The Russia House part 2

The second part of The Russia House contains passages which resonate with me strongly, more than in any novel for sometime and which also aroused several memories. My reading has been slow as a consequence, slower than my plan for the week justifies, so I have struggled to complete the reading and writing of the second part when had hoped to finish before weekend.

I do not know if Le Carré visited Russia during the Gorbachev years but the image be portrays of Russian life appears authentic, especially that of Katya. She is woman who brought the manuscript of Goethe to the Audio Fair but otherwise she remained a mystery and even in the film while she becomes the lover of Barley and continues to be an important link with the author of the manuscript, she remains secondary to these two characters although all three are in the story foreground with the machinations of the secret services of the UK, the CIA and Russia secondary.

It was when I read of Katya in the book I began to see her more than Goethe as representing mother Russia at the crossroads of a new era. Knowing the ending in the film, I suddenly realised that perhaps like Renko’s woman in Gorky Park, she could return to Russia once the transition was completed. But the difference between the two women is otherwise significant.

Katya is a woman of ideals and passions but she is also rational and practical. We learn a lot about her in what I regard as the second part of the book commencing with chapter 6 page 143 when Barley arrives in Moscow and makes contact with her.

Katya juggles three lives, those as a mother of twins, sharing her small home space with her uncle, there is her work and then the independent woman of passions and spirit but how and why she came to risk her life because of Barley and Goethe is not immediately clear,
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She wants, as Le Carré says, to keep the paper thin walls between the parts of her life separate and understandably she has reservations about Barley because he threatens the immediate life and well being of her family, and her anxiety is reinforced when he arrives, wants to meet her socially and begins to question not only about Goethe but about herself when she is just the Go Between and cannot wait for him to go. Unlike Renko’s girl she is not driven by the desire to leave Russia, but to change it and to survive.

However we also learn a great deal about her present and past life and although she does not know it, she is open to someone like Barley, or anyone who can fast track a different life to the one she leads and also for her children, although she is also not a woman who lives for her children.

She explains the several levels of deals required to obtain material to make two cowboy style shirt as presents for the birthday of the twins. She has gained two tickets for a concert from the editor at the publishing firm where she works who believed he had made a drunken pass at her which she had resented but in reality it had been nothing, but she did not tell him that because of what she could do with the tickets. Then she traded the tickets for 24 bars of foreign soap in their colour wrapping paper and these in turn she was to trade for the cloth with the manager of the clothing shop who she believed had hoped for a different kind of transaction with her. She was to make up the shirts on the new East German sewing machine which she had traded for the ancient but sought after family Singer.

We learn that apartments, she has one on the site of former Aeroport, are allocated with precise spacing according to her family size, work, political and social position and where the partition walls between flats are such that you are affected by the lives of others as how you behave also affects them..... an alarm clock, a dog wanting walkies, a child’s incessant cry, extra loud music at a party and so on.

On the whole it was space, or the lack of it which also affected me, the sharing of a bed with three adult women throughout most of my childhood until starting secondary school. We had the top floor flat in the requisitioned house as well as sharing the garden and the walls of the 1950’s first council built three story twin blocks of flats we were allocated because the owners wanted their home back was not just strongly built but were built to look private and still do.

It was my noise playing the clarinet in airing cupboard which was the nuisance or playing my records as loud as possible using a footstall as a drum to beat out the rhythm of Sing Sing Sing from the Benny Goodman twin albums I purchased soon after going to work at the age of 16.

It was only later through my work that the nature of living in Council flats and housing estates was brought home. The aunties had been so proud of the three bed and then their two bed plain four walls and low ceiling flats where I would stay hearing the shoutings of the wild young single parent next door to my bedroom and to the noise of the family above. I learned how accommodation and location reflected how others saw themselves and affected how you saw yourself, and helped define what you wanted.

Katya had only a single bed in a room where there was only space for a wardrobe. The twins had to sleep in the same bed and her uncle in a made up bed in the lounge. I know that feeling only too well and even now living among by my ten roomed three storey terrace with walk in loft I could do with more space! If I will the euro lottery I will build the space to curate my work, to live and to entertain, with space for professional contemporary creative to work and go live and perhaps if the cash is sufficient, our own restaurant bar, jazz club but there would have to be sufficient to ensure its continuation after my death as well as for the family

We also learned in those opening pages that Katya had more than one lover, first a temperamental musician who kept bees illegally on the roof thus enabling her to give a jar of honey to a neighbour who recently lost her mother and whose father had been admitted hospital with a brain tumour.

We do not know as yet, what had happened to Katya’s parents or how her uncle came to live with her although they get all well and helps with looking after the children.

Later under pressure from Barley we also learn that she was married to someone she knew from childhood in Leningrad where she had been to university and developed a flair for languages and which enabled her to speak Jane Austin English better than most English folk. She had come to Moscow with her husband after their marriage where he managed a timber firm making prefabricated houses. He was a practical man who knew how to catch fish through ice, sleep in the snow and skin a rabbit from his early childhood in Siberia. She had been attracted to such a man rather than someone of the mind. I remember from my early professional life that some of my female colleagues were also attracted in this way, to a farmer perhaps someone earthy without complexes, a military man or a surgeon.

Another aspects of life in the city then and I suspect now is that everyone was trying to make additional money if they had connections. We would call the black market or street economy. The taxi that she takes and drives quickly in torrential rain despite the young driver forgetting to attach the windscreen wipes because if you leave them on they are taken, asks if she interested in fresh fruit, coffee, vodka, offered no doubt in the expectation she had only her body to trade. Earlier she mentions having a connection with access to the farms allowed to sell some of the produce, and could supply fresh chickens and we well as fresh eggs. One can understand how quickly such a people would take to capitalism at different levels, and those with the best connections would become the oligarchs while others the establish businesses of the mafia gangster.

I was also struck by the greater link between Russian and British men than say British men with the western Continental Europe. The continental Europeans like the wine and enjoy a glass or two with meals on at the pavement cafe but as people they do not go in for the binge drinking of English and the Russians where both nations have not just a high number of alcoholics but a growing number of alcoholics who become social and family problems. In the UK while the incidence of diseases has reduced especially from smoking lung cancer that from alcohol has jumped several fold.

I can understand how Barley liked the Russians but not why over the past decade so many Russian woman would like to become British wives to get away from the drinking of Russian men!

After the meeting with Barley we learn the steps she takes to receive a phone call from Goethe and it is during this passage that Le Carré communicates the fear and suspicion and the risks she and Goethe are taking. It is also evident that they have been lovers but when, for how long and if still, she only later is to answer.

Back in his hotel room with its noising plumbing systems and convulsing ice box Barley had a different perspective fearing that he disappointed as a morally bankrupt man without convictions and that he had not shown immediate interest in her as a woman despite her beauty and intellect. She appeared to have run away from him which made her more interested to him.

He has a fantasy or two about her and is disappointed when his “editor” arrives and they have a conversation in which the assistant attempts to impart knowledge which Barley finds it difficult to comprehend tired and drunk until she rings and arranges to see him the following day and his assistant speculates whether she had written the manuscripts or was in contact with their author. It occurs that we in the west in the midst of the digital era, the phone and computer hacking, we should learn to expect surveillance as they did then in Russia and probably still do. The theme of my work as I frequently explain is that what we do and say can be viewed and heard by anyone. anywhere, anytime with the technology. But we are also in the era of the exhibitionist and the voyeur as I learned when visiting an independently run camera and video surveillance unit.

Meanwhile in the Russia House the events are monitored and distributed to those on the Bluebird circulation list which bemused and worried the Brits because Langley’s list included the Pentagon Scientific Liaison Board and the White House Academic Advisory team.

There were elaborate precautions taken over the next meeting between Barley and Katya after calling for at her home. He had taken her to a safe house which Barley pretended was the flat an artist friend who was away although the kind of artist had not been explained which made questions by Katya difficult. She resisted all his questions about Goethe or whoever had provided the manuscripts. He asked if she knew their content which she summarised as “my country’s involvement in anti human weapons of mass destruction over many years. It paints a portrait of corruption and incompetence in all fields of the defence industrial complex. Also of criminal mismanagement and ethical shortcomings. These he felt were as much her feelings as those explained to her by the author

Barley was able to establish that her contact was a scientist who believed there was little time left and therefore need for openness and honesty was great. She was unable to say how he knew so much as the information covered so many areas of interest, If we see one goal clearly we may advance one step. If we see all goals at once, we shall not advance at all.

