The Liar (23 page)

‘What’s the difference between a cypher and a code then?’

‘Well, that is readily explained,’ said Trefusis. ‘Imagine a system in which a number refers to a letter of the alphabet. A equals one, B equals two, C equals three and so on, thus “Adrian” would be “One – four – eighteen – nine – one – fourteen”, you understand?’

‘Right …’

‘That is a very basic form of cypher and a message written in it could be cracked by anyone of the meanest intelligence in seconds. But suppose that between us we two had personally prearranged that a word … “Biscuits”, for example, was going to mean “nineteen-hundred hours”, and that another word, for instance “Desmond”, should signify “The Café Florian in St Mark’s Square, Venice”.’

‘Got you …’

‘I would then only have to signal to you: “Please send me some biscuits today, love Desmond,” and you would know that I wanted to meet you at seven o’clock that evening at Florian’s. That is a code and would be impossible to crack unless someone overheard us arranging it, or one of us was foolish enough to commit it to paper.’

‘I see,’ said Adrian. ‘Then why not only use codes if they’re uncrackable?’

‘Unfortunately in wartime one needs to signal an enormous amount of unpredictable and detailed information. The receiver couldn’t be expected to memorise thousands of different code words, and to write them down would be insecure. So it became practice to mix the two systems. A complicated cypher would be used which could only be cracked if one knew a key word, a code, which would change daily. That is how Enigma operated. So even when Enigma had been solved we needed Intelligence to help provide us with clues so that we could crack the daily code. That is where I came in, and of course, your old friend Humphrey Biffen.’

‘Humphrey Biffen?’

‘I believe he taught you French once.’

‘Good Lord! Did Biffo work at Bletchley too?’

‘Oh indeed. And Helen Sorrel-Cameron whom he later married. Guessing the daily key words was very much our speciality.’

‘But however did you manage?’

‘Well now, the Germans were so very confident that Enigma was uncrackable that they became remarkably sloppy about the assignation of the daily key. Intelligence furnished us with the names of operators and cypher clerks in German Naval Intelligence and Humphrey and I would make guesses. We used to keep immensely detailed files on each clerk: their likes, their loves, their families, mistresses, lovers, pets, tastes in music and food … oh, everything. Each day we would try out different ideas, the name of that particular operator’s dog, their favourite kind of pastry, their maiden surname, that sort of thing. We usually got there in the end.’

‘But the Germans must have discovered that you had cracked it, surely?’

‘Well that’s the peculiarity of this kind of work. Our job was simply to furnish Military Intelligence with everything we decrypted. They would then, as a rule, fail to act upon it.’

‘Why?’

‘Because they could on no account let the enemy know that they were reading their most secret transmissions. It is generally believed, for instance, that Churchill had prior warning of the impending Luftwaffe raid on Coventry but neglected to tell the army and air force for fear of extra defences in the area revealing to the Germans that it had been known about in advance. This is not strictly true, but it demonstrates the principle. Some believe, of course, that Admiral Kanaris, the head of German Naval Intelligence, was perfectly well aware that we were reading Enigma all along, but that he was so pro-British and distressed at the behaviour of the Führer that he simply let it happen.’

‘Fascinating,’ said Adrian. ‘God I wish I could have been around at a time like that.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Trefusis. ‘I think you might have been bored.’

Trefusis peered at the landscape and the road-signs. ‘Still another fifty or so kilometres before our service station. Now it’s your turn. What has happened in your young life? Plenty, I make no doubt.’

‘Oh not so much,’ said Adrian. ‘I was arrested for the possession of cocaine once.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. I had been living with an actor after a few months of being a rent-boy.’

‘A rent-boy?’ said Trefusis. ‘How enterprising! And possession of cocaine? Were you imprisoned?’

‘Well first I should tell you how I was expelled from school. That should take us twenty kilometres. Then I’ll tell you what happened after that.’

9

I

HE HAD STARED
at the first paper for the whole three hours, unable to write a thing. One of the girls came up to him afterwards.

‘I saw you, Adrian Healey! Couldn’t you answer any of the questions, then?’

Two years in this stupid college that called its pupils ‘students’ and its lessons ‘lectures’. How had he stood it? He should never have given way.

