‘Well, what’s the answer, old boy?’ Kennedy muttered. ‘Is it yes or no?’
At this moment they heard from beyond the partition a resonant voice with a slight lisp, saying, ‘Simply huge anemones, you’ve no idea.’ Kennedy and Willey became silent and still, looking closely at each other, while the voice went on at the same volume. ‘Along the new national road, yes, then off right towards Kalamos, that’s the Eubeia side, you know, past the road to Lake Marathon, then we went up to this little place called Polidendron, the apricots and almonds were in first flower, so pure, you know, quite beautiful, there was still snow along the sides of the road. …’
‘I wonder who that can be,’ Willey whispered.
‘No bloody idea. Well, is it a go or isn’t it?’
Willey still hesitated, experiencing some faint return of that embarrassment that had filled him when Kennedy had first made his proposition, a sort of shame for them both, trapped in this situation. Some time after that talk of theirs, he had recalled an occasion in his childhood when he had invited a friend to come and see his stamp collection. It was a friendship of vivid but shallow growth, only some weeks old. The other boy, whose name was Alan, had gone through the album with many expressions of admiration most pleasing to Willey. Only at the end had Willey seen his friend’s hand conveying something to his top jacket pocket and investigating found some thirty of his most precious stamps there. …Willey was never to forget the shame that had filled him at the moment of detection, a sort of anguish that had brought him near to tears. … But Kennedy would never feel like that, he reflected, looking into the other’s waiting face; never mourn his own nature or another’s. What was there in that face though, that made one feel safe, condoned? Perhaps it was difference, merely. ‘Did I understand you to say,’ he whispered, ‘that I should not be asked to do anything until after I have been promised a permanent post?’
‘That’s it, old boy, not a thing. And after that not much. Only to give me access, as the saying is. You agree then?’
‘Yes,’ said Willey, ‘I agree.’
The voice beyond the partition was raised again, abruptly: ‘The sea was an absolute peacock blue, and we could see across to Eubea, snow on the peaks, and then we went down to Amphiarion, and there were these huge red anemones among the ruins …’ Willey and Kennedy stood with their faces not a foot apart, Willey’s quite serious, Kennedy’s beaming widely.
‘Here’s my hand on it,’ Kennedy said. They shook hands briefly.
‘Now then,’ Kennedy said. ‘Let’s see. I want to know this first, when are the envelopes with the questions in officially opened?’
‘In the presence of the students, some minutes before the examination begins, by the respective supervisors.’
‘You’ll be opening one complete lot yourself then?’
‘I expect so, yes, certainly.’
‘Good, then if I sew the thing up again, it won’t matter if I make a crude job of it, because you will be the only one handling that particular batch.’
‘That is so, yes.’
‘All right then. Now do they put in extra copies or only the exact number?’
‘They have always up to now put in several extra copies, in case of emergencies.’
‘Are they accounted for at the end?’
‘No, the students are allowed to keep the question papers if they want to.’
‘We’re in the clear then. I can take one copy of each, one single copy, without anyone missing it afterwards.’
‘As far as I can see, yes.’
‘But that’s marvellous,’ Kennedy said. In his exhilaration his voice rose. ‘It couldn’t be better,’ he said.
‘Sh!’Willey said.
In the silence that fell between them they now heard another voice, an upper-class voice of conscious competence, thickened however, and curdled at this moment by a sort of coy appreciativeness. ‘The Towers of Trebizond,’ this voice said. ‘A delicious book, have you read it? Yes, Rose Macaulay. You know? She travels about Turkey on this camel. Yes, yes, a perfectly delightful account of …’
‘That’s Robinson, the assistant director,’ Willey said. ‘I’d know that voice anywhere,’ he added, with an involuntary grimace of disgust. ‘He always uses it for showing people around. It’s his cultured-but-lively voice. These people have hyphenated attitudes, you know. Crazy-but-nice, that’s another favourite.’ He and Kennedy exchanged a look of complete sympathy and understanding, similar to the one they had shared over Mackintosh. Willey felt suddenly warm and affectionate towards his fellow conspirator. He was a crook, of course; lacking no doubt in some of the qualities essential if mankind was to progress; but he would never, one felt sure, go in for this awful glibness, he would never call a book delicious. Willey’s puritan soul shuddered. It had always seemed a wet-lipped word to him, and applied to a book …
‘I think Robinson is crazy,’ Kennedy said.
