And the Land Lay Still (42 page)

How are things at home?

By
home
Canterbury meant Slaemill, where Peter had been a month before, shouldering his father’s coffin to its grave.

All right, he said, thinking,
why would you give a damn?

How’s your mother coping since your father …?

The kindly way Canterbury didn’t finish the question was intensely irritating. It sounded like he’d taken a course – unwillingly – in how to be sympathetic.

She’s fine, thank you. My sisters are near by. They look after her.

Nevertheless, Canterbury sighed, it must be difficult. He wasn’t very old, was he?

Fifty-three, sir.

Canterbury shook his head. Terrible. It was his heart, I think you said?

Yes, sir.
Jesus, what the fuck is this?

Well, it’s been a great shock to you all. Your mother especially. She’d appreciate it if you were nearer, I imagine.

He was imagining rather too much for Peter’s liking. How the hell did he know who’d been shocked and how much? And why was he professing to care? When Peter had taken a week’s leave around the funeral there’d been none of this. And that word
nearer
. Peter grew more uneasy.

I have some difficult news, Peter. (That was twice. Something was definitely up.) As you know, the present, er, government is facing something of an economic crisis. It has been decreed that savings must be made in public expenditure. Sacrifices are required, right across the board. One would think, of course, that the security of the nation would be protected from the effects of departmental cuts and bureaucratic penny-pinching, but one would be wrong.

Peter worked it out just before Canterbury coughed and said, I’m afraid your time with us here is at an end.

I’m being sacked?

Made redundant, I believe the correct term is. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I am, in this instance, only the messenger.

Is anybody else being … made redundant?

I can’t answer that question. Operational reasons. Now don’t
despair. We’ll do what we can to soften the blow. Indeed, we can help you to relocate, find new employment and so forth, but there it is, in a nutshell. In the circumstances, however, I mean your personal circumstances, well, perhaps it would be best for you and your family if you were back in Scotland. Yes?

Peter had stood up without intending to. His legs had demanded action if they weren’t going to kick the desk in anguish and frustration. Kick fucking Canterbury with his
indeed, we can help.
Pompous fucking arsehole. He walked to the wall with the high window in it and looked up. The London sky was blue. Six years of writing and filing reports had earned him a glimpse of blue sky. Now this. He turned.

You’re sending me back to Scotland?

We’re not sending you anywhere. But in the circumstances …

But I don’t want to go, sir. There’s no need. My mother is perfectly fine.

I understand, Canterbury said. Look, he said, this is going to happen, whether you like it or not. Whether
we
like it or not. You will no longer be employed by the Service. But we value you, Peter. We’ve invested in you. We don’t want to cut you adrift.

That’s decent of you, Peter said. If Canterbury heard the irony, he chose not to acknowledge it.

We do what we can. But you can do something for us too,
if
you go back to Scotland.

What do you mean?

Let’s say this would be about redefining our relationship. You know the lie of the land up there. Your particular strengths have been underutilised here. In Scotland, you would be of
immense
use to us.

I’ve disappointed you in some way, Peter said. You’re getting rid of me.

Not at all. Don’t see this as a step back. The world is changing. London is no longer the centre of everything. Scotland …

Scotland what? Peter said. He could have wept. They were going to send him back. Like faulty goods.

Things are happening in Scotland, Canterbury said.

What the fuck was he talking about? At the General Election Labour had wiped the floor with the other parties in Scotland,
gaining two-thirds of the available seats. The Nationalists had managed to contest just twenty-three seats and lost their deposits in ten of them.
Nothing
was happening in Scotland.

But we have people there already, sir, he said, aware that he sounded pleading.

That’s true. We have the political parties covered, the trade unions, CND. But what are we missing, hmm? What are we missing? He lapsed into silence once more. Then: Unfortunately, as far as you’re concerned, we have a problem.

We do? Peter said.

You’ve been inside. Once somebody’s been inside, that’s it, strictly speaking. Agents are agents and the Service is the Service and never the twain shall meet. Well, obviously the two
do
meet, but you understand my meaning. In your case, however …

Peter waited.

