Making Enemies (30 page)

We sat at the table in Charlie’s office, Watson-Jones, Gelfmann, Charlie and myself. The morning sun poured through the window with dazzling intensity, bringing everything into sharp relief. Gelfmann was sweating and wiping his brow and the top of his head with a handkerchief. Charlie had been allowed back to the office on the understanding that Beryl would see Thomas took him home at lunchtime. He was still exhausted, the doctor said, and he looked far from himself. Watson-Jones sat at the head, his back to the sun. He cast a long shadow down the centre of the table.

The office was stifling even though the window was open. I could see into the rooms on the other side of the street: an old man pouring himself a cup of tea, a woman in a white housecoat making a bed. From below came the sounds of cars and people passing. Dimly, through the closed door, we could hear the clack of Beryl’s typewriter. The world outside was going about its business. Ours was trying to discover whether it had a future or not.

The meeting had been called as a council of war but it was rapidly turning into a council of despair. I had described my conversation with Iredale. It had not been received well, Simon furious at the unheralded intervention of a man he disliked and, I suspected, probably feared. Charlie’s line was that until we knew why Iredale was in the frame, there was precious little we could do. That wasn’t what Watson-Jones had come to hear.

‘Where does that leave me, Charlie?’ he asked, leaning back in his chair, his eyes closed as if in pain. ‘Up a creek without a paddle.’

If this was nothing more than a performance, then it was clear how high the stakes were that Watson-Jones was playing for. I wondered how long he’d get away with it.

‘You’ll have to sit on your hands until we know what brought Iredale in,’ Charlie said. ‘We’re working on that now.’

‘Pulling up at the first fence looks like a loss of nerve, Charlie,’ he said. ‘I can’t afford to do that. This is a test I’ve got to pass.’

‘We don’t yet know what we’re up against,’ Charlie said. ‘It’s pointless to retaliate till we know who we’re fighting and what we’re fighting about.’

‘I want a plan, Charlie. I won’t accept doing nothing without a plan.’

‘I haven’t got a plan, Simon. That’s what I keep telling you. I don’t have any plan at all.’ This was the first time Charlie had raised his voice with Watson-Jones, an indication of how angry he was.

‘That won’t do, Charlie. It won’t do at all.’

Charlie was hurt by that. I saw the tension in his face as he struggled to keep his temper. I saw the strain sweep through his body like a wave.

‘I’ve said my piece, Simon. You know where I stand. There’s nothing more I can add.’

‘Damn it, Charlie, you’re leaving me to drown! You can’t do that.’ Watson-Jones hit the table with the flat of his hand. He was shouting. Outside, the sound of the typewriter stopped. ‘I’m paying you to manage this crisis and the only proposal you come up with is do nothing. Well, that isn’t good enough. You can’t abdicate responsibility because it suits you.’

‘That’s a bit hard, Simon,’ Gelfmann said.

‘Keep out of this, Bernard.’

‘If I knew what kind of trouble you were in, Simon, I’d be ready to help. But I don’t. I’m baffled, mystified. Something’s gone wrong but I don’t know what it is. I’ve got to know more before I can propose any course of action. Anything else is sheer folly.’

‘For God’s sake.’ Watson-Jones was dismissive. ‘This isn’t the Charlie Faulkner I know. What’s happened to you? Lost your nerve all of a sudden?’

‘Simon, please,’ Gelfmann said. This time his remark went unnoticed.

‘One man, Charlie. That’s all it took. That bastard Iredale sticks his oar in and you’re cowering in the corner with your hands over your eyes. That’s not like you, is it?’

He was softening up on Charlie now, trying to bring him back on his side. I could see it was having no effect.

‘Iredale’s a dangerous man, Simon. His appearance has changed the game. We’re on a different pitch now, playing by different rules. I’d like to find out what those rules are before I’ll agree to join in.’

‘Perhaps he’s acting for himself on this one,’ Simon said.

‘That’s not Iredale’s style. He’s acting for others. Who are they? What do they want and why? Too many questions needing answers, Simon. That’s the difficulty at the moment.’

‘Iredale’s powerful,’ Gelfmann said. ‘And dangerous.’

‘Iredale beats his wives and sleeps with young girls, minors,’ Watson-Jones said crossly. ‘Why the hell does that make you all so afraid of him?’

