I came away from the auction with a small box of Chinese bric-a-brac, which I had bid for because I liked the look of a piece of jade which formed one of the items. When I got it home, however, the jade turned out on closer inspection to be obviously modern, and not even very good quality at that; and I was relieved I hadn’t bid more.
Most of the other items in the box were frankly rubbish, but one or two attracted a second glance, if only to try to convince myself that my money hadn‘t been completely wasted. There was a carving in dark wood, beneath a glass dome smaller than a child’s fist, consisting of a man in a robe seated at a table. There was a teapot and a cup detached from the main carving and lying loose: probably the carving had been broken, but somehow it reminded me of those cheap little toys where you have to manoeuvre ball-bearings through a maze, or into slots in a picture. I even attempted to shake the dome to get these objects back onto the table, but failed miserably and gave up after a few goes.
At the bottom of the box was a medallion the size of a coin, on a chain. There were characters I couldn’t read on one side of it, and it surprised me, because I didn’t think it was the sort of thing the Chinese went in for. I suspected it wasn’t really Chinese at all, and I certainly didn’t find it at all attractive, but in an idle moment I hung it round my neck.
For some reason, I suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to return to the game, or whatever it was, under the glass dome. I shook it, and it took very little time or effort to get the cup and teapot into their right places on the table; but somehow they weren’t tiny any more: the whole carving had expanded until it was life-size, and I was right there beside it, watching. And the man in the robe was alive and moving. I watched as he poured himself a cup of tea, and then picked it up to drink it. And I realised that he mustn’t drink it, because the tea was poisoned; and I tried to shout at him not to, but no sound came out.The poison must have been very potent, because he collapsed almost immediately. And he realised what had happened to him, because he was able to lift his head from the table to look directly up at me, and his look said,
“YOU DID IT!”
Friday, 29 November 2013
Friday, 22 November 2013
Fear
I found myself on the outskirts of a large burial-ground. The light was murky. Some distance away, with her back to me, a young girl in a red dress was laying flowers on a grave. Closer to me, but somehow much less distinct, was another figure, who seemed to be a woman in beige, who was watching the girl. I was seized with a terrible fear that they would notice me and turn round, and I would find they had the faces of werewolves; or even worse, they would have no faces at all. I decided to tiptoe quietly away. The figures did not move, and I realised the scene was only a picture. But then I discovered I could not move either, and that I was part of the picture too.
Sunday, 10 November 2013
The Grail
When I heard a rumour that one of the knights who undertook the quest for the Holy Grail was still living, I felt I could not rest until I had spoken with him. Many had heard the story, but few had any notion of where he lived, and even his name seemed to be in dispute. It was only after many tedious journeyings I discovered him. His name was Bors, and he lived a solitary hermit in a desolate forest. He was now an extremely old man, and it was immediately clear that for many years he had cared nothing for his appearance or the condition of his clothes. For a long time he met my queries with immovable silence, but at length, either out of pity or wearied by my endless importunities, he began to talk, like one who had almost forgotten the use of his mother-tongue or the sound of his own voice.
He began to tell the long story of how the company of knights set forth to find the Grail, through dark and trackless forests and over perilous mountains, how they battled monsters and giants, how they endured endless traps and temptations laid before them by devils, how the faint-hearted abandoned the quest as one year followed another, though the valiant few pressed onwards, sustained by the vision …… But all these stories I had already heard, so I cut short his account with impatient questions.
What did your companions propose to do with the Grail when they found it? This question for the first time appeared to animate him.
- You do not DO anything with the Grail. It is not for USE. The Grail IS, and always will be: that is all. It exists, beyond all time and all space. Nothing more is required. He who has seen the Grail has beheld all the secrets of the universe: of life, of death, and of the life to come.
And these secrets are?
- They cannot be expressed in words.
I felt that little was being learnt, so I moved to a new line of questioning.
How did you find it?
- Not through any effort or merit of ours. The Grail is not to be ferreted out or dug for, like some sack of buried gold. It may permit itself to be found. Only one who is wholly without sin can find the Grail. He must not only be pure and undefiled in his actions, but in his words too, and even in his thoughts. As a sinful man, I could not come near it, but as an act of grace far beyond my deserts, I was permitted to glimpse it, from a distance, for an instant. That momentary vision I have held in my mind ever since, and I desire nothing but to continue to meditate upon it.
