The Ice Age

by Margaret Drabble

  The evening star shone on Anthony and Alison, as they walked slowly up the lane. Alison was thinking of supper. She would make a flan. Their leeks were doing well: an egg and leek flan. Tomorrow, she would have to go to London to collect Molly on the train. Anthony had offered to go with her, but she had said she would go alone; fares were so expensive these days, she said, as a reason, but she guessed that Anthony did not want to go to London. He was afraid of disturbing himself. There is only the tiniest area, thought Alison, in which one can stay peacefully, without hurting, without being hurt. The smallest space, the smallest cell. Let us stay in it a little longer, please God, she prayed, gazing at the enigmatic star. Let us fend off for a little longer the incursions.

  They fended them off for one whole evening. Both were to look back on it often, wondering what remote sense of fair play in heaven had allowed such remission. Alison, recalling the intense precarious silent happiness, the egg and leek flan, the music on the radio, the ashen logs falling like flakes of snow through the bars of the grate, was to evolve a theory of time as bizarre as Tom Callander’s views on the laws of averages. Time, she came to think, is not consequential: it occurs simultaneously, and distributed through it in meaningless chronology are spots of sorrow, spots of joy. We combine them as we will, as we can best bear them. We make our own ordering. An undue concentration of sorrow is due to bad selection, or undue fortitude. And calm before the storm is chosen by the spirit, for its own sustenance. Or as a warning, like the pink sky before the darkness: who can say?

  She did not believe her own theory. Facts belied it. There is no comfort, no sustenance. But who can be surprised that one so subject to the blows of circumstance should attempt to see in them a possibility of self-will, freedom, choice?

  It was an exceptional evening, without event. Alison cooked, Anthony chopped wood and painted the new outhouse door with creosote. He liked the smell of creosote. Alison fed her chickens, and looked at a poultry catalogue. They ate the flan. Anthony washed up their plates, while Alison finished the novel she was reading, and wondered what to read next; they made coffee, went to sit in the drawing room. They talked about fancy poultry, whether to embark on a few exotics, whether or not to get geese. Both claimed they were frightened of geese. Anthony played the piano. At nine, they listened to Mozart on the radio: Alison, who was not musical, did not understand music, sat by Anthony and he showed her how to follow the score, and tried to tell her about what it was that he so liked in it. When the music ended, they sat and stared at the fire, dying in its ash. It seemed to them both that some secret was about to be revealed, was perhaps even there with them: the secret of living without ambition, agitation, hope. Intense silence flooded the house. They had stilled themselves to nothingness. It lasted: there it was. Neither moved, neither spoke. The fire faded. No sound from the world could reach them. Time paused: they heard its heart stop, they heard its breath hold, they heard the lapse of thudding and rustling and pumping and beating. They listened to the silence.

  In the morning, Anthony drove Alison to Leeds to catch the train, then drove himself back to the house. As he parked the car, he could hear the telephone ringing: it will stop, he thought, and did not hurry himself. But it continued to ring, on and on, and when he had let himself into the house, and picked up the post, and hung his jacket on a hook, he answered it.

  It was a man he did not know, a voice he did not know. It spoke urbanely, urgently, from London. It wanted to know if it was speaking to Mr. Anthony Keating. Assured, it introduced itself, as the voice of Humphrey Clegg, of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Premonition of disaster leaped along the wires and crackled into Anthony’s head.

  Humphrey Clegg wanted to speak to Anthony about Jane Murray. He was very pleased that Anthony was there, rather than Alison, as he did not wish to distress Mrs. Murray and would like Anthony’s co-operation and advice. Could Anthony come to London? It was difficult to outline the problem on the telephone. No, Jane was all right, as far as anybody knew: she had been on hunger strike, but was reported, by the consul, to have abandoned the attempt. “We have here the monthly report from the consul,” said Humphrey Clegg. “He saw your stepdaughter eight days ago. He says here that he was about to write to Mrs. Murray, but I’m afraid I don’t know whether he did so or not. Unfortunately, Mr. Barstow died yesterday.”

  Anthony was finding it difficult to breathe normally; his ears were singing, and his chest seemed to refuse to expand properly.

