I decide to go with Option One, for a variety of reasons. From the point of view of my recruitment to SIS, it will not look good to Rouse and Pyman if I am seen to cave in to the interests of marginal pressure groups. Better to argue for job creation and improved transport links with the Continent than to kow-tow to the ephemeral concerns of historians and New Age travellers. Option One, in short, provides me with a better opportunity to appear tough and pragmatic rather than weak and indecisive.
So I speed-read everything in the document looking for evidence to support my decision. I learn quite quickly that the trick is to ignore the notes written by incompetent press officers (one of which stretches for four pages) and to pass over any lengthy memos to the Minister from ingratiating second-tier civil servants in London. It is more constructive to respond to the views of people in power, or to those who have direct and unignorable experience of the issue in hand.
Shrewdly, the examiners have placed some of the most important documents towards the end of the booklet. One, from a senior figure in the DTI who backs the project, follows just after a ridiculous handwritten letter - complete with spelling mistakes - from an insane geriatric with ‘grave concerns’ that the village outside Dorton where she has lived for the past sixty-five years will ‘forever lose its unique local caracter’ if the by-pass is built.
I finish fifteen minutes before the two-hour time limit expires. Towards one o’clock, a group of other candidates walk by in the corridor, talking animatedly on their way to lunch. Their voices gradually disappear like a radio losing its frequency in a tunnel.
The Hobbit asks for more paper and Keith gives it to him.
Ann finishes, her body a slump of fatigue as the time limit runs down. At five past Keith checks his watch and calls a halt. Everybody, with the exception of the Hobbit, breathes out, as if each of us has come up from a prolonged surface dive. The Hobbit jerks up his head, panicked, and continues writing.
‘Mr Frears.’
No response.
‘Candidates must stop writing please.’
‘Just finishing now,’ he says, pen scratching busily in his hand. ‘Just finishing now.’
6
Day One / Afternoon
After lunch - a ham and cheese sandwich at the National Gallery - we sit in the stifling classroom faced by a phalanx of numerical facility tests divided into three separate sections: ‘Relevant Information’, ‘Quantitative Relations’ and ‘Numerical Inferences’. Each batch of twenty questions lasts twenty-two minutes, after which Keith allows a brief interlude before starting us on the next paper. Each problem, whether it be number- or word-based, must be solved in a matter of seconds with no time available for checking the accuracy of an answer. Calculators are ‘forbidden’. It is by far the most testing part of Sisby so far and the mind-thud of intellectual fatigue is overwhelming. I crave water.
We are all of us squeezed by time, clustered in the classroom like battery hens as the heat intensifies. Everything - even the most testing arithmetical calculation - has to be answered more or less on instinct. At one point I have to estimate 43 per cent of 2,345 in under seven seconds. Often my brain will work ahead of itself or lag behind, concentrating on anything but the problem at hand. The tests blur into a soup of numbers, traps of contradictory data, false assumptions and trick questions. Any apparent simplicity is quickly revealed as an illusion: every word must be examined for what it conceals, every number treated as an elaborate code. My ability to process information gradually wanes. I don’t complete any of the three batches of tests to my satisfaction.
Shortly before four o’clock, Keith asks us with nasal exactitude to stop writing. Ogilvy immediately glances across to gauge how things have gone. He tilts his head to one side, creases his brow and puffs out his cheeks at me, as if to say: ‘I fucked that up and I hope you did too.’ For a moment I am tempted into intimacy, a powerful urge to reveal to him the extent of my exhaustion. But I cannot allow any display of weakness. So instead I respond with a self-possessed, almost complacent shrug which will suggest that things have gone particularly well. This makes him look away.
A few minutes later we emerge narrow-eyed into the bright white light of the corridor. Better air out here, cool and clean. The Hobbit and Ann immediately walk away in the direction of the toilets, but Ogilvy lingers outside, looking bloodshot and leathery.
‘Christ,’ he says, pulling on his jacket with exaggerated swagger. ‘That was tough.’
‘You found it difficult?’ Elaine asks. My impression has been that she does not like him.
‘God, yeah. I couldn’t seem to concentrate. I kept looking at you guys scribbling away. How did it go for you, Alec?’
He smiles at me, like we’re long-term buddies.
‘I don’t go in for post mortems, much.’ To Elaine: ‘You got a cigarette?’
She takes out a packet of high-tar Camels.
‘I only have one left. We can share.’
She lights up, crushing the empty packet in her hand. Ogilvy mutters something about giving up smoking, but he looks excluded and weary.
‘I need to get some fresh air,’ he says, moving away from us down the hall. ‘I’ll see you later on.’
Elaine exhales through her nostrils, two steady streams of smoke, watching him leave with a critical stare.
‘Have you got anything else today?’ she asks me. ‘An interview or anything?’
I don’t feel like talking. My mind is looped around the penultimate question in the last batch of tests. The answer was closer to 54 than 62, and I circled the wrong box. Damn.
‘I have to meet Rouse. The SIS officer.’
She glances quickly left and right.
