Bernard Samson: Faith - Bernard Samson: Faith Part 23
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Bernard Samson: Faith Part 23

Frank went to his defence: 'You left finger-marks on the front of a shirt I lent you once; about three years ago. The marks never came out: faint brown patches. I think it must have been gun oil. I gave the shirt to Oxfam finally.'

'I'm sorry, Frank. You should have told me. I must replace it. Do New & Lingwood have your up-to-date measurements?'

'I've got dozens of dress-shirts,' said Frank, who'd been getting his shirts at New & Lingwood since he was at Eton. 'I'm still wearing some my father left me. How often do I need a dress-shirt these days?'

'Going to the opera?' I knew it was not very likely. Frank was not a keen opera-goer. Jazz was his first choice. It was a waste; his job gave him a chance to see a new opera production every night if he so wished.

'The garrison. The regiment's farewell dinner for the commander. I'll be the only civvy there.'

'That's quite an honour, Frank,' I said, because for Frank being with the soldiers was the ultimate joy. Sometimes I thought that it was the tragedy of Frank's life that he'd not been a career soldier. Frank loved the British Army, in all its many functions and guises, in a way that even its most dedicated soldiers could not have bettered. But Frank came down from university with a reputation as a Greek scholar, and someone on high decided that he would be wasted in the army.

'My wife couldn't make it.'

'Too bad,' I said automatically, although I knew that Frank's wife hated attending army functions. She was one of those English people for whom everything foreign is either alarming or inferior or both. In fact she hated Berlin in every way, and remained in their house in England as much as she could. But it was not unknown for Frank to console himself with accommodating young ladies, of whom he had a considerable selection. At one time he'd even bedded Zena. I suppose Frank's love-life was an important aspect of Tarrant's continuing employment; he knew enough to write a book, and was wise enough to resist doing so.

Frank always fell deeply in love with his young lady friends. That was Frank's style: devotion, sincerity and passion, but it never seemed to last. I sometimes wondered if he took his inamoratas along to any of these exclusive army functions. While Frank's more usual habitat a Berlin's Anglo-German fraternity a was a hotbed for gossip, the army could show exemplary discretion about such matters.

'I've plenty of time,' said Frank. Anyone who had dealings with the English knew that such a declaration was a polite way of saying that he was pressed for time.

'I went over there today,' I said. 'I spoke with a man named Fedosov. Does that ring a bell?'

'VERDI?' said Frank.

'And VERDI's father too. He of the Number Five Red Banner Party.'

'Oh, that Fedosov. Are you any good with cuff-links, Bernard? My housekeeper washes these dress-shirts herself; by hand. I think she must pour a ton of starch into each one. It's like wearing a suit of armour.'

I took the first of the gold torpedo-shaped cuff-links and stabbed it through the starched buttonhole. It was devilishly difficult. 'He was one of my father's agents,' I said very casually. 'Did you know that?'

'Not specifically, but it doesn't surprise me. He had a few people over there that he wouldn't pass on to anyone. Did you go over there and face the old man with his past then?'

'Yes, I did.'

'What happened?' said Frank. He gave me the second cuff-link and lifted his arm to offer the other sleeve.

'He hit me with a metal crucifix and knocked me unconscious.'

'Did he?' said Frank, poker-faced. He could display a caustic wit, especially in response to any of my demonstrated failings, but he restrained it now. 'And you saw the son? VERDI?'

'He brought a doctor to look at me. I was unconscious. The old man thought he'd killed me.'

'Yes, your head. I can see the swelling. Have you seen a doctor on this side?'

'I've only just come back.'

'I'll get one of the army people to have a look at you. You should have an X-ray. I say! Are you all right?'

'Just a nasty turn. I'll sit down for a moment,' I said. I had that stomach-turning nausea that often comes before a fainting fit.

