Part 23 (1/2)

I was slowly recovering my faculties. ”She was trying to stop an illegal war,” I shouted, to my surprise. ”We both were!”

Philip, ever the diplomat, stepped in to defuse the situation.

”The point is neither here nor there, surely,” he gently remonstrated. ”London can't be a haven for foreign activists. Least of all when they're over here on a nursing visa. Hannah fully accepted that, irrespective of the legal niceties, didn't she, Sam?”

”Once we'd explained the problem to her, she was fully cooperative,” Sam agreed. ”She was sad, naturally. But she didn't ask for a lawyer, she wasn't tiresome or obstreperous, and she signed her waivers without a murmur. That was because she knew what was best for her. And for you. And for her small boy, of course, her pride and joy. Noah. They choose such sweet names, don't they?”

”I demand to talk to her,” I said, or perhaps shouted.

”Yes, well, I'm afraid there are no facilities for talking just now. She's in a holding centre, and you're where you are. And in just a few hours from now she'll be making an entirely voluntary exit to Kampala where she'll be reunited with Noah. What could be nicer than that?”

It took Philip to point the moral: ”She went quietly, Salvo,” he said, looking down at me. ”We expect you to do the same.” He had put on his soft-as-b.u.t.ter voice, but with a dash of official seasoning. ”It has been brought to the attention of the Home Office by way of Arthur here, who has been extraordinarily helpful in his researches, thank you, Arthur that the man who calls himself Bruno Salvador is not now and never has been a British subject, loyal or otherwise. In short, he doesn't exist.”

He allowed a two-second silence in memory of the dead.

”Your UK citizens.h.i.+p, with all its rights and privileges, was obtained by subterfuge. Your birth certificate was a lie. You were not a foundling, and your father was never a pa.s.sing seafarer with a spare baby to get rid of- well, was he?” he went on, appealing to my good sense. ”We can only a.s.sume therefore that the British Consul in Kampala at the time of your birth succ.u.mbed to the blandishments of the Holy See. The fact that one you were not technically of an age to partic.i.p.ate in the deception is not, I am afraid, an excuse in law. Am I right, Arthur?”

”What law?” Arthur rejoined in a sprightly tone from the bay. ”There isn't one. Not for him.”

”The hard truth is, Salvo, that as you very well know, or should know, you have been an illegal immigrant ever since your ten-year-old feet touched down on Southampton dock-side, and in all that time you never once applied for asylum. You simply carried on as if you were one of us.”

And here by rights my fury, which was coming and going pretty much of its own accord, should have jerked me out of my armchair for another go at his neck or some other part of his flexible, ultra-reasonable anatomy. But when you are trussed up like a f.u.c.king monkey, to use Haj's term, with your hands and ankles taped together, and the whole of you is strapped into a kitchen chair, opportunities for body language are curtailed, as Philip was the first to appreciate, for why else would he be risking an airy smile, and a.s.suring me there is a silver lining even to the darkest cloud?

”The long and the short of it is that the Congolese, we are reliably informed, will in principle, allowing time obviously for administrative necessities' indulgent smile 'and a word in the right ear from our Amba.s.sador in Kinshasa, and a birth certificate more representative of the historical realities, shall we say?” even more indulgent smile 'be delighted to welcome you as their citizen. Welcome you back, I should say, since technically you never left them. Only if that makes sense to you, of course. It's your life we're talking about, not ours. But it certainly makes admirable sense to us, doesn't it, Arthur?”

”Go where he likes, far as we're concerned,” Arthur confirms from the bay. ”Long as it's not here.”

Sam in her motherly way agrees wholeheartedly with both Philip and Arthur. ”It makes perfect sense to Hannah too, Salvo. And why should we hog all their best nurses, anyway? They're desperate. And frankly, Salvo, when you think about it, what has England without Hannah got to offer you? You're not thinking of going back to Penelope, I trust?”

Taking these matters as settled, Philip helps himself to my shoulder-bag, unzips it, and counts the notepads and tapes onto the table one by one.

”Marvellous,” he declares, like a conjuror delighted with his trick. ”And Hannah's two make the full seven. Unless of course you ran off duplicates. Then there really wouldn't be any saving of you. Did you?”

I'm suddenly so drowsy that he can't hear my reply, so he makes me repeat it, I suppose for the microphones.

”Wouldn't have been secure,” I say again, and try to go back to sleep.

”And that was your only copy oiJ'Accuse! I take it? The one you gave to Thorne?” he goes on, in the tone of somebody wrapping up the final details.

I must have nodded.

”Good. Then all we have left to do is smash your hard disk,” he says with relief, and beckons to the blond boys in the doorway, who untie me but leave me on the ground while I get my circulation back.

”So how's Maxie doing these days?” I enquire, hoping to bring a blush to his crease less cheeks.

”Yes, well, poor Maxie, alas for him!” Philip sighs, as if reminded of an old friend. ”As good as they come in that business, they tell me, but oh so headstrong. And silly of him to have jumped the gun.”

”You mean silly of Brinkley,” I suggest, but the name is unfamiliar to him.

There is business, as they say in the theatre world, about hauling me to my feet. After the whack on the head, I am heavier than I was, and one boy is not enough. Once they've got me standing, Arthur places himself in front of me, officiously pulling down the skirts of his jacket. He reaches into his breast pocket, produces a brown envelope marked on her majesty's service and slaps it into my unresisting hand.

”You have accepted this notice in the presence of witnesses,” he announces to a larger room. ”Kindly read it. Now.”

The printed letter, when I am finally able to focus on it, tells me I am an unwanted person. Arthur gives me one of Haj's Parker pens. I make a few pa.s.ses with it and scrawl a ragged version of my signature. n.o.body shakes hands, we're too British, or we were. I fall in between the two boys. We step into the garden and they walk me to the gate. It's a sweltering day. What with the bomb scares and half the city on holiday, there's barely a soul about. A dark green van with no name and no windows has pulled up in front of the house. It's the twin of the van that sat outside the Hakims' boarding house, perhaps the same one. Four men in denims emerge from it and walk towards us. Their leader wears a policeman's cap.

”This one trouble?” he asks.

”Not now he isn't,” says a blond boy.

39Q.

20.

An interpreter, Noah, even a top one, when he has nothing to interpret except himself, is a man adrift. Which is how I've come to write all this down without quite knowing whom I was writing to, but now I know it's you. It will be a few years yet before you are called upon to decipher what Mr. Anderson liked to call my Babylonian cuneiform, and when you do, I hope to be there beside you, showing you how it works, which won't be a problem provided you know your Swahili.

Watch out, my dearest adopted son, for anything in your life marked special. It's a word with many meanings, none good. One day I will read you The Count of Monte Cristo, a favourite of my late Aunt Imelda's. It's about the most special prisoner of them all. There are quite a lot of Monte Cristos in England now, and I am one of them.

A special van has no windows but special facilities on the floor for special detainees who for their safety and comfort are strapped to it for the three-hour journey. Lest they have it in mind to disturb the public peace with screams of protest, a special leather gag is provided at no extra cost.