One-On-One

by Philip Spires

  C And in this case did you remember Noraya’s name?

  T I certainly did.

  C But she recognised you before you noticed her, didn’t she?

  T That’s true. Your researchers have clearly done their jobs well. I remember I was reading, as invariably I am on an aeroplane. She was serving breakfast and it was my turn. I remember it perfectly, of course. She stood next to me with the tray in her hand and, before I had looked up, she said, “Good morning, Mr Thomas, breakfast for you?”

  C ..and you were always on first name terms with your students?

  T [laughing impatiently and derisively, and slaps the arm of the chair in frustration with the palm of his left hand] You are wholly and completely hung up on this notion of the surname, aren’t you? Why can’t you get it into your ethnocentric skull that she was merely using my name? And why is it that the British middle classes should assume that the rest of the world is organised according to the same irrational linguistic microcosm that they use to assert their educational status? You may have attended the kinds of institution that regarded the use of first names as tantamount to cavorting with the devil, but you, of all people, given all the travelling you have done, should realise that the rest of the world is not like that. Why should she call me by what she understood to be my father’s name when it was I, and not him, who was sitting in the seat?

  C It wasn’t your father’s name... It was a family name.

  T [more impatiently, shouting] Which is precisely the concept that Noraya does not understand, because there is no such thing in the culture she understands as assumed.

  C It would not be normal for a British teacher to be addressed by a student using first names...

  T Really? It was quite normal where I worked after I qualified. Get your researchers to check that one and then tell me just what is ‘normal’ in Britain, because the words that students use to refer to teachers would also probably involve the use of the word ‘fuck’, if it was anything other than a school for middle class, ethnocentric bigots.

  C Tom, please... There’s a correct way of doing things...

  T And in this culture, surnames are unknown. If people like you were really interested in ‘correctness’, then why, over many years, have the media not referred to a certain infamous character as ‘Osama’, rather than as a completely spurious ‘bin Laden’? Why did you always blame his father?

  [Cartwright looks at Christine Gardiner in silence for several seconds]

  T The truth of the matter was that the use of the ‘surname’, even though it wasn’t one, was just a method of demonising the subject. How can you criticise Noraya for not using a surname, when she had no concept of one? You are attempting to demonise me by implicitly suggesting I was practiced at grooming teenage girls, who happened to be my pupils. By implication, you are citing her familiarity with my first name as evidence. Go on, Chris, admit it. It’s part of your brief, isn’t it?

  [section in need of edit, suggest cutting to recognition of student]

  C We are getting off the point...

  T I’ve noticed that you use that interjection every time your position has been shown to be specious. It’s your way of reasserting control.

  C Tom, if these interviews are to succeed, then we have to observe just a few ground rules. It’s important...

  T ...and the ground rules are that you state an editorial line, including judgmental comments, irrespective of either evidence or comment from me. Your goal is for that editorial line to lodge in the viewers’ minds, irrespective of my words or indeed the truth.

  C I am going to stop the cameras. This is a waste of time....

  [Christine Gardiner rises from her chair and reaches across the shot to cut]

  [restart timed five minutes after cessation]

  T Yes, Noraya served me breakfast on the plane.

  C And she recognised you and greeted you by name.

  T That’s correct.

  C ...and then you recognised her...

  T Yes.

  C ...and then?

  T It wasn’t the first time I had seen her on duty.

  C So you were a regular on the route?

  T Did I say that? I was a regular on no route. I flew only when I was going on leave. But most routes away from here start with a trip to Singapore. I might have used that route four or five times a year, maybe more, maybe less.

  C So what was special about this trip?

  T Nothing. Did I say there was?

  C There was a rather special outcome, wasn’t there?

  T I suppose there was...

  C Indeed there was. Three months later you were man and wife.

  T I hadn’t gone on leave immediately the term finished that year.

  C Now there is a non sequitur...

  T It may be if you don’t understand the local systems... Normally a flight like that one would have been full of government contract workers going away on leave. Most people leave as soon as they are free to travel.

  C But that year you delayed...

  T I had work to finish.

  C So the flight was nearly empty, which gave you ample time and opportunity to chat up Noraya.

  T If you choose to put it like that...

  C ...and you arranged to meet that evening, because she had a stop-over.

  [Cartwright nodded]

  C ...and...

  T ...and we found we had much in common...

  C A forty-five year old man and a young woman in her mid-twenties...

  T [facetiously and smiling forcefully] We went to school together.

  C You went to bed together and, a month or so later, back home, she contacted you via her parents to announce she was pregnant.

  [Cartwright nodded]

  C ...but you, yourself, carried on to your destination for your planned leave. You flew on to Vietnam, I believe...

