Charles Snow - Corridors of Power

Subdued, respectful hear-hears. The blond young man was on his feet.

‘I should like to ask whether all scientific advisers have gone through security vetting during this past year.’

Leverett-Smith, standing once more, looked for an instant like an elephantine beast being baited. I was afraid that he would ask for notice of the question.

He stood there letting the seconds tick by. Then his voice resounded, once more impregnable.

‘My Right Honourable friend regards the publication of the details of security procedures as not being in the public interest.’

Good, I thought. That was all we wanted.

Again, hear-hears. Again, the pestering, angry voice.

‘Will the Minister produce the dates on which certain members of this scientific committee, the names of whom I am willing to supply, were last submitted to security vetting? Some of us are not prepared to ignore Dr Brodzinski—’

There were mutters of irritation from the Tory benches. The young man had gone too far.

This time, Leverett-Smith did not take so long to meditate. Solidly he announced to the middle distance: ‘This supplementary question is covered by my last answer. The question is also an unworthy reflection on gentlemen, who, often at great sacrifices to themselves, are doing invaluable service to the country.’

Vigorous hear-hears. Definite hear-hears, putting an end to supplementaries. Another question was called. Leverett-Smith sat broad-backed, basking in a job well done.

I was waiting for another question, further down the list, addressed to my own Minister. Douglas, who had been sitting beside me, left with a satisfied grin.

Sometime later, a debate was beginning. It was not yet time for me to leave for Ebury Street. Then I saw Roger coming into the Chamber. He must have picked up gossip outside, for on his way to his seat on the front bench he stopped by Leverett-Smith and slapped him on the shoulder. Leverett-Smith, turning to him, gave a serious contented smile.

Roger lolled in his seat, reading his own papers, like a man working in a railway carriage. At some quip from the Opposition benches that raised a laugh, he gave a preoccupied, good-natured smile.

As another speech began, he looked up from his scripts, turned to the box, and caught my eye. With his thumb, he beckoned me to meet him outside. I saw him get up, whisper to another Minister and stroll out.

In the central lobby, full of visitors, of little groups chatting earnestly, of solitary persons waiting with passive resignation, much like Grand Central Station on a winter night, he came up to me.

‘I hear Leverett was pretty good,’ he said.

‘Better than you’d have been.’

Roger drew down his lip in a grim chuckle. He was just going to speak, when I caught sight of Ellen walking past us. She must have come from the Strangers’ Gallery, I thought, as she gave me the slight smile of a distant acquaintance. To Roger she made no sign of recognition, nor he to her. I watched her move away from us, through the lobby doors.

Roger said: ‘She’ll be going straight home. We can follow in a few minutes. I think I’ll come along with you.’

In Palace Yard, the lamps, the taxi-lights, shone smearily through the fog. As we got near to the taxis, Roger muttered that it was better if I gave the address.

The click of the lift-door opening, the ring of the bell.

As Ellen opened the door, she was ready for me, but seeing Roger, gave an astonished, delighted sigh. The door closed behind us, and she was in his arms. It was a hug of relief, of knowledge, the hug of lovers who know all the pleasure they can give each other. For her, perhaps, it was a little more. Meeting him only in this room, pressed in by this claustrophobia of secrecy, she was glad, this once, to throw her arms round him and have someone there to watch. They would have liked to go straight to bed. Nevertheless, it was a joy to her, as well as a frustration, to have me there.

At last they sat on the sofa, I in an armchair. ‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’ she asked, inquiring about the incident in the House, but her tone so happy that she might have been asking another question. His eyes were as bright as hers. He answered, in the same sort of double-talk: ‘Not bad.’ Then he got down to business.

‘Everyone seems to think that it passed off rather well.’

I said I was sure it had.

She wanted us to tell her: would the question do any damage now? Difficult to say: possibly not, unless something bigger happened. She was frowning. She was shrewd, but she had not been brought up to politics and found the corridors hard to see her way through.

‘Well, anyway,’ she said, ‘it must be the end of Brodzinski. That’s something.’

No, we said, that wasn’t certain. Never underestimate the paranoid. I was mimicking Roger and also scoring off him, going back to his handling of Brodzinski. Often they stayed dangerous, while saner men went under. Never underestimate them, I said. Never try to placate them. It is a waste of time. They take and never give. The only way to deal with paranoids is to kick them in the teeth. If a chap has persecution mania, the only practical course is to give him something to feel persecuted about.

I was being off-hand, putting on a tough act to cheer her up. But she wasn’t putting on a tough act when she said: ‘I want him done in. I wish to God I could manage it myself.’ He had done, or was trying to do, Roger harm. That was enough.

‘Can’t you set some of the scientists on to him?’ she asked me passionately.

‘They’re none too pleased,’ I replied.

‘Hell, what good is that.’

Roger said that she needn’t worry too much about Brodzinski. He would still have some nuisance value, but so far as having any practical influence, he might have shot his bolt. It wasn’t a good idea, making attacks in America. It might create some enemies for us there, but they would have been enemies anyhow. As for this country, it would damage his credit, even with people who would have liked to use him.

‘There’ll be plenty more trouble,’ he said, ‘but as for Brodzinski, I fancy he’ll stew in his own juice.’

‘You’re not going to do anything to him?’

‘Not if leaving him alone produces the right answer.’ He smiled at her.

‘I want him done in,’ she cried again.

His arm was round her, and he tightened his hold. He told her that, in practical affairs, revenge was a luxury one couldn’t afford. There was no point in it. She laughed out loud. ‘You speak for yourself. There would be some point in it for me .’

I had been trying to cheer her up, but it was not easy. She was worried for Roger, more worried than either he or I were that night: yet she was full of spirit. Not just because she was with us. She was behaving as though a wound were healed.

At last I grasped it. This attack had nothing to do with her. She was suspicious that, behind the telephone calls, might be someone Roger had known. For a time, she had been ready to blame Brodzinski. The inquiries I had set moving had already told us that this was unlikely. Now she could believe it. It set her free to hate Brodzinski more. She was blazing with relief. She could not bear the danger to come through her. She would, I thought, have lost an eye, an arm, her looks, if she could have lessened the danger for Roger: and yet, that kind of unselfish love had its own egotism: she would have chosen that the danger were increased, rather than it should have come from her.

I told her that the intelligence people hadn’t got anything positive. They now had all her telephone calls intercepted.

‘All that’s done,’ she said, ‘is to be maddening when he—’ she looked at Roger — ‘is trying to get through.’