A Perfect Spy

He opens the last drawer and sees Rex versus Pym 1938, three fat files, and beside it Rex versus Pym 1944, one only. He pulls out the first of the 1938 batch, replaces it and selects the last instead. He turns to the final page first and reads the judge’s summing-up, verdict, sentence, the immediate disposal of the prisoner. In calm ecstasy he turns back to the beginning and starts again. No camera in those days. No copier, no tape-recorders. Only what you can see and hear and memorise and steal. He reads for an hour. A clock strikes eight but it means nothing to him. I am following my vocation. Divine service is in progress. You women want nothing but to drag us down.

Mattie is still sweeping the courtyard but his outlines are blurred.

“Find it then?” says Mattie.

“Eventually, thanks, yes.”

“That’s the way then,” says Mattie.

He gains his bedroom, turns the key in the lock, pulls a chair to the washstand, starts writing at once, from the memory straight on to the paper, not a thought for style. A clock strikes again and once he hears a knock, first timid then louder. Then a soft and pessimistic “Magnus?” before the feet slowly descend the stairs. But Pym is at the heart of things, women are temporarily abhorrent to him, even Judy is irrelevant to his destiny. He hears her feet clip across the forecourt and the sound of her van driving away, slow at first, then suddenly much faster. Good riddance.

“Dear Peggy”—he is writing—“I hope that the enclosed will be of use to you.”

“Dear Belinda”—he is writing—“I really must own to being fascinated by this glimpse of the democratic process at work. What seems at first to be such a rough instrument turns out to be equipped with all sorts of refined checks and balances. Do let’s meet as soon as I return to London.”

“Dearest Father”—he is writing—“Today is Sunday and in four days we shall know our fate and yours. But I do want you to know how much I have learned to admire the courage and conviction with which you have fought your arduous campaign.”

* * *

On the dais, Rick had not moved. His flick-knife stare was still fixed on Pym. Yet he appeared quite calm. Nothing had happened behind him in the hall that could not be dealt with, apparently. His preoccupation was with his son, whom he was regarding with dangerous intensity. He was wearing his statesman’s silver tie that night and a handmade shirt of cream silk with double cuffs and the great big RTP links from Asprey’s. He had had his hair cut earlier in the day, and Pym could smell the barber’s lotion as father and son continued to face each other. Once, Rick’s gaze switched to Muspole and it was Pym’s later impression Muspole nodded to him in some signal. The silence in the hall was absolute. No coughs or creaks that Pym could hear, not even from the Old Nellies whom Rick, as always, had appointed to the front row where they could remind him of his dear mother and his beloved father who had died so many heroes’ deaths.

At last Rick turned, and advanced towards the audience with the dutiful Goodman Pym walk that so often preceded an act of particular hypocrisy. He reached the table but did not stop. He reached the microphone and switched it off: let no machine come between us at this moment. He went on walking till he had reached the edge of the dais, at the point where it meets the fine curving staircase. He set his jaw, he looked out over the faces, he allowed his features to betray a moment’s soul-searching before he set himself to speak. Somewhere on his way between Pym and the audience he had unbuttoned his jacket. Strike me here, he was saying. Here is my heart. At last, he spoke. His voice higher than usual. Hear the emotion clenching it.

“Would you mind repeating that question, please, Peggy? Very loudly, my dear, so that everyone can hear?”

Peggy Wentworth did as she was bidden. But as Rick’s guest now as well as his accuser.