What did the Grail look like?
- It is beyond any description.
But it must have had a shape: a colour?
- It has all colours, many of which human eyes cannot perceive, and at the same time it has no colour. It is not confined in a single fixed shape, as mortal objects are: it embodies in itself all the shapes that ever are, or were, or could be.
By this time, I was beginning to wonder whether my journey had been wasted. Either he was simply a fraud, or he was a deluded old man lost in a dense fog of impenetrable mysticism, and unable to convey any useful information. In anger I said, I do not believe you found the Grail at all: in fact, I begin to doubt whether the Grail even exists.
- No matter, he said, for I know I saw the Grail. That is sufficient. I am at peace.
He began to tell the long story of how the company of knights set forth to find the Grail, through dark and trackless forests and over perilous mountains, how they battled monsters and giants, how they endured endless traps and temptations laid before them by devils, how the faint-hearted abandoned the quest as one year followed another, though the valiant few pressed onwards, sustained by the vision …… But all these stories I had already heard, so I cut short his account with impatient questions.
What did your companions propose to do with the Grail when they found it? This question for the first time appeared to animate him.
- You do not DO anything with the Grail. It is not for USE. The Grail IS, and always will be: that is all. It exists, beyond all time and all space. Nothing more is required. He who has seen the Grail has beheld all the secrets of the universe: of life, of death, and of the life to come.
And these secrets are?
- They cannot be expressed in words.
I felt that little was being learnt, so I moved to a new line of questioning.
How did you find it?
- Not through any effort or merit of ours. The Grail is not to be ferreted out or dug for, like some sack of buried gold. It may permit itself to be found. Only one who is wholly without sin can find the Grail. He must not only be pure and undefiled in his actions, but in his words too, and even in his thoughts. As a sinful man, I could not come near it, but as an act of grace far beyond my deserts, I was permitted to glimpse it, from a distance, for an instant. That momentary vision I have held in my mind ever since, and I desire nothing but to continue to meditate upon it.
What did the Grail look like?
- It is beyond any description.
But it must have had a shape: a colour?
- It has all colours, many of which human eyes cannot perceive, and at the same time it has no colour. It is not confined in a single fixed shape, as mortal objects are: it embodies in itself all the shapes that ever are, or were, or could be.
By this time, I was beginning to wonder whether my journey had been wasted. Either he was simply a fraud, or he was a deluded old man lost in a dense fog of impenetrable mysticism, and unable to convey any useful information. In anger I said, I do not believe you found the Grail at all: in fact, I begin to doubt whether the Grail even exists.
- No matter, he said, for I know I saw the Grail. That is sufficient. I am at peace.
Thursday, 31 October 2013
My Grandmother's Clock
It sits on my mantelpiece
My grandmother's clock
And I should very much like
To ask the clock what it knows
Of my grandmother and her time.
But we all know that it's a mere
Affectation of literature
To ask a clock what it knows
For the face of the clock is eyeless
The hands of the clock do not feel
It tells the hours unknowing
And it speaks, but says nothing but "tick"
And although it stopped when she died
(At a great age, in her own home)
This fact is wholly without
Any metaphysical cause
(There was no-one to wind it up)
So it sits on my mantelpiece
My grandmother's clock
And a hundred years from now
It will sit on someone else's
And its eyeless face will look on
A world I shall never see
And its unfeeling hands will tell
Hours I can never know
And still it says nothing but "tick".
My grandmother's clock
And I should very much like
To ask the clock what it knows
Of my grandmother and her time.
But we all know that it's a mere
Affectation of literature
To ask a clock what it knows
For the face of the clock is eyeless
The hands of the clock do not feel
It tells the hours unknowing
And it speaks, but says nothing but "tick"
And although it stopped when she died
(At a great age, in her own home)
This fact is wholly without
Any metaphysical cause
(There was no-one to wind it up)
So it sits on my mantelpiece
My grandmother's clock
And a hundred years from now
It will sit on someone else's
And its eyeless face will look on
A world I shall never see
And its unfeeling hands will tell
Hours I can never know
And still it says nothing but "tick".
