Adam Mars-Jones - Pilcrow

It was certainly true that some letters seemed to disappear soon after they were left, while others lingered, but that was easily explained. Not everyone had cranny-posting privileges, and unauthorised personnel would have their messages ignored, just as if they had posted a letter without a stamp.

The secret between his legs

I had stiff competition in the secret-agent fantasy line. The reigning champion was Julian Robinson, the boy I’d humiliated so meanly, whose chemistry set I had crushed with the overpowering excellence of Gilbert’s Fun. Lotts for tiny tots. He was very far from being a tiny tot by now. He must have had a growth spurt, or a series of them. Of course I had my growth spurts too, but you would have needed a micrometer to measure them.

I remember one story that Julian circulated, about the Yanks proudly sending British Intelligence the smallest tube in the world, so small you could hardly see it. Our back-room boys sent it back with a thank-you note, inscribed on an even smaller tube tucked inside the original one. We absolutely believed stories of this sort, confident that spies and super-scientists jostled each other to get to the post, to find the packages marked TOP SECRET in large letters. We ourselves jockeyed for position in our wheelchairs when Miss Willis floated into the hall, holding a stack of letters in her left hand and peering down her half-moon glasses as she laid them out on the big table.

Our jingoist sense of superiority to everything American co-existed very happily with its opposite, and the night-time story-telling continued to have a spurious Old West setting.

When Julian and I were on our own I was supposed to call him QM. I think he had simply combined the abbreviations of the two geniuses in the supporting cast of the James Bond stories, Q the inventor and M the tactician. Putting x and y together in algebra meant you were multiplying. Julian was multiplying the powers of the boffin and the director of operations.

His powers were certainly on the rise. Every time I looked at Julian, he seemed to have out-grown his last pair of jeans and to be freshly installed in new ones. I became swept up in his make-believe of espionage, but at the start my interest was less the hidden microfilm than the secret between his legs.

I wanted to explore his private parts, so that I could at last understand what normal ones looked like. I’d seen one set of genitals, on a boy being given a shower, and very hairy and darkly dangling they were too, but he was multiply disabled and it stood to reason that his parts would be abnormal also. Julian, though, was an increasingly strapping lad apart from the effects of polio on his legs. I was sure his parts would be normal. He was also a physically affectionate boy, something I enjoyed in its own right but which also gave my objective a real chance of success.

His whispered instructions about our missions had a lot in common with the sweet nothings of lovers. ‘I’ve taken delivery of a special gun,’ he breathed in my ear. ‘It needs to be installed somewhere no one will ever think of looking for it.’ I gave an important nod. ‘I know just the place,’ he went on. ‘Inside your walking stick.’

Of course! It wasn’t actually a walking stick, or rather I didn’t actually use it for walking. It was the stick I carried in the wheelchair with me for poking and prodding and nudging myself along. He was right. No one would dream of looking in there.

‘The procedure for installing is rather complicated. I’ll take your stick away and do the conversion outside, away from you-know-who.’ I had no idea who. He was gone for a long time, about fifteen minutes. When he brought it back I didn’t think it looked any different at first, but then Julian showed me the notch I would have to press to fire it. He made me promise not to use it indoors unless there was a real emergency.

Did I really think that Julian had installed a gun in my stick? I think I did. It somehow felt different after that, warm from his hand, heavier, more laden with consequence. He had an extraordinary ability to lead people into his little world, though of course everyone’s world is exactly the same size.

Hook, line and sinker

Next day he gave me a briefing. ‘Your assignment’, he whispered, ‘is to keep an eye on Mr Atkinson. Top security. Of course you know he’s a Russian spy? We’ve been watching him for some time now …’

Mr Atkinson! It was the last thing I expected, yet it made perfect sense. Mr Atkinson had been hired to teach us German, which he wrote and spoke very well indeed. I got on well with him, and my German improved by leaps and bounds. He always looked so dapper in his smart suit and open-necked shirt. His hair was curly and lay very close to his head, so that it looked stuck on. It was white — not just grey but entirely white — and yet his face was as smooth as a lady’s, almost as if he didn’t need to shave.

Atkinson had been sent to spy on us boys, disguised as someone who wanted to help us. Raeburn and Willis had fallen for his tricks hook, line and sinker, and so had I. That was the worst part of it. He’d been pally and friendly with me, and I’d been pally and friendly right back. I was such a chatter-box (everyone always said so) that I might have told him just about anything. My face started to burn with shame.

‘Are you sure?’ I stammered. ‘How do you know?’

‘Oh come on! As an agent I expect you to do better than that!’ said Julian. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed his upward-sloping curly R s? It’s a dead give-away!’

Upward-sloping curly Rs! I’d done more than notice them — I’d raised them in class, I’d chattered about them for twelve whole minutes of a lesson to pass the time. I adored them, I’d adopted them as my own. I’d even been scolded by Willis for using them. Miss Willis had strong ideas about hand-writing, saying for instance that script which sloped backwards was a sure sign of someone who was afraid of life. After that, my script sloped forward so much the letters almost fell on their faces.

I only used my special R s when doing homework for Mr Atkinson. He also pronounced perfect German ‘r’s, though he wasn’t German. He pronounced them like a native, like Gisela. I should have realised that an Englishman cannot do that. I’d come close to hero-worship, and now I realised that I’d been played for a fool.

At the same time I was thrilled. At CRX I’d felt a twinge of sadness when I finished reading Five Fall into Adventure . It lent life and colour to the ward. I knew that adventures never really happened, but I’d dared to ask for a real adventure for myself. And now it had been granted — granted with a vengeance. My prayer had even included a pal called Julian, and God had sent that. I’d asked for him to have blond hair to remind me of Tommy Steele, and Julian’s was dark, but I couldn’t expect God to attend to every detail when he was so busy.

I thought of some of the things I must have said to Atkinson, which the situation just made seem even more frightening. Raeburn was a military man, he would know what to do — but how to contact him? He might just as well be miles away. Dad would also know what to do, but fate had separated me from my family. Even if I broke the rules and ‘told’, no one would believe us. The truth was that Atkinson was a very cunning agent indeed.

‘He has a gun of his own, of course,’ added Julian smoothly. ‘It’s a small Beretta. Point four oh two. First thing I noticed. That’s why I told HQ you had to be armed. If you do have to shoot Atkinson I’ll take full responsibility.’

I started to get frightened then, which had the advantage of bringing Julian closer. He hugged me awkwardly, but said, ‘Pull yourself together. British agents don’t cry.’