  [Cartwright nodded]

  C ...to a destination that is, shall we say, as diplomatically as possible, well known for its particular brand of tourism, a brand that is attractive primarily to older, single - or at least unaccompanied - men...

  T [smiling] I was particularly interested in Cham architecture.

  [Christine Gardiner, full face, broad smile]

  T And I still am. I was pursuing a particular interest at the time in the spread of numerals.

  C And some of your numbers came up, I believe.

  T Very droll.

  [Cartwright and Christine Gardiner in shot, silence for four seconds]

  C Then when you got home, there was a knock on the door.

  T Noraya’s parents came to visit.

  C ...and made you an offer you could not refuse.

  T Again, you are displaying your ethnocentricity. In this part of the world, what they requested of me was quite normal, even expected. There was no pressure, only agreement.

  C ...no pressure? Are you saying that, had you not accepted responsibility for fathering Noraya’s child, then your professional life, your government contract, your salary and your personal life would all have carried on as before? Noraya was, after all, from one of the most prestigious families...

  T Not accepting the responsibility was simply not part of the thinking, theirs, hers or mine.

  C Are you sure that everyone involved thought the same way?

  T Absolutely.

  C And so you were married, post haste. And as a result you became a Muslim.

  T Sequentially incorrect. It’s the other way round. The non-believer has to convert first, and then the wedding can take place.

  C And you were fast-tracked because of Noraya’s family clout.

  T I was not aware of any special treatment.

  C But you did receive privileges?

&
nbsp; [Cartwright is silent]

  C There are reports, based on interviews that are on the record, given by some of your colleagues at the time, indicating that, from your acceptance of the marriage, you came and went at work whenever you pleased, that you bragged about now having a job for life, that on occasions you even threatened to report colleagues with whom you differed, saying that their award of a contract renewal might depend on their agreeing with your wishes, that they should not speak up against whatever you did or proposed, because you could pull strings to have them removed, or sacked... How would you respond to such claims?

  T There was considerable envy, especially among people who were not granted new contracts. It happens all the time in expatriate circles. There is no loyalty, or friendship, especially amongst those who were forced to move on.

  C And who forced them out?

  T It wasn’t anything to do with me. I had no say in employment issues...

  C That is not the impression others have retained. But your own position became, let’s say, unassailable.

  T It didn’t feel that way to me.

  [Christine Gardiner readjusts her position in her chair, turns a page of her notes]

  C Just how long did yourself and Noraya live as man and wife?

  T We still live as man and wife.

  C But with due respect, Haji Salleh, you are here and your wife lives over there.

  [Christine Gardiner makes a vague gesture of the left arm to indicate somewhere beyond the camera]

  T We lived under the same roof for five years. We have three children.

  C But you decided to leave?

  T In what sense? I have not left my wife. We are still married, and I visit her whenever I can. But...

  C [interrupting] ...your work took over.

  T You seem to know more about my life than I do, Christine. [laughs] There were ideas I had to pursue. As you know, I had been working on them for years, and suddenly, I started to make progress. And that progress soon became so significant that I felt I had to devote myself full time.

  C And Noraya’s family pulled more strings so that you were released from all other duties.

  T Christine, by then I was in a senior position in the university. I applied for and was granted Reader status, so I could devote my time to research.

  C So this, in effect, was the payoff. You had been tricked by a proselytising and fundamentalist temptress into converting to Islam. The poor kids were hived off to nannies, Noraya went about her life doing precisely what she wanted, which involved a lot of praying, sublime in the knowledge that she had knocked one over for the faith. You get an easy number behind a desk you don’t even have to occupy, and you did not hesitate to call in the family’s influence to make it happen. Meanwhile, Noraya and her kin eventually get access to all the cash in the world.

  [Cartwright does not respond for five seconds, fidgets with loosely clasped hands over his stomach]

  T Just which tabloid editor hack fed you with that position?

  C So you deny that this is an accurate description of events...

  T I submitted a proposal for research and the university accepted it.

  C And this research led to precisely no publications.

  T My work was not ready for publication. It still isn’t. That’s why I now occasionally come here alone, so that I can perfect the ideas and test the conclusions. I need time... I need to concentrate. Over there I have too many demands, too many diversions...

  C So you became a sacrificial figure, a man driven by a single task, a task that will take a lifetime, a Saint Jerome...

  [Cartwright smiles]

  T ...which would make you the lion...

  [Christine Gardiner smiles]

  C But I am merely passing through...

  T A bit like what’s left of the meal you ate yesterday.

  [Christine Gardiner becomes agitated and impatient]

  C All I am trying to investigate with this series of questions...