  “You want me to come to London,” he said, flatly, stating the obvious. Humphrey Clegg agreed that it would be advisable. “It may, after all, be good news,” said Clegg cautiously. “There are indications that the Wallacian authorities may be prepared to release your stepdaughter shortly. But the situation is somewhat delicate. I would prefer to discuss it with you in person, if you could spare the time.”

  “What should I tell Alison?” asked Anthony.

  “I wouldn’t mention the matter to Mrs. Murray until we have talked further,” said Humphrey Clegg. “Nor, if I may suggest, to Mr. Murray. In fact, perhaps it would be better not to mention my call until we have met.” He paused. “How soon do you think you could get here? I note that there are trains leaving Leeds at two p.m. and three p.m. Or there is a flight from Leeds airport at three. Or maybe you would prefer to drive.”

  Anthony thought for a moment, and said that he would catch the two o’clock, leaving the car at the station for Alison on her return. They arranged a meeting. “I really am most grateful,” said Humphrey Clegg calmly.

  As soon as Anthony put the phone down, it rang again. It was a man from Reuters, wanting to know what Anthony knew about the situation in Wallacia and the assassination of the British consul, Clyde Barstow; wanting to know what news Anthony and Alison had from Jane.

  “I’m afraid Mrs. Murray isn’t here,” said Anthony, in tones that imitated well the discretion of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. “And I don’t know anything about the news from Wallacia. I haven’t even read today’s paper yet. So I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

  On the train, Anthony reflected that if Reuters had got in before the Foreign Office, he would undoubtedly have co-operated with them and asked them a lot of questions. As it was, here he was, rushing off to London, ignorant of what claimed him, his passport in his pocket, already committed to Humphrey Clegg. On the official side of the fence, for once. On such details of chronology, affiliations and ideologies hang. He wondered who had assassinated Barstow, and why; Alison had liked him, his letters about Jane had been kind and considerate. He tried to remember everything he had ever read about Wallacia, everything Alison had told him; since Jane’s accident, his eye had been so sensitized to reports from Wallacia that they had leaped from the page at him. But there had not been many. A couple of weeks ago, there had been a Reuters report on an internal power struggle: one or two ministers had been demoted, but nobody knew why. Apart from that, nothing. A small earthquake which was thought to have killed six people; a trade agreement with some Arab country, he forgot which; a suggestion that the country might for the first time be represented at the Olympic games. Hardly a comprehensive view of a country of several million people. He hoped that Humphrey Clegg might inform him.

  But Humphrey Clegg, in his quiet office in Whitehall, claimed not to know much either. Of course, he might have been lying. It was true, as the Reuters man had claimed, that Barstow had been assassinated: it seemed that there was also a degree of civil disturbance. “Not exactly an uprising,” said Clegg, gazing meditatively at Anthony, the tips of his fingers carefully placed together, neatly balanced in a small spire, his elbows on his large polished desk. “Not exactly an uprising, yet. But there is certainly a fair amount of unrest.” He closed his eyes, opened them again. “Sniping. Roadblocks. That kind of thing.”

  “Who is sniping at whom?” asked Anthony.

  “The situation is rather obscure,” said Clegg, smiling briefly at his own understatement. “As you and Mrs. Murray
have good reason to know, lines of communication between Wallacia and the West are not exactly clear. There are probably several factions involved—the Central Party, which has traditionally preserved its independence from the Soviet Union, but which has been experiencing some difficulty in maintaining its authority recently—and another group, led by the Minister of Trade, who wishes for closer ties with the U.S.S.R. Then there are the Christian Nationalists.

  And the Maoists. And various other suppressed groups, which might make their presence known, if widescale trouble ensues.”

  “Are you implying that there’s likely to be a civil war?”

  “I’m not implying anything. Like you, I am in the dark. We have only the most unsatisfactory eyewitness reports. And this.”

  He handed Anthony a large telegram. It had that morning’s date. It was from the Minister of Public and Social Order, and it agreed to release Jane Murray from Kresni camp on compassionate grounds, as her health was poor. It gave a date: a fortnight away. Anthony stared at it. It looked official enough. “Is this true?” he asked. “And if so, whatever for?”

