‘What would you say, Emily,’ said Sir Charles, ‘if I told you I am thinking of ordering Sergeant Belt to work under you here at the Post Office?’
‘Under me?’
‘If our American friend calls again and you are right about him speaking the Gaelic then we need an interpreter. From what you have told us it would seem that Belt’s our man … and he’s a policeman, an officer of the law, not a private detective. Listening in with a policeman I would say makes eavesdropping lawful, wouldn’t you agree? He’d have to lodge with you. It would mean being on duty twenty-four hours a day.’
‘Working with Maurice under me, that would be nice. Where would he sleep?’
‘I’m sure you’ll think of something.’
48
‘Where have you been?’ said Lady Elizabeth. ‘You left the Post Office before me so you should have been home before me. Bashful is not as powerful as the Rolls. Marigold and I were worried about you.’
‘I took Mike home,’ said Sir Charles.
‘I thought that’s where you’d be … fainting at the sight of his own blood, who’d ever have thought it? You’ve not been drinking, I hope?’
‘No, I have not, though I was offered. Where are the Americans?’
‘Mooching. They are like sheep who’ve found a hole in a fence. They turn up in the most unexpected places. They think our home is a museum, one of those new-fangled museums where you are encouraged to touch the exhibits. Bert is rounding them up. I’ve told him to serve drinks in the Green Room.’
‘To make O’Neil feel at home?’
‘To tease, Charles, to tease. If you are not going completely gaga you must remember that over the fireplace in the Green Room there hangs a painting of your ancestor who owned fifty thousand acres of the Pale.’
‘General Percival, whose ancestors fought with William of Orange at the Battle of the Boyne … dear me, Elizabeth, you are in a mood. Remember why the Americans are here.’
‘I am not, as you put it “in a mood”. O’Neil’s presence in our home is ambiguous. While we are supposed to be using him, he might well be using us.’
49
‘I know it’s a warm day,’ said Sir Charles, ‘but I do like to see logs burning in a grate. A fire makes a room look cosy.’
‘It’s a vaccination against what’s happening in the wicked world outside these four walls,’ said Weinberger, ‘gives us all a false sense of security, don’t you think?’
‘Whisky and a log fire,’ said Macdonald, ‘heaven on Earth. Has anyone heard of a guy called Hitler? I don’t think so.’
‘Charlie,’ said Marigold, ‘I do believe that under all that tweed there lies a Romantic. What’s it like being married to a Romantic, Lizzie?’
‘I don’t get flowers on my birthday, if that’s what you mean, I get melons. Charles thinks melons are Fabergé Eggs, don’t you, Charles?’
‘Marigold,’ said Harry, ‘would you like to see Uncle’s Melon House? May I, Uncle? We’ll take the dogs.’
‘I’ll get a wrap,’ said Marigold.
‘No need for that. My flying jacket’s on a peg in the hall. You can borrow that.’
50
‘Charles, be a dear and ring for Bert to draw the curtains,’ said Lady Elizabeth.
‘If it comes to war I fear we will be forced to spend too much time behind drawn blinds. There will have to be a black-out, you know. Any light will be a target for German bombers. Carpe diem. Let’s enjoy watching the sun set by firelight for as long as we can. Something we take for granted may soon be a luxury.’
‘Hitler wouldn’t dare attack Poland. The Anglo-Polish Pact puts that quite out of the question. Only a madman would contemplate attacking the British Empire. We have battleships.’
‘Lady Elizabeth,’ said Weinberger with some solemnity, ‘Herr Hitler is a madman.’
‘Charles, be a dear, pour me a small sherry.’
‘If it comes to war,’ said Sir Charles, ‘sherry may well become a luxury. Perhaps the rationing of sherry should start now.’
‘Charles, stop teasing. What a mood you are in. What must our guests think?’
‘We are all married,’ said Macdonald.
‘Charles, pour your good lady a sherry,’ said Weinberger; ‘if you don’t, I’ll tell Marigold to tell the President not to give you any battleships.’
