Then I slide my gaze away to the right, taking in Stevenson, Rouse, and Pyman, a sentence for each of them.
‘I work in London for the Central European Business Development Organization. I’m a graduate of the London School of Economics. I’m twenty-four.’
‘Thank you,’ says Rouse. ‘Miss Butler.’
Ann dives right in, no trace of nerves, and introduces herself, quickly followed by the Hobbit. Then it’s Ogilvy’s turn. He visibly shifts himself up a gear and, in a clear, steady voice, announces himself as the surefire candidate.
‘Good morning.’
Eye contact to us, not to the examiners. Nice touch. He stares me right down without a flinch and then turns to face Elaine. She remains unmoved.
‘I’m Sam Ogilvy. I work for Rothmans Tobacco in Saudi Arabia.’
This information knocks me sideways. Ogilvy can’t be much older than I am, yet he’s already working for a major multinational corporation in the Middle East. He must be earning thirty or forty grand a year with a full expense account and company car. I’m on less than fifteen thousand and live in Shepherd’s Bush.
‘I graduated from Cambridge in 1992 with a first in economics and history.’
Bastard.
‘Thank you, Mr Ogilvy,’ says Rouse, planting a full stop on his pad as he looks up at Elaine and smiles for the first time. He doesn’t need to say anything to her. He merely nods, and she begins.
‘Good morning. I’m Elaine Hayes. I’m already employed by the Foreign Office, working out of London. I’m thirty-two, and I can’t remember when I graduated from university it was such a long time ago.’
Both Pyman and Rouse laugh at this and we follow their cue, mustering strained chuckles. The room briefly sounds like a theatre in which only half the audience has properly understood a joke. It intrigues me that Elaine is already employed by the Foreign Office. If she was looking to join SIS, surely they would promote her internally without the bother of going through Sisby?
‘We’d like to proceed now with the group exercise,’ Pyman says, interrupting this thought. ‘The discussion is unchaired, that is to say you are free to make a contribution whenever you choose to do so. It is scheduled to conclude after thirty minutes, at which time you must all have agreed upon a course of action. If you find yourselves in agreement before the thirty minutes are up, we shall call a stop then. I must emphasize the importance of making your views known. There is no point in holding back. We cannot assess your minds if you will not show them to us. So do participate. There’s a stopwatch here. Miss Hayes, if you’d like to start it up and set it on the desk where everyone can see it.’
Elaine is closest to Rouse, who takes the stopwatch from Pyman and hands it to her with his right arm outstretched. She takes it from him and sets it down on the table, positioning the face in such a way that we can all see it. Then, with her thumb, she pushes the bulbous steel knob at the top of the stopwatch, starting us off.
It has a tick like chattering teeth.
‘Can I just say to begin with that I think it’s very important that we maintain a tight alliance with the French, though the problem is of their making. Initially, at least.’
Ann, God bless her, has had the balls to kick things off, although her opening statement has a forced self-confidence about it that betrays an underlying insecurity. Like a pacesetter in a middle-distance track event, she’ll lead for a while but soon tire and fall away.
‘Do you agree?’ she says, to no one in particular, and her question has a terrible artificiality about it. Ann’s words hang there unanswered for a short time, until the Hobbit chips in with a remark that is entirely unrelated to what she has said.
‘We have to consider how economically important fish exports are to the Americans,’ he says, touching his right cheekbone with a chubby index finger. ‘Do they amount to much?’
‘I agree.’
I say that, and immediately regret it, because everyone turns in my direction and expects some sort of follow-up. And yet it doesn’t come. What happens now, for a period of perhaps five or six seconds, is appalling. I become incapable of functioning within the group, of thinking clearly in this unfamiliar room with its strange, artificial rules. This happened with Lucas and it is happening again. My mind is just terrible blank white noise. I see only faces, looking at me. Ogilvy, Elaine, Ann, Matt. Enjoying, I suspect, the spectacle of my silence. Think. Think. What did he say? I agree with what? What did he say?
‘I happen to know that annual exports of fish and shellfish to the United States amount to little more than twenty or thirty million pounds.’
The Hobbit, tired of waiting, has kept on going, has dug me out of a hole. Immediately attention shifts back to him, allowing me the chance to blank out what has just happened. I have to think positively. I may not have betrayed my anxiety to the others, or to Pyman, Rouse, or Stevenson. It may, after all, have been just a momentary gap in real time, no more than a couple of beats. It just felt like a crisis; it didn’t look like one.
Stay with them. Listen. Concentrate.
I look over at Elaine, who has taken a sip from a glass of water in front of her. She appears to be on the point of saying something in response to the Hobbit. She has a perplexed look on her face. You happen to know that, Hobbit? How can someone happen to know something like that?
Ann speaks.
‘We can’t just abandon exports of fish and shellfish to America on the grounds that they only bring in a small amount of revenue. That’s still twenty million pounds’ worth of business to the fishing community.’
This is the humanitarian angle, the socialist’s view, and I wonder if it will impress Rouse and Pyman, or convince them that Ann is intellectually unevolved. I suspect the latter. Elaine shapes as if to put her straight, moving forward in her chair, elbows propped on the table. A woman in her twenties who is not a socialist has no heart; a woman in her thirties who is still a socialist has no brain. Instead, she ignores what Ann has said and takes the conversation off on a different tack. We are all of us rushing around this, just trying to be heard. Everything is moving too fast.
‘Can I suggest trying to persuade the Americans to accept imports of fish from European waters that are not affected by the alleged nuclear spillage? We can accept a temporary export ban on shellfish, but to put a stop to all fish exports to the U.S. seems a bit draconian.’
Elaine has a lovely, husky voice, a been-there, done-that, low-bullshit drawl with a grin behind it. All the time the examiners are busy scribbling. I have to operate at a level of acute self-consciousness: every mannerism, every gesture, every smile is being minutely examined. The effort is all-consuming.
A pause opens up in the discussion. My brain fog has cleared completely, and a sequence of ideas has formed in my mind. I must say something to erase the memory of my first interruption, to make it look as though I can bounce back from a bad situation. Now is my chance.
‘On the other–‘
Ogilvy, fuck him, started speaking at the same time as me.
‘Sorry, Alec,’ he says. ‘Go ahead.’
‘Thank you, Sam. I was just going to say that I think it’s going to be difficult to make a distinction between fish and shellfish in this instance. Nuclear contamination is nuclear contamination. The Americans have a very parochial view of Europe. They see us as a small country. Our waters, whether they be the English Channel or the Mediterranean, are connected geographically in the minds of the Americans. If one is polluted, particularly by nuclear waste, then they all are.’
‘I think that’s quite a patronizing view of America.’
This comes from Elaine. I had made the mistake of perceiving her as an ally. In my peripheral vision I see Rouse and Pyman duck into their pads.
‘Okay,