‘We have an appointment.’
‘How long? Tell me how long. Sam Allerton wishes also; we wish together to have a discussion.’
He had bent his black head to Bradfield’s ear. His neck was still grimy; he had not shaved.
‘It’s impossible to say.’
‘Listen, I will wait for you. A most important matter. I will tell Allerton: we will wait for Bradfield. Deadlines, our newspapers: small fish. We must talk with Bradfield.’
‘There’s no comment, you know that. We issued our statement last night. I thought you had a copy. We accept the Chancellor’s explanation. We look forward to seeing the German team back in Brussels within a few days.’
They descended the steps to the restaurant.
‘Here he is. I’ll do the talking. You’re to leave him entirely to me.’
‘I’ll try.’
‘You’ll do better than that. You’ll keep your mouth shut. He’s a very slippery customer.’
Before anything else, Turner saw the cigar. It was very small and lay in the corner of his mouth like a black thermometer; and he knew it was also Dutch, and that Leo had been providing them for nothing.
He looked as if he had been editing a newspaper half the night. He appeared from the door leading to the shopping arcade, and he walked with his hands in his pockets and his jacket pulled away from his shirt, bumping into the tales and apologising to no one. He was a big dirty man with grizzly hair cut short and a wide chest that spread to a wider stomach. His spectacles were tipped back over his brow like goggles. A girl followed him, carrying a briefcase. She was an expressionless, listless girl, either very bored or very chaste; her hair was black and abundant.
‘Soup,’ he shouted across the room, as he shook their hands. ‘Bring some soup. And something for her.’ The waiter was listening to the news on the wireless, but when he saw Praschko he switched it low and sauntered over, prepared to oblige. Praschko’s braces had brass teeth which held doggedly to the grimy wiastband of his trousers.
‘You been working too? She doesn’t understand anything,’ he explained to them. ‘Not in any damn language. Nicht wahr, Schatz? You are as stupid as a sheep. What’s the problem?’ His English was fluent, and whatever accent he possessed was heavily camouflaged by the American intonation. ‘You Ambassador these days?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Who’s this guy?’
‘Visiting.’
Praschko looked at Turner very carefully and then at Bradfield, then at Turner again.
‘Some girl get angry with you?’
Only his eyes moved. His shoulders had risen a little into his neck, and there was a tautening, an instinctive alertness in his manner. His left hand settled on Bradfield’s forearm.
‘That’s nice,’ he said. ‘That’s fine. I like a change. I like new people.’ His voice was on a single plane; heavy by short; a conspirator’s voice, held down by the experience of saying things which should not be overheard.
‘What you guys come for? Praschko’s personal opinion? The voice of the opposition?’ He explained to Turner: ‘When you got a coalitoin, the opposition’s a damn exclusive club.’ He laughed very loud, sharing the joke with Bradfield.
The waiter brought a goulash soup. Cautiously, with small, nervous movements of his butcher’s hand, he began feeling for the meat.
‘What you come for? Hey, maybe you want to send a telegram to the Queen?’ He grinned. ‘A message from her old subject? OK So send her a telegram. What the hell does she care what Praschko says? What does anyone care? I’m an old whore’ – this too for Turner – ‘they tell you that? I been English, I been German, I been damn nearly American. I been in this bordello longer than all the other whores. That’s why no one wants me any more. I been had all ways. Did they tell you that? Left, Right and Centre.’
‘Which way have they got you now?’ Turner asked.
His eyes still upon Turner’s battered face, Praschko lifted his hand and rubbed the tip of his finger against his thumb. ‘Know what counts in politics? Cash. Selling. Everything else is a load of crap. Treaties, policies, alliances: crap… Maybe I should have stayed a Marxist. So now they’ve walked out of Brussels. That’s sad. Sure, that’s very sad. You haven’t got anyone to talk to any more.’