The silent world of Nicholas Quinn (5 page)

and Roman coins; and when he had come down from Cambridge with a brilliant first,

and when he had walked directly into a senior mathematics post in a prestigious

public school, life had seemed to promise a career of distinguished and enviable

achievement. But he had lacked ambition, even then; and at the age of thirty-nine he

had drifted into his present position for no other reason than the vague conviction that

he had been in one rut for so long that he might as well try to climb out and fall as

gently as possible into another. There remained but few joys in his life, and the chief of these was travel. Though his six weeks annual holiday allowed him less time than he

would have wished, at least his fairly handsome salary allowed him to venture far

afield, and only the previous summer he had managed a fortnight in Moscow. As well

as deputizing for Bartlett, he looked after Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry; and

since no one else in the office (not even Monica Height, the linguist) was his equal in

the unlikelier languages, he did his best to cope with Welsh and Russian as well.

Towards his colleagues he appeared supremely indifferent; even towards Monica his

attitude seemed that of a mildly tolerant husband towards his mother-in-law. For their

part, the rest of the staff accepted him for what he was: intellectually superior to them all; administratively more than competent; socially a nonentity. Only one another

person in Oxford was aware of a different side to his nature . . .

At twenty past three Bartlett rang extension five.

'Is that you, Quinn?'

'Hullo?'

'Come along to my office a minute, will you?'

'I'm sorry. I can't hear you very well.'

'It's Bartlett here.' He almost shouted it into the phone.

'Oh, sorry. Look, I can't quite hear you, Dr. Bartlett. I'll come along to your office right away.'

'That's what I asked you to do!'

'Pardon?'

Bartlett put the phone down and sighed heavily. He'd have to stop ringing the man;

and so would everybody else.

Quinn knocked and entered.

'Sit down,1 Quinn, and let me put you in the picture. When you were at your meeting

yesterday, I gave the others some details of our little, er, jamboree next week.'

Quinn could follow the words fairly easily. 'With the oil sheiks, you mean, sir?'

'Yes. It's going to be an important meeting. I want you to realize that. The Syndicate

has only just broken even these last few years, and—well, but for these links of ours

with some of the new oil states, we'd soon be bankrupt, like as not, and that's the truth of the matter. Now, we've been in touch with our schools out there, and one of the

things they'd like us to think about is a new History syllabus. O-level only for a start.

You know the sort of thing: Suez Canal, Lawrence of Arabia, colonialism, er, cultural

heritage, development of resources. That sort of thing. Hell of a sight more relevant

than Elizabeth the First, eh?'

Quinn nodded vaguely.

'The point is this. I want you to have a think about it before next week. Draft out a few ideas. Nothing too detailed. Just the outlines. And let me have 'em.'

'I'll try, sir. Could you just say one thing again, though? Better than "a list of

metaphors", did you say?'

'Elizabeth the First, man! Elizabeth the First!'

'Oh yes. Sorry.' Quinn smiled weakly and left the room deeply embarrassed. He

wished Bartlett would occasionally try to move his lips a little more.

When Quinn had gone, the Secretary half-closed his eyes, drew back his mouth as

though he had swallowed a cupful of vinegar, and bared his teeth. He thought of

Roope once more. Roope! What a bloody fool that man had been!

THROUGHOUT THE MONTH of October the health of the pound sterling was a topic of

universal, if melancholy, interest. Its effective devaluation against the dollar and

against other European currencies was solemnly reported (to two points of decimals)

in every radio and TV news bulletin: the pound had a poor morning, but recovered

slightly in later dealings; the pound had a better morning, but was later shaky against

its Continental competitors. The pound, it seemed, occasionally sat up in its sick bed

to prove to the world that reports of its death had been somewhat exaggerated; but

almost invariably the effort appeared to have been overtaxing and very soon it was

once more lying prostrate, relapsing, slipping, falling, collapsing almost—until finally it struggled up on to its elbow once more, blinked modestly around at the anxious

foreign financiers, and moved up a point or two in the international money market.

Yet although, during that autumn, the gap in the balance of payments grew ever wider;

although the huge oil deficit could be made up only by massive loans from the IMF;

although the number of the unemployed rose sickeningly to unpredicted heights;

although the bankruptcy courts were enjoying unprecedented business; although

foreign investors decided that London was no longer a worthy recipient for their ever-

accumulating cash surpluses—still, in spite of it all, there remained among our foreign

friends a firm and charming faith in the efficiency and efficacy of the British educational system; and, as a corollary to this, in the integrity and fair-mindedness of t1he British system of public examinations. Heigh-ho!