'It's the reaction. Shock goes like that, Bernard. An hour or two afterwards ... I'll put you on a plane (or London tonight. I don't like the look of you one bit.' He picked up the phone and dialled the internal line. When Tarrant came on the phone he told him to call the RAF and tell them to save a seat on their evening flight: top priority, Frank said. And get an extra car and driver this end, and a car and driver at the London end too. 'Tell London that I want Mr Samson in a bed in the London Clinic or some such establishment. He is concussed. A complete physical examination.' And Tarrant must go to the airport with me in case there was any problem of identification. The RAF people knew Tarrant.

'Don't finish that whisky,' said Frank, putting down the phone with one hand while using the other to move the malt whisky away from me. 'That might have been what brought it on.'

'I don't think so,' I said. At that moment the prospect of being whisked away by magic on the evening plane, and escape from any questions Werner might ask me, away from Frank and the bone-freezing cold in this bleak city, was an attractive proposition.

'You go straight to the London Clinic or wherever. The driver will have all the necessary documentation. I'll put a message on the machine for London Central and tell them your arrival time and that you are hurt.'

'Thank you, Frank,' I said. I let my head loll back and closed my eyes. 'VERDI seemed to think that the D-G was opposed to this scheme of Dicky's.'

'How did he get to hear of that?' said Frank, continuing to work on the other cuff. He didn't seem unduly alarmed at the leak, or even concerned.

'I thought you might know.'

'Werner Volkmann and VERDI have had meetings,' said Frank.

'Does Werner know the politics and arguments going on in London?'

'Don't sound so amazed,' said Frank. 'Werner's new job is on the line. He must be interested in its chances of getting approval.'

'Dicky will push it through,' I said, just to see what Frank would say to that.

'It's Dicky's chance of getting Operations permanently. That would be a major step up for him.'

'Next stop Deputy?'

'Let's not go through the ceiling,' said Frank. 'Look, could you help with the final bit?'

Frank had got his second cuff-link through one side of the cuff but the other side was completely sealed and resisting all his efforts.

'Lovely,' said Frank when I completed the job for him. He tugged at his cuffs as he admired himself in the mirror. 'It wouldn't hurt you if Dicky became Deputy D-G. By that time Fiona would be ready to take over Operations and there would be a chance for you as German Stations.'

'I've all but given up those sort of ambitions,' I said. There was a time when Dicky and I were running neck and neck for any promotions that came along. Now I was being talked of as a possible subordinate to him. And even that was unlikely if I was to face the truth of it.

When Frank turned to me and slapped my arm in some sort of gesture of commiseration it didn't cheer me up. I was hoping that he might provide me with a few encouraging lies. I got his jacket from the hanger and helped him into it.

'I'm sorry to have burst in on you like this,' I said.

He took a gold watch from his waistcoat to see the time. Frank was old-fashioned enough to believe that only waiters wore wrist-watches with evening suits. 'They will hold the plane; it's a priority seat. But you'd better be getting along.' He was fixing his miniature medals to his jacket. It was a rather meagre display of gongs. The intelligence service is rather sparing with them. It was at that moment that I understood why Frank so coveted a knighthood. He wanted to go along to drink with his soldier pals, and have on his chest a bauble to compare with all the glittering hardware they'd accumulated in a lifetime of soldiering.

'Thanks,' I said.

'I'm glad you came to see me, Bernard,' said Frank as he buttoned his waistcoat and tugged it down. 'But you have never asked me how I feel about the VERDI operation ... Werner's network and all that ...'

'How do you feel, Frank?'

'I shall do everything I can to screw it up.'

'Why?'

'Why don't we just say that I don't want any secret network formed in my bailiwick, unless I'm the one setting it up.'

I looked at him. I knew it wasn't the true reason. At least it wasn't the only reason. Frank wasn't the sort of man who strongly objected to others doing work for which he would be sure to receive a large measure of the credit. 'No,' I said.

'I've sent a formal objection to the D-G.'

