The Yellow Room Conspiracy (8 page)

The sobs stopped. The machinery clicked. She started to rattle off numbers.

“You'll have to write them down,” I said. “Don't worry if you can't remember them all.”

“Oh, I can!” she said and went rattling on.

“You're extraordinary,” I said, still trying to cheer her up.

“It was a nice easy name,” she said. “I don't like Robinsons. But George Gissing—he was a writer, you know. My father read him all the time.”

I ordered a file-check, though we didn't mis-file, ever. There was no card in the card index. I told Di to check Sylvia's cross-refs while I took the other files upstairs. While I was there I looked in on the Director's secretary and asked for an urgent appointment. When I got back Di told me that three more files were missing, and so were the cross-ref sheets in the other ones Sylvia had remembered. They'd all got something to do with Yugoslavia. Sylvia, of course, was in tears again.

I felt cold all through. Once, years later, my flat was burgled. There'd been some stuff about me in the gossip-columns, with pictures, and hints about my private life, so people knew who I was and thought they knew the sort of person I was. This man—it must have been a man—didn't just come in and take my jewellery. He'd brought a packet of condoms and written little notes to go with them and hidden them round the flat for me to find. It was horrible. After I found the third I decided to move. It was a nice flat, but I couldn't live there any more. But before that, whenever I found one, I immediately remembered how I'd felt looking at the files in the Zoo that morning.

I rang the Director's secretary and told her I had to see him at once. She said he was in a meeting, but I said I was coming up now and she had to get him out. She didn't like it at all, but she did it. I told him what it was about and he went and cancelled the meeting and came back. This time I told him the whole story. I suppose I could have said I'd asked for the file in order to test the system, but he'd have been bound to smell a rat. He just sat there looking at me with his little piggy eyes, exactly the way Mr Chad used to look at Mother when she was making her madder suggestions. (That's how I'm so sure it must have been the same man as Paul's boss. They weren't twins, but there was a terrific family likeness. They could easily have been brothers.)

The Director was ill by then. He'd had something wrong with his blood that winter, and his skin was blotchy and yellow and his lips were blue and his voice sounded exhausted, but he was still one of the cleverest people I've ever met.

“This girl,” he said. “What does she do outside?”

“I don't know. She shares a flat with one of the other clerks, Annie Dunwoody.”

“Send up her personal file,” he said. “We'll have to run a check on all of them, but we'll start with her. I should have known about her earlier.”

I didn't understand for a moment. Here I was coming up with the appalling news that someone had got into the Zoo and taken several files from the contain and removed a lot of cross-refs from other files, and on top of that that I'd been forging green tags, and he was worrying about Sylvia's personal life … then I got it. It was just that I was so used to Sylvia that I hadn't thought about it before. She didn't have to take files home. She carried them around in her head. And if somebody outside realised … They'd only need to be kind to her, pretend to be fond of her, cuddle her … But she couldn't have taken the file. I was absolutely certain it had been a terrible shock to her when she found it was missing.

The Director was on the telephone, arranging an emergency meeting of Section Chiefs. I would normally have come to that but he looked at me and said, “I think you'd better go down and do some further checking. I'll let you know if I need you.”

Down in filing I found two things. Sylvia was having hysterics again and saying she'd lost her memory. And Annie Dunwoody had disappeared. Just about when the first panic had started, before I'd even shown up, she'd said she needed to go to the loo—I've explained about this being a nuisance—and she hadn't come back. I checked with main security and found she'd left the building, getting on an hour before. I reported up to the Director's office and next thing there was a team of men down in Files, poking around and questioning everyone, and I had to explain how everything was supposed to work, and answer questions over and over and over. They kept us there till after ten at night, except Sylvia, who was in such a state I made them send her home with an escort. As soon as she thought she was alone she turned on the gas oven and put her head in it, but the man who'd stayed to keep watch on her realised what was up and got her out in time.