‘I think it’s the right thing, darling. It’ll give you so much more independence than a school. Father agrees. You can get the bus in to Gloucester and be home with me every night. And then after you’ve got the “A” levels, you can sit the Cambridge entrance. Everyone says it’s an awfully good college. The Fawcetts’ boy – David is it? – he went there after he was … after he left Harrow, so I’m sure it’s all right.’

‘What you mean is, it’s the only place for miles around that’ll take boys that’ve been expelled.’

‘Darling, that’s not …’

‘Anyway, I don’t want “A” levels and I don’t want to go to Cambridge.’

‘Ade, of course you do! Just think how you’d regret it if you missed the opportunity.’

He had missed the opportunity, and the lectures. Instead there had been the ABC cinema and the Star Café, where he played pin-ball and three-card brag.

Discuss Lawrence’s use of external landscape in relation to the internal drama of
Sons and Lovers.

Only connect … How are the Schlegels and Wilcoxes connected in
Howards End?

Compare and contrast the different uses of landscape and nature in the poetry of Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes
.

Suddenly his plausible wit was of no use to him. Suddenly the world was dull and sticky and unkind. His future was behind him and he had nothing to look forward to but the past.

Goodbye Gloucester, goodbye Stroud. He was at least following a literary example. When Laurie Lee had walked out on his midsummer’s morning he had had a guitar and the blessings of his family to accompany him. Adrian had a paperback copy of Anouilh’s
Antigone
, which he had intended to read at lunchtime as some kind of feeble preparation for the afternoon’s French literature paper, and fifteen pounds from his mother’s handbag.

In the end he got a lift from a lorry driver who was going all the way to Stanmore.

‘I can drop you somewhere on the North Circular, if you like.’

‘Thanks.’

North Circular … North Circular. It was some kind of road, wasn’t it?

‘Er … is the North Circular anywhere near Highgate?’

‘You can catch a bus from Golder’s Green pretty quick.’

Bollocks lived in Highgate. He might be able to cadge a couple of nights there while he sorted himself out.

‘I’m Jack, by the way,’ said the driver.

‘Er … Bullock, Hugo Bullock.’

‘Bullock? That’s a funny one.’

‘I once met a girl called Jane Heffer. We should’ve got married.’

‘Yeah? What went wrong?’

‘No, I mean her being called Heffer. It’s the female of bullock.’

‘Oh right, right.’

They drove on in silence. Adrian offered Jack a cigarette.

‘No thanks, mate. Trying to give ‘em up. Don’t do you any good in this game.’

‘No, I suppose not.’

‘So, what, you running away then, are you?’

‘Running away?’

‘Yeah. How old are you?’

‘Eighteen.’

‘Get away!’

‘Well, I will be.’

Bullock’s mother stood in the doorway and eyed him suspiciously. He supposed his hair was rather long.

‘I’m a friend of William’s. From school.’

‘He’s in Australia. It’s his year off before going to Oxford.’

‘Oh yes, of course. I just … wondered, you know. Not to worry. Happened to be passing.’

‘I’ll tell him you called if he rings. Are you staying in London?’

‘Yes, in Piccadilly.’

‘Piccadilly?’

What was wrong with that?

‘Well, you know, more just
off
.’

The pin-ball machines in Piccadilly had more sensitive tilt mechanisms than those he was used to in Gloucester, and he wasn’t getting many replays. At this rate he wouldn’t be able to afford to carry on for more than an hour.

A man in a blue suit came down behind him and put down a fifty-pence piece.

‘It’s yours,’ said Adrian, smacking the flipper buttons in frustration as his last silver ball rolled out of play. ‘That was my last. I just can’t seem to get the hang of the bloody thing.’

‘No, no, no,’ said the man in the blue suit, ‘the fifty is for you. Have another go.’

Adrian turned in surprise.

‘Well, that’s awfully kind … are you sure?’

‘Yes indeed.’

The fifty was soon used up.

‘Come and have a drink,’ said the man. ‘I know a bar just round the corner.’

They left the chimes and buzzes and intense, haunted concentration of the amusement arcade and walked up Old Compton Street and into a small pub in a side street. The barman didn’t question Adrian’s age, which was an unusual relief.

‘Haven’t seen you before. Always good to meet a new face. Yes, indeed.’

