carefully folded newspapers and magazines, a smell of dust, decay and stale cigar smoke. Soulless and empty. What was the attraction of places like this? Why was membership so highly prized by Lander and others like him?
Mystified, he sat down and read the Telegraph, wishing he had done the sensible thing and declined Lander’s invitation. He could guess what the conversation would be about and it was a subject he wanted to avoid.
It was nearly half past one before Lander appeared. ‘You must have given me up for dead, Gerry, I do apologize. God, what a morning it’s been. Let’s go and eat.’
Gossip accompanied the soup, Suez arrived with the roast beef. Lander revisited all the familiar arguments, offering nothing new. Pountney listened, saying little until challenged to reply.
‘What kind of threat is Nasser beside the Soviets?’ he asked. ‘While we’re looking the other way, the Soviets could be getting up to all kinds of mischief behind our back. We’re in danger of forgetting who the real enemy is.’
Lander disagreed. ‘You don’t treat with pocket Hitlers, Gerry. You put them in their place. Surely that’s a lesson we’ve all learned.’
‘Nasser’s not in that league.’
‘Try telling that to Downing Street.’
Whitehall was awash with rumours, though he was sceptical about their origin, preferring to see them as the creations of wish-fulfilment than leaks of policy. If Nasser were to move against British interests in Egypt – a euphemism for nationalizing the Canal – then the SIS would be instructed to assassinate him. Troops were being assembled in Cyprus, ready to teach the upstart a lesson from which he’d emerge with more than a bloody nose. Whatever Watson-Jones might say, the idea of going to war with Egypt was stretching credulity too far. He trusted the Government enough to know that could never happen.
‘The Prime Minister has this thing against Nasser. He won’t hear his name mentioned. It’s got personal.’ The rumours, someone told him, emanated from Number Ten. Pountney remained unconvinced. If this was an attempt to build a consensus in favour of military intervention, he wasn’t buying it. Nor, he imagined, were many others.
‘Nasser’s a challenge we’ve got to meet,’ Lander was saying, ‘if we’re to show the rest of the world we’re still in the big league.’
‘You don’t really believe that nonsense, do you, David?’
‘Doesn’t everyone?’
Despite all the clues around him, he had misjudged Lander. His pattern of beliefs, his certainties that we were still a major power, remained unchallenged by events. His money and his class insulated him and others like him from any threatening reality. This club was his world in microcosm, an orderly society that continued its old ways undisturbed behind closed doors, whatever the commotion outside in the street. No wonder Lander asked him to lunch here, and no wonder he felt out of place. The gulf between them, their lives, experiences, beliefs, gaped open at their feet. It had never been so wide.
‘Is it realistic to imagine that either the Russians or the Americans think of us in those terms?’
‘If you’re saying we don’t count any more, you’re wrong,’ Lander said sharply.
Lander couldn’t accept that so much of what they did every day of their working lives was little more than a game of bluff to conceal the condition of decline into which the country had fallen. If Pountney was to say what he believed, he would have to emerge undisguised from his bunker, guns blazing. How he disliked being put on the spot like this.
‘The world is divided into two camps,’ he replied, ‘and we’re not the dominant partner in either. Isn’t it better to own up to that and operate from a position we can legitimately defend, rather than deluding ourselves that we hold a power that everyone knows we don’t?’
The atmosphere had shifted from chilliness to ice. Lander, no longer interested in finishing
Mystified, he sat down and read the Telegraph, wishing he had done the sensible thing and declined Lander’s invitation. He could guess what the conversation would be about and it was a subject he wanted to avoid.
It was nearly half past one before Lander appeared. ‘You must have given me up for dead, Gerry, I do apologize. God, what a morning it’s been. Let’s go and eat.’
Gossip accompanied the soup, Suez arrived with the roast beef. Lander revisited all the familiar arguments, offering nothing new. Pountney listened, saying little until challenged to reply.
‘What kind of threat is Nasser beside the Soviets?’ he asked. ‘While we’re looking the other way, the Soviets could be getting up to all kinds of mischief behind our back. We’re in danger of forgetting who the real enemy is.’
Lander disagreed. ‘You don’t treat with pocket Hitlers, Gerry. You put them in their place. Surely that’s a lesson we’ve all learned.’
‘Nasser’s not in that league.’
‘Try telling that to Downing Street.’
Whitehall was awash with rumours, though he was sceptical about their origin, preferring to see them as the creations of wish-fulfilment than leaks of policy. If Nasser were to move against British interests in Egypt – a euphemism for nationalizing the Canal – then the SIS would be instructed to assassinate him. Troops were being assembled in Cyprus, ready to teach the upstart a lesson from which he’d emerge with more than a bloody nose. Whatever Watson-Jones might say, the idea of going to war with Egypt was stretching credulity too far. He trusted the Government enough to know that could never happen.
‘The Prime Minister has this thing against Nasser. He won’t hear his name mentioned. It’s got personal.’ The rumours, someone told him, emanated from Number Ten. Pountney remained unconvinced. If this was an attempt to build a consensus in favour of military intervention, he wasn’t buying it. Nor, he imagined, were many others.
‘Nasser’s a challenge we’ve got to meet,’ Lander was saying, ‘if we’re to show the rest of the world we’re still in the big league.’
‘You don’t really believe that nonsense, do you, David?’
‘Doesn’t everyone?’
Despite all the clues around him, he had misjudged Lander. His pattern of beliefs, his certainties that we were still a major power, remained unchallenged by events. His money and his class insulated him and others like him from any threatening reality. This club was his world in microcosm, an orderly society that continued its old ways undisturbed behind closed doors, whatever the commotion outside in the street. No wonder Lander asked him to lunch here, and no wonder he felt out of place. The gulf between them, their lives, experiences, beliefs, gaped open at their feet. It had never been so wide.
‘Is it realistic to imagine that either the Russians or the Americans think of us in those terms?’
‘If you’re saying we don’t count any more, you’re wrong,’ Lander said sharply.
Lander couldn’t accept that so much of what they did every day of their working lives was little more than a game of bluff to conceal the condition of decline into which the country had fallen. If Pountney was to say what he believed, he would have to emerge undisguised from his bunker, guns blazing. How he disliked being put on the spot like this.
‘The world is divided into two camps,’ he replied, ‘and we’re not the dominant partner in either. Isn’t it better to own up to that and operate from a position we can legitimately defend, rather than deluding ourselves that we hold a power that everyone knows we don’t?’
The atmosphere had shifted from chilliness to ice. Lander, no longer interested in finishing
Similar Books
