coffee and croissant in Soho as a prelude to grand larceny. Which is
where he now sat, sipping his cappuccino in the morning sunshine and staring blankly at
the passers-by. If I’m such a cold fish, how did I talk myself into this God-awful
situation?
For answers to this and allied questions,
his mind turned as of habit to Giles Oakley, his enigmatic mentor and self-appointed
patron.
*
Berlin.
The neophyte diplomat Bell, Second Secretary
(Political), has just arrived at the British Embassy on his first overseas posting. The
Iraq War looms. Britain has signed up to it, but denies it has done so. Germany is
dithering on the brink. Giles Oakley, the embassy’s
éminence grise
–
darting, impish Oakley, dyed in all the oceans, as the Germans say – is Toby’s
section chief. Oakley’s job, amid a myriad others less defined: to supervise the
flow of British intelligence to German liaison. Toby’s: to be his spear-carrier.
His German is already good. As ever, he’s a fast learner. Oakley takes him under
his wing, marches him round the ministries and opens doors for him that would otherwise
have remained locked against one of his lowly status. Are Toby and Giles spies? Not at
all! They are blue-chip British career diplomats who have found themselves, like many
others, at the trading tables of the free world’s vast intelligence
marketplace.
The only problem is that the further Toby is
admitted into these inner councils, the greater his abhorrence of the war about to
happen. He rates it illegal, immoral and doomed. His discomfort is compounded by the
knowledge that even the most supine of his schoolfriends are out on the street
protesting their outrage. So are his parents who, in their Christian socialist decency,
believe that the purpose of diplomacy should be to prevent war rather than to promote
it. His mother emails him in despair: Tony Blair – once her idol – has betrayed us all.
His father, adding his stern Methodist voice, accuses Bush and Blair jointly of the sin
of pride and intends to compose a parable about a pair of peacocks who, bewitched by
their own reflections, turn into vultures.
Little wonder then that with such voices
dinning in his ear beside his own, Toby resents having to sing the war’s praises
to, of all people, the Germans, even urging them to join the dance. He too voted heart
and soul for Tony Blair, and now finds hisprime minister’s
public postures truthless and emetic. And with the launch of
Operation Iraqi
Freedom
, he boils over:
The scene is the Oakleys’ diplomatic
villa in Grunewald. It is midnight as another ball-breaking
Herrenabend
– power
dinner for male bores – drags to its close. Toby has acquired a decent crop of German
friends in Berlin, but tonight’s guests are not among them. A tedious federal
minister, a terminally vain titan of Ruhr industry, a Hohenzollern pretender and a
quartet of free-loading parliamentarians have finally called for their limousines.
Oakley’s diplomatic
Ur
-wife, Hermione, having supervised proceedings from
the kitchen over a generous gin, has taken herself to bed. In the sitting room, Toby and
Giles Oakley rake over the night’s takings for any odd scrap of indiscretion.
Abruptly, Toby’s self-control hits the
buffers:
‘So actually screw, sod and fuck the
whole bloody thing,’ he declares, slamming down his glass of Oakley’s very
old Calvados.
‘The whole bloody thing being
what
exactly?’ Oakley, the fifty-five-year-old leprechaun enquires,
stretching out his little legs in luxurious ease, which is a thing he does in
crisis.
With unshakable urbanity, Oakley hears Toby
out, and as impassively delivers himself of his acid, if affectionate, response:
‘Go ahead, Toby. Resign. I share your
callow personal opinions. No sovereign nation such as ours should be taken to war under
false pretences, least of all by a couple of
where he now sat, sipping his cappuccino in the morning sunshine and staring blankly at
the passers-by. If I’m such a cold fish, how did I talk myself into this God-awful
situation?
For answers to this and allied questions,
his mind turned as of habit to Giles Oakley, his enigmatic mentor and self-appointed
patron.
*
Berlin.
The neophyte diplomat Bell, Second Secretary
(Political), has just arrived at the British Embassy on his first overseas posting. The
Iraq War looms. Britain has signed up to it, but denies it has done so. Germany is
dithering on the brink. Giles Oakley, the embassy’s
éminence grise
–
darting, impish Oakley, dyed in all the oceans, as the Germans say – is Toby’s
section chief. Oakley’s job, amid a myriad others less defined: to supervise the
flow of British intelligence to German liaison. Toby’s: to be his spear-carrier.
His German is already good. As ever, he’s a fast learner. Oakley takes him under
his wing, marches him round the ministries and opens doors for him that would otherwise
have remained locked against one of his lowly status. Are Toby and Giles spies? Not at
all! They are blue-chip British career diplomats who have found themselves, like many
others, at the trading tables of the free world’s vast intelligence
marketplace.
The only problem is that the further Toby is
admitted into these inner councils, the greater his abhorrence of the war about to
happen. He rates it illegal, immoral and doomed. His discomfort is compounded by the
knowledge that even the most supine of his schoolfriends are out on the street
protesting their outrage. So are his parents who, in their Christian socialist decency,
believe that the purpose of diplomacy should be to prevent war rather than to promote
it. His mother emails him in despair: Tony Blair – once her idol – has betrayed us all.
His father, adding his stern Methodist voice, accuses Bush and Blair jointly of the sin
of pride and intends to compose a parable about a pair of peacocks who, bewitched by
their own reflections, turn into vultures.
Little wonder then that with such voices
dinning in his ear beside his own, Toby resents having to sing the war’s praises
to, of all people, the Germans, even urging them to join the dance. He too voted heart
and soul for Tony Blair, and now finds hisprime minister’s
public postures truthless and emetic. And with the launch of
Operation Iraqi
Freedom
, he boils over:
The scene is the Oakleys’ diplomatic
villa in Grunewald. It is midnight as another ball-breaking
Herrenabend
– power
dinner for male bores – drags to its close. Toby has acquired a decent crop of German
friends in Berlin, but tonight’s guests are not among them. A tedious federal
minister, a terminally vain titan of Ruhr industry, a Hohenzollern pretender and a
quartet of free-loading parliamentarians have finally called for their limousines.
Oakley’s diplomatic
Ur
-wife, Hermione, having supervised proceedings from
the kitchen over a generous gin, has taken herself to bed. In the sitting room, Toby and
Giles Oakley rake over the night’s takings for any odd scrap of indiscretion.
Abruptly, Toby’s self-control hits the
buffers:
‘So actually screw, sod and fuck the
whole bloody thing,’ he declares, slamming down his glass of Oakley’s very
old Calvados.
‘The whole bloody thing being
what
exactly?’ Oakley, the fifty-five-year-old leprechaun enquires,
stretching out his little legs in luxurious ease, which is a thing he does in
crisis.
With unshakable urbanity, Oakley hears Toby
out, and as impassively delivers himself of his acid, if affectionate, response:
‘Go ahead, Toby. Resign. I share your
callow personal opinions. No sovereign nation such as ours should be taken to war under
false pretences, least of all by a couple of
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