A Spy by Nature - Charles Cumming [5]
How much of this Lucas knows I do not know. I simply give him edited highlights from the dinner and a few sketchy impressions of Hawkes’s character. Nothing permanent. Nothing of any significance.
In truth we do not talk about him for long: the subject soon runs dry. Lucas moves on to my father and, after that, spends a quarter of an hour questioning me about my school years, dredging up the forgotten paraphernalia of my youth. He notes down all my answers, scratching away with the Mont Blanc, nodding imperceptibly at given points in the conversation.
Building a file on a man.
2
Official Secrets
The interview drifts on.
In response to a series of bland, straightforward questions about various aspects of my life - friendships, university, bogus summer jobs - I give a series of bland, straightforward answers designed to show myself in the correct light: as a stand-up guy, an unwavering patriot, a citizen of no stark political leanings. Just what the Foreign Office is looking for. Lucas’s interviewing technique is strangely shapeless: at no point am I properly tested by anything he asks. And he never takes the conversation up to a higher level. We do not, for example, discuss the role of the Foreign Office, or British policy overseas. The talk is always general, always about me.
In due course I begin to worry that my chances of recruitment are slim. Lucas has about him the air of someone doing Hawkes a favour: he will keep me in here for a couple of hours, fulfil what is required of him, but the process will go no further. Things feel over before they have really begun.
But then, at around three thirty, I am again offered a cup of tea. This seems significant, yet the thought of it deters me. I do not have enough conversation left to last out another hour. But it is clear that he would like me to accept.
‘Yes, I would like one,’ I tell him. ‘Black. Nothing in it.’
‘Good,’ he says.
In this instant something visibly relaxes in Lucas, a crumpling of his suit. There is a sense of formalities passing. This impression is reinforced by his next remark, an odd, almost rhetorical question entirely at odds with the established rhythm of our conversation.
‘Would you like to continue with your application after this initial discussion?’
Lucas phrases this so carefully that it is like a briefly glimpsed secret, a sight of the interview’s true purpose. And yet the question does not seem to deserve an answer. What candidate, at this stage, would say no?
‘Yes, I would.’
‘In that case I am going to go out of the room for a few moments. I will send someone in with your cup of tea.’
It is as if he has changed to a different script whose words I have not yet learned. Lucas looks relieved to be free of the edgy formality that has characterized the interview thus far. There is, at last, a general sense of getting down to business.
From the clipboard on his lap he releases a brown piece of paper, smaller than A4, printed on both sides. This he places on the table in front of me.
‘There’s just one thing,’ he says, with well-rehearsed blandness. ‘Before I leave I’d like you to sign the Official Secrets Act.’
The first thing I think of, even before I am properly surprised, is that Lucas actually trusts me. I have said enough here today to earn the confidence of the State. That was all it took: sixty minutes of half-truths and evasions. I stare at the document and feel suddenly catapulted into something adult, as though from this moment onwards things will be expected and demanded of me. Lucas, his blue eyes flared, is keen to assess my reaction. Prompted by this I lift the document and hold it in my hand like a courtroom exhibit. I am surprised by its cursoriness. It is simply a little brown sheet of paper with space at the base for a signature. I do not even bother to read the smallprint because to do so might seem odd or improper. So I sign my name at the bottom of the page, scrawled and lasting. Alec Milius. The moment passes with what seems an absurd