, I am the cost.

‘I bet you’ll be a sensation.’

‘I’m trying hard not to be a sensation at this lunch.’

Milly went to school and he sat on at the table. The cereal company which Milly patronized had printed on the carton of Weatbrix the latest adventure of Little Dwarf Doodoo. Little Dwarf Doodoo in a rather brief instalment encountered a rat the size of a St Bernard dog and he frightened the rat away by pretending to be a cat and saying miaou. It was a very simple story. You could hardly call it a preparation for life. The company also gave away an air-gun in return for twelve lids. As the packet was almost empty Wormold began to cut off the lid, driving his knife carefully along the dotted line. He was turning the last corner when Beatrice entered. She said, ‘What are you doing?’ ‘I thought an air-gun might be useful in the office. We only need eleven more lids.’

‘I couldn’t sleep last night.’

‘Too much coffee?’

‘No. Something you told me Dr Hasselbacher said. About Milly. Please don’t go to the lunch.’

‘It’s the least I can do.’

‘You do quite enough. They are pleased with you in London. I can tell that from the way they cable you. Whatever Henry may say, London wouldn’t want you to run a silly risk.’

‘It’s quite true what he said that if I don’t go they will try something else.’

‘Don’t worry about Milly. I’ll watch her like a lynx.’

‘And who’s going to watch you?’

‘I’m in this line of business; it’s my own choice. You needn’t feel responsible for me.’

‘Have you been in a spot like this before?’

‘No, but I’ve never had a boss like you before. You seem to stir them up. You know, this job is usually just an office desk and files and dull cables; we don’t go in for murder. And I don’t want you murdered. You see, you are real. You aren’t Boy’s Own Paper. For God’s sake put down that silly packet and listen to me.’

‘I was re-reading Little Dwarf Doodoo.’

‘Then stay at home with him this morning. I’ll go out and buy you all the back cartons so that you can catch up.’

‘All Hawthorne said was sense. I only have to be careful what I eat. It is important to find out who they are. Then I’ll have done something for my money.’

‘You’ve done plenty as it is. There’s no point in going to this damned lunch.’

‘Yes, there is a point. Pride.’

‘Who are you showing off to?’

‘You.’

He made his way through the lounge of the Nacional Hotel between the showcases full of Italian shoes and Danish ashtrays and Swedish glass and mauve British woollies. The private dining-room where the European Traders al-ways met lay just beyond the chair where Dr Hasselbacher now sat, conspicuously waiting. Wormold approached with slowing steps; it was the first time he had seen Dr Hasselbacher since the night when he had sat on the bed in his Uhlan’s uniform talking of the past. Members of the Association, passing in to the private dining-room, stopped and spoke to Dr Hasselbacher; he paid them no attention. Wormold reached the chair where he sat. Dr Hasselbacher said, ‘Don’t go in there, Mr Wormold.’ He spoke without lowering his voice, the words shivering among the showcases, attracting attention.

‘How are you, Hasselbacher?’

‘I said, don’t go in.’

‘I heard you the first time.’

‘They are going to kill you, Mr Wormold.’

‘How do you know that, Hasselbacher?’

‘They are planning to poison you in there.’

Several of the guests stopped and stared and smiled. One of them, an American, said, ‘Is the food that bad?’ and everyone laughed. Wormold said, ‘Don’t stay here, Hasselbacher. You are too conspicuous.’

‘Are you going in?’

‘Of course, I’m one of the speakers.’

‘There’s Milly. Don’t forget her.’

‘Don’t worry about Milly. I’m going to come out on my feet, Hasselbacher. Please go home.’

‘All right, but I had to try,’ Dr Hasselbacher said. ‘I’ll be waiting at the telephone.’

‘I’ll call you when I leave.’

‘Good-bye, Jim.’

‘Good-bye, Doctor.’ The use of his first name took Wormold unawares. It reminded him of what he had always jokingly thought: that Dr Hasselbacher would use the name only at his bedside when he had given up hope. He felt suddenly frightened alone, a long way from home.

‘Wormold,’ a voice said, and turning he saw that it was Carter of Nucleaners, but it was also for Wormold at that moment the English midlands, English snobbery, English vulgarity, all the sense of kinship and security the word England implied to him.

‘Carter!’ he exclaimed, as though Carter were the one man in Havana he wanted most to meet, and at that instant he was.