Beyond the partitions Robinson was chuckling. ‘All about people writing their Turkey books,’ he said. ‘You know?’ A female voice, presumably belonging to one of the visitors, said earnestly, ‘But it’s a book embodying a quest, really, isn’t it? It’s a religious book, basically.’
‘Why do you say that?’ Willey asked.
‘I met him this morning and he gave me a nasty look and called me by another name. Then when I told him who I was he said there was no such person.’
‘What name did he call you by?’
‘Some Irish-sounding name. Mulligan, something like that. No. Gilligan, that was it.’
‘He asked me once if I’d ever heard of a poet, a contemporary poet, called Gilligan. I said I hadn’t.’
Kennedy broke suddenly into a loud laugh. The voices beyond ceased abruptly. ‘So that’s it,’ he said. ‘I always had a bad memory for names.’
‘What’s the matter?’ Willey said.
‘Never mind.’ Kennedy was still laughing. ‘Let’s get out of here. You’d better go first, we don’t want to be seen together too much, do we? You won’t regret this, old boy, I promise you.’
Later that afternoon Jennings had a visitor. He had been sitting quite motionless for at least an hour, lost in contemplation of the English verbs of utterance, particularly the four central aspects: ‘say’, ‘tell’, ‘talk’ and ‘speak’, when Eleni Polimenou was announced.
‘This is indeed a pleasure,’ he said, coming right round in front of his desk, bowing his head, and rubbing his hands together.
Eleni Polimenou in a large green hat stood magnificently in the centre of the carpet, smiling, or rather stretching her lips, at him. ‘Good afternoon, Jennings,’ she said. ‘This, then, is your sanctum.’ Something in the tone caused Jennings to recall the biscuit crumbs scattered on his desk, wonder if possibly there was a closeness, a fustiness in the room, scholarly of course, but none the less perhaps oppressive to people of a less bookish turn.
‘Yes, yes,’ he said. ‘You see here the scene of my labours. This is where I spend my days, alas.’ He separated his hands and held them palm upwards in the gesture of humility he had learned during his stay in Japan. The quality of the actress’s smile did not change. Jennings after a brief pause cleared his throat. ‘Won’t you sit down?’ he said, indicating one of the brown leather armchairs. She surveyed the chair for some moments then sat gracefully on one of its arms, crossing her legs and bringing out from her large handbag a black cigarette holder. Jennings remembered suddenly the lacquered box in one of the drawers of his desk, in which had reposed for as long as he could recall the greater part of fifty cigarettes. ‘Cigarette?’ he said. He went rapidly back behind his desk. After opening and closing several drawers he found the box. ‘Cigarette?’ he said, bustling forward again.
‘Ah, English cigarettes,’ Eleni Polimenou said graciously. But Jennings did not smoke himself and it did not often occur to him to offer them, and the box had been there a long time, so that when she selected one of the cigarettes most of the tobacco, by now reduced to dus
t, fell out of one end before she could fit the other into the holder. ‘Never mind, it is of no importance,’ she said, with the same direct and rather ferocious smile, in reply to Jennings’ exclamations of distress. She brought a small silver case from her handbag and took out a cigarette.
‘I am glad of this opportunity, dear lady,’ Jennings said, ‘of expressing my admiration for your performances, an admiration which …’
‘Thank you, thank you,’ Miss Polimenou said.
‘It is not too much to say that…’
‘You are too kind.’
‘An ornament,’ Jennings said, rolling his head slightly as though to dodge further interruptions or disclaimers, ‘if I may be permitted to observe, not only to the Greek stage, but to the theatre in our days, and I venture to think …’
‘I came to thank you, Jennings, for your most kind and invaluable help to me,’ Miss Polimenou said, expelling smoke.