We need to be flexible, Canterbury continued.
You
need to be flexible. We have a role for you, if you want it.

Peter said nothing.

It would be, shall we say, freelance. Floating. You’d be an agent. We’d give you an officer contact.

Someone who’d run me, Peter said. I’d be outside.

More useful outside. There’d be a period of no contact whatsoever. Then, when we were ready, we’d get in touch. We’d want you to identify what’s bubbling under rather than what’s already on the surface.

Now Peter knew he was being both screwed and shunted. Because, whatever Canterbury pretended, London
was
still the centre of everything.

Nothing is definitely decided, Canterbury said, but I didn’t want you being left in the cold while plans that will affect you are being formulated.

Nothing is definitely decided except that everything’s already been decided, Peter said. And I’m out of a job.

Canterbury sighed. Well, yes, there is that. But flexibility, that’s the name of the game, Peter. I assure you, we
will
be in touch. And now – he sighed again, and slowly, respectfully, like a hospital visitor beside the bed of a dying patient, got to his feet – now you need to go and see Personnel.

Peter looked blankly at him.

About relocation, job options, severance pay, that kind of thing. He waved his hand vaguely, indicating that such matters were not really his concern, then added, We look after our people, you know, when this happens.

When Peter didn’t move, a kind of mild horror spread over Canterbury’s features.

Obviously, this is with immediate effect. You understand that, don’t you? You can’t stay on here now. Not since I’ve told you all this. Security, you know. You do see that, don’t you?

He could only nod at his own stupidity. Obviously he would be escorted off the premises. Obviously that would happen at once. Obviously it wasn’t even a question of clearing his desk. Someone else would do that.

There were two things in Scotland that the Service cared about. One was the presence of nuclear weapons in the Firth of Clyde: American submarines armed with the Polaris missile system were based in the Holy Loch and it was important to keep the Americans sweet since they had agreed to supply Polaris to a new fleet of four British submarines, in the process of being constructed, that would also be based on the Clyde, at Faslane. It was vital to keep the anti-nuclear lobby under surveillance, limiting its ability to exert any serious influence on either public opinion or Labour in government.

The other thing, on the other side of the country, was as yet not even a ripple on the surface of people’s political consciousness. It might not come to anything, but if it did it had the potential to be huge.
Great Britain has lost an Empire and not yet found oil
, as Mr Acheson might have put it. The government had started issuing licences for oil and gas exploration in the North Sea. Hardly anybody except the licensees were paying attention, and even if they found anything the technical challenges of extraction would be enormous. So far any hopeful signs were in the English sector, but there was an awful lot of sea around Scotland. What nobody wanted was a technical, industrial challenge that turned into a political one.

*

Your role would be, shall we say, freelance. Floating
. He can still hear Canterbury’s voice, its smug smoothness, the calculation behind the apologies. What he was really saying: you’re not one of us, we’re sending you back, but actually because we’ve brought you this far you can’t go back, not completely, so now you occupy this special place we have for people like you, on the outside of the inside. No man’s land. Ghost territory. You can be useful there. You can be utilised. Naturally we don’t mean that in quite the way we say it. Confused? Good, that’s how we like you.

Maybe they thought he was a closet Nat. Maybe he was. They were shipping him out in any case, bringing in other people. Correction: they were probably already in place, in another part of the building, or in another building altogether. Sizing up the Scottish problem. He was being forced out and it was up to him if he left London, but if he didn’t, if he didn’t go back across the Border then they would do just what Canterbury had said they didn’t want to do, cut him adrift. Peter couldn’t afford for that to happen. The murky half-world he inhabited meant more to him than a so-called normal life in the sunlight. So all right then. He’d show the bastards. He’d make himself indispensable to them. They’d have to come north or summon him south so often for his angle on things that eventually it would be easier to take him back. He would be the oracle that pronounced on the Scottish Question.

He played, in other words, right into their hands. And that was even before he was introduced to Croick.

Peggy said, Have you done something wrong?

No, he said. I’ve been made redundant.

I don’t know what that means, she said.

