A Spy by Nature - Charles Cumming [77]
‘How are you, gents?’ she asks. She has a crisp East End accent. ‘Same again is it?’
‘That’s right,’ says Fortner, taking a twenty-pound note from his wallet and snapping it between his fingers. He’s started to pick up in the last few minutes: one more pint and things will be rolling.
‘You mind if I make a slight criticism of you, Milius?’ he says, still looking at the girl. ‘Would that be OK?’
It is as if the fact that he is buying me a drink has suddenly given him the confidence to ask a serious question.
‘Sure.’
‘It’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about for a while now and I thought tonight would give us a good opportunity.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘It’s just that in the time that we’ve known one another - what is it, about six or seven months - you’ve shown a lot of hostility to the way things work over here. Does that sound unfair? I mean, stop me if I’m outta line.’
He wants to sound me out.
‘No, that’s OK.’
‘So you know what I’m talkin’ about?’
‘Yes. Of course.’
Encouraged by this, Former expands on his theme.
‘There’s just certain things you say, certain observations you make, like what you just said about the council tax there. For a guy your age you have a very jaded perspective on things. Maybe it’s normal for your generation. I hope you don’t mind me sayin’ this.’
I don’t mind at all. The barmaid puts two more pints down in front of us and gives Fortner his change.
‘Example. Do you really think that the concept of Queen and Country is just a lot of shit?’
‘Why did you use that phrase? Queen and Country?’
‘Because you did. With Kathy on Saturday night. She told me you’d said you didn’t want to go into the foreign service for patriotic reasons because you thought that kind of stuff was a waste of time. Why d’you feel that way?’
‘Maybe it’s difficult for an American to understand,’ I say, trying to find a way of balancing expediency with opinions that I genuinely hold. ‘Although your country is divided in a lot of ways - down racial lines, in the gap between the very rich and the very poor - you’re still bound together by flag-waving patriotism. It’s drummed into you from childhood. God bless America and put a star-spangled banner outside every home. You’re taught to love your country. We don’t have that here, we don’t do things the same way. Loving the country is something blue-rinse Tories do at the party conference in Blackpool. It’s seen as naive: it lacks the requisite degree of cynicism. We’re a divided nation, like yours, but we seem to relish that divisiveness. We have no reason historically to love our country.’
‘That’s a crock. Look at the camaraderie you generated during World War Two.’
‘Right. And we’ve been living off that for fifty years. Let me tell you: four in ten people in England celebrate St Patrick’s Day every year. How many do you think do something to celebrate St George’s Day?’
‘No idea.’
‘Four in every hundred. English pubs can get a special late licence to serve on St Patrick’s Day. They can’t if they want to do that on St George’s.’
‘That’s pretty sad.’
‘Too right it’s pretty sad. It’s pretty fucking embarrassing, too. But that isn’t the reason why I’m jaded, necessarily.’
‘Why, then?’
The builder suddenly scrapes back his stool, bundles up his copy of the Sun, and leaves. He’s heard enough of this.
‘I think we’re living in an age of social disintegration,’ I tell Fortner, trying not to sound too apocalyptic.
‘You do?’ he replies, nonplussed, as if everyone he has had a conversation with in the last few days has said exactly the same thing.
‘Absolutely. Health and education in this country, the two bedrocks of any civilized society, are a disgrace.’
I almost used the word ‘timebomb’ there, but I can hear Hawkes’s voice in my head: ‘You’re not trying to defect, Alec.’ Then his brisk, cackled laugh.
I continue:
‘For nearly twenty years the government has been more interested in installing pen-pushing bureaucrats into hospitals than it has been in making sure there are enough beds to tend for the sick. And why? Because in these days of enlightened