I have been mulling over this point for sometime. I need to have an overview of my work, my life, my year, my day, the world, but if I spend too much time contemplating the enormity of the challenge I do little, whereas if I set tasks for the day, the week, the year and proceed to their accomplishment I make progress and am more content with what I do.

The Author is reported as saying there are times when actions must come first and we must consider consequence only when they occur. I agree. Too much consideration of potential outcomes may well freeze action and let others dictate events and their outcomes. However if there is opportunity it is wise to consider outcomes and therefore avoid blind alleys, pitfalls and bobby traps.

“We regard the destruction of Russia as preferable to the destruction of all mankind,” was quite a statement for anyone to make and I am not sure if anyone would believe this in reality.

We are tribal by nature and inheritance and the idea of sacrificing ourselves and all we know for the sake of others we do not know it a concept impossible for me to accept.

She went on; he says “the greatest burden is the past. We cannot execute the past. He says if we cannot execute our past, how shall we construct our future? We shall not build a new world until we have got rid of the mentalities of the old. In order to express truth we must also be the apostles of negation. He quotes Turgenev, A nihilist is a person who does not take anything for granted however much that principle is revered.”

I have read Turgenev from my 30 book series of Russian writers. I have Fathers and Sons in one volume, The Hunting Sketches and perhaps his most well known the Virgin Soil.

I have also written many times about the advertisement I placed in the New Statement about being a nihilist waiting for the bomb to drop and which led to two kinds of replies with a well known journalist for the London evening Standards suspecting that I was advertising wine and seeking a complimentary case to a beautiful young woman with who I became her lover, to a female journalist who took my play to read and never gave it back and to another young woman art student who came for a weekend to Ruskin bringing her friend who proved to be the most beautiful young woman I have ever met who came for a weekend with me to stay with a college friend at Liverpool and also to Birmingham, although we did not become lovers because of our chosen paths.

Katya said “I am not a nihilist. I am a humanist. It is given to us to play our part for the future, we must play it.” Yes I understand this but we must play the part well to the best of physical, psychological intellectual, spiritual abilities.

Barley pressed to now how long Goethe had talk like this. ““He had always been idealistic. That is his nature. He has always been extremely critical in a constructive way,” she explained. That also strikes a strong chord with me because although at times I have disturbed others it is because I have recognised better and best, hated my mediocrity in comparison, but always looked for ways to improve. Some will argue that I became addicted to experience, and yet the long hours spent alone in contemplation counter this, although I am a personality mixture of conviction, determination and completing finishing which can become an addiction.

Katya reveals that the authority has believed for a time that the possession of annihilation was so terrible they would have the effect of abolishing war. I have never thought that and if anything the weapons have had no impact on whether nations possessing such weapons wage war or not. The author has changed more in line with the USA thing that the greater the possession of weapons held the greater the capacity for peace.

She went to say that he become inspired by Perestroika and the prospect for world peace but he is not a Utopian and not passive. “He knows nothing will come of its own accord.”

This I have long understand that it does not matter what is ones talent, one potential you have to push yourself out into the world and hope to make early contact with someone, those who can help bridge the gulf from where you are to where you want to be.

He knows that our people are deluded and lack collective power (thus it is ever so). He goes onto say that the New Revolution must be imposed from above. By intellectuals, By artists By Administrators, By Scientists.” My response is hmm. The evidence from studies and my own experience is that planned change never works out as designed or hoped for unless you begin with clean slate and recruit to the organisation only those who understand what is required and are in agreement with it, otherwise it quickly becomes perverted to the prejudices and inclinations of those on whom the change is imposed. You cannot stand guard 24/7 on all those involved or employ others to do so. This is the fallacy of legislative government. Too many British politicians have thought all they had to do is pass a law, provide the funds and Hey Presto the law is put into effective practice. But I agree with the need for the leadership of the educated and creative but only if you can reach agreement. My mind immediately goes back to the first meetings of the Committee 100 when the majority of the Committee assembled and quickly was reduced to a steering working group of around 30 to 40 but even then power was taken by a couple of individuals and one in particular. The same with the Direct Action Committee.

What is worst is the uprising of the proletariat usually led by a fanatic or two and where the force of the proletariat is used to exterminate any opposition or anyone likely to oppose but who in turn also become as exploited themselves as before with the best literary example is George Orwell’s Animal Farm saying it all.

Barley is then able draw from her new information about Goethe as well as to be quoted his own words back from their meeting. “If there is to be hope we must all betray our countries”.

She explained that she had been sixteen and he 30 when they first met. She was studying French and German in her last year at school and was the star pupil. She had read Erich Fromm. I am impressed by this concept as someone who read Erich also at a young age: The Sane Society and the Art of Loving in particular.
She had also read Ortega and Kafka and seen Dr Strangelove in the era of 1968. She saw herself as a peace dreamer and a revolutionary. Her father was the Professor of Humanities at the University. Having taken down the wall around her she now talked and talked and this affected in a way he had not anticipated.

She had wanted to be with French students when they had rioted. They were proud of the American students who protested against the Vietnam War and they were regarded her comrades. Barley thought, I will never leave you.

He mother had died of TB and was already ill when she was born.

She had been taken by her father to see “A bout de Souffe” at a film club and it there he and introduced her to Goethe, real name Yakov. Her father said the man was his genius of physics and she had found him beautiful. She had fallen in love with him and after the show he had joined her with friends drinking coffee and then she had invited herself back to his apartment and they had become lovers, telling Barley the delicacy of their intimacy.

Her father had stayed up waiting and she talked to him as a stranger unable to sleep that night only to learn the following morning that Russian Tanks had gone into Prague. Yakov had got drunk and appeared to Katya to have thrown in the towel. She was ashamed and disappointed. She said she had addressed him like a Stendhal heroine saying he had taken an immoral decision and that she would never speak to him again. She had reminded him of EM Forester who they both admired( A Passage to India, A Room with a View, Howard’s End and Where Angels Fear to Tread are the most well known of his seven novels because of the films)

She had married Volodya but she had continued a relationship with Yakov, meeting in secret, occasionally, and with love changing to sex. She had ceased contact when pregnant with the twins but it was Barley and the effect on Yakov as Goethe which had brought the two together and now three people were connected in the circle. For some reason Barley asked if Yakov had children which someone stopped Katya in her flow. She revealed that he was against having children because parents make victims of their children and he did not want to add to the number of victims. Who said to someone bent on changing society? First do no wrong? A guiding rule for every social worker as well as politician.

The inquisition was coming to an end as he asked about how they kept in contact and if he was afraid of his situation. Barley had with him a series of prepared questions which he fired at her in quick succession and which should have alerted her that these were not the questions one would expect from a publisher. Her answers were all no. It was only then that she suggested he put the questions directly ad Yakov wished to meet Barley in Leningrad on the coming Friday.

He proposed three places at three times and you must keep to each. He will keep one and he asked me to say that he loves you. They then had a meal drained as two exhausted lovers.

Le Carré The Russia House !

In this break from the Leveson Inquiry there is opportunity to catch up on a number of activities and projects including the work of John Le Carré in book and film, and with of my favourite Le Carré film The Russia House because of the romantic, happy and amusing nature of the story which is devoid of grimness of much of confrontation between the intelligence services of the USA, GB and the Soviets headed by Russia. The opportunity was also taken to read the book which functions at a different level.

The film is even suitable for watching in Valentine’s week unlike the reality of the cold war even under glasnost and perestroika where double dealings, betrayals and death continued. Whether loss of lives, expenditure in time and effort was helpful to any of the sides is debatable especially to those of us on the outside gleaned from news reports, literature, film and TV.

The action commences in Moscow at an international attempt to interest the Russians in the English Language Talking Book Audio cassette Fair. The film opens when a woman arrives at the adjacent stand to that hired by Bartholomew Scott Blair, the part owner and manager of a book publishing firm of Abercrombie and Blair. She asks Niki Landau (not to be confused with Andreas Niki Lauder the Formula I racing driver) if he will take a book Barley Scott Blair as he is known who she says he has agreed to publish. Barley nick named after the basic substance of beer was not at the Fair because the aunts who partnered him in the family business, helping to keep it afloat and in the life style which he had accustomed, decided against branching out into audio tapes so he has instead gone to his bolt hole in Lisbon unknown to the intelligence man who is the voice of the book.

