A Perfect Spy

Meanwhile we traded. What in, Pym never rightly knew and nor do I now. Sometimes in rare commodities, such as hams and whisky, sometimes in promises, which the court called Faith. Other times in nothing more solid than the sunny horizons that sparkled ahead of us down the empty wartime roads. When Christmas approached somebody produced sheets of coloured crêpe paper, thousands of them. For days and nights on end, augmented by extra mothers recruited for this vital war-work, Pym and the court crouched in an empty railway carriage at Didcot, twisting the paper into crackers that contained no toys and would not crack, while they told each other wild stories and cooked toast by laying it on top of the paraffin stove. Some of the crackers, it was true, had little wooden soldiers inside them, but these were called “samples” and kept separate. The rest, Syd explained, was for decoration, Titch, like flowers when there isn’t any. Pym believed it all. He was the most willing child labourer in the world, so long as there was approval waiting for him round the corner.

Another time they towed a trailer filled with crates of oranges which Pym refused to eat because he overheard Syd saying they were hot. They sold them to a pub on the road to Birmingham. Once they had a load of dead chickens that Syd said they could only move at night when it was cold enough, so perhaps that was what had gone wrong with the oranges. And there is a clip of film running for ever in my memory. It shows a scraggy moonlit hilltop on the moors, and our two cabs with their lights out winding nervously to the crest. And the dark figures standing waiting for us on the back of their lorry. And the masked lamp that counted out the money for Mr. Muspole the great accountant while Syd unloaded the trailer. And though Pym watched from a distance because he hated feathers, no night frontier crossing later in his life was ever more exciting.

“Can we send the money to Lippsie now?” Pym asked. “She hasn’t got any left.”

“Now how do you know a thing like that, old son?”

From her letters to you, Pym thought. You left one in your pocket and I read it. But Rick’s eyes had their flick-knife glint so he said “I made it up,” and smiled.

Rick did not come on our adventures. He was saving himself. What for was a question nobody asked within Pym’s hearing and certainly he never asked it for himself. Rick was devoting himself to his good works, his old people and his hospital visiting. “Is that suit of yours pressed, son?” Rick would say when as a special privilege father and son embarked together on one of these high errands. “God in heaven, Muspole, look at the boy’s suit, it’s a damned shame! Look at his hair!” Hastily a mother would be ordered to press the suit, another to polish his shoes and get his fingernails proper, a third to comb his hair till it was orderly and sensitive. With flimsy patience Mr. Cudlove tapped his keys on the car roof while Pym was given a final check-over for signs of unintentional irreverence. Then away at last they sped to the house or bedside of some elderly and worthy person, and Pym sat fascinated to see how swiftly Rick trimmed his manner to suit theirs, how naturally he slipped into the cadences and vernacular that put them most at ease, and how the love of God came into his good face when he talked about Liberalism and Masonry and his dear dead father, God rest him, and a first-class rate of return, ten percent guaranteed plus profits for as long as you’re spared. Sometimes he brought a ham with him as a gift and was an angel in a hamless world. Sometimes a pair of silk stockings or a box of nectarines, for Rick was always the giver even when he was taking. When he was able Pym threw his own charm into the scales by reciting a prayer he had composed, or singing “Underneath the Arches,” or telling a witty story with a range of regional accents that he had picked up in the course of the crusade. “The Germans are killing all the Jews,” he said once, to great effect. “I’ve got a friend called Lippsie and all her other friends are dead.” If his performance was wanting, Rick let him know this without brutality. “When somebody like Mrs. Ardmore asks you whether you remember her, son, don’t scratch your old head and pull a face. Look her in the eye and smile and say, ‘Yes.’ That’s the way to treat old people, and to be a credit to your father. Do you love your old man?”

“Of course I do.”

“Well then. How was your steak last night?”

“It was super.”

“There’s not twenty boys in England ate steak last night, do you know that?”

“I know.”

“Give us a kiss then.”

Syd was less reverent. “If you’re going to learn to shave people, Magnus,” he said over a lot of winks, “you’ve got to learn how to rub the soap in first!”