  T ...is whether there’s a sequence of pay-offs, done deals on my part, declarations of interest by others, contracts, agreements, responsibilities, that would indicate the existence of a conspiracy and thereby identify the eventual beneficiaries of the financial gains I have made in the recent past... Whether powerful people who have pulled strings for me in the past are still doing so, thereby creating favourable conditions for my activities... people whose eventual motives may be more than financial self-interest...Whether I am just a front for a set of people who are already billionaires and who are hell-bent on world domination, fundamentalists with designs on global religious conversion...

  C That’s about it. You too seem to have been talking to the tabloids.

  [Silence for seven seconds]

  C And?

  T And what?

  C And what’s your answer?

  T My answer? My answer to which particular piece of bigoted, nonsensical gossip?

  C Any of them... Take your pick.

  T I am a lone player.

  C Not true, Tom. We know there is a group of people to whom you answer, to whom you entrust joint management of your gains.

  T Your editorial line has been well worked out, hasn’t it? You have just made three assertions, hoping that I will answer the last one only, thus allowing you to report that I did not deny the others. I am not beholden to others in any way. I designed my own systems and set them up myself. In reality, they run themselves, almost entirely without need of intervention. I trade under company and trust names that I have established. The fact that I seek help with the management and administration of my interests has nothing whatsoever to do with the process by which those assets are generated, nor with the eventual ownership of them. And...

  [Christine Gardiner tries to interrupt]

  T ...and...

  [Cartwright holds up his hand to indicate that Christine Gardiner should hear him out, but does not raise his voice]

  T ...and no-one from over there, no-one from my wife’s family, and no-one else at all has even the foggiest idea of how my systems work, or indeed, at any moment, exactly what I own and what I don’t.

  C But they have access to the proceeds, don’t they?

  T No. Certainly not. The proceeds are owned by my registered interests.

  C But many of your wife’s family are on the board...

  T Only of the management of the assets, if and when there is paperwork needed. They have power of attorney to assist the registration process only. They have no rights to the value of the assets and no authority to trade them, transfer them or encash them. I don’t have time to sign things and post them, or do any of the administration, for that matter. It’s inevitable that someone has to help me with the paperwork.

  C So let’s recap. You yourself were tricked into becoming a Muslim by a young woman who became your wife, but perhaps in name only...

  T Christine, we have three children. Where do you think those came from?

  [Christine Gardiner ignores the comments and continues]

  C She and her family have a vision of a world where Islam is the single legitimate religion, a world under Sharia law...

  T ...and I am the facilitator of their vision by commandeering all the West’s financial assets... so that I can hand them over to their ideological control...

  [Christine Gardiner remains silent for three seconds while in full face shot. There is a smile]

  [Cartwright is agitated and angry]

  C And what would you say to that position, if you heard it expressed?

  T [laughing] I’d ask who made it up.

  [There is a pause for five seconds]

  T Just who is running you Christine?

  C Running me?

  T Your briefing on this interview was, a
s far as I was led to believe, that it was to examine my background, how I came to be here, doing what I am doing.

  C And it is trying to do just that.

  T I expected questions about mining villages, the West Riding of Yorkshire, dad being a coal merchant and the like...

  C I was coming to that.

  T ...about having had bone cancer as a teenager...

  C ...and that...

  T ...about having an amputation at seventeen and spending the following months as sick as a dog on chemo and radiotherapy... For God’s sake, Christine, you were there with me. We went through it together....

  C ...I don’t need to be reminded, Tom.

  T So when are we going to cover all of that material? Why are you so obsessed with my wife and her family? Who’s running you? On whose behalf are you here, making these programmes? And are they ever going to be broadcast?

  C You know I’m freelance. I’ll sell these programmes to whoever wants to broadcast them. My problem, as you will appreciate, is that I have to make them first...

  T I have heard nonsense and I have heard complete nonsense. What you have just said falls into the latter category. Why not spice it up? Why not ask me about those months after the operation, when we both tried to come to terms with having lost a limb?

  C I intended...

  T ...and then I can tell them of the way your body used to arch at the spine, and how you used to grab at my hair, and how you screamed precisely three times whenever you had an orgasm courtesy of the mobile fingers of my right hand every time we spent a lunch hour in the bowling green shed...

  [ends unedited, without titles]

  The Green papers (continued)

  That this second interview broke down did not surprise me; how it broke down did, however. I had never expected Cartwright’s relationship with his wife and her family would prove such a fruitful avenue. And Cartwright’s use of his adolescent relationship with Christine almost as a weapon came as a complete and stunning surprise, certainly a surprise, because it was complete news to me. I suppose I had never entertained the idea that their relationship had been sexual. Christine had referred to the fact that they had offered one another support, companionship and indeed friendship in the months that followed their diagnoses and treatment, but she had never suggested that their contact went any deeper than mere proximity and shared fate.