The book was first published in 1989 the year when it can be said the Soviet empire disintegrated in a series of independence moves as President Korbechev also attempted to move Russia into a new order. (I have Gail Sheehy’s 1991 biography). The arms race and its industry remained at the forefront of Western economies and politics, at the time that Polish but London based Niki brought the package back to London and not finding Barley had contacted several government departments until making contact with British intelligence.

In the film the role of the character Niki Lander does not impact to the same effect as in the book although even here the role is described as prologue. Niki is fed up with making depressing trips where income rarely balanced costs and he longs for a more comfortable life. Although the persistence of the woman has annoyed him and he was a little disappointed when she declined his invitation to a nice dinner he accepts her assignment because her plea reached to the nice being within his outward shell.

In his search to find Barley followed also by the UK intelligence service we also learn more in the book about Barley that he was married for instance and has two grown children with their own lives, and that he belonged to a London club in addition to his ability to play jazz clarinet and chess against all comers.

The book also explains the lengths Niki has to go to make contact with the intelligence service and the lengths they then go to quiz him about the woman and her package. He had played his part well, getting her to pretend she was passing to him the book in an anonymous plastic bag as a gift, the possession of which marked her as different from the average Muscovite who carried a string bag, in fact as he disclosed he was certain her manner, her dress suggested Stalingrad/St Petersburg as it has now returned to its original name and Russia’s second city and home of the greatest museum art gallery in the world.

The book also raises the discussion about what British intelligence should do with Niki as he had flipped through the three notebooks with over two hundred pages of text and grasped their potential significance without understanding the pages of formulae and technical notes. He was told to cancel the arranged visit to Gdansk so they could cover everything that had happened in minute detail. They wanted to know if he had been given special treatment on his way back home which might indicate that the book was a plant and they wanted to know about anyone and everyone that he might have mentioned the package and its delivery to him.

Fortunately for him he said nothing to anyone but attempted to find Barley and then persisted until making contact with the right people. At the end of the process with muttering dark threats he is presented with a cheque for £100000 financed by the Americans, told his overseas trips have ended and his movements will have to be monitored even with signing the Official Secrets Act. For some the requirements would be onerous but for Niki all his dreams had come true and he was able to open a video cassette store which did interest the police from time to time, by implication because of the material he sometimes stocked and sold, but nothing which his minders could not sort out for him. The only thing that was missing is that his path never crossed with Barley again, a precondition of the settlement but something he wished would happen in order to show his appreciation of the man until his death he believed was a professional spy, for how could you judge someone who appeared in a drunken stupor most of the time and then beat anyone and everyone at a game of chess.

The reason for this emerged during the first part of the book when it is revealed that Barley has an extraordinary precise memory of conversations was well of events. Fifty years ago as part of training I learned to make a process record in which I recorded as much of the conversations and interaction with a client I could remember and then applied my knowledge and in time experience to make an analysis of the problem, the situation, the judgement which could be made.

The intelligence service is able to trace the whereabouts of Barley from his bank statements which shows he rent of the property in Lisbon Portugal. They find him at a cafe playing Chess and he is invited to accompany the man from the Embassy where he is taken to meet a group with includes the CIA who are quite open. In the film the man from the Embassy Ned is played by James Fox and another of the group is played by Ken Russell the film Director who died last year. Martin Clunes is the technician recording the conversation in an adjacent room.

The film foreshortens through visual presentation Barley’s realization that while he has never met the Russian woman Katya played by Michelle Pfeiffer he has met someone who is likely to be the author of the manuscripts.

He explains that on his previous visit for a book Fair, the Sunday after drinking all night they had gone to Peredelkino in Jumbo’s car. to the grave of Boris Pasternak and then he had got into conversation with a man. Jumbo by the way was a Russian Gold Card man, closet Scottish Fascist and Black Belt Freemason. Peredelkino the writers dacha village.

There were some two hundred at the grave of Boris Pasternak which was steeped in flowers. A plane flew over and back no doubt taking long lens photos of those below.. Barley remembered he had quoted the lines from the Nobel Prize winning speech.


“Like a beast in the pen I’m cut off.
From my friends. Freedom, the sun
But the hunters are gaining ground
I’ve nowhere else to run”

Barley remembers that the man who spoke to them was Nezhdanov which those from the visiting Russia House were immediately able to amplify that Vitaly Nezhdanov had become a latter day hero with three one act plays opening in Moscow within the coming few weeks. Barley is pleased to have this intelligence having taken a great liking to the man with their visit to a Dacha, a big rambling house with some thirty people present; this was reduced to probably a dozen for the film. The hostess was a poet. And they spoke English which was essential given that Barley had only a handful of words which is surprising given his memory but there we are. Husband edited a science magazines and Nezhdanov was a the brother in law. That had sat together at lunch at one table drinking and talk about truth.

The closest I got to such a gathering was when at Ruskin when I was part of small group of politically orientated students who also had a sense of history and an international outlook. What happen to them I wonder? That there have not been other such occasions in the rst of my life is cause for regret.

The man was called Goethe, not his real name, but someone protected by the group, a genius, this was the man with whom conversation had taken place which Barley considered led to the manuscript being delivered to him.

Disarmament was not a political matter or military he had said but of human will. This was an important statement which resonated with me given my experience and actions. I would have added that politics ought to be about will but is has become the art of the possible with the Party framework and international capitalism. He had spoken well of Gorbachev arguing that the West had to find the other half of him while the East had to recognise the half they had.

In response to those who said the bomb had kept the peace for forty years he had asked what Peace?

They had gone in after the meal and the drinking to listen to Count Basie whose records I have on one original Long Play and a 3 disk boxed set as well individual numbers among my collection of Big Band Jazz. It was an interesting choice because the more likely artist could have been expected to have been Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman or Glen Miller if they were locked into pre World War one jazz swing, Basis was his own man and style but also main stream

Count Basie Dance Session
Straight Life, Basie Goes West Softly with Feeling, Peace Pipe, Blues Go Away, Cherry Point, Bubble, Right On, The Blues done come back and Plymouth Rock

And a 3 dick Box Set
Oh Lady be Good, Going to Chicago Blues, Live and Love Tonight, Love me or Leave Me, Rock a bye Basie, Baby dont tell on me, Taxi War Dance, Jump for me, Twelfth Street Rag, Nobody knows, Pound cake, Ho long blues, Dickie’s Dream, Lester leaps in, The apple jump, I left my baby, Volcano.

The devil and the deep blue sea, I never knew, Tickle Toe, Louisiana, Easy Does it, Let me see, Blow Top, Gone with the Wind, Super Chief, You betcha my life, Down down down, Tune Town Shuffle, I’m tired of waiting for you, Basie Boogie, Fancy meeting you, My old flame, Ton Thumb, Take me back baby, All of Me, One o’clock jump’

And the angels sing, Bolero at the Savoy You can count on me, Your and your love, What goes up must come down, Fiesta in Blue, Something new, Sub-deb Blues, Boogie woogie, Bubbles, How high the moon, Your’re not the kind, Jumpin at the woodside, Jive at five, Yesterdays, Blee Blop Blues, Straight Life, 16 men swinging, Nails, Two Franks. I have also experience the Count Basie at the former Grand Croydon Theatre, usually a cinema with several thousand seats but which hosted a number of visiting jazz band sin the later 1950’s and 1960’s.

He had gone to sleep in deck chair on the veranda with a blanket wrapped around him waking at midnight wondering where he was. It was Goethe talking to him saying that some things are necessary evils. All victims are equal none more equal than others. Both these were quotes back from what Barley had said at lunchtime. He had asked Goethe who he was with the response a moral outcast. I trade in defiled theories he added. Nice to meet a writer Barley had said asking what kind of a writer he was. There was no denial. History, lies, comedies and romances came the reply.

Asked where his idea came from he had spoken at length mentioning the obscene fantasies of politicians and generals of all nations and from liberated intellects from pressed ganged Nazi scientists, from the great Soviet people and after other thoughts adding occasionally from distinguished western intellectuals who happen to drop into my life,

He said he believed every word Barley had said at the dinner and promised that if he was not a spy he would promise something in return.