  “It’s true enough,” said Clegg. “And it will doubtless remain true, if Konec remains Minister. We must hope, for your stepdaughter’s sake, that he remains Minister for the next fortnight. You ask what for, which is a very sensible question.” He did not try to answer it.

  “What do you suggest we do about it? Do we just wait for her to come home?”

  Humphrey Clegg explained that that was another very sensible question. On balance, he thought it would be somewhat unwise to wait for her to be put on a plane home. The situation was fluid: Jane was not well; there was a certain urgency. Diplomatic regret over the assassination of poor Barstow might not last long enough to get Jane out of the country, Konec might be replaced by someone with very different views on Britain, and Jane Murray. “Unfortunately,” said Clegg, “as you know, we have not many representatives in Wallacia. The embassy staff is very limited, and at the moment their activities are somewhat restricted by a close surveillance . . . .”

  Anthony wondered if that were an F.O. euphemism for being under lock and key. Or already dead, like Barstow. He stared at Clegg’s highly polished shoes under the desk, he looked around the walls at a portrait of the Queen and an oil painting of camels at an oasis, he stared up at the small glass chandelier. He wondered what was motivating Clegg. Concern for Jane, duty, or something quite different?

  “Perhaps,” said Anthony, “I’d better go and collect Jane myself.”

  Clegg’s reaction was so smooth that Anthony could not tell whether he were trying to feign concealing surprise, or whether he was genuinely surprised. It quickly became clear that even if he was surprised by the fact that Anthony had made the suggestion first, the suggestion itself had been considered already. Yes, Clegg agreed, it would certainly be more satisfactory if somebody could look after the situation personally: at a time like this, so much depended on prompt and decisive action; he himself, as representative of HMG, would feel much happier to have all British nationals removed as soon as possible from a potentially unstable situation; how important it was to have somebody on the spot . . . .

  “But I’d never get a visa,” said Anthony, thinking fast, remembering the weeks it had taken Alison, in calmer times, to get hers.

  But Clegg had thought of that. He was rummaging in his desk. He had taken the liberty of applying, he said; here were the papers, if Anthony could sign on pages four and five.

  “You see,” said Clegg, “it would have been impossible to get papers for Mr. or Mrs. Murray. Mrs. Murray has a visa already, issued by the last Foreign Minister, and it expired too recently to be renewed easily. And Mr. Murray, even if he had been willing, has unfortunately been refused a visa already. May I ask you where you have your current passport, Mr. Keating?”

  “Here,” said Anthony. He fished in his pocket, produced it. Clegg smiled.

  “You have a good deal of foresight, Mr. Keating,” he said.

  “Yes,” said Anthony. “Sometimes I can see whole strips of time unrolling, like reels of film. Speeded-up reels.”

  Clegg was leafing through Anthony’s passport. “I see you have visas for Rumania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Egypt,” he said. “And an expired one for Bulgaria.”

  “Yes. I was filming there. Current affairs. Is that good, or bad?”

  Clegg looked up, with a fairly human expression of uncertainty on his pale, cultured face. “All right, I should think. But I don’t honestly know,” he said, and laughed. “At least,” he said, “if things turn nasty, there’ll be a few borders you can escape over.”

  Visions of blasted airports, derailed trains, and rolling tanks filled Anthony’s mind. Clegg seemed to see them too, for he hastened to add, “Not that there’s any indication that things will deteriorate so rapidly. Not in the next few weeks.”

  “I’ll have time to get out there and back again?”

  “Of course. We wouldn’t consider it, otherwise.” Humphrey Clegg looked at his watch.

  “If you would have the time, we could dine together, and discuss the situation further,” he said.

  “Of course,” said Anthony Keating.

  And that was how Anthony Keating became a British spy.