Friday, 4 October 2013
A Fancy-Dress Party
No, I won’t be coming to your Christmas party. It’s nothing to do with you, of course; and you know I’m not a Scrooge person. I like Christmas. No, it’s just that you specified it was going to be fancy dress; and you see, there’s just no way I could ever go to a fancy dress party. They terrify me; especially at Christmas. If you’ve got a moment, I’ll explain why, and I hope you’ll understand.
Do you remember when I used to teach at the school in Oldbury? And then I left quite suddenly, and I didn’t tell anyone why. I expect you assumed I’d got into some kind of trouble; but I hadn’t; and it’s all connected with why I won’t come to your party this Christmas. I’ve never told anyone about this before.
You see, one of the traditions at Oldbury school was that on the last day of term in December, when we’d broken up and all the boys had gone home, we had a final staff meeting where we all wore fancy dress and the headmaster gave out various silly prizes for how good our costumes were. And of course the boys got to know about it, and so another tradition was that some boys would always try to gatecrash our little do, dressed up of course so we wouldn’t recognise them. And I believe it was a matter of great prestige if any of them got through the meeting without being discovered.
So at this particular occasion we all trickled into the staff room in a variety of costumes, mostly home-made but a few hired for the occasion, and we looked around at each other wondering if there were any of the boys present. What about the person in the gorilla suit? Or the one rather feebly got up as a ghost, with eye-holes cut in an old bed sheet? Or the one dressed for a Venetian carnival, complete with swirling cloak, tricorn hat, rapier, and one of those black and white masks with a huge nose? Then Henry came in.
Now Henry had only joined us in September: just a temporary appointment to cover an unexpected vacancy. He was a strange, secretive sort of fellow, who kept himself very much to himself and none of us really got to know him at all. He lived in cheap lodgings near the school, and never appeared at the pub or at any social events. Heaven knows what the boys made of him; probably had fantasies that he was a wanted criminal in hiding, or something like that; but he had a very unpredictable temper, so they didn’t dare tease him too much. For all we knew, they could have been right. I didn’t find out the truth till this time I’m talking about, and very disturbing it was too.
So Henry came into our meeting. He’d attempted fancy dress himself, but he hadn’t been very imaginative, and I recognised him straight away. All he’d done was to wear a kind of nightdress and stick a tea towel on his head and a Saddam Hussain moustache on his face. Nobody would really have taken him for an Arab in a million years: he simply looked ridiculous. And when he came in, he spotted the man in the Venetian mask, and I’d swear he went absolutely white, and swayed as if he was going to faint. I heard him mutter “My God!”, and he literally fled from the room. Now at the time I supposed he’d just suddenly felt ill or something, and then the meeting began and I forgot about him. And the headmaster gave out the silly prizes as usual, and I thought the Venetian man might win something, but he didn’t seem to be there any more. I presumed it must have been one of the boys, who’d skedaddled when he thought he might be unmasked.
In fact, the whole thing slipped from my mind, what with the general relief of term ending, but that evening I got a phone call from Henry’s landlady. I don’t know why she called me, or how she got my number. Would I come round quickly, please: Henry had been taken ill and was in a very bad way. So of course I went, and there he was all in a heap on the floor, though there wasn’t any blood. I only knew basic first aid, but I did what I could until the doctor turned up, and he took one look at Henry and summoned an emergency ambulance to cart him off to hospital: he’d had a heart attack, and it was touch and go whether he’d survive. Actually, the doctor told me that if I hadn’t come on the scene so quick, Henry would be dead. But survive he did; and when I thought he might be well enough to receive visitors I went to see him in hospital, since the poor chap didn’t have anyone else to turn to. The nurse wasn’t particularly keen to let me in. “He’s still very weak”, she said, “and very nervous about the lest little thing. Do take great care that you don’t disturb him”. And I could see what she meant when she opened the curtains around his bed and immediately said, “It’s all right Henry! It’s only me, and I’ve brought Bill from the school to see you. Just you lie back and don’t fret!”
He looked terrible. And when the nurse had gone, the first thing he said to me was, “Did you see him? The man in the mask? Did you see him?”
“Yes”
“Really and truly see him? Because other people don’t, you know. I’m the only one who sees him”
“Yes, I saw him all right. He had a hat, and a long black cloak and a sword”
Henry was quiet for a long time, and then he said, “Well, at least that proves I’m not mad, and I suppose that’s something”. And he told me this absolutely weird story, which normally I wouldn’t have believed for an instant.