‘In that case I pour the sherry.’
‘If it does come to war, Charles, what would England need?’
‘Everything man can make and money can buy.’
‘You Brits don’t have the money to pay for a war,’ said O’Neil.
‘The telephone, sir,’ said Bert.
‘Who is it?’
‘The Major, sir.’
‘You wanted by the army, Charles?’ said Mancini.
‘If they want recruits as old as me, then I fear we are done for. Excuse me, my dear, gentlemen.’
‘It’s the phone in the study, sir.’
‘Thank you, Bert. Oh and Bert, can you serve Mr O’Neil one of his “specials”.’
‘In the Great War,’ said Lady Elizabeth, ‘my husband won the VC. It makes the army think him indispensable. I sometimes think they forget he is no longer a young man. I know his limitations; they, on the other hand, think he can do anything.’
‘After he’d finished David,’ said Mancini, ‘the Pope thought Michelangelo could do anything – that’s what success does. On the East coast the Mancinis are famous for ice cream. People think we can make any flavour ice cream. They think, with ice cream, the Mancinis can do anything. Why? Because the Mancinis are Italian and the entire world knows Italians make the best gelato. Think Italian and you think ice cream.’
‘You believe in the idea that while a nation is made up of many individuals their membership of the same club gives them a common identity? All Englishmen wear bowler hats, that sort of thing? Italian men chase women?’
‘All the Greeks I know,’ said Macdonald, ‘think they’re philosophers.’
‘Because they are Greek?’
‘Yes.’
‘Mother’s milk?’
‘The guy back home who shines my shoes, he’s Greek. His birth name is Socrates. He wears a lucky Athena charm round his neck. It’s on a gold chain. He wants you to know he’s living the American dream. “Hi, look at me, a shoe-shine man with a gold chain.” If you want good luck he lets you touch it, charges a dollar. Only from him can you get the Genuine Parthenon Marble Shine. An American but still so Greek … and he’s third generation.’
‘And you, Angus Macdonald … what a Scottish sounding name, just saying it makes one hear bagpipes… do you celebrate your ancestors?’
‘I drink whisky: “To the whistle in the thistle and the weather in the heather, my love plays the pipes for me”.’
‘Burns?’
‘Just made it up.’
‘My ancestors were German,’ said Weinberger. ‘I guess that doesn’t make me too popular at the moment.’
‘The Green Room is called the “Green Room”,’ said Lady Elizabeth, ‘in memory of an ancestor who owned estates in Ireland. That’s him there, General Percival. He taught his tenants how to use a knife. Robert O’Neil, Bob, do you celebrate your heritage?’
‘My allegiance is all to the Stars and Stripes.’
‘The Irish believe in fairies.’
‘Do you believe George killed a dragon?’
‘You celebrate St Patrick’s Day?’
‘Of course, as do many thousands of Irish-Americans.’
‘I find it interesting that you say “Irish-American” and not “American-Irish”. Is your allegiance in that order?’
‘I’m an American, Lady Elizabeth, and sometime soon your country will, more than likely, be asking my country for money.’
‘Is that why you are here, t
o assess us like a bank manager to see if we are the right sort of people to be trusted with a loan?’
‘It is clear to me, Lady Elizabeth, that in this family your husband is the diplomat. And, like all the best diplomats, he knows exactly when to make an entry.’
‘Charles, I was telling Bob about General Percival,’ said Lady Elizabeth on seeing her husband return from his phone call.
‘Your wife would never make a diplomat, Charles,’ said O’Neil.’
Sir Charles smiled. ‘Elizabeth has been telling you about my ancestor with estates in the Pale? Bob, you must look upon my ancestor as Hitler looks upon the Jews. That was CB on the phone, wants to know when I’m going to fill in that government form asking to know how many cars and horses we have on the estate. I feel as if I’ve been talking to one of William the Conqueror’s clerks doing an audit for the Doomsday Book. Who’s for toppers?’