My job no longer exists so I can’t do it any more.

You’ve been sacked, she said.

No, it’s not the same. There are staff cuts right across government. It’s to save money.

It seems to me, she said, that they wouldn’t sack you without a reason. Not the government.

He tried again. The reason is they’re economising, he said. Some people were lucky, I wasn’t. That’s all there is to it.

He’d arrived back off the train, having phoned to say he was
coming home for a break. She’d had a phone put in since Hugh died. She’d have guessed something was up from his voice. She hadn’t laid on a feast. But she still stood with her back to the bunker, arms folded, watching him steadily.

So why didn’t you tell me when you telephoned? You said you were just coming for a few days. How long are you going to be here?

I didn’t want to worry you. I thought it would be easier if I told you face to face. And I don’t know how long. Not long, I hope. Just till I get my own place. I’ve got an interview for a job in Glasgow.

In Glasgow? Once she might have thought that a good move, a step up in the world, but not now. What are you going to do in Glasgow?

It’s a job in a bookshop. I’m in with a good chance. They’ve given me a reference.

She shook her head at him.

I don’t have any choice, he said.

Your father would be so disappointed, she said. He was that proud of you when you went to London. We both were.

I know, he said, but it can’t be helped. And I’ll get out from under your feet as quick as I can.

You’ll not be under my feet, she said. He noticed she didn’t call him anything. It had been the same at the funeral. She’d finally accepted that he didn’t answer to James or Jimmy, but she couldn’t get used to him being Peter. Especially now.

They said you had a great future ahead of you, she said.

Who said?

The men that came to talk to us about you, when you were away doing your National Service.

What men?

You’d done all these tests and you’d passed with flying colours, they said. And you were just the kind of young man they were looking for. You had a great future, they said.

Somebody came to see you?

Of course they did. We had to sign the Official Secrets Act because of the line of work you were going to do. I don’t understand it. Why would they go to all that trouble and then sack you, unless you’d done something wrong?

A dimness came over his eyes, like a veil. He couldn’t be bothered disputing the word
sack
again. He felt a desperate need for a drink. They came and interviewed you? he said. And you had to sign the Act? Why on earth didn’t you tell me?

Because we said we wouldn’t, she said. It was a secret, an Official Secret. Your father said enough to let you know we knew, that was all. We kept
our
side of the bargain.

What bargain? he said. There was no bargain.

Oh yes there was, she said. We thought so, anyway.

Och, Mum, he said. He didn’t know whether to laugh or greet.

Are you finished? She started taking things off the table, cleared his plate and cutlery away. The next thing her back was to him and she was in at the sink.

I think I’ll go for a bit of fresh air, he said.

Nearly six years down there and he’d still managed to fit his life into two suitcases. He wasn’t going to stay in Slaemill a day longer than he had to. He thought of Drumkirk being the nearest town and it killed him. He thought of the dark, unfriendly Toll Tavern and that that was about the only thing to recommend the place. His bedroom was a box of childhood memories he thought he’d left behind. He took a quarter-bottle to bed with him every night and disposed of it in the morning. It was no way to live.

He was in Glasgow at the start of 1967, installed in a room and kitchen in Partick. His work was half an hour’s walk away. The bookshop, narrow and deep, more academic than general trade, was at the west end of Sauchiehall Street. The job was four and a half days a week, in the mail-order department, processing requests from account customers and occasional buyers in far-flung parts of the country and overseas. There were a lot of orders from schools and other institutions. He worked in a dingy room of dark wood at the very back of the shop. He picked the books from stock or sent away to publishers for them. A man could scrabble away in a job like this for years without anyone noticing, slip out for an hour or two without anyone
really
noticing. The position was kind of pushed in his direction, or he was pushed towards it, and although it was never articulated there was an ‘understanding’ with or on the part of the proprietor. He knew where Peter had
come from and the understanding was that there might be occasions when he would need to take a day or two off at short notice and that would be all right. Peter settled into a life of invoices and string and brown paper and prepared for death by a thousand small boredoms while he waited for the contact that might never happen.