Devices and Desires (8 page)

“I imagine a Station Manager.”

“You mean that the research will go?”

Mair said: “When I go, now or later, the research will go. You’ve always known that. I brought it with me and I wouldn’t have taken the job if I couldn’t have continued it here. I asked for certain research facilities and I got them. But research at Larksoken has always been somewhat of an anomaly. We’ve done good work, are still doing good work, but logically it should be done elsewhere, at Harwell or Winfrith. Is there any other business?”

But Lessingham was not to be discouraged. He said: “Who will you be responsible to? The Secretary of State for Energy directly or the AEA?”

Mair knew the answer but had no intention of giving it. He said quietly: “That is still under discussion.”

“Along, no doubt, with such minor matters as pay, rations, scope of your responsibilities and what you are going to be
called. Controller of Nuclear Power has a certain cachet. I like it. But what precisely will you control?”

There was a silence. Mair said: “If the answer to that question were known, no doubt the appointment would have been made by now. I don’t want to stifle discussion, but hadn’t we better confine it to matters within the competence of this committee? Right, is there any other business?” And this time there was no reply.

Hilary Robarts, the Acting Administrative Officer, had already closed her file. She hadn’t taken part in the questioning but the others, Mair knew, would assume that that was because he had already told her the answers.

Even before they had left, his PA, Caroline Amphlett, had come in to take away the teacups and clear the table. Lessingham made it a habit to leave his agenda behind, a small personal protest against the amount of paper which the formal weekly meeting generated. Dr. Martin Goss, head of the Medical Physics Department, had, as always, doodled obsessively. His jotting pad was covered with hot-air balloons, intricately patterned and decorated; part of his mind had obviously been with his private passion. Caroline Amphlett moved, as always, with a quiet, efficient grace. Neither spoke. She had worked for Mair as his PA for the last three years and he knew her now no better than on that morning when she had sat in this same office being interviewed for the job. She was a blond girl, smooth-skinned, with wide-spaced, rather small eyes of an extraordinary deep blue, who would have been thought beautiful if she had shown more animation. Mair suspected that she used her confidential job as his PA to preserve a deliberately intimidating reserve. She was the most efficient secretary he had ever had and it irked him that she had made it clear that, if and when he moved, she would wish to stay at Larksoken.
She had told him that her reasons were personal. That, of course, meant Jonathan Reeves, a junior engineer in the workshop. He had been as surprised and chagrined at her choice as he had at the prospect of taking up a new job with an unknown PA, but there had been an additional and more disturbing reaction. Hers was not a type of female beauty which attracted him, and he had always assumed that she was physically cold. It was disconcerting to think that an acned nonentity had discovered and perhaps explored depths which he, in their daily intimacy, hadn’t even suspected. He had sometimes wondered, although with little real curiosity, whether she might not be less compliant, more complicated than he had supposed, had occasionally had a disconcerting sense that the façade she presented to the power station of dedicated, humourless efficiency had been carefully constructed to conceal a less accommodating, more complex personality. But if the real Caroline was accessible to Jonathan Reeves, if she actually liked and wanted that unprepossessing wimp, then she hardly merited the tribute even of his curiosity.

He gave his departmental heads time to get back to their offices before he rang for Hilary Robarts and asked her to come back. It would have been more usual to have asked her with careful casualness to wait behind after the meeting, but what he had to say was private and he had been trying for some weeks now to cut down the number of times when they were known to be alone together. He wasn’t looking forward to the interview. She would see what he had to say as personal criticism, and that was something which in his experience few women could take. He thought: “She was my mistress once. I was in love with her, as much in love as I thought I was capable of being. And if it wasn’t love, whatever that word means, at least I wanted her. Will that make what I have to say easier or more difficult?” He told himself that all men were cowards when it came to a showdown with a woman. That first post-natal subservience, bred of physical dependence, was too ingrained ever to be totally eradicated. He wasn’t more cowardly than the rest of his sex. What was it he had overheard that woman in the Lydsett stores saying? “George would do anything to avoid a scene.”
Of course he would, poor sod. Women, with their womb-smelling warmth, their talcum powder and milky breasts, had seen to that in the first four weeks of life.

