The Day of the Lie (6 page)

‘Why?’

‘He was a hood. The
stories had been jam. Something sweet to get me on side.’

‘To do what?’

‘I don’t know … and it
doesn’t matter any more. Because they kicked me out.’

Even as he spoke, John
withdrew into himself. He looked at the board in confusion and, three moves
later, trapped Anselm’s king with vicious intellectual satisfaction, the
brutality — Anselm was sure — having nothing to do with the game, and
everything to do with the lingering memory of that ‘Dentist’ .

Anselm wondered if there
was some connection between this shady individual and John’s arrest in the
graveyard, an intuition that acquired sudden weight when Anselm raised the
matter, delicately and John brushed it away with the same gesture one might use
to slam a door. The conversation, he seemed to say, was over.

The subject appeared to
have died a friendless death until, one morning, it gave John a sudden kick,
demonstrating that it was very much alive — for others if not for him. A short
article appeared on the third page of a national broadsheet intimating a more
involved explanation for the sudden ejection of John Fielding from Warsaw Its
substance, fleeced of insinuation, lay beneath the headlines of two major
tabloids.

‘They’re saying I was
moonlighting for MI6,’ seethed John. ‘That I’d been using journalistic cover to
gather intelligence.’

And so much more: that
he was a key player on the ground with access to dissidents in hiding and
liberals in the government. A spy.

‘How do you hide a “dead
drop” in a graveyard?’ asked Anselm, not displaying the supreme tact advertised
by his clerk.

‘Don’t you realise what
this means for me?’ barked John. ‘For my career?’

They were sitting in the
upstairs bar of the Bricklayers’ Arms in Gresse Street, near Soho, lodged deep
in soft armchairs near a low-lit corner. Perhaps it was the clinking and raised
voices — the sense of festival away from the office — that had nudged Anselm’s
sensibilities off course. He apologised profusely but John wasn’t listening.

‘Don’t you see?’ His
deep brown eyes were anguished. ‘If I leave the accusation unchallenged, I’m
finished. No media outlet will employ me. It means I’m tainted. I can’t be
trusted.’

‘What do you mean by
unchallenged?’ Anselm was shaking his head in disbelief. ‘You’re not squaring
up for a fight, are you?’

‘Not personally It’s
your round,’ said John, pointing at his empty glass.

John wouldn’t listen —
either that night, the following day, or during the tense weeks after the writ
of libel had been served. He’d resolved to sue the most powerful news
corporations in the United Kingdom. No warning or cautionary tale from Anselm
would deter him. He remortgaged his flat in Hampstead to pay his solicitors’
costs. He duly begged Anselm to handle the trial, despite compelling evidence
that his old friend’s speciality was bread and butter crime, cut from the rough
end of the loaf at that, and served with margarine. In the end, worn down,
Anselm agreed, insisting on a CD of Johnny Hodges in lieu of payment.

Then relations between
the two friends became strained. John wouldn’t give any detailed instructions
about his arrest in 1982. No information was forthcoming beyond what he’d
revealed to his recently disbanded fan club.

‘I’m protecting a
contact,’ he said, blinking like a mule.

‘Which one?’

‘The person I went to
meet in the graveyard.’

‘Tell me about him or
her.’

‘I can’t. I made a
promise.’

‘To whom?’ Anselm was
twirling a pencil, conscious that it wasn’t going to be used.

‘The contact.’

‘Promising?’

‘To do and say nothing.’

‘About what?’

‘I’m not falling for
that one.’

‘John, I need an
account. I need an explanation stronger than theirs.’

‘Forget it. Put them to
proof.’

Anselm bit the pencil,
watching John sat cross-legged in the chair facing his desk. He was a worried
man — one knee bobbing, a moist hand constantly smoothing back his combed sandy
hair — but he wouldn’t help himself. He was the worst kind of client.

‘What about the Dentist?’

‘He was a legitimate
source.

‘This is like pulling
teeth,’ sighed Anselm. He leaned back and pulled a little harder. ‘He was — I
use your words — a hood.’