‘Damned glad to see you,’ Carter said. ‘Don’t know a soul at this lunch.

Not even my -not even Dr Braun.’ His pocket bulged with his pipe and his pouch;

he patted them as though for reassurance, as though he too felt far from home.

‘Carter, this is Dr Hasselbacher, an old friend of mine.’ ‘Good day, Doctor.’ He said to Wormold, ‘I was looking all over the place for you last night. I don’t seem able to find the right spots.’ They moved in together to the private dining-room. It was quite irrational, the confidence he had in a fellow-countryman, but on the side where Carter walked he felt protected.

The dining-room had been decorated with two big flags of the United States in honour of the Consul-General, and little paper flags, as in an airport-restaurant, indicated where each national was to sit. There was a Swiss flag at the head of the table for Dr Braun, the President; there was even the flag of Monaco for the Monegasque Consul who was one of the largest exporters of cigars in Havana. He was to sit on the Consul-General’s right hand in recognition of the Royal alliance. Cocktails were circulating when Wormold and Carter entered, and a waiter at once approached them. Was it Wormold’s imagination or did the waiter shift the tray so that the last remaining daiquiri lay nearest to Wormold’s hand?

‘No. No thank you.’

Carter put out his hand, but the waiter had already moved on towards the service-door.

‘Perhaps you would prefer a dry Martini, sir?’ a voice said. He turned.

It was the headwaiter.

‘No, no, I don’t like them.’

‘A Scotch, sir? A sherry? An Old-Fashioned? Anything you care to order.’ ‘I’m not drinking,’ Wormold said, and the headwaiter abandoned him for another guest. Presumably he was stroke seven; strange if by an ironic coincidence he was also the would-be assassin. Wormold looked around for Carter, but he had moved away in pursuit of his host.

‘You’d do better to drink all you can,’ said a voice with a Scotch accent. ‘My name is Mac Dougall. It seems we’re sitting together.’ ‘I haven’t seen you here before, have I?’

‘I’ve taken over from Mc Intyre. You’d have known Mc Intyre surely?’ ‘Oh yes, yes.’ Dr Braun, who had palmed off the unimportant Carter upon another Swiss who dealt in watches, was now leading the American Consul-General round the room, introducing him to the more exclusive members. The Germans formed a group apart, rather suitably against the west wall; they carried the superiority of the Deutschemark on their features like duelling scars: national honour which had survived Belsen depended now on a rate of exchange. Wormold wondered whether it was one of them who had betrayed the secret of the lunch to Dr Hasselbacher. Betrayed? Not necessarily. Perhaps the doctor had been blackmailed to supply the poison. At any rate he would have chosen, for the sake of old friendship, something painless, if any poison were painless. ‘I was telling you,’ Mr Mac Dougall went energetically on like a Scottish reel, ‘that you would do better to drink now. It’s all you’ll be getting.’

‘There’ll be wine, won’t there?’

‘Look at the table.’ Small individual milk bottles stood by every place. ‘Didn’t you read your invitation? An American blueplate lunch in honour of our great American allies.’

‘Blueplate?’

‘Surely you know what a blueplate is, man? They shove the whole meal at you under your nose, already dished up on your plate -roast turkey, cranberry sauce, sausages and carrots and French fried. I can’t bear French fried, but there’s no pick and choose with a blueplate.’

‘No pick and choose?’

‘You eat what you’re given. That’s democracy, man.’

Dr Braun was summoning them to the table. Wormold had a hope that

fellow-nationals would sit together and that Carter would be on his other side,

but it was a strange Scandinavian who sat on his left scowling at his

milk bottle. Wormold thought, Someone has arranged this well. Nothing is safe,

not even the milk. Already the waiters were bustling round the board with the

Morro crabs. Then he saw with relief that Carter faced him across the table. There was something so secure in his vulgarity. You could appeal to him as you could appeal to an English policeman, because you knew his thoughts. ‘No,’ he said to the waiter, ‘I won’t take crab.’

‘You are wise not to take those things,’ Mr Mac Dougall said. ‘I’m refusing them myself. They don’t go with whisky. Now if you will drink a little of your iced water and hold it under the table, I’ve got a flask in my pocket with enough for the two of us.’