‘I’d’ve thought everyone was a stranger in London,’ said Adrian. ‘I mean, it’s mostly tourists round here, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said the man. ‘You’d be surprised. It’s a village really.’

‘Do you often play pin-ball?’

‘Me? No. Got an office up the Charing Cross Road. I just like to look in most evenings on my way home. Yes, indeed.’

‘Right.’

‘I thought you were a girl at first with your hair and … everything.’

Adrian blushed. He didn’t like to be reminded how long beard growth was in coming.

‘No offence. I like it … it suits you.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Yes indeed. Yes indeedy-do.’

Adrian made a note, somewhere in the back of his mind, to get a haircut the next day.

‘You sound a bit public school to me. Am I right?’

Adrian nodded.

‘Harrow,’ he said. He thought it a safe bet.

‘Harrow, you say? Harrow! Dear me, I think you’re going to be a bit of a hit. Yes indeed. You got anywhere to stay?’

‘Well …’

‘You can put up with me, if you like. It’s just a small flat in Brewer Street, but it’s local.’

‘It’s terribly kind of you … I’m looking for a job, you see.’

That’s how simple it had been. One day a lazy student, the next a busy prostitute.

‘Thing is, Hugo,’ said Don, ‘soon as I clapped eyes on you I thought, “That’s not rent, that’s the real thing.” I’ve been around the Dilly for fifteen years and I can spot ’em, indeedy-dumplings, I can. Now I’m sorry to say that I won’t fancy you next week. Unplucked chicken is my speciality and I’ll be bored stiff with you Thursday. Bored limp, more like. Hur, hur! But you cut your hair a bit – not too much – keep your Harrovian accent fit and you’ll be clearing two ton a week. Yes indeed.’

‘Two ton?’

‘Two hundred, sunshine.’

‘But what do I have to do?’

And Don told him. There were two principal amusement arcades, there was the Meat Rack, which was an iron pedestrian grille outside Playland, the more active of the arcades, and there was the Piccadilly Underground itself.

‘But you want to watch that. Crawling with the law.’

Don wasn’t a pimp. He worked at a perfectly respectable music publishing house in Denmark Street. Adrian paid him thirty pounds a week which covered his own accommodation and the use of the flat for tricks during the day. At night it was up to the tricks to provide the venue.

‘Just don’t start chewing gum, shooting horse or looking streetwise, that’s all.’

At first the days passed slowly, each transaction nerve-racking and remarkable, but soon the quiet pulse of routine quickened the days. The young can become accustomed to the greatest drudgeries, like potato-harvesting or schoolwork, with surprising speed. Prostitution had at least the advantage of variety.

Adrian got on pretty well with the other rent-boys. Most of them were tougher and beefier than he was, skinheads with tattoos, braces and mean looks. They didn’t regard him as direct competition and sometimes they even recommended him.

‘Do you know of anyone less … chunky?’ a punter might ask.

‘You want to try Hugo, he’ll be doing
The Times
crossword down the Bar Italia this time of the morning. Flared jumbo cords and a blazer. Can’t miss him.’

Adrian was intrigued by the fact that the most prosperous, pin-striped clients went for the rough trade, while the wilder, less respectable tricks wanted more lightly muscled boys like him. Opposite poles attracted. The Jacobs wanted hairy men and the Esaus wanted smooth. It meant that he more than most had to learn to spot the sadists and nutters who were on the lookout for a sex-slave. One of the last things Adrian wanted was to be chained up, flogged and urinated over.

He liked to think that his rates were competitive but not insulting. A blow-job was ten quid to give, fifteen to receive. After a week he made up his mind to forbid anything up the anus. Some could take it and some couldn’t: Adrian decided that he belonged to the latter category. A couple of boys tried to convince him, as he hobbled down Coventry Street after a particularly heavy night complaining that his back passage felt like a wind-sock, that he would soon get used to it, but he resolved – financially disadvantageous as it might be – that his rear section was to be firmly labelled a no-poking compartment. This was a proviso he had to make clear to clients at the opening of negotiations: between the thighs was fine – the intercrural method was, after all, endorsed by no less an authoritative source than the Ancient Greeks themselves – but he was buggered if he was going to be buggered. As long as he could get it up he didn’t mind sodomising a client, but his own bronze eye was closed to all comers.