Spy Line

6

I am not paranoid. That is to say I am not paranoid to the extent of distrusting everyone around me. Only some of them. When I went into the office next morning all seemed normal: too normal. When I'd finished looking at my own desk, I was summoned upstairs. Dicky Cruyer, German Desk supremo and my immediate superior, was in a singular mood that I could almost describe as jovial.

'Good morning, Bernard!' he said and smiled. He was a slim bony man with pale complexion and a golliwog-style head of curly hair that I suspected he regularly had permed.

During my few weeks of living rough in Berlin I'd reconciled myself to the idea that I would never again see this office. Never again see England, in fact. So now I looked round Dicky's office and marvelled at it as if seeing it all for the first time. I examined anew the magnificent rosewood table that Dicky used instead of a desk, and behind it the wall filled with photos, mostly of Dicky. I inspected the soft black leather Eames chair and matching footstool and the slightly mangy lion skin on the floor which I noticed he'd positioned less obtrusively. I looked at it all with a feeling of wonder.

'I hope you're in a mood for hard work,' said Dicky. 'There is plenty to do now your holiday is over.' He leaned forward, elbows on table with fingertips touching. He was in shirt-sleeves with bright red braces and a floral patterned bow tie. The Deputy had objected to Dicky's denim and leather and now he wore suits in the office, but the newly acquired loud ties and bright braces were a subtle erosion of these dress restrictions.

I looked at him. 'Yes, I am.' He smiled. Did he really think I'd been on holiday? There was no way I could tell from his warm relaxed friendly smile. But the way he touched his fingertips together in a rapid succession of staccato taps betrayed what I judged to be an underlying nervousness.

'The Deputy Controller Europe wants a pow-wow at ten-thirty. You'd better come along too. Take notes.'

'What about?' The Deputy Controller Europe was an Australian named Augustus Stowe. Dicky imperfectly concealed his envy of Stowe and usually referred to him by his title, with sarcastic emphasis as if the position Stowe occupied was self-evidently unsuited to the man's abilities. This attitude to Stowe, complete with whispered doubts about his competence, was shared by some of Dicky's immediate circle. Stowe, a formidable childhood prodigy, had stayed on to teach Logic at Perth University, and some now slightingly referred to him as 'Doctor Stowe' as if a man with a doctorate was too unworldly for the Department.

'There are a number of things,' said Dicky vaguely. It was Dicky's way of admitting that he hadn't the slightest idea. I suspected that Dicky was intimidated by Stowe, who had a savage temper when any shortcomings were uncovered and so Dicky's meetings with him were sometimes less than convivial. 'Coffee?'

'Yes, please.' Whatever shortcomings Dicky had they did not extend to his talent for self-preservation or to his coffee. Chagga, from Mr Higgins' new shop in Duke Street. Dicky sent motorcycle messengers to collect it. One day someone would ask what urgent secret dispatches were coming in aromatic brown packets from Mr Higgins two or three times a week.

'Capital!' said Dicky as his secretary brought in a polished wooden tray with steaming glass jug, the Spode chinaware and creamer. The cups contained hot water: Dicky said warmed cups were a vital contribution to the flavour. He tipped the hot water into a bowl and poured out his own coffee first. When tasting it he frowned with eyes half-closed and jug held poised. 'Even better than the last lot,' he pronounced.

'Is Stowe gunning for me?'

'He's gunning for someone,' said Dicky.

Dicky looked out of his window while he drank. The weather system that had Berlin still gripped in winter temperatures had loosened its hold on England, where a succession of highs had provided enough warmth to coax the trees into bud and bathe the streets in a deceptively golden morning sunlight. It was a false summer, the sort of day when a man leaves home without an overcoat and comes back with pneumonia.