‘But our dealings were
purely journalistic. He was channelling information into the western media. I
was just the conduit. Like I said, he gave me jam. It never got to the point
where he asked for anything from me.

Anselm came from another
angle.

‘Did you keep any
private papers when you were in Warsaw?’

‘Like?’

‘A diary, taped or
written.’

‘Yes.’

‘Which kind.’

‘Written.’

‘Did it contain material
germane to the matter in hand?’

‘Decidedly’

‘Can I see it?’

‘No.’

‘Why?’

‘I burned it.’

‘You didn’t. Tell me it’s
a joke. Okay it’s not a joke. Tell me why?’

‘Pique. I’d hoped to use
it later for a book. Cold War memoirs.’

‘Why pique?’

‘Because a handful of
British newspapers accused me of spying and the substance of my experiences —
rich, varied and well worth recounting — would, if printed, be interpreted from
that perspective.’

‘You shouldn’t tell me
you destroyed evidence.’

‘You should be careful
what you ask.’

‘I’ll have to tell the
other side.’

‘Go right ahead. Tell
them I burned it after they burned my career.

Anselm chewed his
pencil. The mule with the bobbing leg wasn’t going to budge.

‘Character witnesses,’
he said, hopefully ‘Do you know anyone who was close to the ground in Warsaw
who can vouch for your professional integrity?’

‘No.’

Anselm was getting
nowhere. He decided to bring the conference to an end.

‘Forget the cemetery and
your burned journal and the friends you might have had. While in Warsaw, or
anywhere else for that matter, did you have any form of contact — be that
written, oral, signs, numbers, sounds — with any individual or organisation or
their representatives which was inconsistent with your status as a foreign correspondent
or any other capacity that you might have held or assumed, given the
limitations conferred by your visa?’

‘None whatsoever.’

Anselm dropped his
pencil and closed his empty pad. ‘It’s a fight, then.’

The defendants had
pleaded justification, implying that hard evidence would be forthcoming,
presumably from credible persons with knowledge about John and the work of the
intelligence community. However nothing was disclosed. Like John, they claimed
to be protecting their source. Which, while admirable, was not a recognised
defence to libel. They’d thought the little man wouldn’t stand his ground.
Negotiations began at the court door.

What should have been
one of those rare experiences of uncomplicated joy for Anselm — knowing he’d
won before he’d opened his mouth — turned out to be a remarkably unpleasant
tutorial in humiliation. He was pitted against the most renowned performers
from London’s specialised libel chambers who viewed him, not altogether
unfairly as a mole on their lawn. Every offer of settlement refused by Anselm
was met with soaring contempt.

‘Now you’re being greedy’
said one, with a slow, patrician sneer.

‘I’d thought your client
was being better advised,’ mused another, a short man who seemed to look down
while looking up.

They eventually caved
in. And John won a retraction, a public apology, and what is always called,
enticingly ‘undisclosed substantial damages’. That outcome ought to have been
the signal for celebration: he’d recovered his reputation with compound
interest. But within two weeks neither meant anything to him. He’d lost far
more than his standing or its abstract value. Tragedies are like that. They
redefine what is important.

Anselm tapped his fingers on the steering
wheel. The train from London rumbled out of the darkness, its brakes
screeching, the carriages shuddering. The tannoy crackled and a low Suffolk
voice announced the arrival from London and a few pending departures. Anselm
got out of his car, opened his umbrella and shambled pensively towards the
station entrance.

The first tragedy to
strike John took place the day following his victory. He’d not been alone in
quitting Warsaw A dissident and colourful intellectual had taken the same plane
to London. Celina Something-or-other had irked the censors for years through
her ambiguous documentary films but she’d finally had enough of the
intimidation and restrictions placed upon her work. She’d chosen exile. John
had adored her, from the tangled dyed hair, past the plastic belt, and down to
the green canvas shoes. Anselm had imagined that before long they’d marry and
that tiny feet with garish, painted nails would patter round Hampstead — a
happy vision that was only blurred by his inclination to anticipate all manner
of crises best expressed in German.

