The Crocus List

12

The reception at the American Ambassador's residence had been planned as a cheery thank-you for making the President's visit so smooth and uneventful. It was now doomed to be as cheery as watching a chess match in the rain. Probably like George himself, most of the guests had first decided to stay away, then decided that would look bad, and finally that perhaps things would seem brighter after the fifth drink. Certainly this theory was being given every chance.

George grabbed the one full glass off a tray and looked round for cover. In one corner there was a television personality wearing a television personality shirt, just in case you couldn't place the face; another corner was full of political lords, faded or bloated according to their own tastes. Then, thankfully, he saw Scott-Scobie of the Foreign Office wedged on a sofa between an American songwriter and a woman in gold Lurexscales that turned her into a gilded lizard. Scott-Scobie caught George's eye and smiled desperately.

"I told him," the songwriter was saying, "'Why are you putting the accents in the wrong places in my lyrics?' So he said, 'Okay, I'll change them.'Just like that."

"He never did breathe right," the woman said.

Scott-Scobie muttered an apology and heaved himself upright; he was mid-forties, plump and pink with curly dark hair and usually known as 'Swinging S-S', but there was no swing in him tonight. He drained his glass. "Welcome to the funeral of the Special Relationship."

George looked around for a tray. "What're you drinking?"

"Everything. And it doesn't seem to make a whit of difference. Have you ever noticed that?-colds and miseryseem to sop up alcohol, leaving you stone cold sober. Scientific fact. Why didn't I run away to Australia as a lad?"

"You wouldn't have liked it: it's got Australians in it."

"Into each life some Australians must fall. Anyway, they'll probably be the only allies we've got by the end of the year, being too far away to have heard of Berlin."

The reminder settled on George like a wet overcoat. "Did they go ahead with the ODCommittee then?"

"They did," Scott-Scobie said grimly. "We're going to talk to the Russians. Unilaterally."

"Lord." George made a iwo-handed grab at a scurrying tray. "I thought they might have postponed it, with Barling not yet in his grave…"

"He wasn't part of the ODCommittee." Scott-Scobie gulped and then peered into his glass to see what he was gulping. "And do please remember I've said nothing."

"What's the next move?"

"My lips are sealed. If they weren't, I might tell you that a Russian delegation will arrive here disguised as caviare salesmen to work out the preliminaries, then there'll be some sort of crash conference in Helsinki or Vienna. My side's been pleading to go slow, bury it in the Geneva talks-damn it, the Russians will play along. They've got half of what they want just by an agreement to talk. Splits us off from"-he flapped a loose hand at the room, the Americans, the French, the West German Minister-Counsellor explaining British education to a Dutch Admiral-"all of them. But the PM wants some signed paper to wave at the House and prove he's got a diplomatic breakthrough even if it only says Peace In Our Time in Russkie. Oh well, maybe somebody'll assassinate the delegation when it gets here."

"Scottie, don'tsay such things."

"No, I suppose it wouldn't be for the best. So you'd better see to it that nothing happens."

"Security details are not my province," George protested, recalling just how much, together with Culliman, he had made it his province. But my God, he thought, if Barling really had been the target, could the visiting Russians be next? He shuddered.

There was a sudden hush in the big, crowded room. The Ambassador and his wife had come in from receiving guests in the hall and the crowd was parting in front of them as for Royalty-although mainly because nobody wanted to talk to him. However resolutely one chattered of the weather and education, the sole topic of the evening was written in haggard lines down the Ambassador's pale face.

Then two elderly women stepped bravely forward -American, from the determination to look their best at any age which set them so far apart from the comfortable dowdiness of the British wives. The crowd relaxed into babble again, but the reshuffle had revealed their corner to James Ferrebee, who was broad-shouldering his way towards them. George didn't much want to meet Ferrebee again so soon.

But Scott-Scobie had decided that the only way to be rid of his misery was to pass it on. "Evening, James. We were just discussing whether or not to let Persons Unknown bump off your visiting Russkies. Got them all flight-planned and booked into the best haunts of capitalism?"

Ferrebee glowered down at them. "We were rather hoping that the visit could be handled without help from the cocktail party circuit. And that Mo D won't be taking precautions against an American strike on London whilst they're here."

George hunched his shoulders and mumbled into his glass. '

"And the Primate's trip?" Scott-Scobie went on cheerily. "That's all lined up?"

"The what?" George asked.

"Don't you read your Church Times'?"

"Of course I don't."

"You should, George, you should. Your spiritual life must be sadly empty if you don't know who's just been appointed vicar of Sodbury-in-the-Wold. Nor, apparently, that the Archbishop of Canterbury has a long-standing commitment to preach in Berlin on All Saints' Day. He speaks good German, doesn't he, Jim?"

Ferrebee nodded. "He'll be addressing the Berlin Senate, too."

"Splendid. And knowing the old boy's views, I wouldn't be surprised if he slipped in a few words about sticking together on their fair city. A ray of hope yet."

"It'll doubtless be widely reported in the Church Times," George grumped.

"It'll get splashed in the Berlin papers," Ferrebee said tartly. "Ours will have to carry something."

"And in Pravda," Scott-Scobie added. "They take our church leaders seriously. They spread that nasty story about the Arch B and choirboys."

George looked from one to other of them. "Does your Minister approve of this?"

"Good Lord, no," Scott-Scobie grinned. "Our Master thinks it's a quite frightful idea. But we're doing what we can: James here is going over with him. Unofficially, of course-he's taking a few days' leave-but we can still hope that our Jim's well-known diplomatic talents will persuade the Arch B to tone down his remarks a little."

If Ferrebee had any outstanding talent for diplomacy, he had kept it hidden from George-and, to judge by his career, from the Foreign Office itself. But now even he was wearing a bleak smile to match Scott-Scobie's grin.

George shrugged. "Well, if your Minister really thinks that…"

"Who knows what our Minister thinks? More to the point, he hasn't been in the job long enough to know who half of us are, let alone whatwe might think. He's just happy that one of his loyal servants will be on hand. "

Ferrebee said: "I was going anyway. I have an old friend who's chief pilot for Brentwood Systems; they run a Jetstream and think it would be good public relations to fly the Archbishop over in something like comfort. With his arthritis he can't really take ordinary airline seating."

"Who can?" Scott-Scobie asked. "Those European flights have become positively conjugal. I must say I wouldn't mind you laying on a private plane for me one of these days, James."

"I think I might be well into retirement before you develop arthritis, let alone any religious convictions." Ferrebee's voice had become austere.

"Well, there you have it, George. Arch B denounces Berlinbetrayal, Foreign Sec Sees The Light, reconvenes the ODCommittee for prayer meeting and reversal of its decision. Hallelujah, brothers, hallelu/a/i."

Ferrebee was looking down at Scott-Scobie as if he were a blocked lavatory. "There was a time when a statement by the Primate of All England on the morality of a given foreign policy was, had to be, taken seriously."

"There was a time," Scott-Scobie said, suddenly morose, "when the word of an Englishman meant something. It meant that, no matter what he'd said, he'd act in his own best interests. It doesn't even mean that, now. Berlin today, Sodbury-in-the-Wold tomorrow. I think I'll become a drunk like George."

George couldn't even summon up the spirit to feel offended.