Without thinking, Wormold stretched out his hand to his glass, and then the doubt came. Who was Mac Dougall? He had never seen him before, and he hadn’t heard until now that Mc Intyre had gone away. Wasn’t it possible that the water was poisoned, or even the whisky in the flask?

‘Why did Mc Intyre leave?’ he asked, his hand round the glass. ‘Oh, it was just one of those things,’ Mr Mac Dougall said, ‘you know the way it is. Toss down your water. You don’t want to drown the Scotch. This is the best Highland malt.’

‘It’s too early in the day for me. Thank you all the same.’ ‘If you don’t trust the water, you are right not to,’ Mac Dougall said ambiguously. ‘I’m taking it neat myself. If you don’t mind sharing the cap of the flask…’

‘No, really. I don’t drink at this hour.’

‘It was the English who made hours for drinking, not the Scotch. They’ll be making hours for dying next.’

Carter said across the table, ‘I don’t mind if I do. The name’s Carter,’ and Wormold saw with relief that Mr Mac Dougall was pouring out the whisky; there was one suspicion less, for no one surely would want to poison Carter. All the same, he thought there is something wrong with Mr Mac Dougall’s Scottishness. It smelt of fraud like Ossian.

‘Svenson,’ the gloomy Scandinavian said sharply from behind his little Swedish flag; at least Wormold thought it was Swedish: he could never distinguish with certainty between the Scandinavian colours. ‘Wormold,’ he said.

‘What is all this nonsense of the milk?’

‘I think,’ Wormold said, ‘that Dr Braun is being a little too literal.’

‘Or funny,’ Carter said.

‘I don’t think Dr Braun has much sense of humour.’

‘And what do you do, Mr Wormold?’ the Swede asked. ‘I don’t think we have met before, although I know you by sight.’

‘Vacuum cleaners. And you?’

‘Glass. As you know, Swedish glass is the best in the world. This bread is very good. Do you not eat bread?’ He might have prepared his conversation beforehand from a phrase-book.

‘Given it up. Fattening, you know.’

‘I would have said you could have done with fattening.’ Mr Svenson gave a dreary laugh like jollity in a long northern night. ‘Forgive me. I make you sound like a goose.’

At the end of the table, where the Consul General sat, they were beginning to serve the blueplates. Mr Mac Dougall had been wrong about the turkey; the main course was Maryland chicken. But he was right about the carrots and the French fried and the sausages. Dr Braun was a little behind the rest; he was still picking at his Morro crab. The Consul-General must have slowed him down by the earnestness of his conversation and the fixity of his convex lenses. Two waiters came round the table, one whisking away the remains of the crab, the other substituting the blueplates. Only the Consul-General had thought to open his milk. The word ‘Dulles’ drifted dully down to where Wormold sat. The waiter approached carrying two plates; he put one in front of the Scandinavian, the other was Wormold’s. The thought that the whole threat to his life might be a nonsensical practical joke came to Wormold. Perhaps Hawthorne was a humorist, and Dr Hasselbacher…. He remembered Milly asking whether Dr Hasselbacher ever pulled his leg. Sometimes it seems easier to run the risk of death than ridicule. He wanted to confide in Carter and hear his common-sense reply; then looking at his plate he noticed something odd. There were no carrots. He said quickly, ‘You prefer it without carrots,’ and slipped the plate along to Mr Mac Dougall.

‘It’s the French fried I dislike,’ said Mr Mac Dougall quickly and

passed the plate on to the Luxemburg Consul. The Luxemburg Consul, who was deep

in conversation with a German across the table, handed the plate with

absent-minded politeness to his neighbour. Politeness infected all who had not

yet been served, and the plate went whisking along towards Dr Braun, who had

just had the remains of his Morro crab removed. The headwaiter saw what was happening and began to stalk the plate up the table, but it kept a pace ahead of him. The waiter, returning with more blueplates, was intercepted by Wormold, who took one. He looked confused. Wormold began to eat with appetite. ‘The carrots are excellent,’ he said.

The headwaiter hovered by Dr Braun. ‘Excuse me, Dr Braun,’ he said, ‘they have given you no carrots.’

‘I don’t like carrots,’ Dr Braun said, cutting up a piece of chicken. ‘I am so sorry,’ the headwaiter said and seized Dr Braun’s plate. ‘A mistake in the kitchen.’ Plate in hand like a verger with the collection he walked up the length of the room towards the service-door. Mr Mac Dougall was taking a sip of his own whisky.