I only heard about that, because people stopped telling me things and I didn't go to the Thursday Meetings any more, so I don't know if they ever found out how Annie had smuggled the files (we found several more were missing) out of the Zoo. Looking back, I suppose the security might have got a bit slacker than I realised. That's always the trouble with systems. The people who set them up assume they're working the way they're supposed to, while the people who're actually in them are taking short cuts.

Anyway, next thing I knew was rumours about a terrific power struggle upstairs, and the old Director resigned and the D Section Chief—that was the blue-eyed maniac—took over. Almost the first thing he did was send for me.

He didn't ask me to sit down. I had to stand in front of his desk while he stared at me as if he was trying to hypnotise me.

“I have some further questions about the security lapse last month,” he said. “Grantworth, alias Gissing, is a friend of yours?”

“He's a friend of the family,” I said.

“Mostly my older sister's, I suppose.”

“Were you previously aware of his wartime activities?” he asked.

“Somebody told me he'd been doing something hush-hush in the Balkans,” I said.

“Somebody?” he asked. “Mr Paul Ackerley?”

“As a matter of fact, yes, but …”

He interrupted me. His dead-level voice was getting on my nerves. It made the most obvious, innocent things sound sinister.

“Another friend?” he asked.

“He used to be more a friend of Harriet's,” I said. “She's another sister. But I've seen him several times recently. In fact, I'm having supper with him tonight.”

“Has either of them ever asked you for any information about your work here?” he said.

“I always say it's too boring to talk about,” I said. “I mean, looking after the filing in a trade …”

He interrupted me again.

“That is not the answer to my question,” he said. “Has either of them ever asked you for information about your work here?”

“I don't think so,” I said.

“What about your sisters?” he said.

“No, not them either,” I said. “They know I work around here because I sometimes meet them for lunch and things. And I wouldn't dream of talking about it at home because my mother is mad on Joe Stalin.”

That was a bad mistake. He really stared now.

“It's just like a schoolgirl crush,” I said. “On Gary Cooper or someone. She got it during the war when he was on our side. It doesn't mean anything.”

It was no use. He was the kind who thinks everything means something. It was maddening, so maddening in fact that I decided I'd really give him something to think about. Gerry had told us the story once when he came over to Blatchards from Bury.

“Anyway,” I said, “it probably wasn't Gerry at all. It was probably his doppelganger.”

“His doppelganger?” he said in that stupid machine-voice.

“When he was called up they turned him into two people. You know, two army numbers, and a double set of pay-books and so on, and then they posted him to two places and tried to arrest him for being a deserter from the other one, and last I heard they still hadn't got it sorted out. You see?”

I think he knew I was teasing him, but there was something behind those mad blue eyes which told me I'd touched a really raw nerve. It was a sort of spy-hunter's nightmare, I suppose, the idea of an enemy agent who can somehow turn himself into two people and actually get into your filing system like that and stay there.

“And Ackerley?” he said at last.

“Oh, he's different,” I said. “He didn't exist at all, and they made him up.”

He'd got hold of himself by now and nodded as if he understood what I was talking about. He kept me standing there while he made a couple of notes. Then he looked up.

“Very well,” he said. “You can go. In the circumstances you would do well to cancel your engagement this evening.”

Now it was my turn to stare, and have to get hold of myself. As soon as I was out of the room I ran downstairs, grabbed a typewriter and wrote out my letter of resignation. Before I could take it upstairs a note came down from the Director's Office telling me that my services were no longer required, that I must be clear of my desk by that evening, that I'd get a month's pay in lieu of notice and so on, and reminding me, underlined, that I'd signed the Official Secrets Act. While I was clearing my desk a man called Parry came down to ask me more questions and tell me what I could and couldn't do without getting sent to prison for breaking the Act. I used to think he was a bit of a friend, but he wasn't now. I didn't mind. I was absolutely furious.

I knew I was going to be followed, so I deliberately walked the whole way home to give the man blisters. It was trying to snow, fine icy crumbs, coming on for a really cold night. The hell with them, I thought, thinking they've got a right to tell me how to run my life! I'll show 'em how much I care! And he can bloody well wait out on the pavement all night!