He stood up when she came in and waited until she had taken the chair on the other side of the desk. Then he opened the right-hand drawer and took out a duplicated news-sheet which he slid across the desk towards her.

“Have you seen this? It’s Neil Pascoe’s latest news-sheet from PANUP.”

She said: “People Against Nuclear Power. That means Pascoe and a few dozen other ill-informed hysterics. Of course I’ve seen it, I’m on his mailing list. He takes good care that I see it.”

She gave it a brief glance, then pushed it back across the desk. He took it up and read: “Many readers will probably have learned by now that I am being sued by Miss Hilary Robarts, the Acting Administrative Officer at Larksoken Power Station, for alleged libel arising from what I wrote in the May issue of the news-sheet. I shall, of course, strenuously defend the action and, as I have no money to pay for a lawyer, will present my own defence. This is just the latest example of the threat to free information and even free speech presented by the nuclear-energy lobby. Apparently now even the mildest criticism is to be followed by the threat of legal action. But there is a positive side. This action by Hilary Robarts shows that we, the ordinary people of this county, are making our impact. Would they bother with our small news-sheet if they weren’t running scared? And the libel action, if it comes to trial, will give us valuable national publicity if properly handled. We are stronger than we know. Meanwhile I give below the dates of the next open days at Larksoken so that as many of us as possible can attend and put our case against nuclear power during the question time which normally precedes the actual tour of the station.”

She said: “I told you, I’ve seen it. I don’t know why you wasted your time reading it out. He seems determined to aggravate his offence. If he had any sense he’d get himself a good lawyer and keep his mouth shut.”

“He can’t afford a lawyer. And he won’t be able to pay damages.” He paused, and then said quietly: “In the interests of the station I think you should drop it.”

“Is that an order?”

“I’ve no power to compel you and you know that. I’m asking you. You’ll get nothing out of him, the man’s practically penniless, and he isn’t worth the trouble.”

“He is to me. What he describes as mild criticism was a serious libel and it was widely disseminated. There’s no defence. Remember the actual words? ‘A woman whose response to Chernobyl is that only thirty-one people were killed, who can dismiss as unimportant one of the world’s greatest nuclear disasters, which put thousands in hospital, exposed a hundred thousand or more to dangerous radioactivity, devastated vast areas of land and may result in deaths from cancer amounting to fifty thousand over the next fifty years, is totally unsuitable to be trusted to work in an atomic-power station. While she remains there, in any capacity, we must have the gravest doubts whether safety will ever be taken seriously at Larksoken.’ That’s a clear allegation of professional incompetence. If he’s allowed to get away with that, we’ll never get rid of him.”

“I wasn’t aware that we were in the business of getting rid of inconvenient critics. What method had you in mind?”

He paused, detecting in his voice the first trace of that reedy mixture of sarcasm and pomposity which he knew occasionally affected him and to which he was morbidly sensitive. He went on: “He’s a free citizen living where he chooses.
He’s entitled to his views. Hilary, he’s not a worthy opponent. Bring him to court and he’ll attract publicity for his cause and do your own no good at all. We’re trying to win over the locals, not antagonize them. Let it go before someone starts a fund to pay for his defence. One martyr on Larksoken headland is enough.”

While he was speaking she got up and began pacing to and fro across the wide office. Then she paused and turned on him. “This is what it’s all about, isn’t it? The reputation of the station, your reputation. What about my reputation? If I drop the action now, it will be a clear admission that he was right, that I’m not fit to work here.”

“What he wrote hasn’t hurt your reputation with anyone who matters. And suing him isn’t going to help it. It’s unwise to let policy be influenced, let alone jeopardized, by outraged personal pride. The reasonable course is quietly to drop the action. What do feelings matter?” He found that he couldn’t remain seated while she was striding to and fro across the office. He got to his feet and walked over to the window, hearing the angry voice but no longer having to face her, watching the reflection of her pacing figure, the swirling hair. He said again: “What do feelings matter? It’s the work that is important.”

“They matter to me. And that’s something you’ve never understood, have you? Life is about feeling. Loving is about feeling. It was the same with the abortion. You forced me to have it. Did you ever ask yourself what I felt then, what I needed?”

