The thirst would have been bearable but for one daunting possibility which had occurred to him three seconds after he had realised he was thirsty: since this was primarily an Arab occasion the drinks promised after the lectures might be aggressively non-alcoholic, in strict deference to the Prophet's ordinance. True, it was an Anglo-Arab evening, but the nature of the refreshment would depend on which half dominated the organising committee –
the Arabs would want to cater for the boozy British, and the British would want to defer to nonexistent Arab sensibilities. He could only pray that the Arab faction had come out on top.
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At the moment boredom was ahead. The speaker droned on and Roskill looked again helplessly at his watch. Theoretically the fellow should have finished ten minutes earlier, but somewhere along what he had disingenuously called his 'lightning journey through Arab literature' he had taken a wrong turning and had become lost in medieval Persia. It had taken a good – or bad –
quarter of an hour to talk his way back to the main road and he was still two centuries behind schedule.
The organisers had unwisely kept their dullest speaker at the end.
Or perhaps they hadn't expected him to be so goddamn awful; on paper the opening session on the problems of aid and education had sounded even drearier and in practice only the obvious competence and intelligence of the young American-trained Arab who conducted it had saved it.
But then the young Arab had been a Ryle man, and the Foundation always paid for the best. Judging by the lightning traveller they needed the best, too: he was an educational stumbling block in himself.
Roskill tried to stretch his legs into another position. His tiredness was not so much the product of his early morning expedition along Maitland's telephone line as the result of the afternoon's Middle Eastern cramming lesson which had followed hard on the morning's head-shrinking conference. The idea had been that he should not betray himself too fatuously at this evening's bun-fight by confusing the National Liberation Movement with the Popular Democratic Front or the Palestine Liberation Movement with the Palestine Armed Struggle Command, should those mutually hostile dummy2
bodies crop up casually in the conversation.
But the Foreign Office crammer had waxed something too eloquent for a good teacher. Names and initials had flowed from him: Ashbal, Mapam, Group 62, Friends of Jerusalem, Friends of Arabia, Saiqa, P.L.O., P.L.A., P.L.M., P.O.L.P., A.N.SA.R. and A.
L.F. – as an incantation, repeated quickly enough, it would probably summon djinns from the desert, but it had gone in one of Roskill's ears and out the other.
Unfortunately it had stayed between the ears just long enough to answer the crammer's quiz with deceptive competence.
'Bravo, Squadron Leader,' the crammer had beamed at him.
'Another two or three afternoons and we'll make an Arabist of you!
And a Zionist too if you can spare a morning. The right jargon's half the battle — just string it together with a few slogans and you can pass anywhere...
'In action this evening? Is that the C.A.A.B.U. gathering at the Dorchester? No – the Ryle Foundation one, isn't it? Well, not to worry, Squadron Leader – the Ryle people are as near non-partisan as it's possible to be these days – they don't encourage too much P.
L.O. talk. Can't afford to with all that real estate of theirs on the West Bank in Israeli hands, you know. If you don't stick your neck out you'll get by – you can say you're a desalination expert. No one's likely to know much about that . . . Just remember half of what I've told you and be a good listener – they all want to talk all the time, so that shouldn't be too difficult..."
Boredom and tiredness combined to pull away from thirst and discomfort at last, and Roskill's thoughts wandered back to the dummy2
morning, when Audley had stood by the Triumph grinning at him triumphantly.
'We got more than we gave away, Hugh – you put up a first-rate show, too. Not too smart to make them think twice — that was just the right note to strike!'
But that not-too-smartness had not been a consciously-struck note, Roskill had reflected uphappily, grinning back at Audley.
'A put-up job from start to finish, of course,' Audley had said.
'They no more suspect Jake Shapiro than I do. It's this Hassan they're scared of – Llewelyn believes in him as much as Cox.
Which probably means they've got more on him than they're willing to admit. They just want to double-check it through me.'
'So what do we do?'
'We shall do what they want us to do – today, at any rate. You'd better go and see that Foreign Office crammer of theirs this afternoon – and then you can go to that Ryle meeting tonight as Cox suggested. It might even be useful, you never know.' Audley had rubbed his hands. 'And I've got a lot of catching up to do to find out what the hell's really happening ...'
Very pleased with himself, David Audley had been, like an old warhorse smelling battle on familiar territory.
Roskill had been very much less pleased; it might be a jolly game for Audley, but he sensed that in Audley's game he was becoming something less even than a junior partner. And yet he could see no way of avoiding his downgrading: without Audley he didn't stand a chance of attaining his own vengeance, and the big man was dummy2
incapable of playing second fiddle to anyone. So all he could do was to follow instructions, keeping his own counsel and never forgetting his objective.
'And first thing tomorrow you can slip down to Firle and scout around,' said Audley. 'You can reach me at home if you turn anything up. After that we may have something of our own to work on.'
Slip down to Firle! Roskill's jaw had tightened at that – so easy to say and so agonising to carry out!
Well, there would come a time maybe when Audley wouldn't find it so easy to control the action . . . there would come a time...
Roskill started guiltily, catching himself in the very act of falling off his chair. He looked around him, fearful lest he had drawn attention to himself, but the rest of the audience seemed either equally withdrawn or, like the fat Arab with the scarred face in the row ahead of him, unhappily restless. There was a subdued undercurrent of movement – of legs stretching and bottoms searching for comfort.
He looked at his watch again, to find that only another five tortoise-minutes had crawled past. The bloody man was still only at the beginning of the 19th century.
' . .. and so we come to what may be considered the dawn of modern times...
The speaker paused to consult his notes. But as he raised his head, his mouth opening to greet the dawn, the fat Arab began to clap vigorously.
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For a moment it was touch and go; the speaker looked around wildly and those of the audience who were still with him stirred uneasily. But the Arab clapped more enthusiastically than ever, looking to left and right as though to shame the laggards into action.
The crammer's advice not to draw attention to himself flashed through Roskill's mind, only to be instantly extinguished as his hands came together on their own initiative. The woman on his left looked at him briefly in surprise and then joined in, followed by the man on her left. Spontaneously applause flared up in a dozen different parts of the hall, those who genuinely thought the lecture had ended rushing to join the dissidents who knew all too well that it hadn't.
Last to join in were the handful who had actually been listening, but when they did so they clapped louder than the rest to hide their embarrassment. There were even a few shouts of 'bravo' – one coming from the Arab himself. Such was the storm of applause that in the end the speaker's chagrin turned to gratification. He had probably never encountered such enthusiasm before.
Altogether, thought Roskill as he joined the stampede towards the refreshment room, it was a notable landmark in Anglo-Arabian understanding: for once the silent majority had cooperated to liberate themselves.