The gathering around Barley from the Circus and the CIA had then considered the material in the notebooks, its potential significance and Barley’s appreciation. It was decided that Barley should return and attempt to meet Goethe and that he should have an assistant, an Editor on the books so to speak of the Publishing firm and for this it was necessary to successfully spin a story to the Aunts. He had been taken back to England to a safe house cottage in Knightsbridge chosen because Barley had no connections in the area. with the costs borne by the Americans because they were going take control. There was three weeks of intense preparations at the end of which there was a special meal. A salmon trout on a silver dish two bottle of Sancerre and a rare single malt whiskey. I drank my first bottle of Sancerre late in life at a great meal in Le Touquet in him 1980’s with a whole crab starter and a ain course fish which I have listed somewhere having retained he bills followed by a double crème caramel and coffee. It tasted my first single malt at a club in Edinburgh one afternoon, bought by the chairman of the Dunoon CND after a meeting of the Scottish CND Committee.


Before departing the Circus people had checked his flat for his likely state of mind and discovered he had written from Stevie Smith

I am not so afraid of the dark night
As the friends I do not know.

And I learn by going where I have to go, which applies to me more often than not.

In Moscow Katya had been alerted and eagerly awaited his arrival.

Great Expectations part 3

And I come to recount the final part of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens in book form and the 1946 film and BBC 3 part series of 2012. Again as with the second part I must begin with something of a correction although this time I was more accurate than previously in stating that Herbert Pocket was overseas when Abel Magwitch descended upon the amazed and disappointed Pip. Technically Herbert was abroad but travelling back from his long absence, arriving some five days after Pip adjusted to reality of his position.

His visitor had been described to all those who attended to his rooms and as his uncle and on advising Jaggers of the development he immediately took his cue from Jaggers not to imply that that the contact was in person as it would have been the duty of the officer of the courts to report the arrival of someone who had been told they would be executed if returning to land of birth and the sentencing.

It was a few days later Abel told Pip how he had encountered Mr Campeyson. Abel admitted that he had lived as a tramp, begging, sometimes thieving and working when he could. Twenty years ago at the Epsom races he had encountered Campeyson a man who had been to a public school and had learning and dressed and lived as a gentleman but who also lived outside the law, forging, swindling and passing on stolen banknotes and such like. Campeyson lived with his wife and friend, also met at Epson who was dying. Abel and Campeyson formed an association but when they were apprehended and charged with a felon it appears that Campeyson made much of his background and lack of previous conviction, placing all responsibility on Abel where the judge and court were against him so he was convicted and sent away for life but the lead criminal escaped with a little sentence. Thus Abel had determined to escape to smash the man in the face and worse and thus he had been captured after being showed kindness by Pip and determined to repay that kindness.

Pip had set about visiting Estella to explain his new situation but also to declare his love but on reaching Richmond found she had returned to Miss Haversham on her own something she had not done before or indicated she would do again soon. He had made his way to the Inn on the excuse of keeping a promise to visit Joe and discovered the presence of Bentley Drummle who was scathing about the location saying he was bored and dismissing Pip’s suggestion that the country was similar to that of Shropshire, the man’s home county.

He then visited Miss Haversham who expressed surprise at his visit and who he reproached for misleading him by giving the impression she was his benefactor. Then as Estella reminded of her warnings in the past about the true nature of her mother by adoption and they way she been brought up she broke his heart by announcing it was her intention to marry Drummle with the blessing of her mother, despite Pip declaring that he had always loved her and always would.

He decided he could not face Drummle and made his way back to London arriving at midnight and arrival he received a note from a watchman at a Temple gateway who he knew well, in the hand of Wemmick the chief clerk of Jaggers, saying do not go home. He therefore went to lodgings in Covent Garden which he knew were open all hours and obtained a bed for the night. He had a troubled night after all the disappointments of the day with the words ring in his ears. At least he had managed to make a request to Miss Haversham, a closing of their account so to speak, to cover his expenditure owed on securing the position for his friend Herbert. She promised to give consideration.

At the first opportunity he made his way to Wemmick’s who was toasting sausages with his hot rolls and tea and said he had left a note with all the watchmen at the gates to the Temple area. Wemmick then provides lots of advice indirectly that is to say not return home, but to a place along the Thames that he could recommend. This was in fact the home of a woman who acted as a mother figure the girl friend of Herbert with whom Pip had established good relations and after helping Herbert gain position so he could marry the girl and set home on their own. The girl had no mother of her own or other kinsfolk. And here too they had secreted Abel under an assumed name. The plan was that he and Herbert who were already good watermen and enjoyed rowing on the Thames would continue to do so but this time with the purpose that when it was possible to join a ship making its way from the Thames to the continent they would take Abel to join it and get him thus safely out of country. It was at this point he returned to his lodging and set about acquiring a boat to put their plan into operation.

Weeks went by and he began to have problems with his finances having returned Abel’s pocket book of cash unopened because of the circumstances and uncertainty for the future. He made do by selling possessions while waiting to hear of ship from Wemmick. He avoided reading the papers for fear of seeing the announcement of the marriage between Estella and Drummle and he reacquainted himself with Mr Wopsle from his home area who he encountered before in London when the man acted in a performance of Hamlet. The contact was timely because Wopsle was able to tell Pip that he was being followed/watched... And then reminded Pip of the Christmas lunch all those years ago when Pip was still a boy and the soldiers had come and they gone out with them and come across the two convicts fighting in the ditch. It was one of them, and from further questions Pip established it was Campeyson.

Pip arrived back home after midnight and held Counsel with Herbert although there was nothing to be done until he reported the development to Wemmick.

There was then an event which commenced to complete the background picture and which was to achieve a most unexpected illumination for he encountered Jaggers who establishing that he had no plans for his evening meal invited him to his home where also Mr Wemmick would be participating. The meal provide opportunity for his closer study of the woman acting as the maidservant and he suddenly realised why he been so fascinated before because of the eyes and a look which he had come to know so well. Afterwards he questioned Wemmick about the circumstances of the woman that he had saved from the gallows and who he had previously described as a tamed wild beast. The charge had been that of murdering an older, larger and more powerful woman and Wemmick tells the story in such a way as to suggest the woman was guilty but by dressing her differently and in such a way as to disguise her strength she had been acquitted. There was also a child which had disappeared as was believed to have been murdered. There was also reference to both women having been associated with the same tramping men. The child was female.

Pip had also been given a note from Miss Haversham to visit, This was also to have various important consequences. He made his way but this time did not stay at the main Inn but selected another because of the association with Drummle and the information that he was being watched by the enemy of his benefactor. Miss Haversham was willing to make available to him a sum of £900 payable by Mr Jaggers to settle his debt in arranging employment for Herbert Pocket and this in effect settled his account with Miss Haversham, claiming nothing for himself.

Then there i an exchange in which Pip comes to ask whether Estella has married and in which Miss Haversham admits with great feeling the realization that of the impact of her approach to the raising of Estella had on the young woman and on their relationship. her approach has had the opposite effect to what had been. She had originally meant to save her from a similar misery to her own.

The opportunity was taken to question Miss Haversham about the parentage of the child but she said that after years of shutting herself away alone she had intimated her desire and Jaggers had brought her the child possible two or three years of age, who as asleep at the time and was said to be an orphan. Pip then left an fortunately before departing from the property he looked back and say the room in which he had been with Miss Haversham was on fire and he returned to rescue her, badly burning his hands but saving the life although the woman was very ill as a consequence.

It was while he also recovered from the experience under the care of Herbert Pocket and the friend had also obtained information from Abel which was to change his understanding of the situation for Magwitch had told Herbert a version of the same tale that Wemmick had stated thus revealing that Magwitch was the father of Estella although that she was alive and married and Pip not only had known her but loved her he remained unaware of this.

Recovered sufficiently he had visited Jaggers to present the authority for the payment of funds to settle the position of Herbert and had also given an account of the accident. Mr Jaggers appeared concerned that Pip had not gained financially from the visit. Pip took the opportunity to press Jaggers about the parentage of Estella pretending that the information gained from Wemmick had come from Miss Haversham as well as relayed by Herbert from Magwitch. Jaggers in his fashion as an experienced man of law speculated the reason why it had been best and remained best for none of the parties know the placement and what had subsequently happened. Pip was persuaded that there was no good to be gained from changing decisions made in the past now.