At ten-thirty I made my way to the room of the Deputy Europe. I remembered this room when it was decorated to the expensive and somewhat avant-garde taste of Bret Rensselaer – chrome, glass, black leather and deep carpet – but now all that was gone. To say it was bare would be a gross understatement. It was even without floor covering. The walls still had the coat of grey-green underpaint that marked Bret's departure. Where once there had been an exquisite Dürer, now hung the standard portrait of the Queen. Stowe's desk was a metal one of the sort used in the typing pool, and his chair was of the back-breaking design that the Ministry of Works used to discourage visitors from sitting too long in the reception area downstairs,

Dicky Cruyer was already there. He'd put his jacket on over his bright red braces, which I interpreted as a gesture of deference. Possibly their meeting had started earlier. Dicky liked to arrange an opportunity for a confidential chat before the real business started. He was perched on a metal chair with uneven feet so that it moved a fraction of an inch when he shifted his weight. All three of the visitors' chairs in this room had the same defect. I'd heard someone say the Deputy Controller had arranged for the chairs to be bent but I thought it unlikely that Stowe required any such psychological devices for discomforting his visitors.

Augustus Stowe had jet-black hair. As well as supplying an abundant moustache, this same black hair grew from inside his ears and straggled from his nostrils; it appeared in tufts on his cheeks and great tangles of it covered the backs of his hands. Strange then that he was so bald. The carefully combed hair, and the sideburns, only emphasized the perfect shiny pink dome of his head.

'No good sitting there scratching your arse, Dicky. Some bugger will have to go,' said Stowe with the antipodean directness of manner that had earned him few friends in the Department. 'You could go yourself,' he suggested in a way that implied that this would be a last and desperate resort.

'Leave it with me, Gus,' said Dicky.

Although it wouldn't be his style to comment on such a thing, I had the feeling that Stowe didn't like being called Gus. I wondered if Dicky failed to realize this, or whether it was deliberate provocation. 'No, Dicky,' said Stowe. 'When I leave things with you, they end up back in my tray six weeks later – flagged urgent.'

Dicky pressed his fingers against his thin bloodless lips, as if suppressing a temptation to smile at such a good joke. 'Bernard could go,' Dicky offered. 'He could manage it.'

'Manage it!' scoffed Stowe in his flat Australian growl. 'Of course. That's just what I've been saying. Any bloody fool could manage it.'

'Bernard knows Vienna,' said Dicky.

It wasn't true by any means but I didn't contradict Dicky, and he knew I wouldn't. It simply wasn't done to contradict your boss in front of a superior. 'Do you, Bernard?' said Stowe. There was a fat old fly buzzing round his head. He waved it away with a rather regal gesture.

'I was there with Harry Lime,' I said.

Stowe gave me a brief disparaging smile. ' Vienna is only part of it,' he said. He was not an easy man to fool, although perhaps that wouldn't have been so evident to anyone meeting him for the first time. Stowe was wearing a grey three-piece suit of curious weave, a lumpy knitted tie and zip-sided high boots. All of his clothes looked like theatrical costume rummaged from the hamper of some long-defunct repertory company. Even his wristwatch was an unusual trapezoid shape, its crystal discoloured brown, so that to see the time he had to bring his wrist close up to his face.

To peer at his watch he'd taken off his heavy tortoiseshell glasses. The stylish spectacles were an incongruous aspect of Stowe. One would have expected him to wear small circular gold-rimmed glasses, bent and perhaps secured with a piece of flesh-coloured sticking plaster. These spectacles were expensive and modern, and after looking at his wristwatch he brandished them as if wanting to make the most of them.

'And Bernard has good Russian,' said Dicky.

'They will all speak English,' Stowe said, looking again at his watch.

'Not amongst themselves,' said Dicky. 'Bernard will be able to understand what they say to each other.'

'Ummm,' said Stowe. 'What's the time?' He was twisting the crown of the watch to adjust the hands.

'Ten fifty-two,' said Dicky.

'You're not empowered to make any concessions,' Stowe told me solemnly. 'Listen to what these hoodlums have to say. If you think it's all baloney, come back and say so. But no deals. And come straight back. No sightseeing tours on the blue Danube, or tasting the May wine at the heuriger houses in Grinzing. Right?' Even Stowe could not resist telling us he'd been there.

