Jenny Pargiter was warming to her task. The Neue Zürcher had a speculative piece on our chances in Brussels, she was saying; she considered it vital that everyone in Chancery read it most closely. De Lisle sighed audibly. Would Bradfield never turn her off?
‘The writer says we have absolutely no negotiating points left, Rawley. None. HMG is as played out as Bonn; no support with the electorate and very little with the parliamentary party. HMG sees Brussels as the magic cure for all the British ills; but ironically can only succeed by the goodwill of another failing Government.’
‘Quite.’
‘And even more ironically, the Common Market has virtually ceased to exist.’
‘Quite.’
‘The piece is called The Beggar’s Opera. They also make the point that Karfeld is undermining our chances of effective German support for our application.’
‘It all sounds very predictable to me.’
‘And that Karfeld’s plea for a Bonn-Moscow trade axis to exclude the French and the Anglo-Saxons is receiving serious attention in some circles.’
‘What circles, I wonder?’ Bradfield murmured and the pen descended once more. ‘The term Anglo-Saxon is out of court,’ he added. ‘I refuse to have my provenance dictated by de Gaulle.’ This was a cue for the older graduates to raise a judicious intellectual laugh.
‘What do the Russians think about the Bonn-Moscow axis?’ someone ventured from the centre. It might have been Jackson, an ex-Colonial man who liked to offer common sense as an antidote to intellectual hot air. ‘I mean, surely that’s half the point, isn’t it? Has anyone put it to them as a proposition?’
‘See our last despatch,’ de Lisle said.
Through the open window he fancied he could still hear the plaintive chorus of the farmers’ horns. That’s Bonn, he thought suddenly: that road is our world; how many names did it have on those five miles between Mehlem and Bonn? Six? Seven? That’s us: a verbal battle for something nobody wants. A constant, sterile cacophony of claim and protest. However new the models, however fast the traffic, however violent the collision, however high the buildings, the route is unchanged and the destination irrelevant.
‘We’ll keep the rest very short, shall we? Mickie?’
‘I say, my God, yes.’
Crabbe, jerking into life, embarked upon a long and unintelligible story he had picked up from the New York Times correspondent at the American Club, who in turn had heard it from Karl-Heinz Saab, who in turn had heard it from someone in Siebkron’s office. It was said that Karfeld was actually in Bonn last night; that after appearing with the students in Cologne yesterday, he had not, as was popularly believed, returned to Hanover to prepare for tomorrow’s rally, but had driven himself by a back route to Bonn and attended a secret meeting in the town.
‘They say he spoke to Ludwig Siebkron, you see, Rawley,’ said Crabbe, but whatever conviction his voice might once have carried was strained thin by innumerable cocktails. Bradfield, however, was irritated by this report, and struck back quite hard.
‘They always say he spoke to Ludwig Siebkron. Why the devil shouldn’t the two of them talk to one another? Siebkron’s in charge of public order; Karfeld has a lot of enemies. Tell London,’ he added wearily, making another note. ‘Send them a telegram reporting the rumour. It can do no harm.’ A gust of rain struck suddenly upward at the steel-framed window, and the angry rattle startled them all.
‘Poor old Commonwealth Sports,’ Crabbe whispered, but once again his concern received no recognition.
‘Discipline,’ Bradfield continued. ‘Tomorrow’s rally in Hanover begins at ten-thirty. It seems an extraordinary time to demonstrate but I understand they have a football match in the afternoon. They play on Sundays here. I cannot imagine it will have any effect on us, but the Ambassador is asking all staff to remain at home after Matins unless they have business in the Embassy. At Siebkron’s request there will be additional German police at the front and rear gates throughout Sunday, and for some extraordinary reasons of his own, plain clothes men will be in attendance at the sports this afternoon.’
‘And plainer clothes,’ de Lisle breathed, recalling a private joke, ‘I have never seen.’