‘Fancy a postmortem drink?’ she asks.
‘Oh, no. No, thanks. I’m just going to go home. Watch some TV.’
‘Just like the others.’
‘Just like the others. They’ve all gone home, have they?’
‘Mmmm.’
‘How come you’re still here?’ I ask. ‘I thought you finished an hour ago.’
‘Met an old friend. Went for a coffee and forgot my bag.’
A lie.
‘Tomorrow, then,’ I tell her unconvincingly. ‘Tomorrow we’ll all go out.’
‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Tomorrow.’
SEVEN
Day Two
The morning of the second day is taken up with more written papers, beginning at nine o’clock.
The In-Tray Exercise is a short, sharp, sixty-minute test of nerve, a lengthy document assessing both the candidate’s ability to identify practical problems arising within the Civil Service and his capacity for taking rapid and decisive action to resolve them. The focus is on leadership, management skills, and the means to devolve responsibility and ‘prioritize’ decisions. SIS is big on teamwork.
Most of us seem to cope okay: Ogilvy, Elaine, and Ann finish the test within the allocated time. But the Hobbit looks to have messed up. At his desk, his shoulders heave and slump with sighing frustration, and he writes only occasionally, little half-hearted scribbles. He has not responded well to having his mind channelled like this: concision and structure are contrary to his nature. When Keith collects his answer sheet at the end of the exercise, it looks sparse and blotched with ink, the script of a cross-wired mind.
The Letter Writing Exercise, which takes us up to lunch, is more straightforward. A member of the public has sent a four-page letter to a Home Office minister complaining about a particular aspect of the legislation outlined in the In-Tray Exercise. We are asked to write a balanced, tactful reply, conscious of the government’s legal position, but firm in its intent not to cave in to outside pressure. The Hobbit seems to find this significantly easier: sitting there in his blue-black blazer with its cheap gold buttons, he is no longer a sweating, panting blob of panic. The letter allows for a degree of self-expression, for leaps of the imagination, and with these he is more comfortable. There is a general sense that we have all returned here today locked into a surer knowledge of how to proceed.
I have lunch for the second time at the National Gallery and again buy a ham and cheese sandwich, finding something comforting in the routine of this. Then the greater part of the final afternoon is taken up with more cognitive tests: Logical Reasoning, Verbal Organization, two Numerical Facility papers. Again there is not enough time, and again the tests are rigorous and probing. Yet, much of the nervousness and uncertainty of yesterday has disappeared. I know what’s required now. I can pace myself. It’s just a question of applying the mind.
At three thirty, I find Elaine in the common room, alone and drinking coffee. She is sitting on a radiator below one of the windows, her right leg lifted and resting on the arm of the sofa. Her skirt has ridden up to the midsection of her thighs, but she makes no attempt to cover herself, or to lower her leg when I come in.
‘Nearly over,’ she says.
I must look exhausted. I settle into one of the armchairs and sigh heavily.
‘My brain is numb. Numb.’
Elaine nods in agreement. Bare-skinned thighs, no tights.
‘You finished?’
‘No,’ she says. ‘One more.’
Our conversation is slow monosyllables. It feels as if we are talking like old friends.
‘What is it?’
‘Interview with the departmental assessor.’
‘Rouse? He’s a straight-talker. You’ll like him.’
‘What about you? What do you have?’
‘Just the shrink. Four thirty.’
‘Nice way to finish off. Get to talk about yourself for half an hour.’
‘You’ve had her?’
‘Yesterday. Very cozy. Like one of those fireside chats on Songs of Praise.’ Elaine stands up, smoothing down her skirt. ‘We’re all going to the pub later. Sam’s idea.’
‘He’s a leader of men, isn’t he? Takes control.’
Elaine smiles at this. She agrees with me.
‘So meet you back here around five fifteen?’
I don’t feel like drinking with them. I’d rather just go home and be alone. So I ignore the question and say, ‘Sounds all right. Good luck with your interview.’
‘You too,’ she replies.
But in Dr Stevenson’s office I fall into a trap.
There are two soft armchairs in the corner of the hushed warm room. We face each other and it is as if I am looking into the eyes of a kindly grandmother. Stevenson’s face has such grace and warmth that there is nothing I can do but trust it. She calls me Alec–the first time that one of the examiners has referred to me by my first name–and speaks with such refinement that I am immediately lulled into a false sense of security. The lights are dim, the blinds drawn. There is a sensation of absolute privacy. We are in a place where confidences may be shared.
Everything starts out okay. Her early questions are unobtrusive, shallow even, and I give nothing away. We discuss the format of Sisby, what improvements, if any, I would make to it. There is a brief reference to school–an inquiry about my choice of A levels–and an even shorter discussion about CEBDO. That these topics go largely unexplored is not due to any reticence on my part. Stevenson seems happy simply to skirt around the edges of a subject, never probing too deeply, never overstepping the mark. In doing so she brokers a trust that softens me up. And by the time the conversation has moved into a more sensitive area, my guard is down.
‘I would like to talk about Kate Allardyce, if that would be all right?’
My first instinct here should have been defensive. Nobody ever asks Alec about Kate; it’s a taboo subject. And yet I quickly find that I want to talk about her.
‘Could you tell me a little bit about the two of you?’
‘We broke up over six months ago.’
‘I don’t understand,’ she says, and then, with sudden horror, I remember the lie to Liddiard. ‘I was led to believe that she was your girlfriend.’ She looks down at her file, staring at it in plain disbelief. Mistakes of this kind do not happen. She moves awkwardly in her seat and mutters something inaudible.
It was a throwaway deceit. I only did it to make myself appear more solid and dependable, a rounded man in a long-term relationship. He asked for her full name, for a date and place of birth, so that SIS could run a check on her. And now that the vetting process is over they want to square their deep background with mine. They want to know whether Kate will make a decent diplomatic wife, a spy’s accomplice. They want to hear me talk about her.
My left hand is suddenly up around my mouth, squeezing the ridge of skin under my nose. It is almost funny to have been caught out by something so crass, so needless, but this feeling quickly evaporates. The humiliation is soon total.
Out of it, I knit together a shoddy retraction.
‘I’m sorry. No, no, it’s my fault. I’m sorry. We just…we just got back together again, about three months ago. Secretly. We don’t want anybody to know. We prefer things to be