'Of course,' said Dicky. The fly buzzed round Dicky now. Dicky gave no sign of noticing it and it flew away.

'And lastly, I don't want any of our bloody Yankee friends mixed up in it,' said Stowe as he opened a folder and turned its pages. Dicky looked at me and gave me a fleeting smile. I saw then that Dicky was not intimidated as much as discomposed by Stowe. He didn't know whether to respond with Stowe's same bar-room vernacular or keep him at his distance with deference and good manners.

'How would they get mixed up in it?' asked Dicky.

Stowe referred to his notes. The fly alighted on a page and walked insolently across the heading. 'They'll be on to any of our people arriving in Vienna. They'll be on to them right away.' With a surprising speed his hand shot forward. His fingers flicked and closed tightly upon the fly, but when he opened his fingers there was no fly.

'Do you think so, Gus?' said Dicky.

He gave a crafty smile. 'I'm bloody sure so. I worked with the Yanks in Korea. Corps headquarters: I know what they're like.' He wiped his hand on his trouser leg just as if the remains of the fly had been upon it. Perhaps it itched.

'What are they like?' said Dicky, dutifully providing the cue for which Stowe waited.

Stowe looked at Dicky, and sniffed in the contemptuous manner of a practised lecturer. 'It is in the character of your average American, an aspect of his history, that he is curious by nature, resourceful by upbringing and empirical by training,' said Stowe. 'In other words: Yanks are nosy interfering bastards. Stay clear of them.' He made an unsuccessful grab at the fly, and then waved at it angrily as it flew away. 'And I don't want one of you big spenders checking into the Vienna Hilton with your dark glasses on, and asking the desk clerk if they have a night-safe and telex facilities. Got it?'

Dicky, whose tastes for expense-account high living were directed more to the grandeur of the Imperial, nodded agreement.

Stowe must have guessed from the look on my face that Dicky hadn't told me much about the subject under discussion. In fact Dicky had told me nothing. Stowe said, 'You're having one of those off-the-record meetings with people from the other side.' Facing my blank look he added, 'Russkies, I mean. Don't ask me who or how or where, because I'm not allowed to tell you.'

'Yes, sir,' I said.

'Top priority, so we can assume they have some bloody complaint to whine about. There will be threats too if I know anything about the way these bastards operate. Stonewall all the time, and don't get ruffled.'

'Is it something Vienna Field Unit could do?' I asked as diffidently as I was able. 'I've never known any of them to become even slightly raffled.'

Stowe touched his bald head very delicately almost as if he was smoothing his hair. He must have thought the fly had settled upon his head but in fact it was tramping across his desk. For a moment he seemed to forget the conversation we were having, then he looked at me. 'I told you: we've got to avoid the Yanks.' His eyes fixed on me, he added, ' Vienna is packed with Yanks… CIA I mean.'

So it wasn't tourists or encyclopaedia salesmen he was worried about.

'Why would the CIA be interested?' I asked. 'Or do you mean we are going to send someone to Vienna for every off-the-record contact?'

Slowly a smile came to Stowe's face. It was not much of a smile but what it lacked in joy it made up for in guile. 'Very good, Bernard!' he said, and there was in his voice a note of approval that I had not heard before. 'Very good!' He turned his head to share the fun with Dicky. Dicky gave a dutiful smirk that revealed that he didn't know what the hell was going on. I recognized it easily: it was one of Dicky's standard expressions.

But soon I saw that Stowe's pleasure was feigned; the way he reacted to what he judged to be insubordinate questioning. Speaking slowly Stowe said, 'I know the CIA are interested, Bernard, because a little bird told me. And if I'm told to make sure such events go smoothly in the future, maybe I will send someone to Vienna every time. And it might bloody well be you. Would you like that, Bernard?'

I didn't answer. Dicky smiled to show that now he knew what Stowe was talking about. Helpfully he said, 'So you think the Vienna CIA will try to interfere, Gus?'

'I know they bloody will,' he said. 'Brody, the Vienna Station Chief, is an old sparring partner of mine. He'll screw this one up for us if he gets half a chance.'

