Angela was nervous. Not because she was in an aircraft — although she never did like flying — but because she was well aware that Jack knew why she had insisted on coming with him. One of the many scenes that had taken place since she had told him what Gatt had said at the Springles’ party had been about just that. He was sitting in silence, peering down at the receding lights of London.
Seff said: ‘It seems strange and horrible that all those people down there, beneath so many nice, secure roofs, are suddenly threatened by an innocent-looking object on the kitchen shelf.’ He wasn’t looking at her, just went on looking out of the window.
Angela said: ‘How do you think this mess is going to affect the canning industry generally? Will it stop people buying tinned foods — I mean, even the good brands?’
‘It won’t make any difference at all,’ he said shortly, still not looking at her. ‘Any more than an isolated air crash stops people flying.’ He hadn’t meant to frighten her by this remark; but now that he had he didn’t do anything to lessen its effect.
Angela showed no reaction. ‘But doesn’t it mean,’ she persisted, ‘that if it could happen to one company, it could happen to another?’
He turned round at last, and seemed at least slightly interested in the point. ‘Have you met Spigett?’ he said.
‘No.’
‘Well, if you had you would begin to wonder whether anything he handled would be entirely above reproach. Basically, in my opinion he is just a bumped-up spiv — out to make money as quickly and as ruthlessly as possible. A real wide-boy. Oh, he’s got a certain jovial way with him; and I think he fooled the Old Man, up to a point. Perhaps Gatt as well — I don’t know. But he didn’t fool me.’
‘I don’t see what his personal failings have got to do with it. How can his business ethics have affected the contamination of the cans? I can see that an unscrupulous man might not be too fussy about the general hygiene at his factory; but there’s a difference between that and suddenly finding that a lot of tin cans are radioactive.’
‘Yes. But we don’t really know where he gets all his cans from, do we?’
‘Well, surely that must have come out at the enquiry, hasn’t it?’
Seff said: ‘It hasn’t yet.’ He had forgotten to undo his safety-strap, and he began to do so now. It was a bit of a struggle, so he punctuated his comments with little grunts. ‘Yes. He told us who supplied the tins. But the figures are rather interesting, if you look at them carefully… blast the thing!’
‘Here, let me do it.’ She undid the strap with the greatest of ease, then smiled at him comically. He smiled back. That was better.
‘Spigett says he keeps a stock of empty tins at the factory. He said that, before I realised why he said it.’ He looked at her meaningfully. ‘He also said it before we got the figures from the can manufacturers.’
She was on to it like a knife. ‘You mean, he’d got more cans than they supplied!’
‘Exactly. So the rest of the cans must have come from somewhere else! And I’ll lay you three to one he’s working one hell of a fiddle somewhere. And he wants to keep it quiet!’
An income-tax wangle?’
‘Or worse. I’d say the best reason for getting tins over and above those supplied by your proper contractor would be the price. He got those tins cheap. What’s more, he got them from someone he had no right to deal with — otherwise, why keep it dark?’
‘Then Spigett is a crook.’ She looked at him sideways quizzically. ‘That right?’
God,she looked adorable when she did that! ‘Well, hardly a crook,’ he said. ‘Let’s say he’s pretty fly. In other words, he does things that a reputable company doesn’t do.’ He took her hand in his. ‘So next time you go shopping for your 57 Varieties, or your Ten O’clock Tested, or your Batchelors Wonderful Peas, I don’t think you need to take a geiger counter!’ She laughed, and for the first time for weeks they felt relaxed together.
The impact of the conditional tense upon human, life is bewildering.
If Arlen Gatt hadn’t been testing a new type of mine detector early one fearful morning on the shores of Brittany, Angela would not have married Jack Seff, and Jack Seff wouldn’t have been a lost and unhappy man. If John Cartwright hadn’t kept his photographic materials so inappropriately in the kitchen cupboard, if there hadn’t been a group of mildly insane youngsters with radiation detecting equipment on board the Henry Star buck, a widespread crisis might have become a cataclysmic disaster.
And if Dick Simmel had turned left instead of right when he vacated the main building of the Department at the end of the meeting, on the second day, he would not have met Sophie Tripling.
Of course, in retrospect one could argue that Dick’s relationship with Kate had been too relaxed, too pat, too static. Perhaps what did happen was bound to happen sooner or later. On the other hand, sometimes it doesn’t. A boy may meet the girl next door and continue to be a boy. He may even marry her, and live in a state of congenial compatibility and rear children. In this event he never aspires to true adulthood and, paradoxically, becomes middle-aged before his time. The life-cycle has been suppressed at its roots, and therefore, unable to climb to its natural climax, it gradually ebbs away. A series of familiar, routine milestones are passed, one after another. The road is wide and straight enough, and even in the hardest winters it is still navigable. But it is essentially a by-pass, and the scenery is a little monotonous, unlike that of the more difficult, winding lanes. It has little personality, little individuality, this ribbon-developed way of life. Each part of the route can be predicted, because everything has been marked on the map in advance.
Or the young man may meet his Sophie.
Thus it happened that Dick Simmel walked down the stone steps, and turned the wrong way for Kate and the right way for Sophie.
There was only one taxi and two people were hailing it. A short conference, an obliging driver — and the flag went down.
The first thing that Dick noticed about Sophie was the way her hair fell in two lovely inward arcs about her face, framing it perfectly between them. The second thing he noticed was her voice. It was so exactly right for a girl who had hair like that.
He did not pretend that he was unaffected by her presence. He could not have done so. And he would have been a fool to have tried. He said: ‘Would it be a bore if I broke the rules and talked to you?’
She smiled sympathetically. She knew exactly what had happened. Not because she was conceited, but because he hadn’t tried to hide it. ‘What would you like to talk about?’