A Perfect Spy

It was Rick’s first visit. Until now Pym had forbidden him the place, explaining that distinguished parents were considered bad form. And Rick with unwonted diffidence had accepted his exclusion. Now with the same diffidence he came, looking trim and loving and mysteriously humble. He didn’t venture into the school but sent a letter in his own hand proposing a rendezvous on the road to Farleigh Abbott, which was on the sea. When Pym arrived by bicycle as instructed, expecting the Bentley and half the court, round the corner instead rode Rick alone, also on a bicycle, with a lovely smile that Pym could see from miles off and humming “Underneath the Arches” out of tune. In the bicycle basket he had brought a picnic of their favourite things, a bottle of ginger pop for Pym, bubbly for himself and a football left over from Paradise. They rode their bicycles on the sand and skimmed pebbles on the waves. They lay in the dunes munching foie gras and Ryvita. They wandered through the little town and wondered whether Rick should buy it. They stared at the church and promised never to forget their prayers. They made a goal out of a broken gateway and kicked the football at each other all the way across the world. They kissed and wept and bear-hugged and swore to be pals all their lives and go bicycling every Sunday even when Pym was Lord Chief Justice and married with grandchildren.

“Has Mr. Cudlove resigned?” Pym asked.

Rick just managed to hear, though his face had already acquired the dreamy expression that overcame it at the approach of a direct question.

“Well, son,” he conceded, “old Cuddie’s been having his ups and downs over the years and he’s decided it’s time to give himself a bit of a rest.”

“How’s the swimming-pool coming along?”

“Nearly done. Nearly done. We must be patient.”

“Super.”

“Tell me, son,” said Rick, now at his most venerable. “Have you got a pal or two who might like to do you the favour of supplying you with a bed and some accommodation during the school holidays that are already looming on the horizon?”

“Oh, masses,” said Pym, striving to sound careless.

“Well I think you would be well advised to accept their invitations, because with all that rebuilding going on at Ascot, I don’t think you’re going to enjoy the rest and privacy that fine mind of yours is entitled to.”

Pym at once said he would, and made an even greater fuss of Rick in order to persuade him that he did not suspect anything was amiss.

“I’m in love with a rather super girl too,” said Pym when it was nearly time to part, in a further effort to persuade Rick of his happiness. “It’s quite amusing. We write to each other every day.”

“Son, there’s no finer thing in this life than the love of a good woman and if anybody’s earned it, you have.”

* * *

“Tell me, boy,” said Willow one evening, during an intimate confirmation class. “What does your father do, exactly?”

To which Pym with a natural instinct for the way to Willow’s heart replied that he appears to be some kind of, well, freewheeling businessman, sir, I don’t know. Willow changed the subject but at their next session obliged Pym to give an account of his mother. His first instinct was to say she had died of syphilis, an ailment that featured large in Mr. Willow’s lectures on Sowing the Seed of Life. But he restrained himself.

“She just sort of vanished when I was young, sir,” he confessed with more truth than he intended.

“Who with?” said Mr. Willow. So Pym, for no particular reason he could afterwards think of, said, “With an army sergeant, sir, he was already married so he took her off to Africa to elope.”

“Does she write to you, boy?”

“No, sir.”

“Why not?”

“I suppose she’s too ashamed, sir.”

“Does she send you money?”

“No, sir. She hasn’t any. He swindled her out of everything she had.”

“We are speaking of the sergeant still, I take it?”

“Yes, sir.”

Mr. Willow pondered. “Are you familiar with the activities of a company known as The Muspole Friendly and Academic Limited?”

“No, sir.”

“You appear to be a director of this company.”

“I didn’t know, sir.”

“Then you also have no knowledge, presumably, as to why this company should be paying your school fees? Or not paying them, perhaps?”

“No, sir.”

Mr. Willow pushed up his jaw and narrowed his eyes, indicating a sharpening of his interrogation technique. “And does your father live in some luxury, would you say, by comparison with the kind of standards that apply to other parents here?”

“I suppose he does, sir.”

“Suppose?”

“He does, sir.”

“Do you disapprove of his life-style?”

“I do a bit, I suppose.”

“Does it occur to you that you may one day be obliged to choose between God and Mammon?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have you discussed this with Father Murgo?”

“No, sir.”

“Do so.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have you ever thought of entering the Church?”

“Often, sir,” said Pym, putting on his soulful face.

“We have a fund here, Pym, for impecunious boys wishing to enter the Church. It occurs to the Bursar that you might be eligible to benefit from this fund.”

“Yes, sir.”