There are two armchairs in the room, upholstered in the same burgundy leather as the sofas downstairs. A large bay window looks out over the tree-lined Mall, feeding weak, broken sunlight into the room. Lucas has a broad oak desk covered in neat piles of paper and a framed black-and-white photograph of a woman whom I take to be his wife.
Have a seat.
I drop down low into the leather, my back to the window. There is a coffee table in front of me, an ashtray, and a closed red file. Lucas occupies the chair opposite mine. As he sits down, he reaches into the pocket of his jacket for a pen, retrieving a blue Mont Blanc. I watch him, freeing the trapped flaps of my jacket and bringing them back across my chest. The little physical tics that precede an interview.
Milius. Its an unusual name.
Yes.
Your father, he was from the Eastern bloc?
His father. Not mine. Came over from Lithuania in 1940. My family have lived in Britain ever since.
Lucas writes something down on a brown clipboard braced between his thighs.
I see. Why dont we begin by talking about your present job. The CEBDO. Thats not something Ive heard much about.
All job interviews are lies. They begin with the résumé, a sheet of word-processed fictions. About halfway down mine, just below the name and address, Philip Lucas has read the following sentence:
I have been employed as a Marketing Consultant at the Central European Business Development Organization (CEBDO) for the past eleven months.
Elsewhere, lower down, are myriad falsehoods: periods of work experience on national newspapers (Could you do some photocopying please?); a season as a waiter at a leading Genevan hotel; eight weeks at a London law firm; the inevitable charity work.
The truth is that CEBDO is run out of a small, cramped garage in a mews off Edgware Road. The kitchen doubles for a toilet; if somebody has a crap, no one can make a cup of tea for ten minutes. There are five of us: Nik (the boss), Henry, Russell, myself, and Anna. Its very simple. We sit on the phone all day talking to businessmen in centraland now easternEurope. I try to persuade them to part with large sums of money, in return for which we promise to place an advertisement for their operation in a publication known as the Central European Business Review. This, I tell my clients, is a quarterly magazine that enjoys a global circulation of four hundred thousand copies, distributed free around the world. Working purely on commission I can make anything from two to three hundred pounds a week, sometimes more, peddling this story. Nik, I estimate, makes seven or eight times that amount. His only overheads, apart from telephone calls and electricity, are printing costs. These are paid to his brother-in-law who desktop publishes five hundred copies of the Central European Business Review four times a year. These he posts to a few selected embassies across Europe and to all the clients who have placed advertisements in the magazine. Any spares, he throws in the bin.
On paper, its legal.
I look Lucas directly in the eye.
The CEBDO is a fledgling organization that advises new businesses in centraland now easternEurope about the perils and pitfalls of the free market.
He taps his jaw with the bulbous fountain pen.
And its entirely funded by private individuals? Theres no grant from the EC?
Thats right.
Who runs it?
Nikolas Jarolmek. A Pole. His family have lived in Britain since the war.
And how did you get the job?
Through the Guardian. I responded to an advertisement.
Against how many other candidates?
I couldnt say. I was told about a hundred and fifty.
Could you describe an average day at the office?
Broadly speaking, I act in an advisory capacity, either by speaking to people on the telephone and answering any questions they may have about setting up in business in the UK or by writing letters in response to written queries. Im also responsible for editing our quarterly magazine, the Central European Business Review. That lists a number of crucial contact organizations that might prove useful to small businesses that are just starting out. It also gives details of tax arrangements in this country, language schools, that kind of thing.
I see. It would be helpful if you could send me a copy.
Of course.
To explain why I am here.
The interview was set up on the recommendation of a man I barely know, a retired diplomat named Michael Hawkes. Six weeks ago I was staying at my mothers house in Somerset for the weekend, and he came to dinner. He was, she informed me, an old university friend of my fathers.
Until that night I had never met Hawkes, had never heard my mother mention his name. She said that he had spent a lot of time with her and Dad when they were first married in the 1960s. But when the Foreign Office posted him to Moscow, the three of them had lost touch. All this was before I was born.
Hawkes retired from the Diplomatic Service earlier this year to take up a directorship at a British oil company called Abnex. I dont know how Mum tracked down his phone number, but he showed up for dinner alone, no wife, on the stroke of eight oclock.
