A Perfect Spy (50 page)

“What's Maxie done with his moustache?” Pym whispers excitedly to Syd, who has sat up with a jolt after a bit of a nap. “Mortgaged it?” If Pym expects a witticism in return, he is disappointed.

“It's not deemed appropriate—that's what he's done with it,” says Syd shortly. In the same moment Pym sees the light of pure love suffuse Syd's face as Rick sweeps in.

The order of appearance never changed, neither did the allocation of duties. After Muspole and the major come Perce Loft and poor Morrie Washington who is already getting bother with his liver. Perce holds open the door. Morrie steps through and sometimes, as tonight, gets a bit of a clap because the uninitiated mistake him for Rick, which is not surprising since Morrie, though a third Rick's size, spends most of his life and all his money in an effort to achieve Total Assumption with his idol. If Rick buys a new camel-hair coat, Morrie rushes off and buys two like it. If Rick is in two-tone shoes, so is Morrie, and white socks as well. But tonight Morrie has dressed like the rest of the court in churchy grey. For love of Rick he has even managed to get some of the booze out of his complexion. He steps in, he takes up his place across the door from Perce and fiddles with his rosette to make sure it is working properly. Then Morrie and Perce together crane their heads back in the direction they have come from, straining, as the audience is, to catch a first sight of their champion. And look!—they are clapping! And look, so are we!—as enter Rick, at a spanking pace, for we statesmen have no time to lose, and even as he comes striding up the aisle he is earnestly conferring with the Highest in the Land. Is that Sir Laurence Olivier with him?—looks more like Bud Flanagan to me. It is neither, as we shall quickly learn. It is none other than the great Bertie Tregenza, the Radio Bird Man, a lifelong Liberal. On the dais Muspole and the major present the other notables to the chairman and guide them to their seats. At last the moment we have come for is upon us when the only man left standing is the man in the photographs around him. Syd leans forward, listening with his eyes. Our Candidate begins speaking. A deliberate, unimpressive opening. Good evening and thank you for coming here in such numbers on this cold winter's night. I am sorry to have had to keep you waiting. A joke for the Nellies: they tell me I kept my mother waiting a whole week. Laughter from the Nellies as the joke is turned to account. But I'll promise you this, people of Gulworth North: nobody here is going to be kept waiting by your next Member of Parliament! More laughter and some applause from the faithful as the Candidate's tone stiffens.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, you have ventured out on this inhospitable night for one reason only. Because you care about your country. Well that makes two of us, because I care about it too. I care about the way it's run and the way it's not run. I care because Politics are People. People with hearts to tell them what they want, for themselves and for one another. People with minds to tell them how to achieve it. People with the Faith and Guts to send Adolf Hitler back to where he came from. People like ourselves. Gathered here tonight. The Salt of the Earth and make no bones about it. English people, root and bough, worried about their country, and looking for the man to see them right.”

Pym peers round the little hall. Not a face but is turned flower-like towards Rick's light. Save one, a little woman in a veiled pill-box hat, sitting like her own shadow, all apart and the black veil hiding her face. She is in mourning, Pym decides, moved at once to sympathy. She has come here for a spot of company, poor soul. On the dais Rick is explaining the meaning of Liberalism for the benefit of those unfamiliar with the differences between the three great parties. Liberalism is not a dogma but a way of life, he says. It is faith in the essential goodness of man regardless of colour, race or creed in a spirit of all pulling together to one end. The fine points of policy thus dispatched, he can proceed to the solid centre of his speech, which is himself. He describes his humble origins and his mother's tears when she heard him vow to follow in the footsteps of the great Sir Makepeace. If only my father could be here tonight, seated among you good people. An arm lifts and points to the rafters, as if picking out an aeroplane, but it is God whom Rick is indicating.