  Over dinner, which was served in a private room in a private club, Humphrey Clegg told Anthony Keating more about the situation in Wallacia: more, but nevertheless not much. He also gave him several documents, and folders with names and addresses of people to contact. He seemed to know more about Anthony than Anthony would have thought possible, and less about Wallacia than Anthony would have thought possible, but maybe he was bluffing on both fronts. Anthony was quite clear in his own mind that he was not being properly informed, but he assumed that Clegg knew what he was doing. All the films he had seen and all the thrillers he had read had led him to expect a high degree of deviousness from the Foreign Office, so he did not really expect to be told much. His own role was all that concerned him, and that seemed quite simple. He had to catch the plane to Krusograd, where he would be met by Mr. Kammell, then proceed to his hotel, whence he would ring the Ministry of Public and Social Order about Jane Murray. They would no doubt arrange a meeting, and a time for her release. “There should be no difficulties at all,” Humphrey Clegg repeated. It flashed across Anthony’s mind, in a moment of wild surmise, that the whole affair was a gigantic fake, that Humphrey Clegg was some kind of double agent, that nobody had ever had the slightest intention of releasing Jane Murray. But he dismissed the surmise, over the claret. Clegg was too plausible to be a fake. Anthony knew too many people like Clegg. He had been at Oxford with them. Sincerity and authenticity dwelled side by side in Clegg’s symmetrical features, in his long fingers, in his gray suit.

  And anyway, Anthony Keating did not mind if the whole thing was a fake. He was too curious to turn back. His own eccentric career wound back behind him: songwriter, television producer, property man, man of enforced leisure. He had been idly casting around for action, and here it was, it had presented itself to him, it had picked him out. He could hardly refuse so mysterious a solicitation. The prospect was, after all, more exciting than a watercress farm. And he could buy the watercress farm, or one like it, if he got back.

  They decided that Alison should be told that Anthony was going to collect Jane, as indeed he was. “You could ring her now,” said Clegg, indicating the private phone in the private room. “She’s at Donnell Murray’s, isn’t she?”

  Anthony found Clegg’s appearance of omniscience reassuring. It was as though, at last, somebody else had taken charge. He was slightly nervous at the prospect of ringing Alison, for he feared both her gratitude for his quixotic intentions, and her inevitable anxiety on his and Jane’s behalf, but he obeyed Clegg, and rang. Clegg’s omniscience, however, had failed. Tim answered the phone: he was babysitting with Molly, Donnell and Alison had gone out to dinner. They would be back later, could Tim take a message? And how was Anthony? Tim wanted to
know. He, Tim, was fine, thank you, he had a small speaking part in a new science fiction film about a hijacked space ship. The Chinese hijack it, said Tim, and then they invade India. He would have told Anthony more of this ludicrous plot, but Anthony said good-bye, firmly, and rang off.

  He returned to the table, where Humphrey Clegg was cracking a walnut with a meditative expression. Anthony assumed he was pondering the Balkan problem, but when he spoke it was to invite Anthony to stay the night. “In my flat,” he said. There was plenty of room, he said, for his wife had recently left him, taking the two children. Unless, of course, Anthony wanted to stay with his ex-wife, or with Donnell and Alison.

  Anthony accepted the offer of a bed. “I think that would be wisest,” said Clegg, and sighed. “I could teach you a little Wallacian, over breakfast. You’d be amazed, how few people speak Wallacian.”

  “Do you?”

  “Not really. A few words. There’s a girl in the office who does, she’s quite a linguist.”

  Clegg rang for a brandy. Anthony declined one. Clegg sipped his, and sighed again. Then he began to tell Anthony about his wife, and the reasons why she had left him. It was an interesting story. She was fifteen years younger than Clegg, who was himself forty-five; they had been married for five years, and had two children, aged three and two. Clegg said: “It wasn’t her fault, really. She could never get over the idea that I married her because I ought to have a wife, for professional purposes. Which was true, of course. It’s hard to get on, in my line, without a wife.” His pale fingers picked at the nut. He had a large signet ring on one finger, with a carnelian. Anthony felt he had known him all his life. “You were wise, Keating,” said Clegg. “You got married at the first opportunity. You didn’t hang around waiting. The longer you wait, the harder it is to take the leap.”

  “I got married far too young,” said Anthony. “I just didn’t think. It was very irresponsible.”