There were other guests there that night, bankers and insurance brokers in bulletproof tweeds, but Hawkes was a thing apart. He had a blue silk cravat slung around his neck like a noose and a pair of velvet loafers embroidered on the toe with an elaborate coat of arms. There was nothing ostentatiously debonair about any of this, nothing vain; it just looked as if he hadnt taken them off in twenty years. He was wearing a washed-out blue shirt with fraying collar and cuffs and stained silver cuff links that looked as though they had been in his family since the Opium Wars. In short, we got on. We sat next to each other at dinner and talked for close on three hours about everything from politics to infidelity. Three days after the party my mother told me that she had spotted Hawkes in her local supermarket, stocking up on Stolichnaya and tomato juice. Almost immediately, like a task, he asked her if I had ever thought of going in for the Foreign Office. My mother said that she didnt know.
Ask him to give me a ring if hes interested.
So on the telephone that night my mother did what mothers are supposed to do.
You remember Michael, who came to dinner?
Yes, I said, stubbing out a cigarette.
He likes you. Thinks you should try out for the Foreign Office.
He does?
What an opportunity, Alec. To serve Queen and Country.
I nearly laughed at this, but checked it out of respect for her old-fashioned convictions.
Mum, I said, an ambassador is an honest man sent abroad to lie for the good of his country.
She sounded impressed.
Who said that?
I dont know.
Anyway, Michael says to give him a ring if youre interested. Ive got the number. Fetch a pen.
I tried to stop her. I didnt like the idea of her putting shape on my life, but she was insistent.
Not everyone gets a chance like this. Youre twenty-four now. Youve only got that small amount of money your father left you in his Paris account. Its time you started thinking about a career and stopped working for that crooked Pole.
I argued with her a little more, just enough to convince myself that if I went ahead it would be of my own volition and not because of some parental arrangement. Then, two days later, I rang Hawkes.
I argued with her a little more, just enough to convince myself that if I went ahead it would be of my own volition and not because of some parental arrangement. Then, two days later, I rang Hawkes.
It was shortly after nine oclock in the morning. He answered after one ring, the voice crisp and alert.
Michael. Its Alec Milius.
Hello.
About the conversation you had with my mother.
Yes.
In the supermarket.
You want to go ahead?
If thats possible. Yes.
His manner was strangely abrupt. No friendly chat, no excess fat.
Ill talk to one of my colleagues. Theyll be in touch.
Good. Thanks.
Three days later a letter arrived in a plain white envelope marked PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL.
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
No. 46ATerrace
London SW1
PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL
Dear Mr Milius,
It has been suggested to me that you might be interested to have a discussion with us about fast-stream appointments in government service in the field of foreign affairs which occasionally arise in addition to those covered by the Open Competition to the Diplomatic Service. This office has a responsibility for recruitment to such appointments.
If you would like to take this possibility further, I should be grateful if you would please complete the enclosed form and return it to me. Provided that there is an appointment for which you appear potentially suitable, I shall then invite you to an exploratory conversation at this office. Your travel expenses will be refunded at the rate of a standard return rail fare plus tube fares.
I should stress that your acceptance of this invitation will not commit you in any way, nor will it affect your candidature for any government appointments for which you may apply or have applied. As this letter is personal to you, I should be grateful if you could respect its confidentiality.
Yours sincerely,
Philip Lucas
Recruitment Liaison Office
Enclosed was a standard-issue, four-page application form: name and address, education, brief employment history, and so on. I completed it within twenty-four hoursreplete with liesand sent it back to Lucas. He replied by return post, inviting me to the meeting.
I have spoken to Hawkes only once in the intervening period.
Yesterday afternoon I was becoming edgy about what the interview would entail. I wanted to find out what to expect, what to prepare, what to say. So I queued outside a Praed Street phone box for ten minutes, far enough away from the CEBDO office not to risk being seen by Nik. None of them know that I am here today.
Again Hawkes answered on the first ring. Again his manner was curt and to the point. Acting as if people were listening in on the line.
I feel as if Im going into this thing with my trousers down, I told him. I know nothing about whats going on.
He sniffed what may have been a laugh and replied, Dont worry about it. Everything will become clear when you get there.
So theres nothing you can tell me? Nothing I need to prepare for?
Nothing at all, Alec. Just be yourself. It will all make sense later on.
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 Hawkess 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.