‘Careless talk costs lives, Alec,’ she whispers, half-smiling. ‘Be careful what you say. The five of us are the only SIS people here today.’
‘How do you know?’
‘It’s obvious,’ she says, offering the cigarette to me. The tip of the filter is damp with her saliva and I worry that when I hand it back she will think the wetness is mine. ‘They only process five candidates a month.’
‘According to who?’
She hesitates.
‘It’s well known. A lot more reach the initial interview stage, but only five get through to Sisby. We’re the lucky ones.’
‘So you work in the Foreign Office already. That’s how you know?’
She nods, glancing again down the corridor. My head has started to throb.
‘Pen-pushing,’ she says. ‘I want to step up. Now, no more shop talk. What time are you scheduled to finish?’
‘Around five.’
Her hair needs brushing and she has a tiny spot forming on the right-hand side of her forehead. Thirty-two years old.
‘That’s late,’ she says, sympathetically. ‘I’m done for the day. Back tomorrow at half-eight.’
The cigarette is nearly finished. I had been worried that it would set off a fire alarm.
‘I guess I’ll see you then.’
‘Guess so.’
She is turning to leave when I say:
‘You don’t have anything for a headache, do you? Dehydration.’
‘Sure. Just a moment.’
She reaches into the pocket of her jacket, rustles around for something and then uncurls her right hand in front of me like a Nescafe ad. There in the palm of her hand is a short strip of plastic containing four paracetamol.
‘That’s really kind of you. Thanks.’
She answers with a wide, conspiratorial smile, dwelling on the single word: ‘Pleasure.’
In the bathroom I turn on the cold tap and allow it to run out for a while. There is a flattery implicit in Elaine’s flirtations: she has ignored the others - particularly Ogilvy - but made a conscious effort to befriend me. I puncture the foil on the plastic strip of pills and extract two paracetamol, feeling them dry and hard in my fingertips. Drinking water from a cupped hand, I tip back my head and let the pills bump down my throat. My reflection in t
he mirror is dazed and washed-out. Have to get myself together for Rouse.
Behind me, the door on one of the cubicles unbolts. I hadn’t realized there was someone else in the room. I watch in the mirror as Pyman comes out of the cubicle nearest the wall. He looks up and catches my eye, then glances down, registering the strip of pills lying used on the counter. What looks like mild shock passes quickly over his face. I say hello in the calmest, it’s-only-aspirin voice I can muster, but my larynx cracks and the words come out sub-falsetto. He says nothing, walking out without a word.
I spit a hoarse ‘Fuck’ into the room, yet something body-tired and denying immediately erases what has just occurred. Pyman saw nothing untoward, nothing that might adversely affect my candidature. He was simply surprised to see me in here, and in no mood to strike up conversation. I cannot be the first person at Sisby to get a headache late in the afternoon on the first day. He will have forgotten all about it by the time he goes home.
This conclusion allows me to concentrate on the imminent interview with Rouse, whose office - B14 - I begin searching for along the corridors of the third floor. The room is situated in the north-western corner of the building, with a makeshift nameplate Sellotaped crudely to the door.
MARTIN ROUSE: AFS NON-QT / CSSB SPECIAL.
I knock confidently and there is a loud ‘Come in.’
His office smells of bad breath. Rouse is pacing by the window like a troubled general, the tail of a crumpled white shirt creeping out of the back of his trousers.
‘Sit down, Mr Milius,’ he says. There is no shaking of hands.
I settle into a hard-backed chair opposite his desk, which has just a few files and a lamp on it, nothing more. A temporary home. The window looks out over St James’s Park.
‘Everything going OK so far?’
‘Fine, thank you. Yes.’
He has yet to sit down, yet to look at me, still gazing out of the window.
‘Candidates always complain about the numerical facility tests. You find those difficult?’
It isn’t clear from his tone whether he is being playful or serious.
‘It’s been a long time since I had to do maths without a calculator. Good exercise for the brain.’
‘Yes,’ he says, murmuring.
It is as if his thoughts are elsewhere. It was not possible during the group exercise to get a look at the shape of the man, the actual physical presence, but I can now do so. His chalky face is entirely without distinguishing characteristics, neither handsome nor ugly, though the cheekbones are swollen with fat. He has the build of a rugby player, but any muscle on his broad shoulders has turned fleshy, pushing out his shirt in unsightly lumps. Why do we persist with the notion of the glamorous spy? Rouse would not look out of place behind the counter of a butcher’s shop. He sits down.
‘I imagine you’ve come well prepared.’
‘In what sense?’
‘You were asked to revise some specialist subjects.’
‘Yes.’
His manner is dismissive of routine. He is fiddling with a fountain pen on his desk. Too many thoughts in his head at any one time.
‘And what have you read up on?’
I am starting to feel awkward.
‘The Irish peace process…’
He interrupts before I have a chance to finish.
‘Ah! And what were your conclusions?’
‘About what?’
‘About the Irish peace process,’ he says impatiently. The speed of his voice has quickened considerably.
‘Which aspect of it?’
He plucks a word out of the air.
‘Unionism.’