It was the opportunity Charlie had been waiting for, though now it had come he barely had the strength left to take it.

‘We can look after ourselves, Simon. It’s you we worry about.’

‘Me? Why?’ Charlie’s remark seemed to take him aback.

‘You’ve been set up, Simon. Why and by whom I don’t know. But you’re in someone’s sights and we can assume they’re powerful because Iredale’s in the frame. You must have done something serious to upset them. My advice is, until we know more, be careful. You don’t have to listen to me. You can go to damnation your own sweet way. You’re the one at risk, not me. All I can do is tell you what I think.’

We waited in silence while Watson-Jones thought about what Charlie had said.

‘I’m sorry, Charlie. I’ve been hasty. You’re right. Tread carefully. Quicksand. Point taken.’

‘Quicksand,’ Gelfmann said. ‘Treacherous.’

Charlie looked relieved. He’d got through to Watson-Jones at last. It had been a struggle and no doubt he would pay the price for it. He was like a damaged cliff before a raging sea. Each day a bit more fell off into the water. For the first time I began to wonder how much longer Charlie would last.

*

Over the next two days I hardly saw Charlie and when I did he was preoccupied. I asked Beryl what was going on.

‘Meetings, that’s all he says. All these years together and he won’t talk to me when there’s trouble.’

Beryl took refuge from my questions in the familiar defence of a woman ignored. It was a transparent disguise but an effective one
because it was so hard to counter. We both knew that she was fully aware of what was going on, but if Charlie wanted me to know he would tell me in his own time. That was his job, not hers. Charlie had no secrets from Beryl, which gave her great power. But she used her power sparingly, and it was never worth pushing her if she didn’t want to reveal what she knew. Her loyalty to Charlie came before everything.

I had grown genuinely fond of her in the time we’d worked together. I enjoyed listening to her stories of the start of the war when she and Charlie came to London from Manchester. Charlie had been one of a number of successful businessmen who were asked to join the war effort by bringing their expertise to Whitehall. He had been seconded to the Ministry of Supply. Politics became a late love affair in his life. He had sold his chain of shops, moved into Belgrave Square and for years had lived and breathed the political atmosphere he had come to love so much. His wife hated London. She remained in Manchester. Charlie never mentioned her.

‘I don’t think they could understand his accent, dear, it was that broad then,’ Beryl told me, describing the early days. ‘Of course, it’s softened a great deal since. Charlie always was a quick learner,’ she added, laughing.

We all knew, though Charlie pretended not to, that Beryl had devoted her life to a man she loved but couldn’t marry. She mothered him instead, and he responded to it and in their way they were both happy. It wasn’t the relationship Beryl had hoped for but she had decided years before to settle for what she could get and that was a lot more of Charlie than anyone else got, including his wife. In our idle moments, we would speculate on whether or not Charlie and Beryl had slept together. Opinion was divided. It remained an open question.

‘When do you expect him back?’ I asked.

‘He said he’d be here by nine-thirty. Look at the time – after ten. Heaven knows what’s keeping him.’

The Rolls appeared ten minutes later but when I rang Beryl, she said that Charlie didn’t want to see anyone until after lunch. I had hardly put the telephone down when he rang me himself.

‘Come up, Danny, will you?’

I was concerned at his appearance. He had lost weight in the last week or two, and his complexion was greyer than before. Even in his wheelchair he seemed bent, older, more worn. Beryl brought
him in a cup of tea and then stood behind Charlie shaking her head at me. I gathered the meeting hadn’t gone well and I shouldn’t bring up the subject.

‘Beryl,’ he said, putting down his tea. ‘Take this disgusting liquid away, will you? I want a large gin and I’m sure Danny does too. Don’t tell me it’s too early because it isn’t.’

Beryl gave a show of disapproval but Charlie ignored her.

‘This conversation is between the two of us,’ he said as soon as she had closed the door. ‘Beryl knows everything. But nothing to the boys for the moment, agreed?’

‘Of course.’

‘Something’s up,’ he said. ‘Something serious.’

‘I’d guessed that.’