It then time to pursue the plan to leave England for the continent without worrying about the port of destination of the first ship available to them and which they could join from along the river rather than the official point of embarkation. It was shortly after the arrangements were made that he received a letter requesting him to return to his the area of his childhood for information concerning his uncle under the name that Magwitch had been using.

This led him to meet old Orlick again who disclosed his knowledge of the plan and the events leading to the proposed flight and his resentment of Pip since the boy’s childhood, including getting the man the sack from his position with Miss Haversham. Orlick planned to end the life of Pip revealing that he had been responsible for the injuries to the sister. It was therefore fortunate that with the help of a local contact of Pip, Herbert and another friend from his arrival in London had decided that Pip should not venture alone and had kept their distance. Pip had lost consciousness while Orlick struggles with some men who only when he recovered did Pip appreciate they were his friends. Orlick had gone off and although Herbert had wanted the magistrate Pip made the priority Magwitch who he realised was under even great threat than had was previously appreciated.

The novel is more successful that in either films in conveying the tension experienced by Pip as they got Abel to their rowing boat and proceeded down the Thames to the point when they would meet the vessel that had agreed to pick them up, In the 1946 film there is reference to reaching a point when the authority of the London warrant/ court decision had no effect while the BBC this year added the plan that Magwitch would be dressed as pilot and board the vessel at the point where such a move was usually made.

The climax comes when as their ship is sighted and they make way another craft approaches and demands the giving up of Abel; The man making the demand is none other than Campeyson his long standing enemy. Then two adversaries get into a fight in which Campeyson dies and Magwitch is captured. Pip and his associates return to the land. It has also been revealed that Campeyson was he man who cheated and ruined the life of Miss Haversham, and consequentially that of Esteela.

This is an important moment for Pip because on one hand he assesses the care and concern which Abel Magwitch had shown to him over many years because of a brief encounter and some kindness and on the other he evaluates his own behaviour over recent years towards Joe.

There followed the process by which evidence against Magwitch was presented and he committed to the assizes and consideration given by his friend to the future of Pip including offer of employment and a home with Herbert. Pip says he needs two to three months to decide on his future. He finds himself unexpectedly acting as best man Mr Wemmick when he says he is taking his first holiday for 12 years and insists they take a walk in London that morning.

As in the 1946 film Abel is condemned to death with thirty one others, the trial not having been postponed for a session despite the knowledge that because of injuries Abel was unlikely to live until then and was being kept in the prison infirmary. Pip was able to visit him daily and attempt to bring comfort. It is as the life draws to its end that Pip decides to reveal to his benefactor that his child had lived and become a beautiful young woman, who Pip loved and always would, omitting the unhappy aspects of the position.

Following the death Pip struggles to settle his affairs and then became ill with fever at the point it was about to be arrested for debt. He breaks from the fever to find that he is being cared by Joe and this fills him again with guilt at his treatment of the man over recent years. As his health improves he learns that Joe is to marry Biddy who has become the village school mistress and taught Joe to read and write and that it was she that had insisted Joe took care of Pip as soon as they heard he was so ill and among strangers. He was able to give an account that Miss Haversham had been given varying sums of money to individuals of their acquaintance and that Orlick was in the County Jail after breaking in to the premises of Pip’s real uncle. Pip in turns tells Joe about his benefactor not being Miss Haversham, as he grows in strength and is able to go out of the home. Pip then discovers that it is Joe who settled the debt for which he had been arrested.

Discovering this after Joe had departed he decided to return to the forge first staying at the Blue Boar only to find that being an individual without expectation he was assigned to inferior accommodation. He then discovered that the former home of Miss Haversham and Estella was up for auction for its building materials and demolition. Returning to the coffee shop of the Inn he encounters his uncle who is disturbed at his appearance and circumstances.

Pip then encounters Joe and Biddy as they are married. There is a postscript more than epilogue that Joe accepted the offer of employment with Herbert and accordingly settled all his debt being given due time to discharge them, He resided with Herbert and his wife and several years went by before he also became a partner in the firm as he had purchased for Herbert in secret.

Eleven years were to pass before he visited Joe and Biddy and found they had a boy who they had named Pip. He had then visited with the home of Miss Haversham and Estella had been because this had long since been knocked down and cleared with only the outer walls and fencing remaining. It is here he is said to encounter Estella who like him claims this is the first she has returned since the decades have passed. They agree to be friends but at a distance. It is left to the reader to decide if the chance meeting is real or one of the imagination.

The ending is different from that in the films where they meet and embrace. Estella husband has died in a riding accident in the BBC rendering and she praises the horse for giving her the freedom. It is understandable that in both productions as one of two hours and the other of three, incidents are telescoped such as the number of visits made to see Miss Haversham after Pip becomes an adult and some characters and events are not included. There have been occasion when I have considered that a film is true to a fictional work and even enhanced the original text. In this instance both films do more that provide the essence of the story and portrayal of the period, and some parts are a vivid re-enactment, but in this instance there is much reward in reading the book as it was written one hundred and fifty years ago. That I suggest is a unique achievement for a writer and not an isolated example in relation to his body of work.

Great Expectations part 2 and the Mystery of Edwin Drood1

In the second part of the novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Pip sets off to London with some apprehension but also enthusiastic for his new life in the belief that it is part of the plan of Miss Haversham to one day enable him to marry her adopted daughter Estella. The second part covers the years to his 21st birthday and then to when in his twenty third year his actual benefactor declares himself.

I have been given further reflection to the character of Pip an ordinary working class young man who espouses middle class pretensions through the misguided and untreatable rather than Machiavellian actions of Miss Haversham who herself is the victim of cruel confidence trick in which she had given money to a rogue who had proposed marriage and then left her alone with her guest and the weeding breakfast arranged.

Both the 1946 film and the 2012 BBC TV adaptation in three episodes corresponding to the divisions in the book are loyal to the text sometimes in detail, sometimes with dramatic licence but always in the spirit of the book. Both the film and series fail to give appropriate recognition to the role of Biddy and the development of her relationship with Joe as well as the influence she exerted on the development of Pip prior to his departure to London. The 1946 film excludes a number of characters while the recent series alters their role and involvements to varying degrees.

The visit of Joe to London, his older brother in role rather than father substitute, is covered and Pips realization that he has little in common with Joe and would have preferred not to be reminded of his past until realizing that the purpose is to advise that he is summoned to Miss Haversham as Estella has returned from Paris. Instead of staying at his former home he takes a room at the hotel in the closest town used by the gentry.
When Miss Haversham tells Pip to love Estella he believes that his dream is to become true and has no idea that her intention is for her adopted daughter to break his heart and that of as many as she can encourage to fall in love with her. She is to be Miss Haversham’s weapon in the world.

Pip also returns home after he is informed that his sister has died and he reacts angrily when Biddy criticises him for failing to keep in touch. Joe in his gentle manner, played brilliantly by Bernard Miles in the 1946 film mentions as if in passing that he and Biddy talk of Pip and what is happening to him every evening when sitting in the kitchen after their meal. Joe understands that Pip now lives in a different world; he has no expectation but hopes

There is great excitement when Estella writes to say she is coming to live in London and that Miss Haversham has decreed that Pip should meet her off the coach and then escort her to Richmond where she is live and participate in London society with a view to becoming engaged and married. Pip cannot wait for the arrival and spends the greater part of the day exploring the area around the coach station. They take tea before he escorts her to Richmond with Estella insisting that she pays for the coach after this is required by Miss Haversham. It takes time for Estella to begin to challenge the control of her adopted parent.

Pip also accompanies Estella on one visit to Miss Haversham when Estella has been summoned back as the frustrated and angry parent has found that behaviour of her daughter towards her does not meet her expectations. The daughter explains that she has been brought up to have a cold and cruel heart and this she applies to everyone, without exception including her mother. What else should her mother expect? Happiness? A sense of justice? Vindication? Estella also warns Pip.

Previously I incorrectly suggested that because Pip was told he was to share accommodation with one Herbert Pocket this meant he knew in advance that this was the same individual who when a boy they had fought at the home of Miss Haversham. The text confirms that it is only on their meeting again at the rooms that Pip appreciated who Mr Pocket is. Mr Pocket had been to the market for fruit and was out when Pip arrives at the accommodation

This accommodation is close to the office of Jaggers who hires the furniture which Pip subsequently says he wishes to buy and also expand.