“It happened when I was in Venice on holiday”, he said, “and one evening I was in that grand piazza outside St. Mark’s. It was pretty crowded; all sorts of people milling about, with one or two even in the traditional carnival costume, hat and cloak and mask; I assumed as some kind of tourist trap. I went up to one of these to have a close look, but there was a great mass of people swirling around, with the result that I got pushed from behind and bumped into him. And I really can’t describe how scary that was, because it was just like coming up against clothes swinging on a washing line. I mean, I bumped into his cloak and there was nothing inside it, just emptiness. I barged right into him, until my face was up against his mask, and there were no eyes looking out from it, just blackness. I can’t describe how horrible it was. But when I backed off, he moved, and he started to draw his rapier, and I knew he intended to kill me. I fled in panic, and left the city that same night.
“I thought that would be the end of it; and maybe it was only some kind of nightmare, but I found out it wasn’t. Ever since then he’s been following me. I’ve had to keep moving. I don’t know how he travels, or how he finds me; and I think he’s quite slow, because sometimes it’s weeks before he catches up with me. Sometimes I can see him, though not many other people can, and at other times I just sense his presence. It’s taken him since September to find me here, and for a while I even imagined I’d escaped him forever. Then I saw him at that party. I rushed back here to grab my stuff and run, but he somehow followed me and cornered me in my room, and then he drew his sword …….. I think it must have been as insubstantial as he is, because they tell me I had no sign of a wound, but I felt the most awful pain in my chest, and then I didn’t know anything till I woke up in hospital here.
But I can’t stay here. He’ll know I’m not dead, and he’ll come looking for me again. As soon as I can walk, I’ll have to get out or here and find somewhere else to hide - though sometimes I wonder what the point is; he’s bound to get me in the end; I might as well let him do it now”.
Henry’s voice began to rise in despair. “It’s all so unfair! What did I ever do to him? I didn’t bump into him on purpose. And he won’t even let me apologise. What can I do? What can I do?”
At this stage the nurse, overhearing Henry’s sobs, came in and told me I’d better leave. I suppose she gave him some kind of sedative. Anyway, I came home. And that was the last I ever saw of Henry, because the next day my wife and I had to go away somewhere, and by the time we got back Henry had discharged himself from hospital and disappeared. He never contacted any of us again. I often wonder what happened to him. Is he still alive? Did the masked man finally get him? Or was he actually paranoid, with the masked figure just some stupid 6th-former showing off, and the rest of the story just a product of Henry’s diseased imagination? That would be the most rational explanation, of course, and I’d like to believe it.
Now you might say; that’s all very well, but so what? What’s that got to do with refusing to come to a Christmas party? Well, I’d have to admit, I’m still scared. Henry said you’d generally sense the man rather than actually see him; and once or twice I fancy I’ve sensed him. I’m not going to describe it, but it wasn‘t a pleasant feeling at all, I can tell you. You’ll say it’s just my own imagination being too active, but there you are: I thought I could sense his presence. At such times, I wonder if he blames me for saving Henry’s life, so I’m next on his list, or whether he’s lost track of Henry and thinks I can lead him to him. Afterwards I can try to laugh it all off, because I’ve never actually seen him and nothing nasty’s happened so far. But suppose I do actually see him: what then? And if at your party someone comes in Venetian costume, I think it would be my turn for a heart attack. So I hope you’ll understand why I’m staying at home.
Do you remember when I used to teach at the school in Oldbury? And then I left quite suddenly, and I didn’t tell anyone why. I expect you assumed I’d got into some kind of trouble; but I hadn’t; and it’s all connected with why I won’t come to your party this Christmas. I’ve never told anyone about this before.
You see, one of the traditions at Oldbury school was that on the last day of term in December, when we’d broken up and all the boys had gone home, we had a final staff meeting where we all wore fancy dress and the headmaster gave out various silly prizes for how good our costumes were. And of course the boys got to know about it, and so another tradition was that some boys would always try to gatecrash our little do, dressed up of course so we wouldn’t recognise them. And I believe it was a matter of great prestige if any of them got through the meeting without being discovered.
