Loot Read Free

here; not this time; not any more.
    There was even a man—not sure what he was, Assistant to a Deputy-Minister or Director-General in some portfolio or other—who did not greet her when he was seated round a conference
table; one of those in official positions who do not see unimportant people: a simple defect in vision. Which meant that she did not turn to the voice, thought it was someone else in the corridor who was being addressed, when this man was saying, as she recognised him drawn level with her—Will you come for a drink?—In a pause, he added her name:—You are Miss Blayne.—As if confirming an identity.
    â€”I’m sorry … I didn’t …—
    They were being carried along by politely hurrying people, sticks caught in a river current.—Here’s the bar.—
    She was so unprepared that she trotted along with the man like a schoolgirl summoned. He and his appendage were greeted with the special attention accorded by waiters and barmen indiscriminately to any face known to be in Government. He rejected one table-nook and was immediately directed to a choice of others; only the stools at the bar were occupied. She could not remember his name and did not know how to open a conversation as his silence seemed to suggest she was expected to. The waiter came, the man looked to her: she ordered her usual brand of Scotch and he made it:—Two doubles and what is there—chips, nuts.—He sent the chips back because they were stale. Then he began to speak, address—yes, he had been, he was addressing her—now, with questions about what she had had to say, at her Administrator’s request, in the meeting just ended. If he did not look at her or acknowledge her presence at these official sessions, it appeared that he—she unaware of this attention as he had shown himself of her existence—listened to her duly Agency-correct depositions. There had been a contentious discussion about the ratio of subsistence crops to cash crops, particularly
those with potential for export, in rural development. He wanted to know how the Agency arrived at its recommended balance, and how, in other developing countries the rural people could be convinced that it was (he had the term ready from the Government’s unwritten primer) the way forward.
    She was in a bar with this composed, impersonal man, but she had two good swallows of whisky bringing her to smile across his distance.—Of course. You try telling someone to grow wholesome grain and potatoes when he wants to sell tobacco leaf and afford a TV or enough cash to buy an old car, new clothes! And what about the big money from drug crops, marijuana …—
    But from his side, the conversation in the beer-reeking dingy nook built during colonial rule in nostalgia for an English pub was being conducted as a continuation of the afternoon meeting where the Agency’s agenda (hidden agenda as the phrase-book defines these) and the Government’s counterpart were trawling for accommodation. She managed, through contexts of his questions, to find out that he was Deputy-Director-General in the Ministry of Land Affairs, handman-of-the-Minister’s-handman, the Director-General. When the waiter hovered, he waved him away over the two emptied whisky glasses; she wondered whether he expected her to acknowledge this session was over, and rise, or if that would seem presumptuous—Agency protocol must respect official precedence in such decisions. But she could tactfully indicate that it was time to leave: there was something acceptably conclusive about her referring her host to her Administrator: —I know Mr Henderson would be only too pleased to talk to you about our successes—and our problems! Afghanistan, Colombia … nothing he hasn’t experienced—
    They walked out together. The corridor, like the whisky
glasses, had emptied; they said goodnight and then as if remembering the most