Charlie’s Apprentice

She nodded. ‘On a one-to-one basis. They will have graduated from all the usual instructional courses: this is going to be something beyond the normal …’ There was another frigid smile. ‘You tell me how long it will take to pass on your particularly special expertise.’

He couldn’t teach instinct: how to know that something was wrong, without anything apart from a feeling on which to base that judgement. ‘It’ll depend, upon your selected officers.’

‘You’ll like your first apprentice. He’s good.’

‘I wouldn’t consider liking him!’ said Charlie, instantly.

‘That was thoughtless,’ she apologized at once. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’

‘I’ll operate from here?’

‘Yes.’

‘Let’s hope it works,’ said Charlie, rising to leave.

‘It’s got to work,’ said the woman, as if she were affronted by the suggestion of failure. ‘And it was William.’

Charlie stopped at the door. ‘What?’

‘The Member of Parliament who campaigned against slavery in the 1800s. It was William Wilberforce. Not Henry.’

Charlie had been worried she wouldn’t respond. He smiled and said: ‘Well done.’ Her face tightened, in belated realization. Not much of a victory, decided Charlie. But something at least. He was a schoolmaster now: schoolmasters knew things like that.

At her control post at the apex of the triangle Julia Robb scarcely looked up as he left. Bugger you, too, thought Charlie.

Miller personally poured the tea, offering it across his desk to the woman. ‘How did it go?’

‘As I intended,’ she said, which was a slight exaggeration.

‘He’s got to do the job properly. Believe in its importance.’

Patricia Elder shook her head. ‘His feeling is against me. I’ve read everything that’s ever been written about the man. Know him. He’ll do the job, to the very best of his ability. And it’s a pretty damned good ability. He out- argued me, a couple of times.’

‘Everything set up with Gower?’

The woman nodded this time. ‘I’ve fixed the meeting.’

‘Let’s hope it works,’ said the Director.

Patricia Elder laughed, abruptly. ‘That’s what Charlie said. It was interesting, listening to him. His views about the future of intelligence are exactly the same as ours.’

‘I hope he doesn’t think we’re fools.’

‘Of course he does! How can he think otherwise?’ She paused. The conversation about Charlie Muffin was over. ‘Is Ann coming up from the country?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘So am I.’ Increasingly Patricia Elder was regretting the absolute commitment she’d made to their relationship, neglecting and finally abandoning other friends and acquaintances until Peter was the only person she had now. There was nothing she could do about it: nothing she wanted to do about it. He’d make the decision. She was sure he would. Dear God how much she wished he’d make it soon.

Five

John Gower bet himself she’d say something by the third crossroad and lost, because they’d gone through the frustration of hay-hauling tractors and school-pool Volvos and were five miles up the motorway towards London before Marcia finally spluttered and broke into laughter. ‘I just couldn’t believe it!’

‘She’s old-fashioned!’ Gower said, defensively. He didn’t really think of his mother as old-fashioned. Not old at all.

‘It was like something out of a Noel Coward play, creeping from bedroom to bedroom!’ Marcia protested.

‘I’m sorry.’

Marcia Leyton felt reassuringly for his hand. ‘I’m just playing with you! It was a wonderful weekend. And I like her …’ There was a pause. ‘Do you think she liked me?’

Gower accelerated past a crocodile of lorries and said: ‘I know she did.’ It had been the first time his mother had met Marcia: he wasn’t sure which of the three of them had been more anxious.

‘You don’t sound convinced,’ Marcia said, wanting more.

‘I am,’ said Gower, honestly. ‘She loved you.’ He coasted into the cruising lane, looking across at her. They had the sun-roof open: a stray flick of blonde hair had escaped from beneath her headscarf but was blowing backwards so she wasn’t bothering to restrain it. Her face, devoid of make-up, shone in the morning light: she wasn’t looking back but staring straight ahead, so that he could see her sharp, nose-tilted profile. He guessed many girls – probably all girls – with such perfect features would have intentionally sat as she was sitting now, displaying themselves for admiration. But not Marcia. She was the most exquisitely beautiful girl he had ever known, but someone completely and ingenuously unaware of it. He found it difficult to believe she loved him as much as she said she did; it was like stealing, taking something that didn’t belong to him by right.

His weekend for meeting her parents had been a month before, and much more difficult than the one just past, even though he and Marcia had not stayed in the family house because it had too few bedrooms: Marcia’s much younger, electronically crazed brother lived in one computer cave and her father’s bed-ridden sister was regally suspended in the other spare room in a miasma of disinfectant and lavender perfume. Marcia’s father, a retired bank inspector, had spent most of the time trying to initiate a debate about the intricacies of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism and European monetary union. The mother had baked a cake with nuts in it and Gower didn’t like nuts. He was worried his ignorance of finance and small appetite at tea had been misunderstood as lack of interest.

‘I don’t expect to be back from Manchester until Wednesday,’ announced Marcia. She was a visual display director for an advertising agency, which involved a lot of travelling, particularly to exhibitions.

‘I’ve no idea what this new course is about,’ he said in return. ‘I’ll probably be busy: certainly until it settles down.’ Closer to London the motorway was becoming more congested and Gower wished he had given himself more time to get ahead of the rush hour: he hated being late for appointments, especially first-time encounters.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said, slowly. ‘Don’t you think it’s stupid, us living like we do …’ She squeezed his hand again, in further reassurance, and said quickly: ‘OK! I’m not getting heavy. I am not sure I want the absolute commitment of marriage, either. I’m talking simple practicality. Keeping two separate flats is bloody mad: if I’m not out of town, like I’m going to be the next few days, we’re with each other all the time. There’s no point in living apart, is there?’

The traffic was getting heavier: Gower could see it at a standstill, far ahead. ‘I suppose not,’ he agreed, reluctantly, suspecting she had steered their conversation. Gower was frightened of their being permanently, more constantly together, although for none of the normal reasons that might make a person apprehensive of a stable relationship. His statutory inability to discuss his job with her would inevitably create a gap between them. And he didn’t want anything between them. The paradox was that he wanted to be with her all the time, probably surer of their relationship than she was.

‘That was begrudging,’ she said, disappointed.

‘Look at the bloody traffic!’

‘We’ve got all the time in the world,’ she said, truthfully. ‘And we’re not discussing the traffic. We’re discussing living together because it might be nice. At least I am. If you don’t want to, why not say so?’

‘You know I want to.’

‘Fine!’ she said, a person of quick decisions. ‘So let’s do it! Whose place? Mine or yours? I think yours is more convenient but my flat is in a better area. My lease has some time to run …’

‘Wait a moment!’ halted Gower. ‘Where’s the panic?’

‘Where’s the reason for delaying?’