On the night of Monday, 3rd November, many were making their ways to hotel rooms

in Oxford: commercial travellers and small business men; visitors from abroad and

visitors from home—each selecting his hotel with an eye to business expenses,

subsistence allowances, travellers' cheques or holiday savings. Cheap hotels and

posh hotels; but mostly of the cheaper kind, though they (Lord knew) were dear

enough. Rooms where the cisterns groaned and gurgled through the night; rooms

where the window sashes sagged and the floorboards creaked beneath the flimsy

matting. But the five emissaries from the Sheikdom of Al-jamara were safely settled in

the finest rooms that even the Sheridan had to offer. Earlier in the evening they had

eaten gloriously, imbibed modestly, tipped liberally; and each in turn had made his

way upstairs and slipped between the crisp white sheets. Domestic problems,

personal problems, health problems—certainly any or all of these might ruffle the

waters of their silent dreams; but money was a problem which worried none of them. In

the years immediately after the Second World War, oil, of high quality and in large

accessible deposits, had been discovered beneath their seemingly barren sands; and

a benevolent and comparatively scrupulous despot, in the person of the uncle of Sheik

Ahmed Dubai, had not only secured American capital for the exploitation of the wells,

but had immeasurably enriched the lives of most of the inhabitants of Al-jamara.

Roads, hospitals, shopping centres, swimming pools and schools had not only been

planned—but built; and in such an increasingly westernized society the great demand

of the wealthier citizens was for the better education of their children; and it was now

five years since the first links with the Foreign Examinations Syndicate had been

forged.

The two-day conference started at 10.30 a.m. on Tuesday, 4th, and at the coffee

session beforehand there was much shaking of hands, many introductions, and all

was mutual smiles and general bonhomie. The deeply-tanned Arabs were dressed

almost identically in dark-blue suits, with sparklingly laundered white shirts and sober

ties. Quinn had earlier viewed the day with considerable misgivings, but soon he

found to his very great relief that the Arabs spoke a beautifully precise and fluent

brand of English, marred, it was true, by the occasional lapse from purest idiom, but

distinct and (to Quinn) almost childishly comprehensible. In all, the two days passed

rapidly and delightfully: plenary sessions, individual sessions, general discussions,

private discussions, lively conversations, good food, coffee, sherry, wine. The whole

thing had been an enormous success.

On Wednesday evening the Arabs had booked the Disraeli suite at the Sheridan for a

farewell party, and all the Syndicate's permanent staff, together with wives and

sweethearts, and all the Syndicate's governing council, were invited to the junketing.

Sheik Ahmed himself, resplendent in his middle-eastern robes, took his seat beside a

radiant Monica Height, exquisitely dressed in a pale-lilac trouser-suit; and Donald

Martin, as he sat next to his plain-looking little wife, her white skirt creased and her

black jumper covered with dandruff, was feeling progressively more miserable. The

Sheik had clearly commandeered the fair Monica for the evening and was regularly

flashing his white and golden smile as he leaned towards her—intimate, confiding.

And she was smiling back at him—attentive, flattered, inviting . . . Quinn noticed them,

of course, and as he finished his shrimp cocktail he watched them more closely. The

Sheik was in full flow, but whether his words were meant for Monica alone, Quinn was

quite unable to tell.

'As one of your own Englishmen told me one day, Miss Height,

"Oysters is amorous,

Lobsters is lecherous,

But Shrimps—Christ!" '

Monica laughed and said something close beside the Sheik's ear which Quinn could

not follow. How foolish he had been to harbour any hope! And then he was able to

follow another brief passage of their conversation, and he knew that the words must

certainly have been whispered
pianissimo
. He felt his heart beat thicker and faster. He must surely have been mistaken . . .

Towards midnight the party had dwindled to about a third of its original number. Philip

Ogleby, who had drunk more than anyone, seemed the only obviously sober one

amongst them; the Martins had left for home some time ago; Monica and Sheik Ahmed

suddenly reappeared after an unexplained absence of over half an hour; Bartlett was

talking rather too loudly, and his large solicitous wife had already several times

reminded him that gin always made him slur his words; one of the Arabs was in

earnest negotiation with one of the barmaids; and of the Syndics, only the Dean, Voss,

and Roope appeared capable of sustaining the lively pace for very much longer.

At half past midnight Quinn decided that he must go. He felt hot and vaguely sick, and

he walked into the Gentlemen's, where he leaned his head against the coolness of the

wall mirror. He knew he would feel rough in the morning, and he still had to drive back

to his bachelor home in Kidlington. Why hadn't he been sensible and ordered a taxi?

He slapped water over his face, turned on the cold tap over his wrists, combed his

hair, and felt slightly better. He would say his thank-yous and goodbyes, and be off.

Only a few were left now, and he felt almost an interloper as he re-entered the suite.

He tried to catch Bartlett's eye, but the Secretary was deep in conversation with Sheik

Ahmed, and Quinn stared rather fecklessly around for a few minutes before finally

sitting down and looking again towards his hosts. But still they talked. And then

Ogleby joined them; and then Roope walked over, and Bartlett and Ogleby moved

away; and men the Dean and Voss went across; and finally Monica. Quinn felt almost

mesmerized as he watched the changing groupings and tried to catch the drift of what

they were talking about. He felt a simultaneous sense of guilt and fascination as he