Oh God, he thought, not this, not again, not now. He said, still with his back to her: “It’s ridiculous to say that I forced you. How could I? And I thought you felt as I did, that it was impossible for you to have a child.”

“Oh no it wasn’t. If you’re so bloody keen on accuracy, let’s be accurate about this. It would have been inconvenient, embarrassing, awkward, expensive. But it wasn’t impossible.
It still isn’t impossible. And for God’s sake, turn around. Look at me. I’m talking to you. What I’m saying is important.”

He turned and walked back to the desk. He said calmly: “All right, my phrasing was inaccurate. Have a child by all means, if that’s what you want. I’ll be happy for you as long as you don’t expect me to father it. But what we’re talking about now is Neil Pascoe and PANUP. We’ve gone to a lot of trouble here to promote good relations with the local community and I’m not going to have all that good work vitiated by a totally unnecessary legal action, particularly not now when work will soon begin on the new reactor.”

“Then try to prevent it. And since we’re talking about public relations, I’m surprised you haven’t mentioned Ryan Blaney and Scudder’s Cottage. My cottage, in case you’ve forgotten. What am I expected to do about that? Hand over my property to him and his kids rent-free in the interests of good public relations?”

“That’s a different matter. It’s not my concern as Director. But if you want my opinion, I think you’re ill advised to try and force him out simply because you’ve got a legal case. He’s paying the rent regularly, isn’t he? And it isn’t as if you want the cottage.”

“I do want the cottage. It’s mine. I bought it and now I want to sell it.”

She slumped back into the chair and he, too, sat. He made himself stare into the eyes in which, to his discomfort, he saw more pain than anger. He said: “Presumably he knows that and he’ll get out when he can, but it won’t be easy. He’s recently widowed and he’s got four children. There’s a certain amount of local feeling about it, I understand.”

“I’ve no doubt there is, particularly in the Local Hero, where Ryan Blaney spends most of his time and money. I’m not prepared to wait. If we’re moving to London in the next
three months, there’s not much time to get the question of the cottage settled. I don’t want to leave that kind of unfinished business. I want to get it on the market as soon as possible.”

He knew that this was the moment when he should have said firmly: “I may be moving to London, but not with you.” But he found it impossible. He told himself that it was late, the end of a busy day, the worst possible time for rational argument. She was already overwrought. One thing at a time. He had tackled her about Pascoe and, although she had reacted much as he’d expected, perhaps she would think it over and do what he advised. And she was right about Ryan Blaney: it was none of his business. The interview had left him with two clear intentions more firmly fixed than ever in his mind. She wasn’t coming to London with him, nor would he recommend her as Administrative Officer at Larksoken. For all her efficiency, her intelligence, her appropriate education, she wasn’t the right person for the job. For a moment it crossed his mind that here was his bargaining card. “I’m not offering you marriage but I am offering you the most senior job you could possibly aspire to.” But he knew there was no real temptation. He wouldn’t leave the administration of Larksoken in her hands. Sooner or later she was going to have to realize that there would be no marriage and no promotion. But now was the wrong moment, and he found himself wondering wryly when the right moment might be.

Instead he said: “Look, we’re here to run a power station efficiently and safely. We’re doing a necessary and important job. Of course we’re committed to it, we wouldn’t be here otherwise. But we’re scientists and technicians, not evangelists. We’re not running a religious campaign.”

“They are, the other side. He is. You see him as an insignificant twit. He isn’t. He’s dishonest and he’s dangerous. Look how
he scrubs around in the records to turn up individual cases of leukaemia which he thinks he can ascribe to nuclear energy. And now he’s got the latest Comare report to fuel his spurious concern. And what about last month’s newsletter, that emotive nonsense about the midnight trains of death trundling silently through the northern suburbs of London? Anyone would think they were carrying open trucks of radioactive waste. Doesn’t he care that nuclear energy has so far saved the world from burning five hundred million tons of coal? Hasn’t he heard about the greenhouse effect? I mean, is the fool totally ignorant? Hasn’t he any conception of the devastation caused to this planet by burning fossil fuels? Has no one told him about acid rain or the carcinogens in coal waste? And when it comes to danger, what about the fifty-seven miners buried alive in the Borken disaster only this year? Don’t their lives matter? Think of the outcry if that had been a nuclear accident.”