Len Deighton - Spy Line

His memoirs! Political careers would be ended; reputations in shreds. It was unthinkable that Silas would ever get permission to write such a book, but I didn't contradict her.

'He puts it away when I go in there. I'm supposed not to know about it but I guessed when he smuggled the little typewriter downstairs. Before the last bad turn I would hear him tapping away in the music room every day. That's where he is now. Go in, I'll bring you tea.'

The 'music room' was the drawing room into which Silas had installed his hi-fi and his record collection. It was where he sat each evening listening to music. He didn't care much for television. I was reluctant to interrupt his opera but Mrs Porter came up to the door and said, 'Do go in,' and added with an almost soundless whisper which her exaggerated lip movement helped me understand, 'He's probably asleep, it's the pills.'

At Mrs Porter's insistence I barged into the room. I didn't see him at first, for his back was to me as he faced the log fire. He wore a dark shirt and a plum-coloured velvet smoking jacket, complete with cream silk handkerchief flopping from the top pocket. It was the sort of outfit an Edwardian actor might have chosen to go to the Café Royal. A tartan car rug was beside him on the floor. It had fallen from his knees or perhaps he'd pushed it aside when he heard me arrive. His feet – in bright red carpet slippers – were resting amongst the fire irons. The music was loud and there was a smell of wood smoke. As if in response to a draught from the doorway the fire burned bright so that yellow shapes ran across the low ceiling. 'Who's that?' he growled. He wasn't asleep.

People who knew Silas Gaunt well, amongst whom my father was certainly numbered, spoke of his exquisite courtesy, old-world manners and compelling charm. My mother had once described him as a boulevardier: it was the first time I'd ever heard the word used. To hear them speak of Gaunt you would have expected to meet one of those English eccentrics in the mould of Henry Fielding's Squire Allworthy. But the Silas Gaunt I knew was a devious old devil who paradoxically demonstrated the skin of a rhino and the sensitivity of a butterfly, according to his long-term plans.

'I hope I'm not intruding,' I said very quietly.

'I'm listening to Lohengrin , damn it!' he said. I was somewhat relieved to find, whatever his corporeal condition, that his bellicose spirit was alive and well. Then as he turned his head to see me, and the fire flickered brighter, he said, 'Oh, it's you, Bernard. I thought it was Mrs Porter again. She keeps pestering me.'

During my childhood Silas had always shown affection for me, but now he was old and he'd withdrawn into his own concerns with ageing, sickness and death. There was less affection in him now. 'She's concerned about you, Silas,' I said.

'She's in league with that damned pill-pusher,' he said. He switched off the record-player in a way that simply lifted the stylus. The record under the transparent lid kept turning.

I found a place to sit. He'd lost a lot of weight. His clothes were loose so that his wrinkled neck craned from his oversized shirt collar. The shadowy room was cluttered with his bric-à-brac, antiquarian curios and mementoes from far places: scarabs, an African carving, a battered toy locomotive, a banderilla, an alpenstock carved with the names of formidable climbs, a tiny ivory Buddha and a broken crucifix. Once

Silas had told me that he didn't want to be buried in the earth. He didn't want to be in a tomb or consecrated ground. He'd like to be put in a museum surrounded by his possessions, just as so many of Egypt 's kings were now to be found.

'We're all concerned about you,' I said. It was a somewhat feeble response and he just glared at me.

'That damned doctor wants my grandfather clock,' said Silas.

'Does he?'

'That's all he comes here for. Never takes his eyes off it when he's here. The other day I told him to go and put his bloody stethoscope on its movement since he was so interested in asking me if it kept good time.'

'Perhaps he just wanted to make polite conversation.'

'That marquetry work is what attracts him but he's got central heating. It would dry out and crack in six months in his place.'

'It's a lovely clock, Silas.'

'Eighteenth-century. It was my father's. The front panel has warped a fraction. Some of the inlay work projects just a shade. It has to be polished very carefully by someone who understands. Mrs Porter doesn't let anyone else touch it. She winds it too.'

'You're fortunate to have her looking after you, Silas.'

'That damned quack wants to have it before I die. I know what he's after: a written statement about the clock's condition and history. That sort of provenance affects the price in auction. He told me that.'

'I'm pleased to see you looking so well,' I said.

'His house is filled with clocks. Skeleton clocks, carriage clocks, balloon clocks, clocks riding on elephants, clocks in eagles' bellies. I don't want my lovely clock added to a collection like that. It would be like sending a child to an orphanage, or Mrs Porter to the workhouse. He's a clock maniac. He should go and see a psychologist, there's something wrong with a man who wants to live in a house filled with clocks. I couldn't hear myself speak for all the ding-donging and carry-on.'

There came a light tap at the door. Silas said, 'Come in!' in the jovial booming tone he used for Mrs Porter. But it proved to be one of the young men. 'All ready to go, Mr Gaunt,' he said, his voice enriched with the local accent.

'Very well,' said Silas without turning to see him.

The man looked at him as if expecting some more earnest response. 'We'll go ahead then.'

'I said yes,' said Silas irritably.

The man looked at the back of Silas' head, looked at me, rolled his eyes and then withdrew. I waited to see if Silas would account for the interruption but he just said, 'I've rediscovered Wagner in my old age.'

'That's gratifying.'

After a long pause he said, I'm losing the elms. They've got that damned disease.'

'All of them?'

'The ones at the front.' He bit his lip. They've always been here: my father loved them. I suppose I shouldn't let myself become upset about those stupid trees but…'

'You can put in others,' I said.

'Yes, I'm going to put in six oaks.' He smiled. It was understandable that he identified so closely with the trees that had always framed the house from the drive. There would be more trees, and more people too, but Silas Gaunt would have been felled, fired and forgotten by the time they matured. He brought out a bright red cotton handkerchief, dabbed his eyes and blew his nose. 'Is it too smoky for you? Open the window if it is.'

I'm fine.'

'Fledermaus went well? You saw Fiona?' Outside there came the sound of the chainsaw being started up. His face stiffened but he pretended not to hear it.

'I saw her,' I said.

'It's clear to you now?'

It was still far from clear but there was little or nothing to be gained from saying so. 'So we're pulling her out?' I said, wanting him to confirm it.

'In due time.'

'It's a miracle she's lasted so long.'

'She's a damned good girl,' said Silas. 'A wonderful woman.'

'And Erich Stinnes is coming too?'

Silas looked at me blankly. He must have been momentarily diverted by the racket of the chainsaw. The sound of it came in longer and longer bursts as they severed larger and larger branches prior to the felling. A tree is like a network of course, and that's how the old wartime training manuals always depicted it. And like a tree, a network is destroyed beginning with a twig. Then a small branch, until it's uprooted and eradicated. 'Stinnes…' said Silas. 'Yes, I suppose so. Does Stinnes matter?'