Iain Pears - Arcadia

He left all of this as soon as he could; what he saw and did in those years confirmed his disenchantment with reality, and he escaped back to his books the moment he was allowed to do so. But he was too valuable to be let go entirely. Not only did he know many people who remained in the Service, he retained also a quite extraordinary instinct for documents — what they said, what they meant, and what they implied about their authors and recipients. It was part of his past, and so remained part of his present. Several times he had decided to have no more of it; every time he would be summoned by Portmore, now the head of the Service. ‘We need you still, Henry,’ he’d say in that regretful way he had. ‘Your duty.’

He could never refuse. Portmore was one of those people whose patriotism and self-sacrifice was so exceptional everyone else seemed slightly mean in comparison. He had taken on the most dangerous of missions in the war, been wounded, captured, tortured, and come back for more. He couldn’t understand anyone who would not want to give their entire life to their country, who did not relish the game of cat-and-mouse with worthy adversaries, be they German, Russian or — as he saw it — American. Portmore had recruited Lytten in the first place, trained, advised, guided and protected him. He was a father figure, a model and an inspiration. The only person Henry was in awe of, but he was at least in good company. The man was accepted by all as the Service’s greatest asset, able to operate with the same skill and success in Whitehall as in the Balkans; the only worry was what would happen when he finally retired and left them all leaderless. He knew from old contacts that others were wondering the same thing, and discreetly positioning themselves accordingly.

So Henry never refused a request, always obliged; Portmore had this strange ability to make everyone feel indispensable, as though the future of the Empire — what was left of it — depended on them alone. Every now and then someone would show up at his door, or the telephone would ring and a familiar voice would summon him to lunch in London. ‘Just a small job, if you could see your way to helping us out...’

Lytten would reluctantly put aside his life, vowing it would be for the last time. Every now and then he would, also, suggest to a promising student that they have a little chat with a friend of his who worked for the government. He never really understood why he offered up sacrifices of young men to a life which he had so hated himself.

He never talked of this to anyone, of course. Of the three regular drinking companions who still remained to meet in the pub, all had had what was termed ‘a war’; that is, they had done and seen things which would traumatise most generations of men. They had done their best to pack the experience away in a corner of their memory and forget it. It had no importance for their lives now and, besides, these were people brought up to control their emotions, not to explore them. Lytten had gone into the war cheerful, extroverted, optimistic. He came out of it locked in himself. Only a few people noticed, and they never mentioned it. It was not their business.

The past can be hidden, but never entirely forgotten, Lytten knew this too. Indeed, his story as it evolved depended on it. ‘We are our past,’ so he had said to Rosie. Sooner or later it returns. That was why the only unexpected thing about the ring at the doorbell at ten in the evening a few days after that conversation was its timing. Certainly, Lytten gave no sign of surprise when he opened the door and saw the heavily muffled figure, covered in a dark overcoat with a hat pulled down over his face in the gloomy light of the porch.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Dinner at high table. I couldn’t stand the prospect of pudding, so I thought I’d just drop in. Catch up with an old friend, you know. I hope you weren’t off to bed?’

‘That is just where I was about to go,’ Lytten said. ‘Go away.’

‘Good. I’d hate to disturb you. I’m soaking and cold. Do you have any brandy?’

Sam Wind took off his coat, folded it over Lytten’s arm as though he were a coat rack and walked briskly through to the little table by the fire in the study, on which stood two glass decanters.

He poured himself a generous measure, swept Lytten’s unmarked essays from the spare armchair and sat down on it with a sigh, stretching his long legs towards the fire and twiddling his toes to warm them up. He was an angular man with a mop of greying hair and a melancholic face that these days was set in a permanent expression of disappointment. He had delicate hands with bony fingers which he cracked alarmingly when he made a point, and his clothes were expensive but scruffy, with hand-made shoes that hadn’t been polished in weeks.

‘It’s bloody awful out there,’ he remarked. ‘It’s not meant to be winter yet. I hate this country.’

‘I thought you were in the business of loving it, reverencing it and defending it with all your heart and soul?’

‘Only between the hours of nine and five, Monday to Friday. Rest of the time I am free to detest the grubby little dump.’

‘It is good to see you, Sam,’ Lytten said, ‘but I really was going to bed.’

‘I’m sure you were. But you know me well enough to realise I do not walk a mile on a cold night just to visit you.’

He picked up the battered brown briefcase he’d put beside the armchair, pulled out a sealed envelope and tossed it over.

‘What’s this?’

‘How should I know? That’s your job, it seems. Orders from on high, from God himself. I’m just the messenger boy.’

‘How is Portmore these days?’

‘Flourishing, flourishing. How he does it, I do not know. He has this annoying habit of seeming to get younger and more vigorous as the years go by, unlike the rest of us. He sends his best and requests that you do yours. Read, figure it all out, tell us what you think.’

‘What if I don’t want to?’

Sam looked at him doubtfully. ‘Next week some time would be appreciated.’

‘Very well, Sam. As you command.’

Going outside with Hanslip and heading to the thin sliver of sand that separated the island of Mull from the sea was not a sign of intimacy or favour. Reality was very different from the balmy scene projected inside the building. It was freezing cold, for one thing, which was why Jack More normally took exercise only when it was warmer and when the wind had thinned the thick smog which habitually covered the globe. Even he felt cold as they walked along; Hanslip, who started shivering within minutes despite being encased in protective gear, was clearly not there for the pleasure of it. At least it wasn’t wet, though; he had seen from the news reports that it had been raining without a break for the past three weeks, and the ground — those bits which hadn’t been covered in protective concrete — was sodden and muddy, giving off a foul smell of rotting vegetation.

‘This is one of the few places where I can be sure I will not be overheard,’ Hanslip said as they left the double gateway and stepped into the air. ‘It’s the wind, mainly, but also a strange effect of the chemicals coming off the sea which disrupts the circuitry. We must put up with the unpleasantness.’

‘Being inside all the time makes me feel ill.’

‘So I gather. I suppose that’s a result of your energetic past.’

‘Probably.’

‘You never felt like having it fixed? Why is that?’

‘I suppose I assume that sooner or later I will leave here and go back to a normal life. What I think of as normal, anyway. I don’t want to have it fixed.’

The remarks exhausted Hanslip’s interest in the subject. They walked silently for a while, Jack looking at the sea and Hanslip studiously ignoring it, until the older man decided they had gone far enough.