that I’m sure will interest you. Stanley handed Dick a sheet of paper containing another list.
‘What’s this?’, Dick sighed. ‘Sub-committees I have to choose from?’
‘No’, Stanley smiled. ‘Something more enjoyable and completely different. It’s a list of special evening classes offered free to senior Party members. Pastimes and hobbies to stimulate the mind and body or to help you relax and unwind. The current Leader introduced this concept when he came to power as a sort of compensation for the long hours, dedication and secrecy expected of us. A happy Party member, is, he says, a productive Party member’.
Dick continued to scan the paper. It might as well have been a list of diseases to infect yourself with. Compared to these extra curricular activities laid out before him he would have preferred beri-beri to ballroom dancing and cholera to callisthenics.
‘I’ll have to get back to you on this’, Dick sighed, pocketing the list. ‘Tell me Stanley, what floats your boat?’
Stanley frowned.
‘You know. What turns you on?’
No response. Dick sighed. ‘What leisure activity do you participate in?’
‘Brass rubbing’. Stanley’s eyes lit up at he told Dick about the joys of monumental brasses. He waxed lyrically about using a wax crayon to take tracings but Dick’s concentration had by now wandered. There were a number of types of rubbing that Dick enjoyed but brass definitely wasn’t one of them.
Early the next morning Dick met the head of the Security Committee, a jolly middle-aged matronly woman called Enid Sharpe who used words like ‘spiffing’ and ‘righty-oh’, and called him a ‘clever chap’. She was someone, Dick thought, more suited to serving on the Knitting and Embroidery Committee (if this existed) than on one dealing with the safety and protection of the Party and everything it stood for. Enid welcomed Dick on board and gave him a very brief overview of her group’s activities. She didn’t go into detail about individual projects as she said these would be reviewed at the Council meeting later, but she briefed him on his first task.
This was when Dick realised that serving on the security committee was not the thrilling, glamorous post he hoped it would be. In fact if his first assignment had been typical, the post would not be thrilling or glamorous by any stretch of the imagination. His task was to wade through reams and reams and reams of transcribed telephone calls from citizens who had been identified as potential anti-Party activists. The Party’s suspicions were solely based on certain phrases used in their telephone conversations that they believed might be code words for subversive activities. Dick learned that someone else on the Security Committee had begun devising this list of these phrases and his job was to investigate the patterns and look for incriminating evidence in these calls.
Dick couldn’t wait for Enid to leave his office so he could start. He wanted to see if any of these so-called anti-Party activists were resistance members he knew, but then he remembered he didn’t actually know the real names of anyone in the Resistance, so this was pointless. After a very short while Dick also identified something else that was pointless. The whole exercise. It soon became obvious that whoever had begun to identify these so- called suspect phrases was an over-zealous, paranoid idiot. It was extremely doubtful that the phrase ‘piano tuning’ was in any way ambiguous; it related to the tuning of pianos and was not a code for the kidnapping of senior Party members. Likewise, it was also very, very, very likely that ‘lawn tennis’ referred to a racquet game and was in no way related to a planned bombing of a police station. After several monotonous hours looking for evidence of anti- Party behaviour, Dick truly wished he were Assistant to the Deputy Assistant Under Secretary for Legislative Administration Ratification.
Mercifully, Wednesday afternoon soon came around, as did the opportunity for Dick to join his first Ruling Council meeting which took place in the Grand Room where he’d first met the Leader. All the Council members were seated around the large polished table with the Leader situated at the end, furthest from Dick. Carter, as usual, stood alert at his side.
‘Ladies and gentlemen’, the Leader said in his strong, rich voice. ‘Before I open the meeting today I’d first like to introduce the newest member of our Ruling Council, the man behind Jack, the destroyer of the rogue harlots’. All eyes turned to Dick and he felt himself blushing. ‘In his short time working at the Ministry of Information,’ the Leader continued, ‘He has demonstrated a commitment and allegiance to the Party second to none. But the fact of the matter is…’. At this point the Leader hesitated and looked directly at Dick, ‘He shouldn’t really be in this room at all’.
This was the cue for the audience to look confused and for Dick to turn a deeper shade of red, not from the praise, but from increased blood pressure. Was
To Dick’s enormous relief the Leader started the applause and was immediately joined by his colleagues. After this warm welcome the other Council members introduced themselves one by one in the manner of a self-help group (‘Hello, my name is Ian. I’ve been advising the Leader on public architecture for three years…’). Dick’s colleagues were all very welcoming and friendly. It was a real mix of people, mainly men but a few women, with a wide spread of ages although it was evident that Dick was the youngest. The Council members came from all types of backgrounds and all sorts of careers. In fact there was actually little they had in common, apart from an overwhelming and overzealous desire to serve the Party.
The whole ambience of the meeting wasn’t one you’d associate with a gathering of influential representatives of a police state. There was tea and coffee, several plates of carefully arranged digestive biscuits placed at regular intervals along the table, and everyone had lined paper and a sharpened pencil. The meeting started with apologies for absence, a look at the agenda, the reading of minutes from the last session and then a summary of the agreed action points. Once this part of the meeting was successfully concluded each of the committee heads reviewed their current projects and initiatives.
Despite the amount of information being conveyed on a multitude of different subjects the Leader maintained a keen interest throughout, offering insightful comments from time to time. Since this was Dick’s first meeting, all the issues discussed were brand new to him. There was little of worth he could contribute but he made numerous notes in case there was anything of interest he could report back to Taylor.
Eventually it was Enid’s turn to report. She brought up the matter of the phone call analysis and said that it was inconclusive and that further investigation was needed. Dick moaned inwardly, thinking of yet more transcripts he’d have to analyse. What suspect words and phrases would he have to look for this time? ‘Picnic in the park’ or ‘Feeding the ducks’? Enid also updated everyone about a new recruitment campaign for the security forces, a review of interrogation techniques and the procurement and installation of additional CCTV cameras cunningly concealed within ornamental lampposts. These were all interesting to hear about, but not that significant. Then Enid mentioned something about ‘Operation Trojan Horse’.
‘Ah, yes’, the Leader enquired. ‘How is Mr. Parnell?’
The tea Dick was drinking at the time went down the wrong hole. Or both holes at once. He wasn’t sure but it didn’t matter; the effect was the same. He choked and spluttered simultaneously. With everyone staring at him, Dick wiped his watering eyes and apologised. As he took another sip to calm his nerves, Enid replied.
‘Very well. He reports that he’s about to be officially accepted into the Resistance. His blindfold comes off tonight’.
Dick’s next sip of tea also went down the wrong hole, but this time he didn’t cause as much of a scene; his spluttering was drowned out by the sound of the Council members loudly applauding.
‘Splendid!’, announced the Leader over the sounds of approval. ‘And is he quite certain his identity has not been compromised?’
‘Definitely’, Enid said proudly. ‘In all of his meetings with the Resistance leadership there has been absolutely no indication that they are aware of his true identity’. Enid turned to address the rest of the Council. ‘They seem to have accepted him and his fake background on face value from the very first time they noticed the news story we planted. There is a real eagerness, in fact, over-eagerness, to have him on board’.
‘And do we know where the Resistance operate from?’ asked a skinny, pale-looking man who headed the Cultural Committee.
‘No’, answered Enid. ‘As we thought, although the resistance movement is small it is surprisingly technologically proficient. From his initial meetings, Mr. Parnell learned they have various electronic counter- measures in place to avoid detection. Alerted to this fact, it was obvious that he would be unable to conceal any