51
Before turning in for the night Sir Charles browsed the Visitors’ Book. He wanted to check. And there it was: Mickey Mouse. Emily had recognised two words between the men she’d called the “Gaelic Speakers”: Mickey Mouse and Walt Disney. The speaker who’d made the call was Mickey Mouse. She was certain of that because that was how he’d introduced himself, in English; “Mickey Mouse here”, before switching to the foreign language she thought was Gaelic. Was “Mickey Mouse” O’Neil’s nom de guerre? If it wasn’t, then whose was it? And who was “Walt Disney”? Had “Mickey Mouse” been talking to “Walt Disney”? Or had “Mickey Mouse” been asking to speak to “Walt Disney”? Was “Walt Disney” at, or not at, the railway station? If he wasn’t, was “Walt Disney” expecting him to be there? Was O’Neil using the nom de guerre he’d possibly used in the Visitors’ Book as a code word for other, altogether darker purposes? He was a Gaelic speaker. It was not as if the world was full of Gaelic speakers. It had to be him. Sir Charles hoped that Sergeant Belt’s designs on Emily would not take that good man’s mind off his duties. Sex put more men out of action than enemy fire. In the last war venereal disease had reduced the fighting strength of some ‘dirty’ regiments by fifty per cent.
It was good to know that Freddy’s men at the Vicarage were out and about. On the way back to The Hall from the Post Office he’d never seen so many night watchmen huddled over braziers, all pretending to be keeping an eye on wheelbarrows and spades. There was a gypsy caravan he’d never seen before as well. It had to be MI5. The tricks the young bloods in the service got up to.
‘Making sure we’ve all signed in?’ said O’Neil.
Damn the fellow. Where’d he come from? ‘Are you Mickey Mouse?’
‘I might be.’
‘If you are you will have to tell Walt Disney.’
‘The next time I’m in Hollywood, I’ll do that. Good night, Sir Charles.’
52
‘You know,’ said Sir Charles, climbing into bed beside his wife, ‘since the Americans arrived this is the only place I feel free to talk … and it’s my house; they are everywhere.’
‘Don’t be theatrical, five people can’t be everywhere. We don’t live in a cottage. The Hall is large enough to accommodate an army of Americans.’
‘It’s so much easier being a diplomat in an embassy. I’m not used to bringing work home. All the time I’m thinking, how can I please the Americans? How can I get them on our side? I can’t threaten them with the rack or bribe them with a knighthood. In the first instance they are too powerful and in the second you have to be a Brit or a member of the Commonwealth. All I can do is try and disguise my grovelling, make them think it’s all just me trying to be a good host. It would make my ancestors puke. Ponsonby, who climbed the cliffs with Wolfe at Quebec, shook his head at me when I passed him in the vestibule; as if to say, “Dear Boy, to think it has come to this”.’
‘If you really think you saw Ponsonby’s head move you should see Crozier.’
‘Crozier’s a surgeon, not a psychiatrist. Anyway, he’s too busy looking after Freddy.’
‘Dear Freddy, I do hope he pulls through. You say I shouldn’t send him flowers?’
‘He is supposed to be a tramp. The Lady of the Manor does not send a tramp flowers. It just isn’t done. It would draw attention to who he really is.’
‘Blow his cover?’
‘In a manner of speaking, yes. Crozier knows Freddy’s not a tramp, that he is top drawer but no more than that.’
‘Not that he’s head of MI5?’
‘Good Lord, no. And keep your voice down.’
‘Charles, there is no one under the bed.’
‘What about listening through the keyhole?’
‘Perhaps you should see a psychiatrist. Americans affect people in strange ways. Bert has started talking American. When he put a vase of sweet peas on the table he said, “Gee, don’t they smell just great”. He did apologise. Since the Americans arrived he’s had a spring in his step. They must be tipping well.’
‘Or, in the case of O’Neil, too well.’
‘If we shouted fire do you think O’Neil would dash out with his golf clubs?’
‘He is very attached to them; strange that he borrowed my putter for his knockabout.’
‘Why didn’t he use his own?’
‘Good question.’