‘I had breakfast this morning with Willy Glover, he’s Gaydon’s permanent under-secretary. It was his invitation. He asked me straight out what game Simon was playing, what he was after. I played innocent and said I had no idea. Glover didn’t believe me and said so pointedly because it’s my job to know what Simon’s doing. He said his Minister was very unhappy and he passed on what he called an unsanctioned request, adviser to adviser, to lower the flame on this one. I’ve no doubt he was acting under instruction.’

‘Lower the flame on what?’ I asked.

Charlie looked up at me startled. In his head he had debated the issue with me, we had talked about it, I was fully briefed. Now I was in his presence he had forgotten that he had told me nothing.

‘Forgive me. I’m sorry.’ He put his head in his hands for a moment. ‘Simon’s been hunting on his own.’

‘Working without us?’

‘Or despite us. Suit yourself.’

‘What’s he done?’

A week or two ago, he said, Simon had written to the Minister, an event Charlie had known nothing about. He claimed he had learned the identity of a British scientist who was betraying nuclear secrets to the Soviets and that the government had known about this for months and done nothing. Gaydon had replied privately, denying the story and hoping that would see the end of the issue.

‘In the jargon,’ Charlie explained, ‘Gaydon was saying stay off my patch.’

Simon either didn’t get the message or he ignored it. Whatever, he wrote again, this time increasing the pressure.

‘Glover thinks I put him up to it, when in fact Simon’s deliberately kept me in the dark because he knows I’d never have agreed to anything like at. It’s sheer folly and quite wrong.’

I began to see a picture emerging. Watson-Jones, unhappy with the unexpected coolness of Charlie’s anti-Soviet stance, had got hold of damaging information which he’d decided to act on himself. For reasons Charlie didn’t understand, Simon must have hit nearer the bone than he’d imagined. He’d been given ‘keep off’ warnings – enter Naismith – which he’d chosen not to see. Iredale the bully boy had been called in to leave Watson-Jones in no doubt about what would happen if he didn’t lay off.

‘Simon’s swimming out of his depth on this one,’ Charlie said. ‘Glover made that all too clear.’

‘What gave you that impression?’

‘Glover said these are delicate times. A lot of difficult decisions have to be made. The options are being narrowed but at this precise moment no one wants Watson-Jones rocking the boat. There’s more at stake than he could disclose.’

No doubt Glover had tapped his nose and good old faithful Charlie had believed him because he always believed what people like Glover told him. What a loyal, old-fashioned ally Charlie was, I thought, and how they were exploiting him. A bit of pressure from ‘up there’ and he could be relied upon to do the right thing. How they must despise him.

‘Glover would know about these things,’ Charlie added.

‘Indeed,’ I said, not believing a word that Glover had told him. But I couldn’t say that to him, it would break the old man’s heart.

Charlie slowly pieced together what he imagined had happened. Watson-Jones had got hold of this traitor story from somewhere – ‘his American connections probably’ – and he had decided to use this inside knowledge to put his career firmly on the map by exposing it. He’d asked the Minister a string of awkward questions. In Charlie’s book that was wrong. Spies were secret, whether ours or theirs. Simon was muscling in on someone else’s game. MPs had to recognize there were limits to their powers too.

Charlie had become so politicized by his years in Whitehall that he was automatically on the side of the advisers. Whatever the colour of the government, you didn’t question the impartiality of the administrative services, he would say. They ran the place. They got things done. They knew more than the rest of us and quite right too, they
were meant to. They were above reproach. That was not a school of thought Simon recognized.

I guessed too that Charlie’s nose was out of joint because he had not been consulted. Simon had acted on his own, ‘on an impulse’, as Charlie said, one of his heavier condemnations. His protégé, the man whose career he had set himself to manage, was seeing Charlie in a different, perhaps dispensable, light. Charlie’s political child was learning to stand on his own two feet and develop a mind of his own, and Charlie didn’t like that.

‘Of course, he’s got to make his own mistakes,’ he was saying. ‘We can’t protect him from that. Nor should we. There’s no substitute for experience in politics, knowing how far you can go, where to draw the line, all that. But you don’t cut your teeth on issues as sensitive as this. That’s just plain stupid.’

Charlie was an old stag, weakened by the wounds of time, hanging on to power against the new challenger. I felt sorry for him. But I couldn’t see he was going to win on this one.

*

‘Supper ready.’

It was Esther calling from the kitchen. I was at the bottom of the stairs when the telephone rang.