‘I think I might venture now,’ Wormold said. ‘As a celebration.’

‘Good man. Water or straight?’

‘Could I take your water? Mine’s got a fly in it.’

‘Of course.’ Wormold drank two-thirds of the water and held it out for the whisky from Mr Mac Dougall’s flask. Mr Mac Dougall gave him a generous double. ‘Hold it out again. You are behind the two of us,’ he said, and Wormold was back in the territory of trust. He felt a kind of tenderness for the neighbour he had suspected. He said, ‘We must see each other again.’ ‘An occasion like this would be useless if it didn’t bring people together.’

‘I wouldn’t have met you or Carter without it.’

They all three had another whisky. ‘You must both meet my daughter,’ Wormold said, the whisky warming his cockles.

‘How is business with you?’

‘Not so bad. We are expanding the office.’

Dr Braun rapped the table for silence.

‘Surely,’ Carter said in the loud irrepressible Nottwich voice as warming as the whisky, ‘they’ll have to serve drinks with the toast.’ ‘My lad,’ Mr Mac Dougall said, ‘there’ll be speeches, but no toasts. We have to listen to the bastards without alcoholic aid.’

‘I’m one of the bastards,’ Wormold said.

‘You speaking?’

‘As the oldest member.’

‘I’m glad you’ve survived long enough for that,’ Mr Mac Dougall said. The American Consul-General, called on by Dr Braun, began to speak. He spoke of the spiritual links between the democracies he seemed to number Cuba among the democracies. Trade was important because without trade there would be no spiritual links, or was it perhaps the other way round. He spoke of American aid to distressed countries which would enable them to buy more goods and by buying more goods strengthen the spiritual links…. A dog was howling somewhere in the wastes of the hotel and the headwaiter signalled for the door to be closed. It had been a great pleasure to the American Consul-General to be invited to this lunch today and to meet the leading representatives of European trade and so strengthen still further the spiritual links…. Wormold had two more whiskies.

‘And now,’ Dr Braun said, ‘I am going to call upon the oldest member of our Association. I am not of course referring to his years, but to the length of time he has served the cause of European trade in this beautiful city where, Mr Minister’ -he bowed to his other neighbour, a dark man with a squint -‘we have the privilege and happiness of being your guests. I am speaking, you all know, of Mr Wormold.’ He took a quick look at his notes. ‘Mr James Wormold, the Havana representative of Phastkleaners.’

Mr Mac Dougall said, ‘We’ve finished the whisky. Fancy that now. Just when you need your Dutch courage most.’

Carter said, ‘I came armed as well, but I drank most of it in the plane.

There’s only one glass left in the flask.’

‘Obviously our friend here must have it,, Mr Mac Dougall said. ‘His need is greater than ours.’

Dr Braun said, ‘We may take Mr Wormold as a symbol for all that service means modesty, quietness, perseverance and efficiency. Our enemies picture the salesman often as a loudmouthed braggart who is intent only on putting across some product which is useless, unnecessary, or even harmful. That is not a true picture….’

Wormold said, ‘It’s kind of you, Carter. I could certainly do with a drink.’

‘Not used to speaking?’

‘It’s not only the speaking.’ He leant forward across the table towards

that common or garden Nottwich face on which he felt he could rely for incredulity, reassurance, the easy humour based on inexperience: he was safe with Carter. He said, ‘I know you won’t believe a word of what I’m telling you,’ but he didn’t want Carter to believe. He wanted to learn from him how not to believe. Something nudged his leg and looking down he saw a black dachshund-face pleading with him between the drooping ringlet ears for a scrap the dog must have slipped in through the service-door unseen by the waiters and now it led a hunted life, half hidden below the table-cloth.

Carter pushed a small flask across to Wormold. ‘There’s not enough for two. Take it all.’

‘Very kind of you, Carter.’ He unscrewed the top and poured all that there was into his glass.

‘Only a Johnnie Walker. Nothing fancy.’

Dr Braun said, ‘If anyone here can speak for all of us about the long years of patient service a trader gives to the public, I am sure it is Mr Wormold, whom now I call upon…’

Carter winked and raised an imaginary glass.

‘H-hurry,’ Carter said, ‘You’ve got to h -hurry.’