Pip then spend much time at the family home of the Pockets of Hammersmith, in part because it is on the way to Richmond further along the Thames where Estella is lodged. It here he makes the acquaintance with Mr Drummle and another young man lodging with the Pockets and their many children. In the recent series he encounters Drummle at a gentleman’s club. In the films he learns to dance, to fence and box and other gentleman pursuits but not to ride which was still considered an essential accomplishment for a gentleman of the period. In the book there is reference to being educated as gentleman but no detailed description of activities.

Drummle does not come across as the important aristo in the book as he does in the recent series although he is a mirror for Pip to see the difference between the gentleman from birth and the nouveaux arrivé. In the series Herbert explains his present being disinherited because of his relationship with a young woman disapproved by his family. My understand from the book is that he just has no means and is therefore concerned without a job how he will be able to marry and provide home and future for his wife and any family. Pip does use his resources to help Herbert get a position. Herbert does also leave to work abroad but this is before and not after the arrival back in England of Magwitch.

There is also some accuracy in the recent series and the film regarding their finances. I did not find reference in the text to Pip being allowed £250 a year until reaching majority where there is reference to the sum being increased to £500 and drawn quarterly. Jaggers does use the occasion of the majority to warn Pip about living well beyond his means and in the book Pip and Herbert have already undertaken an exercise of working out the extent of their unpaid bills with Herbert owing over £150 rounded to £200 and he more than three times as great which is also rounded up for the purpose of continuing to amass debt and to raise the margins if necessary. This he continues because of his need to keep up with the life now led by Estella who has become the interest of Drummle.

When I went to work as a clerk in central London in 1957 nearly one hundred years later my initial income was £260 a year and three years later as a result of passing a clerical division examination and other improvements my income had reached £500. Therefore the allowance given Pip was indeed a handsome one

However Pips life is shattered with the arrival of Magwitch to his rooms and the former convict is his benefactor. While to the first time watcher of film or recent series without prior knowledge of the story this may have come as a surprise, it is not so in the text in the sense that Dickens prepares his reader. There are references to convicts on their way to transportation. Pip while waiting for Estella to arrive in London encounters the chief clerk of Jaggers and undertakes a visit to Newgate where he learns of the high position his guardian holds among the prison staff and the high reputation in which the clients hold him. He has already viewed the death masks kept in the office of the firm and the Chief Clerk has told Pip to look out for the housekeeper. Jaggers against the repeated wishes of the housekeeper insists that she displays her wrists to Pip and other dinner guest on one occasion to make the point that the woman wrist stronger than any male. Who this woman is and what other links and relationships remain to be disclosed in the third part.

The BBC has also created a two part two hour film on the Mystery of Edwin Drood. This is the dark and unfinished novel by Charles Dickens which has led to much speculation and attempts to provide an ending which would be in keeping with the other works of Dickens. The BBC film keeps the main points of the text story in tact but havening determined the outcome introduces new elements into the first part of the story. .

The film begins with the cathedral choirmaster late for service. We are introduced to John Jasper who from the outset is wracked by an opium/laudanum induced dream that he has murdered his nephew Edwin Drood. Jasper apologises to the unmarried vicar Mr Crisparkle kindly Vicar who is cared for by his mother. Mr Crisparkle is sponsoring the arrival of Neville and Helena Landless twins and perhaps from Ceylon. While the book is unclear about their ethnic origin the BBC has them as indigenous which adds a contemporary aspect to an important part of the story.

The twenty year old Edwin Drood is a young man who consults his guardian over a long standing engagement arranged by their respective families with Rosa Bud aged 17 years . She resides in a residential establishment for young ladies in the city arranged by her guardian played by the great Alun Armstrong who also played a lawyer in the recent other BBC series about Victorian England Garrows Law.

When Edwin visits Rosa she is cold towards him and soon she is consulting her lawyer guardian that if she chooses not to marry it will affect her inheritance. She is reassured that her father would have only wanted her happiness and that if does not continue with the engagement she will still inherit when she is twenty one less says married beforehand when the inheritance becomes her dowry

When the Landless twins arrive in the city for their education, the Rev Crisparkle and his mother find communication hard going so they have the idea of inviting Rosa and Edwin to a social evening at which Rosa sings while Jasper plays he piano. When Edwin appears to press Rosa about a matter Neville intervenes and the two young men get off on the wrong foot. This is something which Jasper exploits using it to blacken the character of the new arrival. When his sister shares a room with Rosa at the residential education establishment she suggests that Jasper is in love with her and the talk about the nature of love While Rosa has doubts about the depth of her affect for Edwin she is horrified by the interest of Jasper. She tells Helena that she cannot stand the man who is her music teacher. Both newcomers appear more intelligent and thoughtful than their years and all those immediately around them with perhaps the exception being the lawyer.

As he reaches his 21st birthday, Rosa’s guardian gives him her mother’s ting which is for Rosa but only if he is certain she is for him, otherwise he must return the ring. When he is about to give the ring to Rosa she admits that she regards him as a brother rather than a lover and he willing accept the situation and the two become closer and more relaxed through their agreement. Jasper observers at a distance and misunderstands the situation.

It is time to introduce two further characters. Durdles (Stony) is a stonemason handyman at the Cathedral and her shares his lunch with a young scamp who appears to be a street kid living by his wits. He throws objects at Durdles and at anyone he catches and in one instance in the Cathedral grounds Jasper and the boy clash Jasper taking the boy by the throat.

Jasper persuades Durdles to show him around crypt of the Cathedral where there are a number of family tombs each gates with separate keys. Jasper has bribed Durdles to make the tour at night with drink and which appears to be spiked as soon after taking a couple of wigs Durdles passes out and Jasper takes one of the keys to explore one of the tomb areas. Durdles has said that while he had not encountered a ghost he has heard a great cry.

It is at this point that the BBC production takes on a life of its own. The young Edwin Drood disappears and Jasper claims the culprit must be the newcomer. The newcomer is question but with no body he is released into the care of the Rev Crisparkle. Jasper begins to pursue Rosa who makes it plain she is not interested but her rejection is ignored.

When the lawyer advises Jasper that the relationship between the young couple ended amicably he becomes distressed. A young lawyer/investigator arrives on the scene puzzled by the fact that although Drood’s father was supposed to have died in Egypt nine years before his pension has continued to be paid and he becomes to the city and questions the Mayor. Eventually the focus of attention centres on the crypt and the Rev Crisparkle and others accompany Durdle as they open the tomb of the wife of the Major where the missing key is till in its lock. The body is that of the former Mayoress. It is then that the young boy draws attention to another key, a smaller one which has been found among the possessions of Jasper. This leads to the Drood family vault and where the body inside appear to have only to have been there for no more than a year and not the nine that are recorded. It is then that the young Edwin Drood reappears have been out of the city after the break up of his engagement and has not heard of the claims that he is missing presumed murdered. So the mystery deepens.

We learn that Jasper is not Edwin’s uncle but his older half brother and that he was rejected by his father throughout his life. For a reason not explained their father had chosen to remain out of the country giving the family the official impression that he had died abroad. He has now returned to see his young son reach maturity and marry his childhood betrothed. Encountering Jasper in the Cathedral he rejects his son and Jasper in rage kills his father in the same way he subsequently has dreams killing his younger brother. He has been haunted by his action since. He commits suicide by falling from a position high up in the cathedral to its floor. The film ends with Neville going off on an expedition abroad. I am not sure if Edwin accompanies him but the two have become friends. Helena has developed an understanding with the Rev Crisparkle much to the delight of his mother and Rosa. It will be interesting to learn how the Dickensian fans greet this latest of several attempts to finish the novel.

Great Expectations part 1

As part of my Christmas viewing I reported on a three part BBC adaptation of the three part book by Charles Dickens Great Expectations. In my limited viewpoint in respect of the cinematic and stage adaptations there had been nothing until now to compare with 1946 film which had John Mills as Pip the young man and Alec Guinness as his friend Pocket. Jean Simmons played Estella the younger and Valerie Hobson as Miss Haversham with Finlay Curry and Bernard Miles also featuring. However although I saw the 1946 film soon after its release while still at preparatory school and it made a lasting impression, it is at least decade since seeing the film again on Television. It is also a long time since reading the text, if I ever have, although along the way I had acquired a Heron edition of the work. Over the weekend the 1946 film was shown on television and this precipitated to jump my reading, albeit fast reading, of the text to this week.