So at this particular occasion we all trickled into the staff room in a variety of costumes, mostly home-made but a few hired for the occasion, and we looked around at each other wondering if there were any of the boys present. What about the person in the gorilla suit? Or the one rather feebly got up as a ghost, with eye-holes cut in an old bed sheet? Or the one dressed for a Venetian carnival, complete with swirling cloak, tricorn hat, rapier, and one of those black and white masks with a huge nose? Then Henry came in.
Now Henry had only joined us in September: just a temporary appointment to cover an unexpected vacancy. He was a strange, secretive sort of fellow, who kept himself very much to himself and none of us really got to know him at all. He lived in cheap lodgings near the school, and never appeared at the pub or at any social events. Heaven knows what the boys made of him; probably had fantasies that he was a wanted criminal in hiding, or something like that; but he had a very unpredictable temper, so they didn’t dare tease him too much. For all we knew, they could have been right. I didn’t find out the truth till this time I’m talking about, and very disturbing it was too.
So Henry came into our meeting. He’d attempted fancy dress himself, but he hadn’t been very imaginative, and I recognised him straight away. All he’d done was to wear a kind of nightdress and stick a tea towel on his head and a Saddam Hussain moustache on his face. Nobody would really have taken him for an Arab in a million years: he simply looked ridiculous. And when he came in, he spotted the man in the Venetian mask, and I’d swear he went absolutely white, and swayed as if he was going to faint. I heard him mutter “My God!”, and he literally fled from the room. Now at the time I supposed he’d just suddenly felt ill or something, and then the meeting began and I forgot about him. And the headmaster gave out the silly prizes as usual, and I thought the Venetian man might win something, but he didn’t seem to be there any more. I presumed it must have been one of the boys, who’d skedaddled when he thought he might be unmasked.
In fact, the whole thing slipped from my mind, what with the general relief of term ending, but that evening I got a phone call from Henry’s landlady. I don’t know why she called me, or how she got my number. Would I come round quickly, please: Henry had been taken ill and was in a very bad way. So of course I went, and there he was all in a heap on the floor, though there wasn’t any blood. I only knew basic first aid, but I did what I could until the doctor turned up, and he took one look at Henry and summoned an emergency ambulance to cart him off to hospital: he’d had a heart attack, and it was touch and go whether he’d survive. Actually, the doctor told me that if I hadn’t come on the scene so quick, Henry would be dead. But survive he did; and when I thought he might be well enough to receive visitors I went to see him in hospital, since the poor chap didn’t have anyone else to turn to. The nurse wasn’t particularly keen to let me in. “He’s still very weak”, she said, “and very nervous about the lest little thing. Do take great care that you don’t disturb him”. And I could see what she meant when she opened the curtains around his bed and immediately said, “It’s all right Henry! It’s only me, and I’ve brought Bill from the school to see you. Just you lie back and don’t fret!”
He looked terrible. And when the nurse had gone, the first thing he said to me was, “Did you see him? The man in the mask? Did you see him?”
“Yes”
“Really and truly see him? Because other people don’t, you know. I’m the only one who sees him”
“Yes, I saw him all right. He had a hat, and a long black cloak and a sword”
Henry was quiet for a long time, and then he said, “Well, at least that proves I’m not mad, and I suppose that’s something”. And he told me this absolutely weird story, which normally I wouldn’t have believed for an instant.
“It happened when I was in Venice on holiday”, he said, “and one evening I was in that grand piazza outside St. Mark’s. It was pretty crowded; all sorts of people milling about, with one or two even in the traditional carnival costume, hat and cloak and mask; I assumed as some kind of tourist trap. I went up to one of these to have a close look, but there was a great mass of people swirling around, with the result that I got pushed from behind and bumped into him. And I really can’t describe how scary that was, because it was just like coming up against clothes swinging on a washing line. I mean, I bumped into his cloak and there was nothing inside it, just emptiness. I barged right into him, until my face was up against his mask, and there were no eyes looking out from it, just blackness. I can’t describe how horrible it was. But when I backed off, he moved, and he started to draw his rapier, and I knew he intended to kill me. I fled in panic, and left the city that same night.