PAUL V

1948

I
suppose the next significant forgathering for me was the party to celebrate Harriet's engagement to Bobo Smith in the summer of 1948. Characteristically the central event was a cricket match, Blatchards v. The World. The World could raise only two women prepared to have a go, but all five sisters played for the house. There were no restrictions in favour of the women. The men in the Blatchards team were Lord Vereker, Bobo, and three workers from the estate and Home Farm. Dick Felder was to have played but at the last minute refused to make the trip, and, I believe, wanted to prevent Nancy from doing so. Lucy had already hinted that the marriage was in an uncomfortable state. She rang to ask if I had any suggestions for a replacement.

“I could try Gerry again,” I said.

“Oh, yes. Perhaps if you tell him …”

“Of course.”

Gerry was up at King's on a scholarship. He'd won a cricket blue in his first summer but had switched from Classics to Economics for his second year (he was on a short course), effectively cramming three years” work in the new subject into one. That had meant no cricket till after the Tripos. Though that was by now done with he hadn't wanted to commit himself to playing regularly for the rest of the summer. Tommy Seddon, a county neighbour of the Verekers who was captaining The World, had already asked me to approach him about playing, but Gerry had made his excuses, letting me understand that it wouldn't much amuse him to stay at Seddon Hall and merely come over for the match and the party while Dick was installed with Nancy at the house itself. Lucy, of course, knew all this and indeed as soon as I spoke to Gerry he jumped at the offer, though it meant cancelling an engagement to play elsewhere.

Mr Chad and Lord Seddon's head gardener umpired. My unofficial position as Lucy's lover was recognised by my being appointed scorer for both teams. I won't describe the match, except to say that it was enjoyable, with an excitingly close finish. Ben, bowling a lively medium with a pleasant loose-limbed action, took three good wickets, one of them Michael Allwegg's, a stocky aggressive hitter, of whom more later. Gerry opened for the House and was still there when Lucy, going in last “because someone has to”, joined him with a dozen runs still needed. This was apparently a repeat of a similar ending in the last match before the war, and there were great hurrahings when she hit the winning runs with a neat square cut. A beautiful late-June day turned into a mild dusk and starlit night.

Despite problems at home Dick was still being generous about money, so Nancy was able to subsidise the party well beyond the Blatchards norm. Harriet, insisting that it was her engagement, had taken over the arrangements, limiting Lady Vereker's genius for discomfort to a few minor awkwardnesses—the coats of guests could not, for some reason, be stored anywhere near the front door but had to be carried through the crowded inner hall to three different locations, and thus were almost impossible to find when guests wanted to leave. An uncle of Bobo's in the wine trade had bought a large parcel of pre-war champagne at an auction, cheap because the occasional bottle was past it. With the import restrictions then prevailing one glass of champagne at a party was a luxury. Enough to supply over a hundred guests well into the small hours was a miracle. The band was Tommy Kinsman's, pretty good still. We danced in the Long Gallery.

Lucy and I had been lovers long enough for me to be able to bear seeing her in someone else's arms, and with so many of the guests being old friends her card quickly filled. I was curious to dance with Ben, who had turned out far too tall for classical ballet and was now living in Paris and working in the chorus line of the Moulin Rouge. She had kept the angular coltish look and made it part of her style (in her fifties she used to lounge in teenager poses). She had, though, acquired a cool, amused, watchful manner which I guessed was largely defensive. We waltzed, and she was indeed good—for some reason I specially enjoy dancing with partners taller than myself.

“Can you tango?” she said as we finished.

“Reasonably.”

“I'll get them to do one.”

“It's not on the card, and how many people …”

“The hell with them. What's the point of being the daughter of the house?”

As I'd guessed the floor largely cleared, apart from a few incorrigible shufflers, but enough other pairs at first made a go of it for me not to feel as if we were behaving anti-socially. Ben took charge. Apparently there was a tango number in that year's show. I merely kept my end up, but it was still very exhilarating. There is something about that particular combination of discipline and panache, of drill precision not simply mastering and controlling but actually expressing the prime sexual urge, which … I don't know. Before long the other couples seemed to be dropping out until only one pair were still dancing along with us. I was too busy keeping up to Ben's standard to do more than register that they were Nancy and Gerry, but when we'd finished and the spectators were applauding Ben turned laughing to Nancy and said “You've been taking lessons.”

