Our Man In Havana (22 page)

‘No. No thank you.’

Carter put out his hand, but the waiter had already moved on towards the service-door.

‘Perhaps you would prefer a dry Martini, sir?’ a voice said. He turned. It was the head-waiter.

‘No, no, I don’t like them.’

‘A Scotch, sir? A sherry? An Old-Fashioned? Anything you care to order.’

‘I’m not drinking.’ Wormold said, and the head-waiter abandoned him for another guest. Presumably he was stroke seven; strange if by an ironic coincidence he was also the would-be assassin. Wormold looked around for Carter, but he had moved away in pursuit of his host.

‘You’d do better to drink all you can,’ said a voice with a Scotch accent. ‘My name is MacDougall. It seems we’re sitting together.’

‘I haven’t seen you here before, have I?’

‘I’ve taken over from Mclntyre. You’d have known McIntyre surely?’

‘Oh yes, yes.’ Dr Braun, who had palmed off the unimportant Carter upon another Swiss who dealt in watches, was now leading the American Consul-General round the room, introducing him to
the
more exclusive members. The Germans formed a group apart, rather suitably against the west wall; they carried the superiority of the deutschmark on their features like duelling scars: national honour which had survived Belsen depended now on a rate of exchange. Wormold wondered whether it was one of them who had betrayed the secret of the lunch to Dr Hasselbacher. Betrayed? Not necessarily. Perhaps the doctor had been blackmailed to supply the poison. At any rate he would have chosen, for the sake of old friendship, something painless, if any poison were painless.

‘I was telling you,’ Mr MacDougall went energetically on like a Scottish reel,’ that you would do better to drink now. It’s all you’ll be getting.’

‘There’ll be wine, won’t there?’

‘Look at the table.’ Small individual milk-bottles stood by every place. ‘Didn’t you read your invitation? An American blue-plate lunch in honour of our great American allies.’

‘Blue-plate?’

‘Surely you know what a blue-plate is, man? They shove the whole meal at you under your nose, already dished up on your plate – roast turkey, cranberry sauce, sausages and carrots and French fried. I can’t bear French fried, but there’s no pick and choose with a blue-plate.’

‘No pick and choose?’

‘You eat what you’re given. That’s democracy, man.’

Dr Braun was summoning them to the table. Wormold had a hope that fellow-nationals would sit together and that Carter would be on his other side, but it was a strange Scandinavian who sat on his left scowling at his milk-bottle. Wormold thought, Someone has arranged this well. Nothing is safe, not even the milk. Already the waiters were bustling round the board with the Morro crabs. Then he saw with relief that Carter faced him across the table. There was something so secure in his vulgarity. You could appeal to him as you could appeal to an English policeman, because you knew his thoughts.

‘No,’ he said to the waiter, ‘I won’t take crab.’

‘You are wise not to take those things,’ Mr MacDougall said. ‘I’m refusing them myself. They don’t go with whisky. Now if you will drink a little of your iced water and hold it under the table, I’ve got a flash in my pocket with enough for the two of us.’

Without thinking, Wormold stretched out his hand to his glass, and then the doubt came. Who was MacDougall? He had never seen him before, and he hadn’t heard until now that Mclntyre had gone away. Wasn’t it possible that the water was poisoned, or even the whisky in the flask?

‘Why did Mclntyre leave?’ he asked, his hand round the glass.

‘Oh, it was just one of those things,’ Mr MacDougall said, ‘you know the way it is. Toss down your water. You don’t want to drown the Scotch. This is the best Highland malt.’

‘It’s too early in the day for me. Thank you all the same.’

‘If you don’t trust the water, you are right not to,’ Mr MacDougall said ambiguously. ‘I’m taking it neat myself. If you don’t mind sharing the cap of the flask …’

‘No, really. I don’t drink at this hour.’

‘It was the English who made hours for drinking, not the Scotch. They’ll be making hours for dying next.’

Carter said across the table,’ I don’t mind if I do. The name’s Carter,’ and Wormold saw with relief that Mr MacDougall was pouring out the whisky; there was one suspicion less, for no one surely would want to poison Carter. All the same, he thought, there is something wrong with Mr MacDougall’s Scottishness. It smelt of fraud like Ossian.

‘Svenson,’ the gloomy Scandinavian said sharply from behind his little Swedish flag; at least Wormold thought it was Swedish: he could never distinguish with certainty between the Scandinavian colours.

‘Wormold,’ he said.