In all three of the works we commence with Pip as a young boy in the care of his married elder sister who husband Joe a blacksmith treats the child more as a young brother than a substitute father. The 1946 version has a much softer version of Mrs Gargary, called Mrs Joe in the text, than the portrait of her painted by Dickens which has her as an unattractive bossy woman who attempts to keep the menfolk around her under her thumb. The setting is Christmas Eve as Pip encounters an escaped convict in the marshes around his home who first frightens the boy and then engages his sympathy so that in addition to bringing the man a file to free him from the chains he also brings food, including a pork pie and brandy. On his way back with the supplies he encounters another escaped convict, a man with a scar on the side of his face. When Pip tells Magwitch of this encounter on the assumption the food is to be shared the impact is for Magwitch to react with anger, not at Pip but the news that a great enemy is to hand.
The Text covers the Christmas dinner and the horror of Pip when Mrs Joe announces to the company that as a treat they are to finish a full meal with a slice of the pork pie given to them by Pip’s uncle. She is just about to discover the theft when the troops arrive seeking the assistance of the Blacksmith, and soon he and Pip are joining the chase to find the convicts who appear to have escaped off the convict ship on its way or moored in the Thames. Magwitch is caught because he remained on the marshes to find and try and kill the other man. Both are now captured and taken on board the convict ship bound for the antipodes. Before departing he absolves Pip saying he broke into the forge and its house for the file and for the food. In all versions kindly Joe says he does not begrudge the man the food. This signals to the reader that Joe is far from the average working man who excitedly joins in the throngs in their tens of thousands who watch and cheer the constant hangings of men women and children in the capital for the most minor of offences.

The reason why Magwitch stays to try and kill the other convict is not explained in the 1946 film which is a much simplified version. In the 2012 series Pip has an uncle who delivers supplies as a trader to the local great house where it’s eccentric and considered mad Lady is looking for a local young boy to keep her adopted daughter company. Pip is suggested and while his sister sees this as a great opportunity for family advancement her husband is unsure. In the 2012 film Pip enjoys the visits despite the strangeness of Miss Haversham, a comparatively young woman who lives as a recluse on the first floor of the house where the windows are shuttered and the drapes closed where the dinning room is laid out for a wedding breakfast from years before. In the 1946 film Miss Haversham is a much older woman who appears to have been fixed in her situation for at least two decades and to have adopted Estella long after she had become hardened and set in her ways and with the plan to train the girl to become her weapon against men in society.

The young adopted girl Estella, brilliantly played by a 17 year old Jean Simmonds in 1946, is unkind to Pip who she regards as inferior until an event which changes their relationship. In the recent adaptation relatives of Miss Haversham call with their son but are refused access to Miss Haversham. They are incensed when they find Pip is allowed into the house and upper floors. He is told to immediately leave by Miss Haversham who cannot cope with his visit because of the situation with the relatives and when he leaves he encounters the son of the visitors who behaves like Estella, but in this instance Pip defends himself and strikes the young man down. This delights Estella because he has made something happen and in the book she allows Pip to kiss her. The fight is more prolonged in the text and more of a sporting than a bullying event. The difference is that the family are named as the Pockets and the elderly Miss Pocket appears to be a frequent visitor to the house. It is also made plain in text and film that the girl is being brought up to regard all men as enemies and that her primary function in life will be to break their hearts. Neither the adoption nor the visiting would be allowed today, or at last I hope this would be the situation.

Despite the way he is treated Pip is influenced by the lifestyle, knowledge and interests of those with money and education and he is disappointed when Miss Haversham decides to end the visits by announcing that she is to bring forward his wish to be apprenticed to Joe and will pay the family a Premium as a reward for his attendance at the house. The condition is that he does not return. This is not intended as a kindly act on her part. In the recent series Mrs Joe has the expectation that the whole family is to be socially improved by summons for her husband to visit with Joe and she rejects the offer of some rabbits by the hired help Orlick a young man who is known as old Orlick in the book. He is so incenses that off screen he batters the woman senseless. There is no reference to Orlick and his subsequent role in the 1946 film. In the recent series, shown on three consecutive nights the lawyers Jaggers is present with the papers of indenture whereas in the book Joe brings the papers and we first meet the lawyer four years later. Similarly we are yet to meet the assistant Orlick until later in the book. On return from the Hall Joe teases his wife suggesting at first a payment of ten pounds has been made, then twenty and only then twenty five, which are substantial amounts even for someone operating their own business as blacksmith. (One of my mother’s great aunts who she never knew married into a blacksmith’s family from a village close to her grandfathers town of Calne before he left to join the army, travel the world and eventually settle in Gibraltar and a hill village near Ronda in southern Spain).

In the book the battering of Pip’s sister by Orlick occurs when later during the apprenticeship he gets time off to make a visit to Miss Haversham to report progress and to see Estella. He is disappointed to find that she is away in Paris at school being trained to become an eligible young Lady in London society. He meets Orlick on the way home and Joe has been out at a local Inn for the evening. The crime is investigated by the police but their inquiries come to nothing except that Pip is suspicious of Orlick who knew his way around the house and forge and of their movements.

It is after his sister becomes disabled and in need of care that there arrives into the household Biddy, a young woman whose origin I am confused about thinking first that she was a relative. Biddy quickly commands the respect of Pip and of Joe, and indeed also manages to establish the confidence and affection of the sister. The sister scrawls the letter T on a slate which after a while it is Biddy who works out that this is intended to represent a hammer from the forge and that the attacked was Orlick who continues as if nothing has happened. While Biddy appears towards the end of the 1946 film there is no reference to the crucial point in the text about a third of the way through the volume when Pip confides in Biddy that he no longer wishes to become a Blacksmith but would like to be a gentleman. In fairness this is touched on in the 2012 series when Pip expresses disappointment at the decision to become apprenticed and stop his visits to the great House. However Biddy does not appear in the recent series which is odd.

Biddy possesses insight and wisdom as well as the capacity to act as the boy’s teacher and it is not surprising that Pip appreciates her superiority over Estella. He also becomes watchful when Orlick begins to take an interest in Biddy.

It is in the fourth year of the apprenticeship that Mr Dickens has Mr Jaggers, the lawyer, making an appearance, played in the latest series by the excellent David Suchet. In both film and series there is close adherence the text except that in the text despite the insistence that there are no inquiries and or disclosure as to the benefactor who is offering to educate and maintain Pip as a Gentleman of Great Expectations who will come into wealth on or after reaching his majority, Pip immediately expresses the belief that it is Miss Haversham who is the provider of his good fortune. Mr Jaggers provides twenty guineas for the purchase of appropriate clothing and for the journey to London and the excitement is shared in the household during the subsequent week before the requested departure.

It is also evidence that even before reaching London Pip understood he was changing one life for another and could not wait to get away, believing that he would not return to his former ways and life style. He is also determined to show Miss Haversham his new set of clothes before departure. On this visit she gives the impression of confirming she is the benefactor mentioning that she has heard of his change of fortune from Mr Jaggers.

There is one other important difference between the text and the 1946 film and 2012 series. In these Pip only discovers that he is to share accommodation and be tutored as a gentleman by the former adversary, Master Pocket who he encountered at the home of Miss Haversham when he arrives at the lodgings. In fact he is made aware of the arrangement by Mr Jaggers on his first visit and indeed the elderly Miss Pocket is at the Hall when Pip visits.

Before leaving the story as Pip makes his way excitedly to London and the first part of the book formally I will mention one incongruity about the 1946 film. This is that Pip and Master Pocket are played by established actors more than twice the age of their characters, with John Mills in his late thirties 30’s as Pip and Alec Guinness also in his thirties as Master Pocket. I also feel that the Black and White of 1946 is more effect in conveying the events on the marshes and the sinister nature of the Hall and Miss Haversham and Dickensian London and Society than the colour versions. It is also fiat comment to say that Joe, Biddy and indeed Pip himself does show ambivalence as the departure approaches but for Pip the driving force is that by becoming a gentleman he will also become an acceptable suitor for Estella.

Le Carré's The Mission song part four nearly has a happy ending

In true Le Carré story telling Salvo finding out the extent Big Lie by the time he left the coup planning conference on an island somewhere in the North Sea then became the Big Reality as the Mission Song is brought to a close.

