Gavin Esler - A Scandalous Man

The covert part of my trip to Washington was that I was to see the US Navy Secretary, Don Hall, an old friend from rowing days in Oxford. I had asked Don to fix up an informal meeting with David Hickox, who was then the Director of Central Intelligence. Hickox was on the way up. Some people said he could make it to Vice President. Or even President. And I needed him on-side. But here was our problem. Jeanne Kirkpatrick, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, was causing trouble. She said the United States should remain neutral in what she called a ‘post-colonial dispute’ between the United Kingdom and Argentina over ‘ las Malvinas ’.

Personally I was happy if Sad, Mad, Bad Jeanne remained neutral, or was even openly hostile to us. Having a demented old trout arguing against you in Washington does your cause no end of good. But the FCO and Jack Heriot in particular seemed unnerved by her opposition, and there were also intelligence issues. What were we going to get from the Americans? Communications Intelligence? Signals Intelligence? Eavesdropping on the Argies? Access to information from American human sources in Buenos Aires? Or perhaps, bugger all. What would Hickox be prepared to do? We did not know. It was up to me to find out.

In preparation for the trip I had to visit the US embassy in Grosvenor Square for a courtesy call with the ambassador. It was pleasant enough. Political bottom-sniffing. Coffee and chat and then I left. Half an hour, tops. So there I was, walking out of the embassy, looking for my official car, when I glimpsed a woman walking in. She was – she is – very beautiful. Striking. I had no idea who she was, but I remember thinking of the English folksong, ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’. It was just a glance, but no woman had ever looked at me like that before. It was the look that a hungry lioness gives a passing zebra. Raw hunger. I was the prey. I glanced back but the moment had passed. She was walking briskly into the US embassy. I remember even now, after all these years, the shape of her body, her hips, the bounce of her hair. I remember thinking that she walked as if she were wearing expensive lingerie. She radiated a secret and exotic sexiness which made me think of the whisper of lace and silk on tanned skin. I climbed into the ministerial Jaguar and returned to the Treasury, humming the tune of ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’ and feeling vaguely ridiculous. Love at first sight – like a belief in socialism – is wonderful at age fourteen but absolutely stupid after the age of, let’s say, forty. I shook my head to clear it of all memories of her, and determined to forget I had ever seen her.

The embassy had booked me my usual hotel in Washington, but my old friend Don Hall offered to put me up for a weekend at his place in Middleburg, Virginia, prior to my official meetings at Treasury and State. He said he would gather together a few ‘like minded souls’ – which meant the Brit-loving community of Washington, members of the Senate Armed Services committee that I might need to sweet-talk, and, I was relieved to hear, Hickox himself, who – Don said – was keen to meet me.

‘He said you are one of us,’ Don Hall laughed.

‘An American?’ I replied, puzzled.

‘No,’ Don corrected me. ‘A neo-con.’

I thought I had misheard or misunderstood. I had never heard the phrase before.

‘A what?’

‘A neo-conservative. He’s done his research. Don always does his research. He says you are a true believer in free markets and in rolling back communism rather than just acquiescing. I told him he was goddamn right.’

Neo-con? What a strange phrase. I thought no more about it. There wasn’t time. Maybe I should have ensured I had received an intelligence briefing about David Hickox in as much detail as he had received one about me, but there wasn’t time for that either. By the time I did get briefed about Hickox, it was too late. I had already made my deal with the devil.

On the plane to Washington, I tried to plan how the meetings should go, but other thoughts crept into my mind unbidden. The exotic looking woman that I had seen walking into the embassy, even though I did not know her name or anything about her. Why could I not get her out of my head? I did an inventory of my life. I had two perfect, photogenic children. I had a hugely intelligent wife with her own career. Elizabeth taught at the LSE. I had hundreds of contacts in politics, in the press, all over Washington, at Oxford, in the American universities and the think tanks. I might make it to Prime Minister, and if I didn’t I could always switch to Wall Street or the City and make a fortune. And yet … And yet.

I did not need this woman I had glimpsed walking into the embassy – absolutely not. I would probably never see her again. But I wanted her, and I could not explain why. I had read a survey around this time in which a thousand people were asked what they would do if the Russians fired nuclear missiles towards us and we were all about to be obliterated. We had ten minutes to live. Ten minutes to decide what to do. Most of the people surveyed said they would have sex with anyone reasonably attractive in the vicinity. All inhibitions disappeared. You had to laugh at this notion. End of the World Sex, they called it in the survey. What a wonderful thought. Was that what was happening to me? End of the World Sex? The world was about to change for me inexorably and forever. Everything speeded up.

Much later in our relationship she gave me something which explained it all better than I could explain it to myself. It was a book of Sufi poetry. Every culture has its Romeo and Juliet love story. For the Sufis it is the story of Leila (or Layla) and her beloved, a man nicknamed Majnun. Like all Romeo and Juliet stories it ends in desperate and permanent separation. Happy love affairs are tedious literature. Nothing cheers us up more than reading about other people’s personal lives going catastrophically wrong. In this case, Layla dies (of course) Majnun chooses to lie on her grave and fade away until the dust of their bodies finally unites them in death though they were always separated in life.

In the Sufi poem a headstone was put on the grave and it reads:

Two lovers lie in this one tomb

United forever in death’s dark womb .

Faithful in separation, true in love:

May one tent house them in heaven above .

My plane landed at Dulles International Airport and I had work to do. The entire fate of the British government lay in my hands – apparently. And yet all modern politics is an exercise in compartmentalization, or – if you prefer – organized hypocrisy. I was a hypocrite, even to myself. I did not have long to wait for the compartments to fall apart.

Oh, yes, may one tent house them, Layla and Majnun, faithful in separation, true in love.

HARRY BURNETT’S STORY

Harry Burnett finally got around to switching on his mobile phone after he had watched the news bulletin.

Amanda’s text read:

‘ Someone tried to kill father. Or poss. suicide. No way 2 know 4 certain. Am in Tetbury. Police here 2. Facts not clear. Huge mess. Call me asap. Love A xx .’

He dialled her number.

‘Aitch! Thank god!’

‘Tell me.’

‘Where have you been? I’ve been desperately …’

‘Working. Sorry. Phone’s been off. Just found out … Shitty, shitty day, already. Tell me.’

‘The police called. A couple of hours ago. His cleaner found him lying on the carpet first thing this morning, fully clothed. Suit. Shirt. Tie. Pills of all sorts scattered by his side and an empty whisky bottle. Wrists slashed and a kitchen knife by his side. I came straight over. I’m at his cottage now.’ She stopped gabbling and took a deep breath. ‘Aitch, they are not sure whether it’s suicide or maybe murder done up to look like suicide.’