Unknown (8 page)

I put the two pages back in the envelope and handed it back to Mr. Fitzgerald.

‘That was quick. Sure you got it all?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then we’d better get rid of this.’ He picked up his internal telephone and asked Mr. Ashford to come up with the Confidential Waste Bag. Mr. Fitzgerald smiled across the desk at me. ‘This is a small, very relaxed and very friendly Embassy, but we obey the rules implicitly.’ He took up the envelope and its contents and tore them into tiny fragments, and when Mr. Ashford came in with the Confidential Waste Bag he put them all in and told him to ‘deal with it in the usual way’.

‘That disposes of that, then.’ He leaned back in his chair, tilted it slightly, brown arms folded across his chest, a young man smiling and relaxed. I actually began to relax myself, even to feel at home in this austere, very functional office—no pot plants, no calendars, no lithographs. Just a bookcase full of books, with a small photograph on top which was too far away for me to see the subject.

‘A word, though, on Embassy social life. Don’t look so wary, I’m not going to give you a lecture. But now and again . . .’ he paused and smiled.

‘Once in a blue moon?’ I suggested, smiling back.

‘Twice, maybe three times in that.’ His smile broadened. ‘You’ll have to attend small official functions. Don’t worry, one of us will be with you. They won’t be anything very high-powered—a tea party, or reception. You will, of course, talk with the ladies.’ He paused. ‘One thing, however, you must arrive on the dot.’ Perhaps he was remembering my few minutes’ lateness this morning. ‘The Charaguayans never arrive for an appointment on time . . .
except
with the British. And naturally now they expect
us
to keep up the tradition. Punctuality here is called the
hora inglesa
. The English hour.’

‘I know,’ I said.

‘Where from?’

‘Oh, I just know,’ I murmured, colouring a deep pink, remembering Don Ramon in the park, and feeling disproportionately guilty.

‘Probably from the Foreign Office,’ he said.

And though I didn’t nod or say yes, I felt demeaned and diminished by allowing him to assume that was so.

‘You’ll also probably know that the Diplomatic Bag for London leaves on Mondays—today, in fact. It returns with our official mail on Friday. A British Airways aircraft makes a scheduled stop on those days. Either Bill Green, the Second Secretary, or Alex Ashford, the Third Secretary, takes the Bag to the airport.’

‘These letters, do you want them to catch it?’

‘I do. They shouldn’t take long. But there’s also a short report on tape.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I’m due at a trade meeting in twenty minutes’ time. The report is on the dictating machine in the Ambassador’s security cabinet. You can’t mistake his key in the box.’ He smiled faintly. ‘It’s coloured gold instead of silver. I’ll be back at six-fifty-five, just before the Bag goes.’ Mr. Fitzgerald got up. ‘Address the envelope, Head of the Latin American Department, Foreign and Commonwealth Office.’ He rolled down his shirt sleeves, snapped in some cuff links, straightened his tie. ‘Covering letter. Dear Sir John, Here enclosed is the report on the situation that I promised you.’ He smiled. ‘Have them ready. And I’ll sign when I return,
hora inglesa.’

'Hora inglesa
,’ I replied.

I left Mr. Fitzgerald shouldering his way into his lightweight jacket and at the same time feeling in his trouser pocket for his keys. He looked very young to have all this responsibility, I thought with a curious pang that defied recognition. I left Chancery and went back to my own office. I started on Mr. Fitzgerald’s letters.

At five, Mr. Green put his head round the door and said, ‘
Adios
.’ At five-thirty Ashford Aid dropped in to offer me a lift in the Land Rover, and when he heard I’d still be working he said he’d see me again at seven because it was his turn to take the Diplomatic Bag to the aircraft. I heard him clatter down the stairs and call ‘
Buenas noches
’ to the guard. Suddenly all was stillness in the Embassy, except for the honking of the evening taxis outside.

I worked swiftly on those letters of James Fitzgerald’s, but I typed them immaculately. Then I got the audio-tape pedal and headphones out of Eve’s cabinet, and arranged them beside the typewriter. I rolled in the two quarto-size sheets with the carbon in between. I had still a good hour to do the short report.

