doesn’t exist. Moreover, Texas businessmen, I felt sure, would be unlikely to house their pistols in Bryson rapid-release spring-clips.
The journey seemed to get longer all the time, if you follow me. The United States seemed distant and undeskable. As we landed the nice American finally told me his name – Brown, spelt b.r.a.u.n, pronounced Brawn. ‘A likely story,’ I thought. We farewelled and, a moment after we left the plane, he vanished. Once his warm and portly presence was gone I found I liked him less and less.
Martland had fulfilled my list of instructions faithfully – he would make someone a lovely wife. There was a big sad chap to meet me who guided me to an echoing bay where the Rolls stood and shimmered on its pallet, surrounded by other chaps with dear little petrol tankers, exotic licence plates, books of travellers’ cheques and I don’t know what-all. Oh yes, and a grave chap who struck my passport savagely with a rubber stamp. I accepted all their offerings with a weary courtesy, like a Crowned Head receiving specimensof native handicraft. There was also a furious little mannikin from the British Embassy but he was on the other side of a sort of pig-wire barrier – he had neglected to get the right sort of pass or something and the big, impassive Americans ignored his squeakings and gibberings completely, as did I. The chap with the petrol tanker wrenched the necessary lead seals off with pliers and tossed them through the wire to the squeaking chap as one throws peanuts to a zoo-bound ape, making vulgar clicking noises with his tongue and pretending to scratch his armpits. I began to fear for his health – the squeaking chap I mean, not the petrol chap.
I mounted the Rolls, sucking my lungs full of that unparalleled smell of new coachwork, new hide upholstery. The big sad chap, knowing his place, stood on the running-board to guide me out. The Rolls started up gently, gladly, like a well-goosed widow, and we drifted out of the Goods Area making about as much noise as a goldfish in a bowl. I could tell by the looks on their rough, untutored American faces that, had they been brought up in another culture, they would have been knuckling their foreheads. As a mark of respect, d’you see.
At the exit we were met by the chap from the Embassy, still squeaking and now well-nigh self-strangled with rage and chagrin. Had he been brought up in another culture he would probably have knuckled
my
forehead to some purpose. I reasoned with him, begging him to be a credit to the Corps Diplomatique, and he at last rallied. What it all boiled down to was that the Ambassador was at some Xanadu-like golf links far away, playing golf or rounders or something with one of their Presidents or Congressmen or whatever they are, but that he would be back in the morning, when I must report to him, shit or bust and cap in hand, to receive his admonitions and surrender my Greyhound and that he, the squeaker, demanded to know the name of the
bloody
man who had dared to tamper with the leaden Foreign Office seals on the Rolls. I told him that the chap’s name was McMurdo (for the spur of the moment not bad, you must agree) and promised to try to find time to call on the Ambassador perhaps during the next few days.
He started getting incoherent again and kept beginning sentences with the words ‘Do you realize …’ and not finishing them, so I set my face against him.
‘Pull yourself together,’ I told him sternly, pressing a pound note into his hand. As I drove away I caught a glimpse of him in the driving mirror; he was jumping up and down on something. Too emotional by half, some of these diplomatic chaps. He’d be no good in Moscow, they’d have him compromised in a trice.
I found my hotel and handed over the Rolls to an able-looking brownish chap in the garage: he had a witty twinkle in his eye, I took to him instantly. We agreed that he could use only the duster on the coachwork and nothing else: Mr Spinoza
The journey seemed to get longer all the time, if you follow me. The United States seemed distant and undeskable. As we landed the nice American finally told me his name – Brown, spelt b.r.a.u.n, pronounced Brawn. ‘A likely story,’ I thought. We farewelled and, a moment after we left the plane, he vanished. Once his warm and portly presence was gone I found I liked him less and less.
Martland had fulfilled my list of instructions faithfully – he would make someone a lovely wife. There was a big sad chap to meet me who guided me to an echoing bay where the Rolls stood and shimmered on its pallet, surrounded by other chaps with dear little petrol tankers, exotic licence plates, books of travellers’ cheques and I don’t know what-all. Oh yes, and a grave chap who struck my passport savagely with a rubber stamp. I accepted all their offerings with a weary courtesy, like a Crowned Head receiving specimensof native handicraft. There was also a furious little mannikin from the British Embassy but he was on the other side of a sort of pig-wire barrier – he had neglected to get the right sort of pass or something and the big, impassive Americans ignored his squeakings and gibberings completely, as did I. The chap with the petrol tanker wrenched the necessary lead seals off with pliers and tossed them through the wire to the squeaking chap as one throws peanuts to a zoo-bound ape, making vulgar clicking noises with his tongue and pretending to scratch his armpits. I began to fear for his health – the squeaking chap I mean, not the petrol chap.
I mounted the Rolls, sucking my lungs full of that unparalleled smell of new coachwork, new hide upholstery. The big sad chap, knowing his place, stood on the running-board to guide me out. The Rolls started up gently, gladly, like a well-goosed widow, and we drifted out of the Goods Area making about as much noise as a goldfish in a bowl. I could tell by the looks on their rough, untutored American faces that, had they been brought up in another culture, they would have been knuckling their foreheads. As a mark of respect, d’you see.
At the exit we were met by the chap from the Embassy, still squeaking and now well-nigh self-strangled with rage and chagrin. Had he been brought up in another culture he would probably have knuckled
my
forehead to some purpose. I reasoned with him, begging him to be a credit to the Corps Diplomatique, and he at last rallied. What it all boiled down to was that the Ambassador was at some Xanadu-like golf links far away, playing golf or rounders or something with one of their Presidents or Congressmen or whatever they are, but that he would be back in the morning, when I must report to him, shit or bust and cap in hand, to receive his admonitions and surrender my Greyhound and that he, the squeaker, demanded to know the name of the
bloody
man who had dared to tamper with the leaden Foreign Office seals on the Rolls. I told him that the chap’s name was McMurdo (for the spur of the moment not bad, you must agree) and promised to try to find time to call on the Ambassador perhaps during the next few days.
He started getting incoherent again and kept beginning sentences with the words ‘Do you realize …’ and not finishing them, so I set my face against him.
‘Pull yourself together,’ I told him sternly, pressing a pound note into his hand. As I drove away I caught a glimpse of him in the driving mirror; he was jumping up and down on something. Too emotional by half, some of these diplomatic chaps. He’d be no good in Moscow, they’d have him compromised in a trice.
I found my hotel and handed over the Rolls to an able-looking brownish chap in the garage: he had a witty twinkle in his eye, I took to him instantly. We agreed that he could use only the duster on the coachwork and nothing else: Mr Spinoza
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