Twice there were attempted revolutions in the capital which made big headlines in El Litoral, but on both occasions when he telephoned to his mother he found she knew nothing of the disturbances; she read no newspaper and never listened to the radio, and Harrods and her favourite teashop remained open through all the troubles. She told him once that she had been satiated forever with politics during their life in Paraguay. “Your father could talk of nothing else. Such undesirable people used to come to the house, sometimes in the middle of the night, dressed in any old clothes. And you know what became of your father.” The last was an odd turn of phrase since neither of them knew anything at all-whether he had been killed in the civil war or died of disease or become a political prisoner under the dictatorship of the General. His body was never identified among the corpses which were sometimes washed up on the Argentine side of the river with hands and legs tied with wire, but his might well have been one of those skeletons which remained for years undiscovered after they had been tossed from planes into the Chaco wastes.
Nearly three years after his first meeting with Charley Fortnum Doctor Plarr was drawn into a conversation about him by Sir Henry Belfrage, the British Ambassador-a successor to the man who had given the Honorary Consul so much trouble with the maté report. It was one of the periodic cocktail parties for the British colony, and Doctor Plarr, who happened to be in the capital on a visit to his mother, attended it with her. He knew nobody there by more than sight-at best a nodding acquaintance. There was Buller, the manager of the Bank of London and South America, Fisher, the Secretary of The Anglo-Argentinian Society, and an old gentleman called Forage who spent all his days at the Hurlingham Club. The Representative of the British Council was, of course, there too-his name for some Freudian reason Plarr always forgot-a pale frightened little man with a bald head who came to the party in charge of a visiting poet. The poet had a high-pitched voice and an air of being consciously out of place under the chandeliers. “How soon can we get away?” he was heard to shriek. And again, “Too much water with the whisky.” It was the only voice in the room which carried any distance above the low continuous din like that of an aeroplane engine, and one naturally expected it to cry something more relevant, like “Fasten your seatbelts.”
Doctor Plarr thought Belfrage was only interested in making polite conversation when they found themselves alone together between a gilt-legged sofa and a Louis Quinze chair. They were far enough away from the hubbub around the buffet to hear themselves speak. He could see his mother firmly wedged in and gesticulating at a priest with a canap6. She was always happy with priests, and so he felt relieved of responsibility.
“I think you know our Consul up there?” Sir Henry Belfrage said. He always referred to the northern province as “up there” as though he wanted to emphasize the vast length of the Paraná River winding its slow way down from those distant frontiers so far from the southern civilization of the Rio de la Plata.
“Charley Fortnum? Oh yes, I do see him occasionally. But I haven’t for some months. I’ve been busy-a lot of sickness.”
“You know-in a job like this-one always inherits a few difficulties with a new post. Strictly between ourselves the Consul up there is one of them.”
“Really?” Doctor Plarr replied with caution, “I would have thought… ” though he had no idea how he would finish the sentence if it were required of him.
“There’s nothing for him to do up there. I mean as far as we are concerned. Now and then I ask him to make a report on something-for the sake of appearances. I don’t want him to think he’s forgotten. He was useful once to one of my predecessors. Some young fool who got mixed up with the guerrillas and tried to do a Castro against the General in Paraguay. As far as I can see from the files we’ve paid for half his telephone bills and most of his stationery ever since.”
“Didn’t he once help with some royals too? Guiding them round the rums?” - “There was something of that sort,” Sir Henry Belfrage said. “Very minor royals as far as I remember. I oughtn’t to say it, of course, but royalty can cause us an awful lot of trouble. Once we had to ship a polo pony… you have no idea of the complications that involved, and it was during the meat embargo too.” He meditated a while. “At least Fortnum could try a little harder to get on with the English colony up there.”
“As far as I know there are only three of us within fifty miles. The fellows with camps seldom come to the city.”
“Then it shouldn’t be difficult for him. You know this chap Jeffries?”
“Do you mean Humphries? If you are thinking about the Union Jack episode-flying it upside down-do you know the right way up?”
“No, but thank God I’ve got chaps who do. I wasn’t thinking of that-that happened in Callow’s time. The trouble now is that Fortnum seems to have made a most unsuitable marriage-according to this man Humphries. I wish he’d stop writing to us. Who is he?”
“I hadn’t heard about Fortnum’s marriage. He’s a bit old for it. Who’s the woman?”
“Humphries didn’t say. In fact he was a bit ambiguous all round. Fortnum seems to have kept it a great secret. I don’t take the story seriously, of course. There’s no security involved. He’s only an Honorary Consul. We don’t have to investigate her. I just thought-if you happened to have heard anything… In a way an Honorary Consul is more difficult to get rid of than a career man. He can’t be transferred. That word honorary… it’s a bit bogus when you come to think of it Fortnum imports a new car every two years and sells it. He’s not entitled to-he’s not in the service-but I suppose he’s pulled a fast one with the local authorities there. I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t make more than my Consul does here. Poor old Martin has to toe the line. He can’t go buying cars on his salary, nor can I. Unlike the Ambassador of Panama. My God, my poor wife’s tied up with that poet. What’s his name?”
“I don’t know.”
“I just wanted to say-Plarr isn’t it?… As you live up there… I’ve never met this man Humphries… oh well, they send them here in droves.”
“Humphries?”
“No, no. Poets. If they are poets. The British Council always say they are, but I’ve never heard of any of them. When you are back up there, Plarr, do what you can. You’re someone I can trust to drop the right word… no scandal, you understand what I’m getting at… This fellow Humphries, he strikes me as the sort of man who might write home. To the F. O. After all it’s no concern of ours whom Fortnum marries. If you could somehow tactfully tell this chap Humphries to mind his own business and not bother us. Thank God he’s getting old. Fortnum, I mean. We’ll retire him the first chance we have. Oh dear, look at my poor wife. She’s trapped.”