Darkness had descended with its unnerving equatorial suddenness. I switched on my desk lamp, then I pushed open the connecting door. The light is automatically switched on in the Ambassador’s office, and the blinds lowered. I walked over to the Security key box. It was locked. Trust Mr. Fitzgerald for that, even though I was in the next room! I took hold of the knurled knob. Confidently I turned it to 365, the number of days in the year. Then 25, my age. And that one with no personal connection had certainly been 31.

The whole number was now dialled—3652531.

I pulled at the lid. Nothing happened.

I had probably not had the pointer exactly on the numbers. I started again, more slowly, more exactly, 3_6—5—2—5—3—1
.'

Still the heavy metal lid stayed closed.

A shiver of panic went through me. Was it the right number? I closed my eyes. There, I could actually see it on the page, 3652531.

Then I hesitated. I’d been quite sure of the first two groups of numbers. But the last two digits.
Had
it been 13? Could it have been 11 or 33?

I tried all three—wildly now, my heart hammering, my fingers clumsy. Then any combination of numbers I could think of. Then every number.

Nothing moved it. I rushed round the room, wondering inanely if I’d see the right number somewhere. Then I ran downstairs, in the vague hope of finding the confidential waste and piecing together the bits if they hadn’t been already burned and if only I knew where the waste was kept. I spoke to the guard in my best Spanish, but my technical vocabulary was not up to my problem. He shook his head in regretful non-comprehension. I tried English. ‘Waste?’ I repeated at him. My voice rising hysterically. ‘Waste?
Waste?’

Suddenly his sad face cleared, lit up into a bright comprehending smile. ‘Waste not, want not,’ he intoned slowly, nodding in delight.

I rushed up the stairs again. Everywhere was locked —Chancery, the Second Secretary’s room. The Third Secretary’s, Mr. Ashford’s. Only my room was open and the connecting door into the Ambassador’s office.

I sat down at my desk with my head in my hands, concentrating my whole mind on those handing over notes of Eve’s. The altitude, my tiredness, the new surroundings had all combined to put me off balance. It was me. I must have got the number wrong.

And yet I have a good visual memory and I was sure I could actually
see
that number in my mind’s eye. Perhaps Eve had made a mistake. After all, she might have been in pain when she wrote the notes. She could easily have got one of the numbers wrong or misplaced.

Across the room, I saw the hands of the clock were already at six-twenty. In just over half an hour’s time, James Fitzgerald would be arriving to sign the letters, and Ashford Aid would be taking the report, with the other letters in the Diplomatic Bag, to the airport.

If only I could get hold of him now on the telephone, or even Mr. Green. He wouldn’t give me the number over the phone, but at least he’d come over straight away. But there-were so many things I didn’t know. I didn’t know where he lived, let alone his telephone number.

Down the stairs I went to the guard and tried my Spanish again. Senor Green, Senor Ashford? He nodded profoundly. Clearly he knew them well. He went on nodding. '
Adonde viven
?’ I called quite frantically at him, but his dark brown eyes stared back at me blankly.

I went behind the receptionist’s desk. There must surely be the staff telephone numbers somewhere displayed, but I could find nothing.

I went to the first floor again, two steps at a time, back into the Ambassador’s office, and tried again—the number I was so
sure
it was, 3652531.

But still, tighter than an oyster, the heavy lid stayed shut.

I went on trying—and trying again. All sorts of combinations, wildly now, just on the off-chance, hoping and praying that somehow or other the lid would suddenly spring open.

The only thing that did open was the door, and Ashford Aid’s cheery voice saying,
‘Whatever
are you doing?’

I was half-way through telling him when the door opened again.

When I had last seen James Fitzgerald he had been relaxed and friendly. Now his face was heavy and unsmiling. Curtly he said to me, ‘I’ll sign the letters now, and let’s get the Report off.’

Ashford Aid did his best for me. ‘I think she’s been having a little trouble with this box sticking.’

‘It’s never stuck before.’

I blurted out the whole story of not being able to get the key out and so

‘My report has
not
been typed.’

I hung my head, ‘I’m awfully sorry, but ’

‘Is it jammed, or what?’ He took hold of the knurled knob, rotated it expertly and in two seconds had the lid open.