“And let me say this to the voters of Little Chedworth tonight. Without a certain person up there acting night and day for me as my senior partner—laugh if you will, because I would rather be the object of your mockery than fall prey to the cynicism and Godlessness that is sweeping through our country—without a certain person's helping hand and you all know who I mean, oh yes you do!—I wouldn't be where I am today, offering myself—be it never so humbly—to the people of Gulworth North.” He speaks of his understanding of the export market and his pride at selling British products to those foreigners who will never know how much they owe us. His arm strikes out at us again and he issues a challenge. He is British to the core and he doesn't care who knows it. He can bring British common sense to every problem you throw at him. “Bar none,” says Syd approvingly under his breath. But if we know a better man for the job than Rickie Pym, we had better speak up now. If we prefer the airy-fairy class prejudices of the High Tories who think they own the people's birthright, whereas in reality they are sucking the people's blood, then we should stand up here and now and say so without fear or favour and let's have it out once and for all. Nobody volunteers. On the other hand, if we would rather hand over the country to the Marxists and Communists and the bully-boy trade unions who are bent on dragging this country to its knees—and let's face it, that's what the Labour vote is all about—then better to come out with it in the full glare of the public gaze of the voters of Little Chedworth and not skulk in the dark like miserable conspirators.

Once again, nobody volunteers, though Rick and everyone on the dais glowers around the room in search of a miscreant hand or guilty face.

“Now press button B for Beautiful,” Syd whispers dreamily and closes his eyes for extra pleasure as Rick starts the long climb towards the stars, which like Liberal ideals we cannot reach but can only profit from their presence.

Again Pym looks round. Not a face but is wrapt in love for Rick, save the one bereaved woman in her veil. This is what I came for, Pym tells himself excitedly. Democracy is when you share your father with the world. The applause fades but Pym goes on clapping until he realises he is the only one. He seems to hear his name being called, and observes to his surprise that he is standing. Faces turn to him, too many. Some are smiling. He makes to sit but Syd shakes him back to his feet with a hand under his armpit. The ward chairman is speaking and this time he is recklessly audible.

“I understand our candidate's celebrated young son Maggus is among us here tonight, having interrupted his legal studies at Oggsford in order to assist his father in his great gampaign,” he says. “I'm sure we'd all appreciate a word from you, Maggus, if you'll favour us. Maggus? Where is he?”

“Over 'ere, governor!” Syd yells. “Not me. Him.”

If Pym is resisting, he is not aware of it. I have fainted. I am an accident. Syd's ginger ale has knocked me out. The crowd separates, strong hands bear him towards the dais, floating voters gaze down on him. Pym ascends, Rick seizes him in a bear-hug; a yellow rosette is nailed to Pym's collarbone by the ward chairman. Pym is speaking, and a cast of thousands is staring up at him—well, sixty, at least—smiling at his first brave words.

“I expect you are all asking yourselves,” Pym begins long before anything has occurred to him. “I expect that many of you here tonight, even after that fine speech, are asking yourselves, what manner of man my father is.”

They are. He can see it in their faces. They want the confirmation of their faith, and Maggus the Oggsford lawyer supplies it without a blush. For Rick, for England, and for fun. As he speaks he believes as usual every word he says. He paints Rick as Rick has painted himself, but with the authority of a loving son and legal brain who picks his words but never splits them. He refers to Rick as the plain man's honest friend—“and I should know, he's been the best friend I've had these twenty years or more.” He depicts him as the reachable star in his childlike firmament, shining before him as an example of chivalrous humility. The image of the singer Wolfram von Eschenbach wanders through his mind and he considers offering them Rick as Little Chedworth's soldier-poet, wooing and jousting his way to victory. Caution prevails. He describes the influence of our patron saint TP, “marching on long after the old soldier has fought his last fight.” How whenever we had to move house—a nervous moment—TP's portrait was the first thing to be hung up. He speaks of a father blessed with a fair man's sense of justice. With Rick as my father, he asks, how could I have contemplated any other calling than the law? He turns to Sylvia, who roosts at Rick's side in her rabbitskin collar and stay-press smile. With a choke he thanks her for taking up the burdens of motherhood where my own poor mother was obliged to lay them down. Then, as quickly as it all began, it is over, and Pym is hastening after Rick down the aisle towards the door, brushing away his tears and clasping hands in Rick's wake. He reaches the door and takes a misty look back. He sees again the woman in the veiled pill-box hat, seated by herself. He catches the glint of her eye inside the mask and it seems to him baleful and disapproving just when everyone else is being so admiring. A guilty fret replaces his elation. She is not a widow, she is the risen Lippsie. She is E. Weber. She is Dorothy, and I have wronged them all. She is an emissary of the Oggsford Communist Party here to observe my treacherous gonversion. The Michaels sent her.