Jennings hurried to place an ashtray on the arm of the chair beside her. ‘My help?’ he said. ‘My help, dear lady?’
‘Yes, this excellent young man Kennedy whom you sent to me, when I am sure you could ill-afford to spare him. A very gifted teacher.’
There was a prolonged pause during which Jennings looked fixedly at the bust of the dignitary. ‘Kennedy, yes,’ he said at last. ‘We regard him as promising, promising.’
‘If you had not so promptly sent him I could not have been ready for the play. Believe me, Jennings, I am grateful. And with Eleni Polimenou gratitude is not silent.’
‘It really is too kind of you,’ Jennings said. ‘I have done so little to deserve …’
‘But no, you have done much. And now this poor Kennedy, he has some little misunderstanding with the police, he tells me. Something to do with the permis de travail. “Why, don’t be a silly boy,” I told him — he was upset, you know — “Mr Jennings will take care of it,” I said.’
Jennings said nothing for the moment, merely fingered the lobe of his left ear with a rather abstracted air. Then he said, ‘I do not think I can intervene in a police matter, much as I should like …’
‘I intend,’ Eleni Polimenou said, with great sweetness, ‘when I am in London, to insist that your name appears in the acknowledgments. And of course I shall be calling at the headquarters of your organisation, to tell them of the valuable part you are playing in Greece. I shall say that I perceive here an example of what is talked about often but practised rarely, and that is international co-operation in the arts. Mr Kennedy wishes not to be mentioned, he is only concerned to clear up this trouble of his, and, besides, it is the head, the organising brain, which in cases like this should take the credit.’
‘Dear lady,’Jennings said. On his face had appeared a visionary gleam. This would be something to show those people in London, who had the power to move him about the globe as though he were no more than a coloured flag on a map, that he was no mere itinerant pedagogue but really what one might call the permanent cultural attaché in Athens. He was getting too old now for radical changes. He liked Athens, the climate was excellent, it was handy for home leaves. He knew the language, had a circle of friends here, people who shared his interest in Structures. His five years was nearly up, he had applied for an extension of course, but at this very moment some upstart in London might be saying to some other upstart, ‘Let’s send old Jennings to Bahrein next, shall we?’ or Libya, or Rawalpindi. With whom would he discuss Structures in Rawalpindi? Another three years and he could claim to be regarded as an expert on Greek affairs; a kind of Cultural Ambassador Extraordinary, indispensable, untransferable, consulted by foreign powers. … ‘Dear lady,’ he said again, and his face looked suddenly years younger. ‘That would be too kind.’
‘It is your due,’ she said, with a glance of irrepressible curiosity at his rejuvenated aspect. ‘There is one thing, however, that you can do for me if you wish,’ she added.
‘Yours to command,’ Jennings said instantly, making his well-known gesture of abasement.
‘It concerns another employee of yours, a young man named Willey. I have discovered by a strange coincidence that he is the nephew of an old friend of mine, a school friend from years ago …’
She smiled at Jennings, who fluttered his fingers in remonstrance, and said, Oh no, no …’
‘Yes, I am old, Jennings, now. Still, this young man, I want to do something for him, for the sake of the old friendship. All he seems to want is that his position here should be made permanent. An unromantic fellow, to seek first security, but we cannot change others. So I ask you, if you will, to do that for him.’
‘H’m, yes,’Jennings said. His radiance had flickered during this speech, but not gone out entirely. Certainly it would be galling to have to retract his words so soon. He thought for a moment, with deep malignancy, of Willey: lanky, undeferential, perverted. A man who had committed indecent assault. A man, moreover, very useful in his present dependent position. Still, he reflected, Mackintosh could take over those functions. Mackintosh had been taking too much on himself recently, proffering suggestions that should rightly have emanated from him, Jennings. A year or two of proof-reading would do Mackintosh no harm. Then there was the oaf Kennedy. The only way to avoid being thought a complete fool by the police would be to insist on Kennedy’s value to the establishment, clamour as it were to be regarded as that disgraceful person’s guarantor. … For a moment he wavered. Then he pictured himself in some makeshift hut, in Afghanistan perhaps, unable to concentrate on Structures for fear of the Pathan, wielding a fly-swatter all day long, grit in his biscuits … He allowed a deep sigh to escape him. ‘I will see to it,’ he said.