Nancy was excited, bright-eyed. Up till that moment, though she had made no parade of her feelings, she had seemed to me rather depressed, presumably by her problems with Dick.

“Not me,” she said. “Gerry did the dancing. I was a passenger.”

“Not in a tango,” said Ben. “Can't be done.”

I looked at Gerry. He seemed as nonchalant as ever but he caught my eye and gave a minimal nod of satisfaction as we moved off. (Later that evening, incidentally, the floor was cleared again and Ben, in costume, did a can-can for us. It was clearly the real thing, but the applause hadn't quite the spontaneity our tango had elicited.)

I was due for the next dance with Lucy. I'd apologised before taking Ben off to tango, but she'd simply smiled indulgently and said “Go ahead. Have fun.” Now I found her mysteriously cross.

“I want some air,” she said.

“Can't we dance first?”

“No. Let's get out of here. Have you got a fag?”

She practically never smoked, knowing I didn't like it, but I found her a cigarette and we went out into the warm night and strolled past the weeping beech into the heavy shadow of the cedar. When I put my hand in hers she twisted her fingers tightly between mine, but when I turned her and reached to put my other arm round her bare shoulders she lifted it away.

“Oh, God,” she sighed, and started to weep.

I had nothing to say. I tried to let go of her hand but she clutched my fingers tight enough to hurt.

“I'm sorry, Paul,” she whispered. “I truly am sorry. I've been telling us both lies.”

“No you haven't. You've never said you loved me. Not once.”

“You've kept count?”

“It isn't difficult to count up to one.”

We walked for a while more, holding each other close in a useless attempt at comforting.

“Stay with me tonight,” she said as we made our way back to the house. There was a convention by which we slept separately when staying at Blatchards. I didn't feel like breaking it on those terms.

“Please,” she said.

“All right, but change your mind if you want to.”

She disappeared for the rest of the evening, leaving the rest of her partners in the lurch. I got through somehow till the last guests left, around three in the morning. We still had double summertime then, so it was getting light by the time I stole along to Lucy's room. As I was closing her door I heard a movement behind me. I waited, watching through the crack, and saw Gerry go past towards where Nancy slept.

Lucy was awake. We held each close, like children, until after a while Lucy dropped asleep as if she'd been drugged. I lay on my back until there was a reasonable chance of breakfast, when I slipped back to my room, dressed and shaved in cold water. I found Harriet in the breakfast room looking typically healthy and kempt. I was fond of her since Cairo, and felt that because of those days we enjoyed a sort of alliance different from either friendship or love. We could be entirely open and trusting with each other. She showed me her ring, platinum, from Asprey, an aggressive diamond in an uninteresting setting.

“Bobo chose it,” she said. “I didn't get a say.”

“Do you mind?”

“Not really. I don't suppose I'd have chosen much different. You know, about getting married and putting up with someone, I think it doesn't much matter not having the same kind of good taste—I mean preferring baroque to gothic or something. But you've really got to have the same kind of bad taste. If one of you likes damask lampshades with gold tassels, then you've both got to.”

She studied the ring.

“At least it makes it pretty definite I'm engaged,” she said. “One likes to be clear about these things. I don't know I could cope the way you and Lucy manage.”

“It's tricky, certainly, at times.”

“Are you coming over to Seddon Hall for luncheon? Tommy asked me to ring him with numbers. He's a fusser.”

“I don't know him that well.”

“You should make more effort. He's going to be Foreign Secretary one day. Everyone says so.”

“I'd have thought if you went in for that sort of ambition you'd aim for the top.”

“He can't be Prime Minister because when old Lord Seddon dies he'll inherit the title. Tommy's got less sense of humour than anyone I've ever met, but otherwise he's all right. Bobo can't stand him.”

