“For that,” said Julia, “we have a contingency arrangement. He’s meeting the lay clients tomorrow to hear what their problem is and he’s expected to give them the answer on Monday. If there turn out to be any fiscal implications, he’ll send me a telex on Saturday and I’ll telex back the best answer I can think of.”
“Tell me,” said Selena, for the first time looking a little anxious, “do you think that Cantrip will be able to obtain ready access to a telex machine?”
“Good heavens, yes,” said Julia. “Any offshore financial centre, such as Jersey, is always amply equipped with such things. I told him to explain to his hotel that he might have to send urgent telex messages at some time when their operator was not on duty — I’m sure they won’t object to him sending them himself.”
“Oh dear,” said Selena. “You do know, don’t you, Julia, what Cantrip’s like about telex machines?”
The proposal to instal a telex machine at 62 New Square had been thought, after long months of debate, negotiation, and intrigue on the part of its supporters and opponents, to have been finally disposed of at a Chambers meeting which had taken place in the preceding January. Greatly assisted, no doubt, by the always persuasive advocacy of Selena, who was one of its most resolute adherents, the pro-telex party had appeared to be gaining the day until Basil Ptarmigan, the senior, most eloquent, and most expensive Silk in Chambers, began — not precisely to address the meeting, but rather to muse mellifluously aloud that change was not always for the better.
It was frequently said (Basil had reflected) that one must move with the times. Might it not be prudent, before doing so, to ascertain the direction in which the times were moving — whether towards triumph or disaster? He had been told that the telex machine was the latest thing in modern technology; but they would not, he supposed, be so childishly excited by mere innovation as to purchase it on that account. He had been told that “everyone else” had a telex machine — an expression apparently denoting in this context the Revenue Chambers next door; but he believed that he himself might claim to enjoy, without the benefit of such an appliance, as extensive an international practise as any of the members of 63 New Square. He had been told that clients expected telex facilities: a time would come perhaps when clients would expect to find Coca-Cola dispensers and computer games placed in the waiting room for their refreshment and recreation, and it might well be that Chambers would have to bow to their wishes, but he could not help hoping that that day would be deferred to some time beyond his own retirement.
The pro-telex party sighed and mutely conceded defeat, agreeing that a final decision on the project should be postponed to some future, uncertain, and, it was assumed, infinitely distant date.
In the following month Basil received several telephone calls in the early hours of the morning from an eminent American attorney, associated with him in a case of some magnitude, who appeared unable to understand the nature of the time difference between London and New York and evidently believed that in the absence of telex facilities this was the only reliable means of communicating with him. (Selena, my principal informant on these matters, had heard of this not from Basil but from the New York attorney — who happened, she said, with the expression of a Persian cat disclaiming all knowledge of the cream, to be an old friend of hers.)
At the Chambers meeting in February, Basil began again to muse gently aloud. It was extraordinary (he reflected) that they always seemed to have such difficulty in Chambers in reaching any positive decision about anything: one almost felt that there was some truth in the accusation, so often levelled at the Chancery Bar, that they were slow, reactionary, and out of touch with the modern world. Take, for example, the proposal to acquire a telex machine: it was now several months since the matter had first been raised; many valuable hours had been spent in discussion and investigation; the few trifling difficulties had been shown to be easily resolved, and it was surely beyond dispute that such a machine was nowadays indispensable to successful practise at the Bar. Yet still they had taken no active steps to acquire one — why ever not?
A week later the machine had been installed in the Clerks’ Room. (The advantages of this location were considered to outweigh the minor inconvenience of incoming messages sometimes being read by casual visitors to Chambers before being seen by the intended recipient.)
The members of Chambers had for the most part treated it with circumspect awe, as an object whose arcane mysteries were known only to the temporary typist. They would no more have thought of transmitting a message themselves than a suppliant at Delphi of consulting the oracle without the intervention of the priestess.
With Cantrip, however, it was otherwise. He had watched its installation with keen interest and had succeeded in obtaining from the engineer in charge some elementary guidance as to its use. Permitted to run his fingers over its chaste ivory keyboard and to discover with what exquisite sensitivity it responded to his lightest touch — deleting here, inserting there, amending elsewhere — the poor boy fell victim to as fatal a fascination as that exerted by Isolde over Tristan or Lesbia over Catullus.
He had spent the next three days in a delirium of telex-sending. The medium seemed to have a strangely liberating effect on his creative powers, enabling him to express his thoughts and feelings with a freedom and fluency which he had never before experienced. His messages, covering a wide range of topics and sometimes employing various ingenious noms de telex, were addressed not merely to his friends, acquaintances, and enemies in every corner of the world but often to total strangers whose telex number happened to become known to him. Could he have contented himself with mere composition, no harm would have come of it, but seldom if ever was he able to deny himself the ultimate rapture of pressing the key marked “Enter” to transmit the message to its destination.
It could not continue. After a perplexed inquiry from the Lord Chancellor’s Office about a message purporting to be from 10 Downing Street, but readily traceable to 62 New Square, and consisting of the peremptory command “Give Cantrip Silk,” strict instructions were given to the temporary typist to permit none of the members of Chambers to have direct access to the telex machine: from these, despite all Cantrip’s blandishments and the regard in which she held him, Lilian had conscientiously refused to depart.
On the morning following the day on which Cantrip left for the Channel Islands I found in Timothy’s letter box a communication of apparent urgency from the London Electricity Board, and knowing that he had made some arrangement with Henry for dealing with such matters, I turned aside on my way to the Public Record Office to deliver it at 62 New Square.
Though Henry himself had not yet arrived, the Clerks’ Room was uncustomarily crowded. Interest appeared to centre on the telex machine, round which were gathered several members of Chambers, the senior partner in a leading firm of solicitors, three or four articled clerks in a state of high amusement, and a slender, fair-haired girl whom I took to be Lilian, the new temporary typist. The message which engaged their attention had evidently been transmitted in Jersey earlier that morning.
TO THE SENIOR CLERK 62 NEW SQUARE ABSOLUTELY PRIVATE AND TREMENDOUSLY CONFIDENTIAL
Dear Henry,
As per your esteemed instructions I have started negotiating with your deserted wife re her claim for increased maintenance. She says with five children fifty pence a week is not enough. Have pointed out that as you never divorced your first wife in Singapore or the one in Buenos Aires she has no legal rights and is lucky to get anything, but she seems to know about the money in your Swiss bank account and how you got it, so you may want me to offer a bit more to keep her quiet. The children do look rather hungry. Awaiting your instructions