The Crocus List

19

Long-distance travel is a fever dream where time and mood slip out of control, leaving one unexpectedly early or late, delighted or depressed, until a mosaic of tiny things builds a flat earth beneath you again. Things like understanding the coins in your hand and the meaningless greeting of a shop-girl, like predicting the traffic behaviour and using a telephone without reading the instructions.

World-seasoned traveller that he thought himself, Maxim sat glumly watching the dawn over the Washington skyline, having woken far too early and dry-mouthed from the air-conditioning in the aircraft and now the hotel. He had already drunk all the ginger ale and soda from the room refrigerator, and was now sipping the tonic water, which tasted hideously medicinal. Outside, it looked like becoming a warm, sunny day, which increased his alienation after the British autumn. It emphasised that he was not only far west of London, but far south as well, on a latitude with Sicily and southern Spain. Later, he would go out and stroll the city before his noon date at the Smithsonian and the afternoon meeting with the Secret Service.

Abruptly, as with all cities and their tight schedules, the street below was jammed with cars and Maxim assumed the coffee shop on the ground floor would be open. In fact, it had been open for some time already, as had half a dozen other places within easy walk, because America believes in man's inalienable right to eat whenever he is awake. On a brief evening stroll, Maxim had also noticed a few tourists who had clearly solved the problem of eating whilst asleep; it is an oddity of America that only tourists are truly fat, never the locals.

The ceremony at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum was for the presentation of an old Spitfire that had beenhauled out of an English lake and identified as belonging to 71 Squadron, the first of the Eagle squadrons formed from American volunteers back in 1940. Restored and repainted in RAF workshops, it was being formally handed over-together with glasses of champagne, Bourbon or Scotch-by the Ambassador's wife in front of a small and mainly military audience. That was why the Liaison Office, looking to make some gesture of welcome, had invited Maxim. Agnes Algar was there because she had asked.

She freely admitted, although only to herself, that this was because Maxim would be there. She did not quite admit that was why she wore her best summer suit, and indeed had it rush-cleaned for the event. It had, after all, needed cleaning, and there wouldn't be many more chances to wear it that autumn, so… and anyway, why shouldn't she look her best for once?

There hadn't been time to get Maxim's name on the usual notice of forthcoming visitors to the embassy; she had been signalled by the Security Service, who shared the Steering Committee's deep distrust of the visit and wanted her to debrief him after his meeting.

"Well, if it comes to that, I don't exactly trust the dear boy myself," she had remarked to her mother, who was winding up a short visit en route to stay with some Canadian cousins. "He has that Attilathe Hun touch which rarely goes over big in diplomatic circles."

"I thought you rather liked him, when you were at Number 10?"

"Oh yes. I dare say even Attilahad his moments."

"I'm sorry I won't meet him. At one time, I thought that you and he…" There was a delicate relentlessness with which Mrs Algar pursued the main task of any mother with a long-unmarried daughter.

"Mother dear, he is Army. Can you seeme as an Army Wife?"

"I don't know… You always seem to pick ratherdashing men. I mean Graham with his yachts, and David was a test pilot, wasn't he?"

"Graham was a snake." Said very grimly. "And David was another."

"Oh yes," her mother had said with a smile of-surprisingly-reminiscence; "the dashing types usually are, in the end."

After the ceremony, Agnes and Maxim walked through other halls of the museum, where she displayed more knowledge of the aeroplanes and nearly as much of the rockets as Maxim-essentially a personal-weapons infantryman-could offer.

"So what do you think of Washington after-what? eighteen or twenty hours?"

Maxim smiled and considered. "Green, and white, and wide and dusty."

"They're certainly tearing things down and putting them up at the moment. Nothing more than that?"

"It sounds a bit daft, but… it looks like the capital of America. Like they'd want it to look."

"Yes-the Founding Fathers, and L'Enfant, did a pretty good job." She stopped, looking up at a rocket: a towering metal redwood that had never flown because the ones that flew were junk scattered across the Gulf of Mexico. "They do things whole-heartedly, over here. Even if it's some idea like building a restaurant like a ship. They make itlook like a ship, with waiters like pirates singing shanties into your clam chowder. We'd get scared half the way through and back off and just stick a few ship pictures round the walls. It's good to see you again, old sport, although the reason could be more auspicious. I wondered if it was you when we first got news of the Abbey-no insult, just that some people get picked for some jobs. How's George liking life back at Mo D? Not drinking too much more than too much?"

"He's ticking over. It's nice to see you, too." Perhaps it was the estrangement of Washington, perhaps that he hadn't expected Agnes at the Smithsonian, but it had been a surprising thrill to see the familiar smile in the crowd. Although not all that familiar: her oval face was leaner now, her light ginger hair cut shorter and more clearly styled. It might be something about blending with the efficient American women he had seen around the city, or it might be a feeling of exile. She smoked more than she had done before, too, lighting a cigarette with real hunger when they came out into the sunlight.

"Well, you'll be seeing more of me. You know I'm debriefing you this afternoon? Maybe you'll feel like a drink after that. I'd like to hear what you've been up to."

"Certainly. Happy to." But there was a flat wariness in his voice, and she didn't push it. But I was right about him being up to something, she thought.