‘What is all this nonsense of the milk?’

‘I think,’ Wormold said, ‘that Dr Braun is being a little too literal.’

‘Or funny,’ Carter said.

‘I don’t think Dr Braun has much sense of humour.’

‘And what do you do, Mr Wormold?’ the Swede asked. ‘I don’t think we have met before, although I know you by sight.’

‘Vacuum cleaners. And you?’

‘Glass. As you know, Swedish glass is the best in the world. This bread is very good. Do you not eat bread?’ He might have prepared his conversation beforehand from a phrase-book.

‘Given it up. Fattening, you know.’

‘I would have said you could have done with fattening.’ Mr Svenson gave a dreary laugh like jollity in a long northern night. ‘Forgive me. I make you sound like a goose.’

At the end of the table, where the Consul-General sat, they were beginning to serve the blue-plates. Mr MacDougall had been wrong about the turkey; the main course was Maryland chicken. But he was right about the carrots and the French fried and the sausages. Dr Braun was a little behind the rest; he was still picking at his Morro crab. The Consul-General must have slowed him down by the earnestness of his conversation and the fixity of his convex lenses. Two waiters came round the table, one whisking away the remains of the crab, the other substituting the blue-plates. Only the Consul-General had thought to open his milk. The word ‘Dulles’ drifted dully down to where Wormold sat. The waiter approached carrying two plates; he put one in front of the Scandinavian, the other was Wormold’s. The thought that the whole threat to his life might be a nonsensical practical joke came to Wormold. Perhaps Hawthorne was a humorist, and Dr Hasselbacher. … He remembered Milly asking whether Dr Hasselbacher ever pulled his leg. Sometimes it seems easier to run the risk of death than ridicule. He wanted to confide in Carter and hear his common-sense reply; then looking at his plate he noticed something odd. There were no carrots. He said quickly, ‘You prefer it without carrots,’ and slipped the plate along to Mr MacDougall.

‘It’s the French fried I dislike,’ said Mr MacDougall quickly and passed the plate on to the Luxemburg Consul. The Luxemburg
Consul,
who was deep in conversation with a German across the table, handed the plate with absent-minded politeness to his neighbour. Politeness infected all who had not yet been served, and the plate went whisking along towards Dr Braun, who had just had the remains of his Morro crab removed. The head-waiter saw what was happening and began to stalk the plate up the table, but it kept a pace ahead of him. The waiter, returning with more blue-plates, was intercepted by Wormold, who took one. He looked confused. Wormold began to eat with appetite. ‘The carrots are excellent,’ he said.

The head-waiter hovered by Dr Braun. ‘Excuse me, Dr Braun,’ he said, ‘they have given you no carrots.’

‘I don’t like carrots,’ Dr Braun said, cutting up a piece of chicken.

‘I am so sorry,’ the head-waiter said and seized Dr Braun’s plate. ‘A mistake in the kitchen.’ Plate in hand like a verger with the collection he walked up the length of the room towards the service-door. Mr MacDougall was taking a sip of his own whisky.

‘I think I might venture now,’ Wormold said. ‘As a celebration.’

‘Good man. Water or straight?’

‘Could I take your water? Mine’s got a fly in it.’

‘Of course.’ Wormold drank two-thirds of the water and held it out for the whisky from Mr MacDougall’s flask. Mr MacDougall gave him a generous double. ‘Hold it out again. You are behind the two of us,’ he said, and Wormold was back in the territory of trust. He felt a kind of tenderness for the neighbour he had suspected. He said, ‘We must see each other again.’

‘An occasion like this would be useless if it didn’t bring people together.’

‘I wouldn’t have met you or Carter without it.’

They all three had another whisky. ‘You must both meet my daughter,’ Wormold said, the whisky warming his cockles.

‘How is business with you?’

‘Not so bad. We are expanding the Office.’

Dr Braun rapped the table for silence.

‘Surely,’ Carter said in the loud irrepressible Nottwich voice as warming as the whisky, ‘they’ll have to serve drinks with the toast.’

‘My lad,’ Mr MacDougall said, ‘there’ll be speeches, but no toasts. We have to listen to the bastards without alcoholic aid.’

‘I’m one of the bastards,’ Wormold said.

‘You speaking?’

‘As the oldest member.’

‘I’m glad you’ve survived long enough for that,’ Mr MacDougall said.