'And he knows it's on?' I asked.

'Joe Brody is a tough old bastard,' said Stowe. 'And he's very good at guessing.'

Stowe stared at me and nodded his head. I wondered if that was intended to be some special warning for me.

'What do you make the time now?' Stowe asked while he was tapping his watch. Dicky told him having consulted an elaborate wristwatch that had a tachometer, a perpetual calendar programmed to allow for leap years until the year 2100 and a little moon that waxed and waned. Stowe growled and hit his old timepiece with the flat of his hand, as if punishing it for failing to meet requirements.

Dicky got to his feet. 'Okay, Gus. I'll come back to you with some ideas tomorrow.' As Stowe opened his mouth to object Dicky said, 'Or perhaps this afternoon.'

'Jesus Christ, Dicky,' Stowe said. 'I know how jealously you guard your little realm, and about this overdeveloped amour propre that is a byword of all dealings with German Desk. But if you think I don't know you went to the Deputy D-G last week demanding Bernard's return because he was the only man for this job, you'd better think again.'

Dicky's face went bright red with anger, or with embarrassment, or perhaps a combination of those emotions over which English gentlemen have been supposed to exercise complete control. No doubt my presence added to his discomfort. 'Did Sir Percy tell you that?' Dicky stammered.

'A little spy told me,' said Stowe abrasively. Then: 'Yes, what do you think Sir Percy and I talk about at the briefing, except what all you bloody Controllers go snivelling to nun about?'

Dicky was standing now, and he gripped the back of the chair he'd been occupying, like a prisoner in the dock. Flustered he said, 'I merely said, confirmed that is… I told Sir Percy no more than I told you… that…'

'That Bernard could manage it? Yes, right. Well, why come in here pretending you hadn't already gone above my head?' The fly appeared, did a circuit and went into a holding pattern around Stowe's cranium.

'I assure you that using Bernard was not my idea,' said Dicky indignantly. Stowe smiled grimly.

So that was it. This meeting had been called specifically to stage a Departmental brawl, and it was now evident that the clash was not really about who should attend an off-the-record meeting with a KGB delegation. This bare-knuckle contest was calculated to rebuff some rash attempt by Dicky to assail Stowe's territory. It was my bad luck to be the blunt instrument that Stowe had chosen to beat upon Dicky's head.

In the manner of the English, Dicky's voice had grown quieter as he became angry. Now he weighed his words carefully as he went into an involved explanation. Dicky was so offended that it made me wonder if he was telling the truth. In that case it would mean that the Deputy had arranged my recall, and pretended that it was at Dicky's request to conceal the fact from Stowe.

I was determined to get out of this quarrel. 'May I get back to my desk?' I asked. 'I'm expecting an important phone call.' Stowe waved a hand in the air in a gesture that might have signalled agreement to my leaving the room but which might have been rejecting something Dicky was saying. Or might have been a bid for the fly.

As I was leaving the room, Stowe's words overlaid Dicky's and Dicky said, 'Look here, Gus, I give you my solemn word that Bernard wasn't mentioned…'and then sat down again as if he was going to be there a long time.

With a sigh of relief I stepped out into the corridor. The fly came with me.

That evening I was very happy to get back to my little house in Balaklava Road. Until now I had not felt much affection for this cramped and inconvenient suburban house, but after my cold and lonely bed in Berlin it had become a paradise. My unexpected arrival the previous evening had been discounted. Tonight was to be my welcome home.

The children had painted a bright banner – Welcome Home Daddy – and draped it across the fireplace where a real fire was flickering. Even though half of me was a Berliner, the sight of a coal fire always made me appreciate the many subtle joys of coming home. My wonderful Gloria had prepared a truly miraculous meal, as good as anything any local restaurant could have provided. She'd chilled a bottle of Bollinger and I sat in our neat little front room with the children squatting on the carpet and demanding to hear about my adventures in Berlin. Gloria had told them only that I was away on duty. After a couple of glasses of champagne on an empty stomach, I invented an involved story about tracking down a gang of thieves, keeping the narrative sufficiently improbable to get a few laughs.

