“There wasn’t going to have been anything of me left to take back. Too long to go into.”
“Same sort of boat then, aren’t we? They won’t care to see you back home. If you ever make it home.”
“That’s why I’m going. Or trying to.”
“If they tried to dump you, as they did me, they won’t believe you, you know. They’ll just lock you up.”
“Go to Moscow, Henry. Worry about yourself. Even if you don’t believe in it any more — what does it matter? None of them do, you know; Blake and the others, that’s why they had to run there: they weren’t safe in the West any longer, their ideological cover was broken.”
“A plausible line. You’d go down well in Dzerzinsky Square yourself.”
“You’ll just have some stupid accident otherwise. Walk over the bridge, take the pyramid road past the zoo, you can’t miss it. They’ll probably give you a vodka and Coke if you ask nicely. It’s the new drink, hands across the ocean. A great cure. Gets the gases up.”
“We should have it together.”
“Don’t forget to send me a copy of your book,” I called after him.
He walked out across the forecourt, busy as ever and less shaky, hands stuffed in either pocket of his blazer, pot-bellied, head down, breasting the waves of brilliant light, anxious to make it by opening time. In reality, he might have been … I couldn’t say. You could never really tell with Henry what he intended; fair enough, I suppose, for a man whose job it was to conceal things. We were friends in other ways.
I gave the half-crowns and francs to the lepers and before I went back to the Provost’s office I stood on the corniche for a moment, watching Henry pass the Trafalgar lions and turn on to the bridge.
12
He came from Gloucestershire, or perhaps Somerset.
“You’re keen on ecumenicism then?”
“Very.”
“I can’t say it’s making huge progress in these parts. Don’t quote me, mind you. With the Coptic Church we already have several amicable arrangements. On the other hand they and the Romans are rather wary.”
“I’m sorry to hear it.”
“Only the other day they’d achieved what I felt was a commendable rapport. The Sisters of Charity here started a Sunday School on the roof of a Coptic recreation hall at St. George’s. But it was stopped. The Mother Superior suggested the rafters weren’t all they might have been. Of course the building there is Old Testament, so she may have had a point. Don’t quote me, though.”
“I suppose it’s a question of two steps forward and one back in these matters.”
“I sometimes think it’s exactly the reverse. Still, this needn’t concern you. It was the Anglican community in the diocese here which you said interested you.”
“Very much so, yes. Especially your plans in Libya. I hear you’ve just acquired a long wheeled Land Rover.”
“Long wheel-based; yes, indeed. It will ease the visiting considerably. In fact I’m off on an expedition to Alex and then on to Libya in a day or so. You’re welcome to come along if you can spare the time, though I expect you’re pretty busy with the Field Marshal’s visit. Yes, we’re extending our premises in Tobruk, a very useful addition. You know, we’ve really been rather cramped in Libya.”
“I’d like to very much if there’s room. I — ”
“Well, come along then. You can pay for your way, as it were, at the Jumble Sale now. Add your brick to the extension — what?”
Mr. Hawthorn laughed deeply and stood up, and then seemed to go on standing up. He was a tall man in any case, but his face was long too, and perhaps his heels were more than usually thick, and with his full crop of silvery hair he topped out at well over six foot six. I could hear the voice long ago in some West Country choir, sharp and true, rising clear above the other surplices, just as the boy himself had done the previous afternoon in the rugby line out.
“What B.B.C. programme did you say you worked for?” he asked as we walked across to the sale.
“I’m afraid it doesn’t go out on the Overseas Service. Just the domestic. I’ll try and see if they can send you a transcript”
“I’d be most grateful And if I may I’ll give you the names of one or two people at home; if you could let them know when it’s going out. And there’s the Church Press Office in Lambeth, you might just let them know about it too.”
“Of course,” I nodded, trapped in the hopeless lie. Though perhaps, if he’d known, he would have excused it as rendering unto Caesar. I wouldn’t, but Hawthorn was an honourable man.
I said goodbye to him before lunch.
“Be here Monday morning, then, say ten o’clock. We’ll go straight to Alex. And you’ll need a Libyan visa. They’ll give you one at their consulate in Zamalek.”
I crossed on to Gezira over 26 July Bridge and got to the Consulate just before it closed. They tried to get me to call back on Monday but I pleaded urgency: a Church mission, a parsonage in Tripoli … I was hoping to leave straight away.
In fact, I had an awkward two days to fill. The Armenian’s apartment was no use. Bridget might have been picked up by now, or Colonel Hamdy. They’d ransack his place next door, find the ventilator perhaps. My luggage was still at the Semiramis, but in any case I couldn’t risk an hotel. Necessary risks, yes, but nothing else. But I had money, most of £200, and nearly £50 in piastre notes.
I walked back down 26 July Street and on to the bridge again. It was early afternoon. All work would cease in the city within half an hour, people would have vanished from the streets, and I’d stick out like a madman. It had to be something soon.
I watched the feluccas with cargoes of terracotta pots from Luxor easing themselves down the Gezira bank, their huge thin moon masts creaking down as they came towards the bridge. It was the one thing I’d never done in Egypt, a proper trip on the river. It was a comfortable two-day journey to Helwan, fifteen miles south, there and back in one of the small cushioned feluccas that one hired below Shepheard’s — cushioned and hidden from the glare in a brown tent that covered the stern in a round awning like a nissen hut.
For a few extra pounds one could stay on the boat overnight. And for a few more one could ensure that there were no questions. Informers in Egypt were a business-like lot; it was simply a matter of paying them something more than the last policeman had. I would go to Helwan for the weekend: a perfectly appropriate voyage for an inquiring Englishman. The man might question my lack of company; I questioned it myself. In better circumstances I might well have made the journey with Leila Tewfik. Cairo used to be famous for this sort of leisurely waterborne affaire; one took hampers and small lanterns for the night. But that was before my time.
I took a taxi down to Garden City and did a deal with one of the boatmen. Not too much money. And not too little. £15 for the two days, with a promise of a further £5 on safe return.
The man seemed not in the least surprised; I played my slightly eccentric role to perfection. Williams, I remembered, had recommended just such a front less than a week before — the only piece of advice that I took from him that wouldn’t have landed me in jail. Williams by now would have heard about Marcus and the others and been well pleased. He must have thought that every one of us was on beans and water already. But he could wait; every dog has his day. With luck, one man was sailing gently back to him now — dog-in-the-manger, skeleton in the cupboard, to take his bone away.