The American Consul-General, called on by Dr Braun, began to speak. He spoke of the spiritual links between the democracies – he seemed to number Cuba among the democracies. Trade was important because without trade there would be no spiritual links, or was it perhaps the other way round. He spoke of American aid to distressed countries which would enable them to buy more goods and by buying more goods strengthen the spiritual links. … A dog was howling somewhere in the wastes of the hotel and the head-waiter signalled for the door to be closed. It had been a great pleasure to the American Consul-General to be invited to this lunch today and to meet the leading representatives of European trade and so strengthen still further the spiritual links. … Wormold had two more whiskies.

‘And now,’ Dr Braun said, ‘I am going to call upon the oldest member of our Association. I am not of course referring to his years, but to the length of time he has served the cause of European trade in this beautiful city where, Mr Minister’ – he bowed to his other neighbour, a dark man with a squint – ‘we have the privilege and happiness of being your guests. I am speaking, you all know, of Mr Wormold.’ He took a quick look at his notes. ‘Mr James Wormold, the Havana representative of Phastkleaners.’

Mr MacDougall said, ‘We’ve finished the whisky. Fancy that now. Just when you need your Dutch courage most.’

Carter said, ‘I came armed as well, but I drank most of it in the plane. There’s only one glass left in the flask.’

‘Obviously our friend here must have it,’ Mr MacDougall said. ‘His need is greater than ours.’

Dr Braun said, ‘We may take Mr Wormold as a symbol for all that service means – modesty, quietness, perseverance and efficiency. Our enemies picture the salesman often as a loudmouthed braggart who is intent only on putting across some product which is useless, unnecessary, or even harmful. That is not a true picture. …’

Wormold said, ‘It’s kind of you, Carter. I could certainly do with a drink.’

‘Not used to speaking?’

‘It’s not only the speaking.’ He leant forward across the table towards that common-or-garden Nottwich face on which he felt he could rely for incredulity, reassurance, the easy humour based on inexperience: he was safe with Carter. He said, ‘I know you won’t believe a word of what I’m telling you,’ but he didn’t want Carter to believe. He wanted to learn from him how not to believe. Something nudged his leg and looking down he saw a black dachsund-face pleading with him between the drooping ringlet ears for a scrap – the dog must have slipped in through the service-door unseen by the waiters and now it led a hunted life, half hidden below the table-cloth.

Carter pushed a small flask across to Wormold. ‘There’s not enough for two. Take it all.’

‘Very kind of you, Carter.’ He unscrewed the top and poured all that there was into his glass.

‘Only a Johnnie Walker. Nothing fancy.’

Dr Braun said, ‘If anyone here can speak for all of us about the long years of patient service a trader gives to the public, I am sure it is Mr Wormold, whom now I call upon …’

Carter winked and raised an imaginary glass.

‘H-hurry,’ Carter said, ‘You’ve got to h-hurry.’

Wormold lowered the whisky. ‘What did you say, Carter?’

‘I said drink it up quick.’

‘Oh no, you didn’t, Carter.’ Why hadn’t he noticed that
stammered
aspirate before? Was Carter conscious of it and did he avoid an initial ‘h’ except when he was preoccupied by fear or h-hope?

‘What’s the matter, Wormold?’

Wormold put his hand down to pat the dog’s head and as though by accident he knocked the glass from the table.

‘You pretended not to know the doctor.’

‘What doctor?’

‘You would call him H-Hasselbacher.’

‘Mr Wormold,’ Dr Braun called down the table.

He rose uncertainly to his feet. The dog for want of any better provender was lapping at the whisky on the floor.

Wormold said, ‘I appreciate your asking me to speak, whatever your motives.’ A polite titter took him by surprise – he hadn’t meant to say anything funny. He said, ‘This is my first and it looked at one time as though it was going to be my last public appearance.’ He caught Carter’s eye. Carter was frowning. He felt guilty of a solecism by his survival as though he were drunk in public. Perhaps he was drunk. He said, ‘I don’t know whether I’ve got any friends here. I’ve certainly got some enemies.’ Somebody said ‘Shame’ and several people laughed. If this went on he would get the reputation of being a witty speaker. He said, ‘We hear a lot nowadays about the cold war, but any trader will tell you that the war between two manufacturers of the same goods can be quite a hot war. Take Phastkleaners and Nucleaners. There’s not much difference between the two machines any more than there is between two human beings, one Russian – or German – and one British. There would be no competition and no war if it wasn’t for the ambition of a few men in both firms; just a few men dictate competition and invent needs and set Mr Carter and myself at each other’s throats.’