Mexico Set

by Len Deighton

comes “… but learn through order how to conquer time’s swift flight.”’

‘The point I’m making, my dear Werner, is the natural repulsion any Englishman would feel at the notion of inflicting order upon his time. Especially inflicting order upon his leisure time or, as is possibly implied here, his retirement.’

‘For Englishmen order does not go well with leisure. They like muddle and disarray.

look at myself and I wonder where I can really call home. Do you know what I mean, Werner?’ ‘Of course I know what you mean. I’m a Jew.’ He looked at Konrad. ‘Two coffees; two schnapps.’

dreaded all the departmental repercussions that would emerge when I surfaced again. And I was far from sure whether Frank would be able to help. Or whether he would want to help.

The last sentence here -IMO.

you don’t have to read books to get smart, and Zena was as smart as a street urchin climbing under the flap of a circus tent. Certainly Zena could teach me a thing or two, as she did that evening.

At what point does sensible caution become clinical paranoia. At what point does a trusted employee become ‘a considered risk’, and then finally a ‘non-critical employment only’ category.

It’s secret. London like to have copies of them if they can get them. I doubt if we’ve got a complete collection of them on our files, although perhaps the CIA have. The Americans like to have everything complete – the complete works of Shakespeare, a complete dinner service of Meissen, a complete set of lenses for the Olympus camera, and garages crammed with copies of

the National Geographic going back for twenty-five years.’

‘I wouldn’t like to think you’re encouraging anyone to think the D-G is in anything but vigorous mental and physical health,’ said Frank. ‘He’s been under a heavy strain. When the time is ripe he’ll go, of course. But we’re all very keen that it should not look like a response to the government’s request.’

Anothet Joe…

Billy to him and he had him swimming in no time at all. I asked him how he did it, because Billy had always been frightened of the water. The old man said he never told the kids to go into the water. He let them come along and watch the others. Sometimes it took ages before a child would summon up the courage to get into the pool but he always let them make their own decision about it.’

‘Your father would have enjoyed that shindig you put on for us. He wouldn’t have approved, of course. Not your father’s style; we both know that. But he would have enjoyed it, Bernard.’ Why did that last remark of Frank’s please me so much? Do we never shed the tyranny of our father’s love?

Feeling sorry for myself. I wandered into the nursery and fingered Sally’s ‘Joke Book’: ‘How do you catch a monkey? – Hang upside-down in a tree and make a noise like a banana.’ And in Billy’s book of children’s verse I found Kipling: Five and twenty ponies, Trotting through the dark – Brandy for the Parson, ’Baccy for the Clerk;

Laces for a lady, letters for a spy, Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!

went over to the air-conditioner. I held my hand in front of the outlet but the air was still not much cooled. ‘It makes a lot of noise but doesn’t work very well,’ explained Werner. ‘The Mexicans call them “politicians”.’

I’d even allowed time for the traffic jam. The traffic slowed and then came to a complete standstill. The fire-eater was still at work. He blew a fierce tongue of flame into the air. It was darker now and the flame lit up all the cars, rippled in the paintwork and shone in all the windows. ‘It’s fantastic the things some people do for a living,’ said Stinnes.