Though unfounded, his
angstlichkeit
turned prophetic. John’s association with Celina came to an abrupt
conclusion on the very day that the agreed apologies were printed in the
various newspapers. John never spoke of the matter save to say, in clinical
terms, that things hadn’t worked out.

‘It’s over.’

‘Why?’

‘Why not?’

The accident occurred
within a month of that conversation, though John refused at any point
afterwards to call it a tragedy He’d been screaming up the Al when he went off
the road after skidding in slurry. It turned out the farmer was on his way back
to clean up the mess, but John had got there first, blown through a fence and
hit a couple of trees. After a few weeks in intensive care, surgeons in Leeds
and London achieved quite astonishing results in facial reconstruction.

‘You wouldn’t know the
difference,’ Anselm said, polishing his glasses on the lining of his jacket.

‘I’d banked on
improvement,’ observed John, his voice flat and dry.

A year or so later
Anselm left the Bar to join the community at Larkwood. The sound of monastic
bells had been ringing in his memory ever since he’d stumbled on the Suffolk
retreat in his youth. He’d been stung by simple words on a leaflet …
something about tasting a peace this world cannot give. Like water dripping on
a stone, some moisture in the phrase had finally got through to his heart.
Surreptitiously, he’d gone back to the quiet valley He’d mooched around the
enclosure, knowing, even before he knew why that this remote place was home.
When John had said he was off to Warsaw, Anselm had lured him up the bell
tower, intending to reveal the strange longing that had seized hold of him: but
they’d ended up talking cross purposes. Looking down upon the fiery green of
the cloister Garth, they’d spoken of love and reasons — that the twain would
never meet — and John had thought Anselm meant an ample Jazz singer who reigned
over a basement club near Finsbury Park. When, following the accident, Anselm
finally disclosed his intention to leave the Bar, John had been hurt and
stunned.

‘You’re not serious?’

‘I am.’

‘A monk? Sandals? Sackcloth?’

‘Yes.’

‘Covert flagellation?’

‘No, communal.’

‘You kept that to
yourself.’

‘Sort of.’

‘Bloody hell. Why didn’t
you tell me when we were up the bell tower?’

And yet, in a curious
way Anselm’s departure proved decisive for John’s long-term rehabilitation: a
deeper healing beyond the visible injuries. Unsure of where his future might
lie now that his career as a journalist was over, he came to Larkwood. For
months he shared the simple rhythm of Anselm’s life, the experience
communicating with depth what his friend could never have expressed in words.
He returned to Hampstead understanding not only Anselm but his own future, bent
on academia with a resolution only comparable to his first day at Reuters.

Over the following years
John frequently made the trek to Larkwood. He told Anselm everything, from the
contents of his dissertation to the underground politics that shaped the common
room rebellions. They chewed over the past, as old friends do. But 1982
remained the year they never spoke about. Which, of course, made it for ever
present. Because that was the time John had been in Warsaw Whatever had
happened over there he’d come home to lose everything that had once mattered.
And a little bit more.

Passengers appeared in the mist. They moved
quickly and purposefully shoulders hunched, hands buried in pockets. John was
the last to leave the station. He stepped outside, tapping his stick in a wide
arc before his feet. Anselm had cut it down shortly after John had moved into
the guesthouse. The bottom half had been painted white in deference to city
life and the conventions that announce disability.

‘I need more than a
lawyer,’ he said, knowing that Anselm was out there, reaching for his arm. ‘I
need you to be my eyes and hands.’

Chapter Seven

The fire hissed and spat. Anselm had
chopped young wood, not old. The apple timbers hadn’t had enough time to dry
out so the resin boiled and ran. Heat efficiency was reduced, but you got that
unusual smell, the warming aroma of smoky cider, hot pies and an imagined
cinnamon. Anselm threw on a couple more logs and shambled to a small oak
cupboard built into the wall of the calefactory Situated as it was within the
monastery, the room was not accessible to any of the guests. But Larkwood
always made exceptions. To quote the Prior, it’s what the rules were for. And
Anselm wanted complete privacy and the surrounding silence that promoted
absolute candour.