11
The Saturday immediately preceding the examinations was a very busy day for Kennedy. At ten o’clock he was entering Willey’s room; the latter had given him a key and left the room vacant by previous arrangement — in fact he had taken Olivia on another house-hunting trip. The question papers were on the table where Willey had left them, in thick brown-paper envelopes cross-stitched along the top with thin but strong white thread. Kennedy had come provided with a razor blade, a needle and some white cotton thread. It did not take him long to open the envelopes, the one marked ‘Translation’ and the other ‘Composition’, and abstract from each a single question paper. Sewing up the envelopes took longer, but by half past ten he was finished. They did not look quite the same — the original stitching had been done by machine — but they would do; no one but Willey would be handling them anyway. Locking the door carefully behind him he made his way as quickly as he could back to Kitty’s, where the real labour still awaited him: he had to make six copies in longhand of each paper, and one of the translation passages was in Greek, which made things even more difficult.
It took him the best part of four hours to complete the copying. It could not be rushed as his clients would naturally insist on legibility. However, it was finished in the end. He had a quick salami sandwich and a glass of beer at a nearby bar. Then he began on his rounds. He had notified all the people concerned of the probable time of his arrival, so that not much time should be spent over each transaction. Ten minutes at each house, he had calculated; to demonstrate the authenticity of the papers, hand them over, collect the cash, utter a little homily he had prepared in advance, round it off with some appropriate general sentiments, and depart. Altogether a miracle of planning, he told himself as he set off. His straw hat was set at a severe and business-like angle.
Since Mr Logothetis had given him the idea in the first place, it had seemed to Kennedy only fitting to begin with him. Also, the Logothetis apartment was nearest. To his disappointment Veta did not come in answer to his ring, nor did she appear at all during his visit. He was conducted on this occasion not into the salon, but into a small room containing bookshelves and a filing cabinet and safe, and a large desk behind which sat Mr Logothetis, dressed in the same way, smiling in the same way. Before him on the desk, and immediately securing Kennedy’s whole attention, was a
bottle of Scotch, two glasses, a soda-syphon and a large white envelope slightly bulging.
‘Ah, Mr Kennedy,’ Mr Logothetis said, rising to shake hands. ‘I hope I find you well?’
‘You do, yes,’ Kennedy said. He had bought a newspaper to serve as a holder, inside it reposed the papers, copies and originals. ‘Here it is,’ he said, patting the newspaper. ‘As per ordered.’
‘So your friend was able to oblige you?’
‘He was, yes.’ Kennedy handed over first the two originals, allowed Mr Logothetis to glance through them, and then took out the longhand copies. ‘They are exact copies, as you see,’ he said.
‘Yes, yes.’ Mr Logothetis had put on a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, and now compared the passages carefully for some minutes. During the silence Kennedy began quite uncontrollably to sweat. Mr Logothetis looked up finally, smiling. ‘I congratulate you,’ he said.
‘I want the originals back, if you don’t mind,’ Kennedy said.
‘Yes, of course. Now if I had what they call a photographic memory, I shouldn’t need to pay you at all, ha, ha, eh, Mr Kennedy?’
‘No, ha, ha,’ Kennedy said, taking out his handkerchief.
Mr Logothetis took the envelope from the desk and handed it to Kennedy. ‘There are ten thousand drachmas there,’ he said. ‘For your friend.’
‘Thank you,’ Kennedy said. ‘Do you mind if I check?’ Rapidly he thumbed through the large, muddy-coloured notes. Ten of them, each worth about twelve pounds. Now that he was actually touching the money an almost incredulous delight possessed him. ‘All present and correct,’ he said, striving to keep his self-possession.
‘And now,’ Mr Logothetis said, ‘a drink on it. You don’t take anything with your whisky, as I remember.’
‘No, that’s right, nothing.’
Mr Logothetis poured out a full, indeed a brimming, glass for Kennedy, putting much less in his own and filling it with soda.
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