“How was I, son?”

“Fantastic!”

“So were you, son. By God, if I'm spared to be a hundred, I'll never be a prouder man. Who cut your hair?”

Nobody has cut it for a long time, but Pym lets this go. They are crossing the carpark with difficulty for Rick is holding Pym's arm in an ambulant bear-hug and they are advancing at an angle like a pair of crookedly hung overcoats. Mr. Cudlove has the Bentley door open and is weeping a teacher's tears of pride.

“Beautiful, Mr. Magnus,” he says. “It was Karl Marx come alive, sir. We shall never forget it.”

Pym thanks him distractedly. As so often when on the crest of a phoney triumph, he is gripped by an unfocussed sense of God's approaching retribution. What have I done wrong to her? he keeps asking himself. I'm young and fluent and Rick's son. I'm wearing my new unpaid-for suit from Hall Brothers, the tailor. Why won't she love me like the rest of them? He is thinking, like every artist before or since him, of the only member of the audience who did not applaud.

 

It is the following Saturday, it is approaching midnight. Campaign fever is mounting fast. In a few minutes, it will be Eve of Poll Day minus three. A new poster saying “He Needs YOU on Thursday” is stuck to Pym's window, yellow bunting with the same message is strung from the sash, across the street to the pawnbroker's opposite. Yet Pym is lying fully dressed and smiling on his bed, and not a thought of the campaign is going through his mind. He is in Paradise with a girl called Judy, the daughter of a Liberal farmer who has lent her to us to drive Old Nellies to the booths, and Paradise is the front of her parked van on the way to Little Kimble. The taste of Judy's skin is on his lips, the smell of her hair is in his nostrils. And when he cups his hands over his eyes they are the same hands that for the first time in human history enclosed a young girl's breasts. The bedroom is on the first floor of a rundown corner house called Mrs. Searle's Temperance Rest, though rest and temperance are the last things it sells. The pubs have closed, the shouts and sighs have taken themselves to another part of town. A woman's voice shrieks from the alley, “Got a bed for us, Mattie? It's Jessie. Come on, you old bugger, we're freezing.” An upper window bangs open and the blurred voice of Mr. Searle advises Jessie to take her client behind the bus shelter. “What do you think we are, Jess?” he complains. “A bloody doss house?” Of course we aren't. We are the Liberal Candidate's campaign headquarters and dear old Mattie Searle our landlord, though he didn't know it till a month ago, has been a Liberal all his life.

Careful not to wake himself from his erotic reverie, Pym tiptoes to the window and squints steeply downward into the hotel courtyard. To one side the kitchen. To the other the residents' dining room, now the campaign's committee rooms. In its lighted window Pym makes out the bowed grey heads of Mrs. Alcock and Mrs. Catermole, our tireless helpers, as they determinedly seal the last envelopes of the day.

He returns to his bed. Wait, he thinks. They can't stay up all night. They never do. His conquest in one field is inspiring him to conquest in another. Tomorrow being the sabbath, Our Candidate rests his troops and contents himself with pious appearances at the best-attended Baptist churches where he is disposed to preach on simplicity and service. Tomorrow at eight o'clock Pym will stand at the bus stop for Nether Wheatley and Judy will meet him there in her father's van and in the boot she will have the toboggan the gamekeeper made for her when she was ten. She knows the hill, she knows the barn beside it, and it is agreed between them without fallbacks that somewhere around ten-thirty, depending on how much tobogganing they do, Judy Barker will take Magnus Pym to the barn and anoint him her full and consummated lover.

But in the meantime Pym has a different slope to scale or descend. Beyond the committee rooms lies a staircase to the cellar, and in the cellar—Pym has seen it—stands the chipped green filing cabinet that he has aspired to for three-quarters of his life and too often tried in vain to penetrate. In Pym's wallet beneath his pillow nestles the pair of blue steel dividers with which the Michaels have taught him to spring cheap locks. In Pym's mind, heated by voluptuous ambitions, is the calm conviction that a man who can gain access to Judy's breasts can burst open the fortress of Rick's secrets.