‘I think there’s a danger that the Major government will jeopardize the situation in Ulster by pandering to the Unionist vote in the House of Commons.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what would you do instead? I don’t see that the Prime Minister has any alternative. He requires legislation to be passed, motions of no confidence to be quashed. What would you do in his place?’
This quick, abrasive style is what I had expected from Lucas and Liddiard. More of a contest, an absence of civility.
‘It’s a question of priorities.’
‘What do you mean?’
He is coming at me quickly, rapid jabs under pressure, allowing me no time to design my answers.
‘I mean does he value the lives of innocent civilians more than he values the safety of his own job?’
‘That’s a very cynical way of looking at a very complex situation. The Prime Minister has a responsibility to his party, to his MPs. Why should he allow terrorists to dictate how he does his job?’
‘I don’t accept the premise behind your question. He’s not allowing terrorists to do that. Sinn Fein/IRA have made it clear that they are prepared to come to the negotiating table and yet Major is going to make decommissioning an explicit requirement of that, something he knows will never happen. He’s not interested in peace. He’s simply out to save his own skin.’
‘You don’t think the IRA should hand over its weapons?’
‘Of course I do. In an ideal world. But they never will.’
‘So you would just give in to that? You would be prepared to negotiate with armed terrorist organizations?’
‘If there was a guarantee that those arms would not be used during that negotiating process, yes.’
‘And if they were?’
‘At least then the fault would lie with Sinn Fein. At least then the peace process would have been given a chance.’
Rouse leans back. The skin of his stomach is visible as pink through the thin cotton of his shirt. Here sits a man whose job it is to persuade Americans to betray their country.
‘I take your point.’
This is something of a breakthrough. There is a first smile.
‘What else, then?’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’
‘What else have you prepared?’
‘Oh.’ I had not known what he meant. ‘I’ve done some research on the Brent Spar oil platform and some work on the Middle East.’
Rouse’s face remains expressionless. I feel a droplet of sweat fall inside my shirt, tracing its way down to my waist. It appears that neither of these subjects interests him. He picks up a clipboard from the desk, turning over three pages until his eyes settle on what he is looking for. All these guys have clipboards.
‘Do you believe what you said about America?’
‘When?’
He looks at his notes, reading off the shorthand, quoting me:
‘“The Americans have a very parochial view of Europe. They see us as a small country.”’
He looks up, eyebrows raised. Again it is not clear whether this is something Rouse agrees with, or whether his experience in Washington has proved otherwise. Almost certainly, however, he will listen to what I have to say and then take up a deliberately contrary position.
‘I believe that there is an insularity to the American mind. They are an inward-looking people.’
‘Based on what evidence?’
His manner has already become more curt.
‘Based on the fact that when you go there, they think that Margaret Thatcher is the Queen, that Scotland is just this county in a bigger place called England. That kind of ignorance is unsettling when you consider that American capitalism is currently the dominant global culture. But to anyone living in Texas, global news is what happens in Alabama. The average American couldn’t care less about the European Union.’
‘Surely you can appreciate that in our line of work we don’t deal with “the average American”?’
I feel pinned by this.
‘I can see that. Yes.’
Rouse looks dissatisfied that I have capitulated so early. I press on.
‘But my point is still valid. Now that America is the sole superpower, there’s a kind of arrogance, a tunnel vision, creeping into their foreign policy. They don’t
make allowances for the character and outlook of individual states. Unless countries fall into line with the American way of thinking, they risk making an enemy of the most economically powerful nation on earth. This is the position that Britain finds itself in all the time.’
‘In what respect?’
‘In order to keep the special relationship alive, successive governments have had to ignore their better judgement and do some pretty unsavoury things when called upon to do so by the United States. They would defend that by saying it’s in the nature of politics.’
‘You don’t think the special relationship is worth preserving?’
‘I didn’t say that. I think it’s worth preserving at any cost. Maintaining close ties with America will make the UK a pivotal force within the European Union.’
Rouse nods. He knows this is true.
‘But you remain cynical about the government in Washington?’
Now I take a risk.
‘Well, with respect, so do you.’
That may have been a mistake. Rouse appears to withdraw slightly from the improving familiarity of our conversation, stopping to write something in longhand on the clipboard.
‘I’m not sure I follow you,’ he says, bringing the pen up to his mouth.
‘You’re a serving SIS officer in Washington. It’s your job to be cynical.’
He goes cold on me.
‘I’m afraid I can’t discuss that.’
‘Of course. I’m sorry I brought it up.’
I have gone too far.
‘Not a problem,’ he says, as suddenly relaxed as he was distant just seconds before. I am relieved by this, yet the swing in his mood was eerie. He can be all things to all people. ‘At Sisby we are perfectly free to discuss the work of an SIS officer in general terms. That, after all, is one of the reasons why you are here.’
‘Yes.’
‘So is there anything in particular you would like to ask?’
That he is permitting me to question him on matters of national secrecy is in itself astonishing, yet the blank slate provided somehow makes the process of thinking up a question more difficult. Rouse glances coolly at his watch. I have to say something.
A Spy by Nature (2001) Page 8