'Was he pleased to hear that his wasn't the only voice raised in protest?'

'Yes. Every little helps,' said Frank. 'The fact is that I feel that this is the wrong time to mount a big operation that can only have a limited life. I'm too old to have another one of those blood-and-thunder confrontations, with tanks and guns sighting up across Checkpoint Charlie. And where will I find the field agents to handle it? Do you remember how many good people we lost last time?'

Yes, that sounded more like the real reason. Frank had settled down into a live-and-let-live routine that suited his lifestyle. Tackling the Soviets in any practical way would run the risk of Frank's evenings being spoiled and his social life ravaged. 'Yes, I remember, Frank,' I said. 'But I thought that was what we got paid for.'

'That's because you were a war baby,' said Frank. 'But some of us remember life without cold wars, hot wars and any wars at all. We even cherish the hope that such days might come round again.'

No one really enjoys being in hospital I suppose. But two days of check-ups gave me a chance to sort out my thoughts. They couldn't get a bed for me in the London Clinic so I ended up in a small private hospital on the wrong side of Marylebone Road. It was an ugly little room, newly redecorated and smelling of paint. There was a small sink in one corner, and over it a mirror and a glass shelf holding a toothbrush glass and a comb. On one wall there was a light-box for examining X-ray photos and above that a TV set extended on a swivel arm. A large window gave a view across the crooked roofs of west London all the way to the elevated motorway.

My metal hospital bed was equipped with a personal radio, and plugs for intensive-care monitoring equipment that was not installed. On the wall beside the bed there was a phone and, on a hook beside that, a TV channel changer. All I had to do was sit there and watch TV, or work my way through a dozen or more assorted paperback books that were in the bedside cabinet behind the bedpans, and wait for my meals to arrive. It really wasn't too bad.

I had lots of visitors. None of them asked me specifically what was wrong with me but I gathered that some sort of rumour had circulated about me being injured during a daring foray across the Wall. I encouraged this misunderstanding by giving only vague responses to well-wishers, and hinting about the Official Secrets Act when regretfully refusing to reply to direct questions.

Dicky sent his assistant a who actually proclaimed herself as 'Jenni-with-an-i' a to visit bearing a huge box of crystallized pineapple. Since there was no conceivable reason for Dicky to think I liked crystallized fruit in such abundance, I suspected that it was an unwanted present left over from the previous Christmas, especially since the sticky label, from which the price had been torn, had a robin on it. I gobbled some of it and shared it with the nurses, and the consensus was that it was delicious. It was particularly tasty when dipped into the brandy I picked up at the airport.

I don't think Jenni-with-an-i had ever been inside a hospital before. She looked around with wide-eyed interest and asked me if I'd like her to read to me. I decided against it. There were flowers from Werner, two dozen tulips, and telephoned good wishes from Frank Harrington. There were get-well cards, including one, featuring a risque cartoon of an elderly doctor and young nurse in bed, which was delivered by motor-cycle messenger. It proved to be from Mabel, a girl in the office who did my typing rather than let me loose on her word processor.

There were no wishes a good or otherwise a from Silas Gaunt, the Deputy D-G or Sir Henry Clevemore. I believe this was a signal that all three had been informed that my excursion to the East had been entirely unauthorized, that I'd not informed Frank before going, and had made the Department look foolish by letting an old Russian peasant beat me about the head with an icon.

A young Chinese doctor from Hong Kong seemed to be in charge of my 'complete check-up'. He arranged the head-scan and the ophthalmology examination, and dropped in frequently to discuss the prices of second-hand motor cars, and eat the glace pineapple. He was not unsympathetic at all. He said that such bangs on the head should always be examined carefully, and gave me some yellow tablets that he said might clear up the head-cold that I think I must have caught in Berlin. He said they'd also clear up the nasal congestion, because that's what they claimed in the commercials on TV. But I suppose he was paid to be sympathetic.

