Peter Vansittart - Secret Protocols

The speaker, Alex Brassey, youngish, controversialist, with red, coarse, jumbled hair, more rust than rich tawny. He was covered, rather than dressed, in dark-blue cord jacket and baggy greys and, unlike those ranged behind him on the platform, was tieless. He inspected us, tolerant but slightly reproachful auctioneer. ‘I’m not’, he assured everybody, including his fellow speakers, ‘ridiculing patriotism. Probably I’m alone amongst you down there who can understand, indeed spell, escutcheon. But my patriotism is personal as a toothbrush. Not place but atmosphere. England doesn’t mean green fields and holiday camps. But…’ he hesitated, as if risking a joke unlikely to elicit laughter, ‘values, civilized give-and-take.’

A few did laugh, jeeringly: his own chuckle was barman’s assent, in this college debate about the feasibility of a Britain independent of Europe and the USA. In the arc behind him, backed by flamboyant posters – Federate for Peace, USE, Elvis Rules – were a Tory politician who had lost his seat for opposing Suez, a Girton don advocating total British integration with Europe, a composer once gaoled for refusing conscription and, tireless bemoaner of Britain’s lost opportunities, jowled and piggy-eyed, a CND vice-president, novelist, the Modern Dickens. He had grumbling mouth, possibly discontented by Brassey’s assumptions about escutcheon. I remembered that he had once, though not recently, asserted that the genius of humanity was Soviet Literature. Upholder of traditional English decency, he had lately been divorced, in discreditable circumstances.

Brassey was flowing like tap water. ‘Blast Latvia and Belgium, archaic as Assyrian bas-reliefs or airport coffee.’ His grin, around yellow, irregular teeth, was craftily confidential. ‘But each to his own.’ A throat-cutting gesture induced more rowdy laughter and indulgent nods from behind, save from the Modern Dickens. ‘But yes. Atmosphere. We can forget King Arthur, the Golden Years of Elizabeth, Palmerston’s handy gunboats. Of course, whether you like it or not, probably not, we’ll be shoved into Europe. That’s not the real issue. Understand this…’ – the chin jutting from the narrow, too conspicuous head was blotched as a pub table, as if disturbed in mid-shave; I listened only fitfully, to a mixture of arrogant contradictions and puzzling allusions – ‘nationalism isn’t patriotism, as, except in your cafeteria, chalk isn’t cheese. I’m not against provincialism. A society in which provincial is pejorative is lopsided. But nor am I parochial. I loathe flags, morally, politically, aesthetically. Pre-war nations were mostly huge, unpleasant, tinny dictatorships or midget fire-bombs, all like Sweden and Switzerland profiteering on neighbours’ blood and pickled in self-righteousness. The solution…’

I had heard too many solutions, mostly trash, and slid towards half-sleep. The Modern Dickens had slumped into real sleep or was counting his royalties. I was present only in obedience to the Embassy’s instruction to report the mood of the meeting. I would have little to say. Applause was equally divided between the speakers. Brassey might receive the loudest, not for his opinions, increasingly random, off the mark, but for his gusto, though he was wrecking serious debate. Often shown in newspapers wearing outsize football scarf, he was a ramshackle exhibitionist, ready to perform a somersault or changing-room song, or grimace with eye-patch and parrot on his shoulder.

‘Blake tells you that the fool who persists in his folly becomes wise.’ His pirate-king smile taunted us, ‘But folly we no longer need and we, or rather you, despise wisdom. Like all left-wingers, I’ve been one, you prefer hard cash. Britain was once rich, very rich. But not only so. Now, we’re merely rich, like a retired profiteer, somewhat disgruntled.’

The Modern Dickens was certainly disgruntled, a heap of weary impatience, the Girton lady’s mouth looked a scar, the chairman eventually gave a short summing-up, followed by a rush to the bar. I remained, scribbling a few dismissive notes, then felt entitled to a drink, seating myself at a table to wait until the crowd subsided. Brassey was perched on a high stool at the counter, head flushed, as acolytes restocked his glass. He was now the ringmaster, exercising young animals, exchanging vivid repartee, his performance making me contemptuous yet envying.

Unexpectedly he waved a tankard at me, spraying a girl, who squeaked gratefully, then jumped down, lurching alarmingly towards me, sat down opposite.

‘Don’t buy a single drink, mein Herr. Tony here needs practice. No need to touch forelock.’ His hands, their nails bitten as Suzie’s, jerked at a fresh-faced courtier who quickly dumped two bottles and a tankard between us, lingering for further orders.

Seen closer, the eyes, grey above deep, haphazard lines and tiny pits, were what the English termed shifty. The rebellious hair complemented the unshaven chin and rough cheeks, in the naked lights abnormally ravaged. Only the voice was agreeable: deep, changeable and, under the clatter, curiously confidential.

‘With your notebook you were oversized, an unmistakable Baron Dambusterstein, obviously wired for sound but silent as a present-day lighthouse. Formidable, though. A Hartz Mountain danger.’

He nodded away downy, disappointed faces. ‘These brats won’t understand that romanticism proceeds from waffle. They get transfixed by plain rot, can’t understand paradox. Perhaps because of seven decades of GBS. But, you’ll agree, universities should at least foster a high line in low comedy. I can usually raise a laugh, even when raising hackles. You’re looking as if you’ve felt nothing else. Understand that I am apt to say the first thing that comes into my head, like students acting Shakespeare. I was irritated by the earlier nonsense about Europe needing to be a single state, a common identity. That lady who spoke first… we call her Mrs Round the Bend, from her drinking habits, not really from her shape.’

He was examining me, carefully, while we gulped beer, his gaze heavier than his tone. ‘I know Europe, from the fighting man’s view. Much of it is not worth knowing. It leaves me a sort of Dean of Peculiar. Like India, dazed by too many gods. Or the captain, first to leave the sinking ship. Well, gods, captains, lady dons can need a helping hand. The worthy Pope John urged us to open the windows. Jesus, perhaps, was too self-obsessed, harassed by impatience. Well…’ He was suddenly boyish, rueful. ‘Tonight you heard a welter of blatherjacks. I’m a kettle of European life and letters, of course… but remote government must always be bad government. No need to go on. A mad German taught that convictions are prisons.’

He apparently expected no replies, and I expected him to leave me, having made his form of apology, but instead, he again rebuffed the sycophants, detaining only Tony, delivering more bottles.

‘Thanks, Tony. Now go and play. Yes…’ – again he gave me his assessive stare – ‘weave a circle around us thrice. I, too, carry a notebook.’ He patted his coat. ‘In our notebooks begin depths and failures. Mine may upset history by sheer illegibility. While I was talking, though, I saw your heroic face dip headlamps and felt that I wasn’t conducting Lohengrin but waving a dead bouquet.’

His grin was again intimate. ‘Last week, lecturing, I’d lost my notes, misquoted Wordsworth. Not the wind howling at all hours but howling on all fours. But the pack obediently jotted it down, sighing with admiration. Brave lads, darling girls. But, lip-service to culture is worse than no service.’

He stood up, shakily, briefly fingered my hair. ‘You’re the Viking who causes hurricane, though needing a mite more cynicism. Like Her Majesty. You must visit our riverside smallholding. You’ll like Louise. She’s built to last, very unlikely to set up a flower-stall in mid-Sahara. I myself, something of a libertine, not a word in current use, am inclined to do gracious things ungraciously. So, roll dem wagons, we’ll be meeting. A maenad occasion.’