“One of a fair-sized list, I imagine. I suppose it includes me.”

“I'm working him round.”

“Why are you marrying him?”

“Because I'll know where I am with him, I've decided. I don't want to fall properly in love—it only seems to make people unhappy.”

“When it's going well there's nothing like it.”

“But then, whoops, and you're miserable. Aren't you, Paul?”

“Things don't look too good at the moment.”

“I'm sorry. What about luncheon?”

“I don't want to wake Lucy—I think she's going to sleep in. Find out what Nan and Gerry are doing, and if they want to go we won't, and vice versa. Then you'll have the same numbers regardless.”

At this point Lady Vereker rushed in.

“Just the two of you?” she said. “You're early. I was just going to go and tell everyone they didn't have to get up.”

“No, Mother,” said Harriet.

“I thought it would be friendly.”

“You are going to wake everyone up to tell them they don't have to wake up?”

“Then they can go back to sleep.”

“Not after you've been round shouting at them. Will Father mind if I fry my own egg?”

“Provided you take one from the left of the box. Oh well, in that case I might as well go and clean tack for a bit.”

Neither Lucy nor Nancy went over to Seddon Hall. Lucy, despite her stated need for me the night before, could now apparently hardly bear to be in the same room as me, not, I guessed, out of revulsion but out of distress at her own behaviour to me. As for Nancy's motives, anyone's guess is as good as mine. So both Gerry and I were needed to make up the numbers.

Petrol rationing still being in force, eight of us crammed into Bobo's Riley, which he then deliberately drove to elicit as much by way of screams and protests as he could. At one moment, coming on to a hump-backed bridge, he was on the edge of being out of control when a child on a bicycle wobbled up from the far side. Everyone yelled. The car spun as Bobo braked. We almost overturned, but finished up facing the way we had come with our rear mudguard jammed against the stone parapet. While the child watched, quivering, we heaved the car clear and Bobo and Gerry managed to wrench the mudguard out to a point where it no longer rubbed against the tyre. After that we drove on more sensibly.

Seddon Hall can legitimately be described as a gothic pile. Ivanhoe-inspired, it might have been an architectural sampler built to display all the possible variations of turret, battlement and machicolation available in the 1820s. Lord Seddon was on the steps waiting to greet us, not, it turned out, for the pleasure of welcoming three pretty, if dishevelled, girls under his portcullis, but because he was anxious whether Gerry was in our party.

I had met Lord Seddon the day before, when he had spent some time at the scoring-table. He was small, wiry, bright-eyed and weirdly inarticulate. I never heard him reach the end of a sentence. Often he stopped short of the main verb. Since his thought processes were routine and his sole interest was cricket I had found conversation with him not too difficult. Now, though, when he took me aside as soon as the party had assembled for sherry in the Solar, he lost me for a while.

“Grantworth, er …”

“Yes, sir. I've known him several years.”

“First class, eh …”

“I should think he'll get one, pretty certainly.”

“Eh? No, no. Yesterday …”

“I've seen him play much better bowling just as well.”

“Got his blue, but then, I say, why …?”

“He had to work, sir. He was doing a three years” course in one. Even so, as I say, I should think he'll get his first.”

Lord Seddon vented a rasping snort. There was no point in my explaining that for a penniless undergraduate a Cricket Blue plus a First in Economics might offer better job prospects than a Blue alone, but both poverty and work were probably concepts beyond Lord Seddon's imagination.

“Happen to know where …?”

“He was at Eton with me, sir.”

“No, no, where …?”

“At his prep school, I imagine, sir. He has no family to …?”

““No, no, no. I mean, where …?”

I worked it out. Lucy had already told me that Lord Seddon, though living entirely in Suffolk, maintained another house near Ripon, where all his children had been born and most of his grandchildren too, at his insistence, so that they should have birth qualifications to play for Yorkshire. In the event only three of them had been male, none anything like good enough to represent the county, and he was now, according to Lucy, waiting with some impatience for the next generation. I remembered what Gerry had told me about his being found in a public lavatory.