Fiona came to the hospital the night I checked in. She was waiting for me in reception when I got there. Frank had phoned her directly from Berlin and told her to make sure I followed his orders and got a complete check-up and didn't just discharge myself next morning. She arrived looking calm and beautiful. As practical as ever, she brought with her an overnight bag containing my pyjamas and shaving things.

Fiona returned again on the second morning. She brought a bundle of work that Dicky wanted me to read and explain to him.

'The children send their love. I told them I was going to see you but I didn't say you were in hospital.'

'I was thinking. I will have a day to spare after this. Would they like a visit to the theatre, a matinee? A musical. We could have dinner and get them back, not too late.'

'We'll have to have someone to help, when they come home to live with us,' she said defensively. 'I'm seeing people at the agency this afternoon.'

'A nanny?'

'They are too old for a nanny. But there will have to be someone who prepares a hot breakfast for them, and takes them to school in the morning. Someone will have to be there when they get back in the afternoon, and do their laundry, and make sure they do their homework.'

'Almost like a mother, you mean?'

For a moment I thought she would react angrily, but she smiled and said: 'Like your mother, and like my mother. But things have changed nowadays, darling. You wouldn't want me to stay at home all day, would you?'

'No,' I said. There was no need to remind me that her new job as Principal Assistant Europe would bring her a salary higher than mine, as well as guaranteeing her a permanent post and a good pension.

'Suggest the theatre visit when they come home for the weekend. I'm sure they'd love it.'

'Say I'm in here having a tooth fixed.'

'Yes, I will.' She gave me a smile. 'When Billy was born, I had a fear that you might want to be a tough-guy father. I wouldn't have blamed you. It was your right to earn their respect. But you've never portrayed yourself as a tough guy with them, Bernard. You've never told them stories of the work you do. They don't know about the dangers you've faced, or of the times you got hurt.'

'Idolizing your father is a tyranny from which few men emerge intact. The Department is full of examples.'

'But not many fathers can resist playing the absurd roles their children make for them, Bernard.' She looked at me as if she was about to cry. I wondered what she could see in my face.

'Tough guys get lousy pension plans,' I said.

She took out her handkerchief and blew her nose. 'Dicky wants to give us dinner on Saturday evening,' she said. 'Is that all right?'

'I suppose so.'

'And we'll see the children on Sunday.'

'What's Dicky up to now? He only invites people to dinner when he wants something.'

'He's awfully concerned about your crack on the head.'

'He sent Jenni-with-an-i in with a box of crystallized pineapple.'

'Did he? Where is it? I love it.'

'That Chinese doctor has eaten most of it,' I said. 'I think the Portuguese cleaning lady must have finished it and taken the box away. She was very smitten with the box. The lid had three men of Pickwickian appearance singing outside a tavern. She was going to frame it, she said.'

'I wish you would stop talking rubbish,' said Fiona. 'Dicky is trying to find a better office for you.'

'I'm quite content to remain where I am.'

'You can't. They're going to use that room for storing paper. There's so much paper now a for the word processors and the copiers and so on a that they need more space.'

'Frank doesn't like the VERDI operation,' I said, thinking it would surprise her.

'Yes, I know. He's put in an official objection.'

'That's what he told me. Why?'

'The Deputy is resigning.' She looked at me, waiting to see if I made the connection.

Even with an aching head I figured it out: 'And Frank hopes that a lack of enthusiasm for VERDI could get him shifted from Berlin to London?'

'Perhaps. And the only place to put him is the Deputy's job.'

'No. I don't think that's it,' I said. 'Frank isn't that Byzantine, is he? He'd just go directly to Sir Henry and ask to fill the Deputy's job.'

'But Frank is too old,' she said.

'Yes, but don't you see? Doing that, he would retire as Deputy. He's dying for a K. He's missed them time and time again. This could give him everything he wants: a K and a better pension. And Dicky could put into Berlin someone who will support the VERDI operation.'