“I thought that would be the end of it; and maybe it was only some kind of nightmare, but I found out it wasn’t. Ever since then he’s been following me. I’ve had to keep moving. I don’t know how he travels, or how he finds me; and I think he’s quite slow, because sometimes it’s weeks before he catches up with me. Sometimes I can see him, though not many other people can, and at other times I just sense his presence. It’s taken him since September to find me here, and for a while I even imagined I’d escaped him forever. Then I saw him at that party. I rushed back here to grab my stuff and run, but he somehow followed me and cornered me in my room, and then he drew his sword …….. I think it must have been as insubstantial as he is, because they tell me I had no sign of a wound, but I felt the most awful pain in my chest, and then I didn’t know anything till I woke up in hospital here.
But I can’t stay here. He’ll know I’m not dead, and he’ll come looking for me again. As soon as I can walk, I’ll have to get out or here and find somewhere else to hide - though sometimes I wonder what the point is; he’s bound to get me in the end; I might as well let him do it now”.
Henry’s voice began to rise in despair. “It’s all so unfair! What did I ever do to him? I didn’t bump into him on purpose. And he won’t even let me apologise. What can I do? What can I do?”
At this stage the nurse, overhearing Henry’s sobs, came in and told me I’d better leave. I suppose she gave him some kind of sedative. Anyway, I came home. And that was the last I ever saw of Henry, because the next day my wife and I had to go away somewhere, and by the time we got back Henry had discharged himself from hospital and disappeared. He never contacted any of us again. I often wonder what happened to him. Is he still alive? Did the masked man finally get him? Or was he actually paranoid, with the masked figure just some stupid 6th-former showing off, and the rest of the story just a product of Henry’s diseased imagination? That would be the most rational explanation, of course, and I’d like to believe it.
Now you might say; that’s all very well, but so what? What’s that got to do with refusing to come to a Christmas party? Well, I’d have to admit, I’m still scared. Henry said you’d generally sense the man rather than actually see him; and once or twice I fancy I’ve sensed him. I’m not going to describe it, but it wasn‘t a pleasant feeling at all, I can tell you. You’ll say it’s just my own imagination being too active, but there you are: I thought I could sense his presence. At such times, I wonder if he blames me for saving Henry’s life, so I’m next on his list, or whether he’s lost track of Henry and thinks I can lead him to him. Afterwards I can try to laugh it all off, because I’ve never actually seen him and nothing nasty’s happened so far. But suppose I do actually see him: what then? And if at your party someone comes in Venetian costume, I think it would be my turn for a heart attack. So I hope you’ll understand why I’m staying at home.
Thursday, 26 September 2013
Pagan Philosophy
A poem about the Caucasus, with reference to recent events there
The people are like their mountains
beautiful, wild, untameable,
hard, crushing any weakness,
implacable in revenge on outsiders
who show them no respect
Silly people in the cities
may speak of dying for a cause
but a serious man knows
that for your cause to triumph
you must kill
In the end we all die.
What matters is how we die
and what better way to die
than in defence of your home
surrounded by the bodies of your enemies?
The only true immortality
is to live in legend
when your children's children
tell stories of your mighty deeds.
The mountains and their people
once inspired Pushkin and Lermontov and Tolstoy
and now they inspire Vladimir Putin
- a serious man.
pgs
The people are like their mountains
beautiful, wild, untameable,
hard, crushing any weakness,
implacable in revenge on outsiders
who show them no respect
Silly people in the cities
may speak of dying for a cause
but a serious man knows
that for your cause to triumph
you must kill
In the end we all die.
What matters is how we die
and what better way to die
than in defence of your home
surrounded by the bodies of your enemies?
The only true immortality
is to live in legend
when your children's children
tell stories of your mighty deeds.
The mountains and their people
once inspired Pushkin and Lermontov and Tolstoy
and now they inspire Vladimir Putin
- a serious man.
pgs
Monday, 9 September 2013
Making Contact
Michael gazed idly through the window of the train as it dawdled its way across the Welsh countryside in the drizzle and deepening gloom of an October afternoon. Until he arrived at his destination there was nothing he could do, but his mind was too preoccupied to settle to read a book. This was his very first mission: to locate his contact and deliver the message he had been given, which was “It’s snowing in Venice”. What might that mean? Nobody had seen fit to tell him, and he suspected he wasn’t supposed to enquire. He didn’t even have a proper address for the contact, or a physical description: only that his name was Jones and that he lived in a certain Welsh village whose name Michael was by no means sure of pronouncing even remotely correctly, since it consisted largely of Ws and double Ls. Nor had he been given any idea of what was supposed to follow once his message had been delivered.