‘I thought golfers preferred to play with their own clubs; you would.’
‘Yet he brought his own clubs all the way from America. Bert said the club which fell out was too short to play with.’
‘When I first met him, I thought him most pleasant. Now I’ve changed my mind.’
‘A black cloud hangs over the fellow. Never trust a man who doesn’t drink or shoot. The more I talk to these guys, I mean, men, the more it reinforces what I already know, that, though we speak the same language, we are different. The chip on their shoulders is that they can’t forget we were once their owners.’
‘Yet, a common language is such a bond. If Marigold had spoken only Chinese, Harry would have found it difficult to ask her if she wanted to see the Melon House. I wonder if the Chinese have a word for melon. Do they grow melons in China? You never got to the Far East, did you, dear? You know, it’s just crossed my mind that Harry is going to be like his father … besotted with Americans. I wonder if Marigold is rich. Another heiress coming into the family wouldn’t be at all a bad thing. Do you think the Americans would be more likely to help us if we gave Mr Gandhi India?’
‘Elizabeth, I wish you would not keep talking about giving Mr Gandhi, India. It is not helpful. When the Americans hear an Englishwoman saying things like that it puts ideas into their heads. You heard what they had to say about intervention. They are businessmen. In the coming conflict if they give us a destroyer they will charge us for a battleship. That’s what they did when they finally rolled up their sleeves and came into the last war.’
‘But we didn’t pay, did we?’
‘No, and they have not forgotten. If it comes to war they will take the coats off our backs.’
‘What if we gave India to Herr Hitler?’
‘He’d take it and then, you know what he’d do? He’d shoot Mr Gandhi, then he’d blitz Bombay.’
‘If he was busy doing that it might make him forget about Europe.’
‘A treaty with the fellow is not worth the paper it is written on. He means what he says in that awful book of his. The trouble is people don’t believe him. He hates Jews, he hates Communists. He wants land and lots of it. He has his sights on Russia. He’s written it all down. To that extent he is not a hypocrite, just unbelievable.’
‘I didn’t like the Americans calling us “Olivers”. Ugh! It makes me see green, pink and heliotrope.’
‘I sometimes feel like bending their ears and reminding them of a few home truths. Who gave you democracy? We did, the Brits. Did we charge you for it? No, we did not. They are so pious. When they go on about our Empire they
forget what they did to the Indians.’
‘You tell them, Charles.’
‘And as for slavery the least said about that the better.’
‘You don’t mention it?’
‘Avoid it like the plague. It would rub them up the wrong way. In diplomacy you don’t use sandpaper. The weapon of choice is baby oil. You see, my dear, we Brits must accept with good grace that the Americans are the rich relations we cannot afford to upset. If war is a licence to kill, then diplomacy is a licence to be a hypocrite. In the eyes of Americans, Great Britain is Oedipus. We are the father they want to kill.’
‘Who told you that? It’s not something you’ve read in Horse and Hound.’
‘Harry. It’s Freud. And the professor is working for MI5. He’s been paid a prodigious sum to analyse our guests’ nom de guerre.’
‘What will he make of Marigold’s nom de guerre?’
‘She hasn’t signed, has she?’
‘No.’
‘I suspect he will charge extra for an omission. By the by I’ve told Mike that when he feels up to it you want him sleeping outside our bedroom door with a shotgun, that is, for as long as the Americans are here.’
‘You didn’t?’
‘Of course I didn’t.’
‘For that you do not get a goodnight kiss.’
‘In that case I’ll give you one.’
‘Charles!’
53
A stub of candle stuck in a saucer lit the den.
‘Have another pickled onion,’ said Jack. ‘I have three more jars. Moses, there is no more cheese, go to sleep.’
‘Where do you get them from?’ said George.
‘Phyllis gives them to me.’
‘I’ll bet she doesn’t. I bet you took them.’
‘I did take them, but Phyllis knows I take them. She told me she turns a blind eye.’
‘She doesn’t mind?’
‘She feels sorry for me. I feel sorry for her.’
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