Ben Elton - Blast From The Past

Gottfried was a captain in military intelligence. He had a keen brain and he spotted instantly that as addresses went this one was on the vague side. He did not say so, of course, it was not his place. Gottfried had the gentle, self-deprecating air of a good butler and like a good butler he missed very little. He enquired if perhaps this field had a house on it or even a hut.

“No,” Jack replied. “When I knew Polly she lived in a bender, although I doubt that it’s still there. I guess with carbon testing you might pick up traces of the fireplace, but I doubt that would help.”

“A bender, General?” Gottfried asked.

“Yes, a bender, Gottfried. It’s a shelter made of mud, sticks, leaves and reeds.”

“I understand, sir,” and something about the slight quiver of Gottfried’s eyebrow made Jack fear that what Gottfried understood was that Jack was out of his mind.

“Perhaps, General,” Gottfried enquired gently, “if you just gave me the surname of the young lady in question we could discover her address from the British tax authorities. I feel certain that they would co-operate if we made the request via the Embassy.”

“Coupla things,” said Jack firmly. “First, do you want to make colonel?”

“Yes, General sir, I do,” Gottfried replied.

“OK, then. You don’t do this thing I’m asking via the Embassy, understand? You do this yourself. You don’t delegate, you don’t get somebody else to do the legwork, this is just you, OK?”

“As you wish, sir,” Gottfried said.

If General Kent knew one thing about the Grosvenor Square Embassy it was that the CIA were all over it. It was their principal European station, their centre of operations. Nothing happened in that building that they did not know about and Jack did not want them knowing about Polly.

“Next thing,” said Jack. “Her surname wouldn’t help you, I’m afraid. It… it wasn’t real.”

“Am I to understand, sir, that the young lady in question operated under a pseudonym?” Gottfried enquired.

“Yes, she did,” said Jack, reddening slightly. “Her surname at the time I knew her was ‘Sacred Cycle of the Womb and Moon’.”

Jack had asked Polly her real name but she had refused on principle to tell him.

“I am who I decide to be, not who society dictates,” she used to say, and Jack had thought it simply too stupid to argue; it had not seemed important at the time.

Gottfried betrayed not an ounce of the amusement he felt.

“I see, sir,” said Gottfried. “So that would be Polly Sacred Cycle of the Womb and Moon?”

“Yes, it would.”

The spy solemnly produced a notebook and jotted down the name, respectfully repeating it under his breath as he did so.

Jack shuddered at the memory of Polly’s stupid name. Checking into hotels with a woman who insisted upon signing herself Polly Sacred Cycle of the Womb and Moon had to be one of his more excruciating memories. Eventually Jack persuaded her that it just drew attention to them and that they should pretend to be married anyway, but for a while it had been a major embarrassment for him.

At the time, Polly had been convinced that Jack was only embarrassed because he was so totally uptight and straight. She believed that if only he could centre himself and shake out his shakrahs he would see that it was a lovely name. She found it practical as well as beautiful. For a person who was arrested on a regular basis a good pseudonym was essential and having such a long one absolutely infuriated the police. They used to try to get away with just writing “Polly Sacred,” but she would insist on her full name being noted. It drove them mad, particularly on winter mornings when their fingers were cold.

“OK, that’s all I got,” said Jack. “I’m afraid it ain’t a lot.”

“I’m sure it will prove sufficient, General,” Gottfried assured him.

“Good.”

“So, then, just to recap, sir. A girl called Polly, Greenham peace lady. Seventeen years old in 1981. Find her and kill her.”

“That’s right… No! For Christ’s sake! Jesus, I never said anything about killing her…”

“I’m sorry, sir, I just assumed-”

“Yeah, well don’t. Just find her, OK? Get her address, hand it over to me and then forget we ever had this conversation.”

“God help the American taxpayer,” Polly said with some feeling.

Jack acknowledged that it had been a questionable use of public funds, but what was the point of power if you couldn’t abuse it?

“Fuck the American taxpayer. I’ve given them twenty-eight years of my life. Uncle Sam owes me.”

“He doesn’t owe you anything. You love being a soldier.”

“Murderer, you used to say.”

“That’s right.”

“It’s because I’m a soldier that I lost you.”

“You didn’t lose me, Jack, you discarded me and I don’t think it was because you were a soldier. I think it’s because you were a gutless bastard. In fact, I think you still are, since you seem to think that calling or writing to an old flame would result in a court-martial for treason.”

“I told you, Polly, I couldn’t.”

Polly didn’t understand and she wasn’t likely to. Of course he had lost her because he was a soldier. The army would not have accepted his and Polly’s relationship in a million years. Jack had been faced with a straight choice and he had chosen his career. That did not mean he liked it, it did not mean that a part of him had not regretted the decision every single day since.

“Why did you have me traced, Jack? Why are you here?”

“I thought you already had your answer. I already told you how I found you.”

“This is a subclause. Why did you find me?”

“Why do you think? To find out what I’d let go. To find out what you’d become.”

“Jack, we knew each other for one summer in a totally different decade and you dropped me. That was it, end of rather stupid story. Now you turn up out of the blue talking about us like we were a Lionel Ritchie lyric. What is this about?”

“That summer was the best summer of my life, Polly. The best anything of my life.”

“You just miss the Cold War, that’s all.”

“Well, hell, who doesn’t?” Jack laughed. “And what’s happening with you in the new world order, then? I noticed when I met him that you weren’t the prime minister yet.”

“I never wanted to be prime minister, Jack. I wanted there not to be any prime ministers. I wanted the nation state with its hierarchies to be replaced by an organically functioning system of autonomous collectives.”

“With you as prime minister.”

“Not at all, although obviously some kind of non-oppressive, non-authoritarian body of governance would be required.”

“And anybody who didn’t like your non-oppressive, non-authoritarian governance could get shot.”

“That wouldn’t happen.”

“Polly, it always happens when you fucking idealists get to defending your revolutions. You always start shooting people. By any means possible, as Lenin said. Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao. The most pious murderers in hell…”

Polly very nearly rose to it. Very nearly slammed her fist on the table and launched into the ancient and terminally tedious arguments of the left. Just in time, she hauled herself back from the brink.

“Jack, this is ridiculous! Are you out of your mind! I’m a completely different woman now, twice as old, for a start, and you turn up after nearly twenty years quoting Lenin and trying to continue the conversation we were having.”

Jack smiled. She was just the same. The same passion, the same beauty.

“I don’t know. I just thought it might have been kinda fun, you know, for old times’ sake. Like the first time we talked.”