It had occurred to Michael that this might well turn out to be not a real assignment at all, but some kind of trial to test out his reliability and usefulness. Quite likely he was supposed to display initiative in first of all locating the contact and then in following any instructions he might be given in return - perhaps another message? perhaps a package to deliver, or some other task to fulfil? Or perhaps above all he was supposed to use his judgement as to whether the contact was a man to be trusted? Maybe even now assessors were lurking and watching, to report on how he performed? - in which case the mysterious Jones was doubtless one of the assessors.
For as long as he could remember, Michael had known this was the career he wanted. As a small boy he had been fascinated by disguises and codes and invisible writing. His school friends had noticed, and had given him nicknames like “James Blonde” and “006 ½, licensed to hurt”, and he had learnt from this not to reveal his ambition to become a spy - at least, not until he met someone who might be useful in his ambition, and even then only by making cryptic hints rather than stating it openly. To this end he had worked hard to pass his exams and had assiduously sought to make the best contacts. And it had worked: eventually he had been interviewed and presumably secretly vetted. And here he was.
The train finally arrived. It was now quite dark outside. A few lights shone in the village behind the little station. No-one else left the train. The only person about was the man at the ticket window. Michael approached him.
“I wonder if you could help me: I’m looking for Mr Jones”.
“Ooh, there’s plenty of us called Jones here! There’s Jones the milk, and there’s Jones the gas and there’s Jones the bread; and me, I’m Jones the train!”
This, thought Michael, is clearly a test I‘ve been set. I shall need to show persistence and thoroughness, and at the same time be very discreet in my enquiries, so as not to raise suspicion. I’d better start here.
“I’m sorry I can’t be more precise”, he said, “The fact is, I didn’t expect to be here at all. I was supposed to be going to Italy, but it was cancelled at the last minute. The weather’s terrible there. They say it’s snowing in Venice!”
An expression of gradually dawning comprehension crept over the railwayman’s face. “Ooh, it’s Jones the spy you’ll be wanting! D’you know, you’re the third person who’s been asking for him this week?”
Somehow, Michael had not expected intelligence work to be like this.
It had occurred to Michael that this might well turn out to be not a real assignment at all, but some kind of trial to test out his reliability and usefulness. Quite likely he was supposed to display initiative in first of all locating the contact and then in following any instructions he might be given in return - perhaps another message? perhaps a package to deliver, or some other task to fulfil? Or perhaps above all he was supposed to use his judgement as to whether the contact was a man to be trusted? Maybe even now assessors were lurking and watching, to report on how he performed? - in which case the mysterious Jones was doubtless one of the assessors.
For as long as he could remember, Michael had known this was the career he wanted. As a small boy he had been fascinated by disguises and codes and invisible writing. His school friends had noticed, and had given him nicknames like “James Blonde” and “006 ½, licensed to hurt”, and he had learnt from this not to reveal his ambition to become a spy - at least, not until he met someone who might be useful in his ambition, and even then only by making cryptic hints rather than stating it openly. To this end he had worked hard to pass his exams and had assiduously sought to make the best contacts. And it had worked: eventually he had been interviewed and presumably secretly vetted. And here he was.
The train finally arrived. It was now quite dark outside. A few lights shone in the village behind the little station. No-one else left the train. The only person about was the man at the ticket window. Michael approached him.
“I wonder if you could help me: I’m looking for Mr Jones”.
“Ooh, there’s plenty of us called Jones here! There’s Jones the milk, and there’s Jones the gas and there’s Jones the bread; and me, I’m Jones the train!”
This, thought Michael, is clearly a test I‘ve been set. I shall need to show persistence and thoroughness, and at the same time be very discreet in my enquiries, so as not to raise suspicion. I’d better start here.
“I’m sorry I can’t be more precise”, he said, “The fact is, I didn’t expect to be here at all. I was supposed to be going to Italy, but it was cancelled at the last minute. The weather’s terrible there. They say it’s snowing in Venice!”
An expression of gradually dawning comprehension crept over the railwayman’s face. “Ooh, it’s Jones the spy you’ll be wanting! D’you know, you’re the third person who’s been asking for him this week?”
Somehow, Michael had not expected intelligence work to be like this.
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