In a deadly quiet voice, he said, ‘What number were you trying?’

Ashford Aid said, ‘She was trying 354—'

‘Let
her
answer, Ashford!’

I said, ‘The number I was trying was 3652531.'

‘No wonder it wouldn’t open, then,’ his voice was icy, but his face had gone dark with anger, ‘when the number is 3545213.’

‘But ’

‘Miss Bradley ’ I could see he was furious even though he kept his voice as cold as steel. ‘You said that you had read, understood and could remember Miss Trent’s handing-over notes.’

I felt my face had gone colourless and cold. My mouth was too dry to speak. I just nodded.

‘The number in the notes?’

I nodded again. I managed to say, ‘But not that number. Miss Trent couldn’t have been feeling well and perhaps ’

Even that sounded like sneaking or trying to shift the blame on to someone else, and clearly he thought that too. ‘It would be quite unlike Miss Trent to make a mistake like that, no matter how ill she was feeling.’

He didn’t even wait for me. He said to Ashford, ‘You’d better take the bag now. The plane will be in in five minutes.’ Then together they went into Chancery, and a minute later I heard the gates clang shut again, the key turn, and Ashford going downstairs.

Mr. Fitzgerald, however, came back into the office.

He marched over and sat down in the Ambassador’s chair, deliberately keeping me standing.

‘But you, Miss Bradley,' he went on as though he had not been out of the room, ‘how are you feeling tonight? Still being affected by the altitude?’

I shook my head.

‘But you made a mistake.'

I shook my head again.

‘You
must
have done, Miss Bradley!'

‘I have a good memory and –'

‘Miss Bradley, you’re new and things are unfamiliar. The Report was important. It will now have to wait a week. However, it was not absolutely vital, otherwise I would have made you sit down and type it and I would have kept that British aircraft and its hundred and fifty passengers waiting on the ground until you’d finished it. Do you understand?’

I nodded.

‘An honest admission of fault is not so bad. What is objectionable is denying it. Don’t you agree?’

I nodded again.

‘But what I find most disturbing is denying it was your fault and blaming someone else.’

I just stood there saying nothing.

‘You are the sort of person who makes mistakes, aren’t you, Miss Bradley?’

‘Not usually,’ I said. ‘It must be ’

‘I don’t mind what it is, Miss Bradley. Since we must work together, we must appreciate that you are the sort of person who makes mistakes. That is now totally proved!’

He paused, waiting for me to say something. When I still kept silent, he added, ‘Not only today. Yesterday too.'

‘Yesterday?'

It was then he delivered his bombshell. ‘Yesterday, Miss Bradley. You had an appointment, did you not? And you went to the
wrong
park!'

The next three days were of armed and, for me, unhappy neutrality. I arrived early at the Embassy, and I worked until everything was finished, usually about six. Though I had a break for lunch, because Mr. Fitzgerald had said that I must. He also made me learn the correct number combination for the key box lock, making me repeat it aloud to him over and over again, like a child learning its multiplication tables. He dictated at length. And though he played fair—never trying me beyond my speed, he never relaxed into polite small talk, not even over the flood of invitations that arrived daily and that we had to sort together.

Strangely enough, apart from that angry remark about the wrong park, he made no mention of my meeting with Don Ramón. Yet he knew all about it, of that I was sure. But for some reason he was biding his time, playing that trump card close to his chest. Perhaps waiting for H.E. Ambassador Mallenport’s return to send me packing, with some apt proverb, probably the one about the rotten apple. Sometimes I wondered if already another coded request had been signalled to London requesting a replacement for me.

But the other members of the Embassy staff seemed pleased. And friendly.

‘You’re doing very nicely,’ Ashford Aid said at our third lunch a trois in the little coffee bar of the hotel opposite, which Mr. Fitzgerald had so strongly recommended to me, but which, significantly, he did
not
patronise himself.

‘Better than we ever dared to hope,' Mr. Green echoed heartily. ‘It’s not easy fitting into an Embassy routine. There’s nothing quite like it. It’s a bit like a family but yet not a family. Then there’s always something new. Everything having to be done at the drop of a hat.'