Wormold lowered the whisky. ‘What did you say, Carter?’

‘I said drink it up quick.’

‘Oh no, you didn’t, Carter.’ Why hadn’t he noticed that stammered aspirate before? Was Carter conscious of it and did he avoid an initial ‘h’ except when he was preoccupied by fear or h-hope? ‘What’s the matter, Wormold?’

Wormold put his hand down to pat the dog’s head and as though by accident he knocked the glass from the table.

‘You pretended not to know the doctor.’

‘What doctor?’

‘You would call him H-Hasselbacher.’

‘Mr Wormold,’ Dr Braun called down the table.

He rose uncertainly to his feet. The dog for want of any better provender was lapping at the whisky on the floor.

Wormold said, ‘I appreciate your asking me to speak, whatever your motives.’ A polite titter took him by surprise he hadn’t meant to say anything funny. He said, ‘This is my first and it looked at one time as though it was going to be my last public appearance.’ He caught Carter’s eye. Carter was frowning. He felt guilty of a solecism by his survival as though he were drunk in public. Perhaps he was drunk. He said, ‘I don’t know whether I’ve got any friends here. I’ve certainly got some enemies.’ Somebody said ‘Shame’ and several people laughed. If this went on he would get the reputation of being a witty speaker. He said, ‘We hear a lot nowadays about the cold war, but any trader will tell you that the war between two manufacturers of the same goods can be quite a hot war. Take Phastkleaners and Nucleaners. There’s not much difference between the two machines any more than there is between two human beings, one Russian or German -and one British. There would be no competition and no war if it wasn’t for the ambition of a few men in both firms; just a few men dictate competition and invent needs and set Mr Carter and myself at each other’s throats.’

Nobody laughed now. Dr Braun whispered something into the ear of the Consul-General. Wormold lifted Carter’s whisky-flask and said, ‘I don’t suppose Mr Carter even knows the name of the man who sent him to poison me for the good of his firm.’ Laughter broke out again with a note of relief. Mr Mac Dougall said, ‘We could do with more poison here,’ and suddenly the dog began to whimper. It broke cover and made for the service-door. ‘Max,’ the headwaiter exclaimed. ‘Max.’ There was silence and then a few uneasy laughs. The dog was uncertain on its feet. It howled and tried to bite its own breast. The headwaiter overtook it by the door and picked it up, but it cried as though with pain and broke from his arms. ‘It’s had a couple,’ Mr Mac Dougall said uneasily.

‘You must excuse me, Dr Braun,’ Wormold said, ‘the show is over.’ He followed the headwaiter through the service-door. ‘Stop.’ ‘What do you want?’

‘I want to find out what happened to my plate.’

‘What do you mean, sir? Your plate?’

‘You were very anxious that my plate should not be given to anyone else.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Did you know that it was poisoned?’

‘You mean the food was bad, sir?’

‘I mean it was poisoned and you were careful to save Dr Braun’s life not mine.’

‘I’m afraid, sir, I don’t understand you. I am busy. You must excuse me.’ The sound of a howling dog came up the long passage from the kitchen, a low dismal howl intercepted by a sharper burst of pain. The headwaiter called, ‘Max!’ and ran like a human being down the passage. He flung open the kitchen-door. ‘Max!’

The dachshund lifted a melancholy head from where it crouched below the table, then began to drag its body painfully towards the headwaiter. A man in a chef’s cap said, ‘He ate nothing here. The plate was thrown away.’ The dog collapsed at the waiter’s feet and lay there like a length of offal. The waiter went down on his knees beside the dog. He said, ‘Max mein Kind. Mein Kind.’

The black body was like an elongation of his own black suit. The kitchen-staff gathered around.

The black tube made a slight movement and a pink tongue came out like toothpaste and lay on the kitchen floor. The headwaiter put his hand on the dog and then looked up at Wormold. The tear-filled eyes so accused him of standing there alive while the dog was dead that he nearly found it in his heart to apologize, but instead he turned and went. At the end of the passage he looked back: the black figure knelt beside the black dog and the white chef stood above and the kitchen-hands waited, like mourners round a grave, carrying their troughs and mops and dishes like wreaths. My death, he thought, would have been more unobtrusive than that.

‘I have come back,’ he said to Beatrice, ‘I am not under the table. I have come back victorious. The dog it was that died.’