I was more and more surprised at the manner in which the children were maturing. Amongst their ideas and jokes – comparatively adult and sophisticated for the most part – the evidence of some childish pleasure would break in. Requests for a silly game or a treasure hunt or infantile song. How lucky I was to be with them while they grew up. What misplaced sense of patriotic duty persuaded Fiona to be elsewhere? And was her choice of priorities some bounden commitment that enslaved only the middle classes? I'd grown up amongst working-class boys from communities where nothing preceded family loyalty. Fiona had inflicted her moral obligations upon me and the children. She had forced us to contribute to her sacrifice. Why should I not feel grievously wronged?

A timer pinged. Effortlessly Gloria led the way into the dining room where the table was set with our best china and glass. When the dinner came it was delicious. 'Would champagne be all right with the whole meal?' 'Can a fish swim?' Another bottle of Bollinger and a risotto made with porcini. After that there was baked lobster. Then a soft Brie with French bread. And, to finish, huge apples baked with honey and raisins. A big jug of rich egg custard came with it. It was a perfect end to a wonderful meal. Sally sorted out each and every raisin and arranged them around the edge of her plate but Sally always did that. Billy counted them, 'Rich man, poor man, beggarman, thief…' to foretell that Sally would marry a beggarman. Sally said she'd always hated that rhyme and Gloria – optimist, feminist and mathematician – rejected it as inaccurate on the grounds that it gave a girl only one chance in four of a desirable partner.

The children were both in that no-man's-land between childhood and adult life. Billy was dedicated to motorcars and beautiful handwriting. Sally was chosen to play Portia in Julius Caesar and gave us her rendition of her favourite scene. Her Teddy Bear played Brutus.

'Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus,

Is it excepted I should know no secrets

That appertain to you?'

Dismissing the marital prophecy we all declared it to be a memorable family occasion.

'The children are old enough now to enjoy celebrating together as a family,' said Gloria after they had been put to bed. She was standing looking into the dying embers of the open fire.

'I'll never forget this evening,' I said. 'Never.'

She turned. 'I love you, Bernard,' said Gloria as if she'd never said it before. 'Now before I sit down, do you want a drink or anything?'

'And I love you, Gloria,' I said. I'd resisted voicing my feelings for too long because I still felt a tinge of guilt about the difference in our ages but my time away from her had changed things. Now I was happy to tell her how I felt. 'You are wonderful,' I said, taking her hand and pulling her down to sit with me on the sofa. 'You work miracles for all of us. I should be asking you what I can do for you.'

Her face was very close. She looked sad as she put a hand on my cheek as if touching a statue, a precious statue but a statue nevertheless. She looked into my eyes as if seeing me for the very first time and said, 'Sometimes, Bernard, I wish you would say you loved me without my saying it to you first.'

'I'm sorry, darling. Did the children thank you for that delicious meal?'

'Yes. They are lovely children, Bernard.'

'You are good for all of us,' I said.

'I got all the food from Alfonso's,' she confessed in the little-girl voice she affected sometimes. 'Except the baked apples. I did the baked apples myself. And the egg custard.'

'The baked apples were the best part of the welcome home.'

'I hope the best part of the welcome home is yet to come,' she said archly.

'Let's see,' I said. She switched out the light. It was a full moon and the back garden was swamped with that horrid blue sheen that made it look like a picture on television. I hate moonlight.

'What is it?'

'It's good to be home,' I said, staring at the ugly little garden. She came up behind me and put her arm round me.

'Don't go away again,' she said. 'Not ever. Promise?'

'I promise.' This was no time to reveal that Dicky and Stowe had got a little jaunt to Vienna lined up for me. She might have thought that I welcomed the prospect and the truth was that I had some irrational dread of it. Vienna was not a big city and never has been: it is a little provincial town where narrow-minded peasants go to the opera, instead of the pig market, to exchange spiteful gossip. At least that's the way I saw it: in the past Vienna had not been a lucky town for me.