He held back until the worst of the crush along the tables had thinned out, disagreeably aware that the contents of the silver bowls ahead of him was as fruity as he had feared. After carefully dummy2
scanning the faces of the waiters and waitresses dispensing it he edged his way towards a wizened little man whose magenta nose promised sympathy, even though he was presiding over a bowl in which sliced fruit floated like dead fish depth-charged to the surface.
'Is there any alternative to this – this – ' Roskill indicated the bowl
'whatever it is?'
A glimmer of recognition lit the bloodshot eyes. There were some pale, intense English faces among the gathered friends of Arabia he had already seen, but there were also ageing, darkened skins which must have weathered in the forts of trucial levies and Arab Legion messes. There had to be something under the counter for them.
The eyes took in Roskill's tan, which had been started under Israeli skies and consolidated in Greece.
Roskill slid a 50-penny piece across the white tablecloth, under the napkin by the man's hand.
'For the love of God,' he hissed, 'give me a decent drink.'
'This is a very thirst-quenching drink, sir,' said the little man, without looking down but with his fingers testing the coin's heptagonal shape. 'For the Arabian gentlemen, that is.'
He bent down briefly behind the table, reappearing with a tall glass on the side of which he deftly fastened a sliver of cucumber.
'Window-dressing, sir – merely window-dressing,' he murmured reassuringly.
It still looked more like a long drink suitable for the Arab gentlemen, and Roskill sniffed it suspiciously.
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It was Scotch. He took a slow sip. And not just Scotch, but the purest, mellowest, most exquisite malt whisky, unadulterated and possibly the largest straight measure he had ever received. The Foundation certainly looked after its own, and with his weak head for spirits he'd have to watch his tongue.
He nodded gratefully and turned away to scrutinise the crowd again for the faces in Cox's file of probables and possibles. So far he hadn't seen one of them, wide though the range at the gathering was: pouchy, easy-living faces; lean, bitter faces; ugly, pitted complexions like the surface of the Moon and that almost feminine beauty which was the inheritance of Circassian ancestry.
The faces reminded him of what the Foreign Office man had said in his enthusiasm: the Middle East had melted down so many races, conquerors and slaves alike, that spotting bloodlines was a game for the experts. Turks, Mongols, Greeks, Albanians, Normans, Napoleon's veterans and Australians oif the Imperial Light Horse – the greatest of Islam's admirals had been red-haired.
The historical allusions had been lost on him – the fellow was as bad as Audley – but the roll of honour, or dishonour, had stuck.
But with all those in the family tree, he had thought, it was surprising that there wasn't more military talent around.
None of which helped him now, anyway. He swung round to try another segment of the crowd, colliding with the man behind him as he did so. For a horrible second he was fearful lest some of his precious whisky might be lost, only to discover that he'd already drunk most of it.
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'I beg your pardon,' he apologised quickly.
'No damage done.'
A tall, grey-haired man – one of the leathery English. Roskill's eyes dropped: sure enough there was one of the tall glasses in the man's hand, with an identical piece of cucumber window-dressing on its rim.
The pale blue eyes twinkled at him in recognition.
'Havergal. I don't believe we've met?'
There had been a Havergal on the official programme, among the Ryle committee members – a colonel with a string of decorations.
'Roscoe,' said Roskill, slurring the last syllable unidentifiably. The collision had brought him into a mixed discussion group from which there could be no quick escape: they were all looking at him.
'Desalination's my field,' he said. If the crammer was right that should slow them down.
'And is there anything growing in your field?' It was the same fat Arab who had rescued them all in the lecture hall.. 'Are you going to make the desert bloom?'
'Given time and money,' Roskill replied guardedly. All scientific enterprises needed time and money.
'You don't think atomic energy might offer a short cut, then?' the Arab persisted. 'Van Pelt's report is premature in your opinion?'
Roskill drained his glass. The only Van Pelt he knew was Lucy, the pint-sized virago in the Peanuts comic strip. He pretended to consider the question, to the obvious irritation of the gaunt young man opposite him who looked as if a banner rather than a glass of dummy2
fruit cup ought to have been grasped in his fist.
There was a chance there.
'Given time and money,' he repeated dogmatically, 'we can win enough land to resettle every refugee in the Middle East.' He looked the young man in the eye and was relieved to meet the glare of fanaticism.
'The land they need,' said the young man belligerently, 'is the land that was taken away from them. They want justice – not bloody resettlement.'
Roskill saw his own role in sudden perspective: a fanatical desalination man was born inside him – a cutter of political knots with a sharpened slide-rule, as oblivious of reality as the hot-tempered young man and the maxi-skirted amazon who was nodding her head in unison beside him. Once start them up properly and Van Pelt's inconvenient report would be forgotten.
'Crops don't grow on justice – they grow on land. And one bit of land is no different to a peasant from another – ' – he bulldozed his way over shocked expressions – ' – providing he can get his plough into it. If half the capital that goes into arms went into desalination research – '
His heretical views were drowned in a chorus of protest; they were suddenly all talking at once about Palestine and Zionism and
'bourgeois city-dwellers' – all except Havergal and the Arab, who had evidently heard it before.
'Desalination research!' The young man made it sound like a nasty branch of biological warfare. 'The sine qua non of peace in the dummy2
Middle East isn't research – it is the overthrow of the economic, political and militarist base of the racist-chauvanist state of Israel!'
'We must cure the moral schizophrenia of World Jewry at the same time,' cried the amazon. 'That cannot be done until every last refugee has been restored to her homeland.'
They all started to talk again, so loudly that people nearby turned to look at them. Roskill felt suddenly like a boy scout who had made a fire with two sticks and set the whole forest ablaze. And he could see no quick way of stopping them before everyone's attention was drawn to him.
It was the Arab who doused the flames – simply by raising a plump hand from which the index finger was missing.
'I think Mr. Roskill isn't denying that there is a refugee problem,'
he interceded. 'He's merely emphasising that our military struggle must never blind us to our long-term aims. As one of your own prime ministers said – Lloyd George, I think it was – "a land fit for heroes". And doesn't Chairman Mao himself say "Today's fighter on the battlefield is tomorrows worker in the paddy field"?'
Roskill mumbled agreement, in confusion not so much because he had said no such thing as from hearing Lloyd George recruited with Chairman Mao to support what he hadn't said.
Christ! The man had called him — 'Roskill'!
He couldn't have heard what hadn't been said, which could only mean that he knew already. Which meant in turn that not only had Roskill himself failed to spot anyone, but that he'd been spotted himself – and by someone whose face was not in the suspect file.