‘Weren’t branded a collaborator or whatever?’
‘There weren’t a lot left to point the finger, frankly, Mr Osnard. I dressed the General a few times, it’s true. Most of my customers did slightly more than that, didn’t they?’
‘What about the protest strikes? Join in?’
Another nervous glance towards the kitchen where Marta was by now presumably back at her studies.
‘I’ll put it this way, Mr Osnard. We closed the front of the shop. We didn’t always close the back.’
‘Wise man.’
Pendel grabbed the nearest doorhandle and shoved it. Two elderly Italian trouser-makers in white aprons and gold-rimmed spectacles peered up from their labours. Osnard bestowed a royal wave on them and stepped back into the corridor. Pendel followed him.
‘Dress the new chap too, don’t you?’ Osnard asked carelessly.
‘Yes, sir, I’m proud to say, the President of the Republic of Panama numbers today among our customers. And a more agreeable gentleman you couldn’t wish to meet.’
‘Where d’you do it?’
‘I beg your pardon, sir?’
‘He come here, you go there?’
Pendel adopted a slightly superior manner. ‘The summons is always to the Palace, Mr Osnard. People go to the President. He doesn’t go to them.’
‘Know your way around up there, do you?’
‘Well, sir, he’s my third president. Bonds are formed.’
‘With his flunkeys?’
‘Yes. Them too.’
‘How about Himself? Pres?’
Pendel again paused, as he had done before when rules of professional confidence came under strain.
‘Your great statesman of today, sir, he’s under stress, he’s a lonely man, cut off from what I call the common pleasures that make our lives worth living. A few minutes alone with his tailor can be a blessed truce amid the fray.’
‘So you chat away?’
‘I would prefer the term soothing interlude. He’ll ask me what my customers are saying about him. I respond – not naming names, naturally. Occasionally, if he has something on his chest, he may favour me with a small confidence in return. I do have a certain reputation for discretion, as I have no doubt his highly vigilant advisors have informed him. Now, sir. If you please.’
‘What does he call you?’
‘One to one or in the presence of others?’
‘Harry, then?’ said Osnard.
‘Correct.’
‘And you?’
‘I never presume, Mr Osnard. I’ve had the chance, I’ve been invited. But it’s Mr President, and it always will be.’
‘How about Fidel?’
Pendel laughed gaily. He had been wanting a laugh for some time. ‘Well, sir, the Comandante does like a suit these days, and so he should, given the advance of corpulence. There’s not a tailor in the region wouldn’t give his eye teeth to dress him, whatever those Yanquis think of him. But he will adhere to his Cuban tailor, as I dare say you have noticed to your embarrassment on the television. Oh dear. I’ll say no more. We’re here, we’re standing by. If the call comes, P&B will answer it.’
‘Quite an intelligence service you run, then.’
‘It’s a cut-throat world, Mr Osnard. There’s a lot of competition out there. I’d be a fool if I didn’t keep an ear to the ground, wouldn’t I?’
‘Sure would. Don’t want to go old Braithwaite’s route, do we?’
Pendel had climbed a step-ladder. He was balanced on the folding platform that he normally stopped short of, and he was busying himself with a bolt of best grey alpaca that he had coaxed from the top shelf, brandishing it aloft for Osnard’s inspection. How he had got up there, what had impelled him, were mysteries he was no more disposed to contemplate than a cat that finds itself at the top of a tree. What mattered was escape.
‘The important thing, sir, I always say, is hang them while they’re still warm and never fail to rotate them,’ he announced in a loud voice to a shelf of midnight blue worsteds six inches from his nose. ‘Now here’s the one we thought might be to our liking, Mr Osnard. An excellent choice if I may say so and your grey suit in Panama is practically de rigger. I’ll bring you down the bolt and you can have a look and a feel. Marta! Shop, please, dear.’