The journey back to Luton was regarded as a celebration with a Fortnum and Mason Hamper of food goodies and a nearly cold Magnum of Champagne. There is a toast to Salvo for his efforts and a bonus as Maxie has raised the cash from $5000 to $7000 and then asks if he thinks the delegates will deliver when the operation takes place in two weeks time. They have judged rightly that Salvo will have seen more of the full game play than anyone else although they will not have appreciated how much more he saw than anyone else.

Everyone disappears to their assigned separate ways. From the private plane location Salvo is escorted to a desk where his original clothes are waiting for him and his cell phone. It is been the weekend to his life to date. He is driven to the pick up point for the coach to Victoria. He has the tapes and note books with him.

He catches up on phone messages from Penelope concerned at his appearance and disappearance, then having a go at him and then reconciliation of a kind but still anxious to know of his whereabouts and state. There is also one from Hannah just as concerned. He returns home to an empty house feeling it strange as you do when you have been away involved in an intense experience, then divests of his school master outfit and examines the tapes and notebooks on the bed.

The most striking aspect of his reflections is that he proposes to share the experience with Hannah and not with the journalist well connected wife and her lawyer father. If anything signals the weekend has brought about a more fundamental change in his life then it is this. We then witness the death of his marriage as he admits to himself and therefore to us that he had married Penelope for all the things she was not or wished to be such as a fearless champion of investigative journalism, the mother of his children and the mother he had never had. Penny who needed to be called Penelope had seen him as the rebel when as is often the case of someone born on the outside of conformity become conformists in heart and soul, or at least greatly desirous of being so. His father in law had a realistic sense of their marriage and prepared a prenuptial agreement which Salvo now took out and surrendered on the pillow of their marital bed plus his wedding ring. There is finality about his actions which we suspect, or more accurately I suspect because I cannot speak for anyone but me, has a greater significance than the character will appreciate.

If is evident from his removal of the tapes and notebooks that he means to share their content not just with Hannah but to use them in such a way to prevent the coup against the legitimate government known to have been paid for their acceptance of a British orientated Syndicate, as opposed to a USA Rwandan one or any other waiting in the wings. He is doomed of course whatever he does because the more involved the UK government the less likely he will be able to do anything and that includes creating publicity while the more it is entrepreneurial based then more likely his death, however accidental his demise, also becomes an increasing likelihood. And why this sudden interest commitment to the land of his birth?

He has lived in the UK for almost twice as long as his childhood in the Congo. It was that determined he should leave and find a life elsewhere and from all that he has said his childhood was a good one and he valued the relationship with his Father father. He knows how dreadful things became but he has been detached from that with in new middle life class life and important job.
In this respect he seems a little likely Haj, genuinely concerned but at a distance but with his own happiness and enjoyment of life taking priority, until now that is. This is what I believe often divides human being despite our similarities, those who when push comes to shove always put themselves and those closest to them first and those who in the same situation put others before themselves and sometimes to the extent that they offer up life itself. I have been one of these but always wishing I was not and one of the others. We are of course mixtures of both tendencies but with some the drive is more one way than the other, and for the minority throughout time those of self interest dominate the altruistic and the self sacrificing.

He has an encounter with a friend of his wife who he thought had returned early from her new found relationship with her boss, oh I know I forgot to mention that. He finds himself lodgings and then goes to wait for the night shift to leave the hospital sitting on a park bench opposite. Hannah leaves the hospital late and is listening to the eight messages he has left for her until they meet up.

She returns to his new abode and he begins to tell her his tale but she is a step ahead referring to a Mwangaza contact in London she knows called Baptise someone previously unmentioned. She says something of the life she was leading up to the point when they connected over the Rwandan who had gone to die on Hampstead Heath and then did so in hospital cared for by Hannah, and in his own way by Salvo until the special assignment. It is interesting that individuals when they believe a relationship could make them into a couple begin by wanting each other to know what their life has been beforehand. Know who I am reject me now so the pain will be less than if rejection occurs later.

Salvo like his father believed that sex should be a private as prayer. Amen to that I say.
It was after this that Salvo commenced to explain his everyday job for the Ministry of Defence and the events of the weekend. As I said yesterday it is weakness to share what one has been sworn to secrecy with anyone unless there is some compelling overriding justification, an issue which dominated the episode of Frost watched yesterday evening, and the last of a weekend of selected episodes from this excellent police detective season. A priest is faced with a man who confesses his intention to kill and then appears to do so and which could lead to an innocent man being convicted and another serving life in prison remaining incarcerated for a crime he did not commit. There is no absolute but be prepared to take the consequences for doing so even if there is justification which can be substantiated.

Hannah of true heart about her homeland also proves to be a realist with up-to-date knowledge and experience of the reality which Salvo has only acquired thought the disparate gang of four countrymen. Of Haj and his father she admits that in the Congo it is not possible to make money without being a crook so that one can admire those who do well although the father has a bad name in Goma as a man who likes to play politics for personal game, and for his son appears to be like all the young men who wear dark glasses and make money and usually do so from drugs and prostitutes. She also recognised that of the disparate gang it seemed to be Haj with whom he appeared to have formed a bond and speculates if this is because he has also been westernised thus revealing how she sees him and something which if he understood the implication he does not refer to.

We learn that she has a child, a son by a doctor who was married, although she knew not at the time, a Ugandan of the country where her father had sent her to be trained as a nurse. She was sixteen. She had to wait to endure the waiting of the HIV test after finding that the man had told another girl he was also gay. Now she did not wait before doing anything that was unpleasant or she wished she did not have to do. She had completed her studies refusing to sleep with all the doctors who pressed her until now and then again Salvo was married. Her son was with her aunt in Uganda where she sent her money and when she felt she had learned enough she would return to the Kivu and her son.

After listening to tapes it is she that immediately knows that by stealing the tapes he has become a wanted man and that the solution is reveal all to her friend Baptiste. Her assessment is that Baptise will know what to do with the information that Bukavu is to be attacked in thirteen days and the Mwangaza has cut a deal with the powers in Kinshasa so they will not intervene. He is described as a passionate nationalist for a united Kivu and who had attended a forum in Washington which given Salvo’s knowledge of the USA involvement he should have been cautiousness about the proposal that they should reveal the extent of his knowledge and involvement to this friend.

He decides to first approach Lord Brinkley another unwise move I immediately feared, He manages to gain entrance and speak to his wife who agrees he can wait until the return of her husband. Lord Brinkley when he arrives denies all knowledge of the event on the island or any of those involved and Salvo in his naiveté assumes this to be so. He is made to go over the full story and then is thrown by the surprising question that Salvador is sure he saw Brinkley at the House in Berkeley Square on the previous Friday evening. He was then quizzed about his identification of any others present, included a corporate raider, a TV presented and a bearded nobleman who owns a chunk of the West End; together with an Indian Billionaire, an African Former Finance Minister and the Supermarket tycoon who had recently acquired a national daily as a hobby.
I must admit that this weakest part of the story because I do not understand why Salvo was allowed to get to now the financial investors of the enterprise as surely his superiors must have no of his marriage, her occupation and the stories published by her newspaper?

To Salvo’s anger his lordship denies any knowledge of those at the gathering in addition to those on the island. Salvo had still not appreciated the basis of the no name syndicate and the no name island and no name contract, including the warning of deniability and he would be on his own if things went wrong.

Then his Lordship or more particularly his wife delivers the coup de grace for at the very time Salvo declared he had recognised Lord Brinkley at the Berkeley Square gathering and Maxie had commented that the man had appeared scared shitless on being recognised Lady Brinkley confirmed that they were on their way for the weekend to their home at Marlborough. She had also confirmed that neither of them knew any of those mentioned by name. Salvo had I fear not worked out that everyone who had gone to the Island apart from the African would have been given temporary identities and that everything that had taken place never existed after it did.

Lord Brinkley added as a lawyer that the man had therefore no proof for his story and action would be taken against should he attempt to blackmail. They query if he had told his wife and why he had brought the recorder which Salvo explained was his stock accessory as an interpreter, which accompanied him everywhere as some take their laptop.

He had left the note books and tapes in the care of Hannah who he now thought ought to return to sleeping at the hostel as so far Lord Brinkley and those all connect with his life and the weekend had no knowledge of her.
It was later that he switched on his mobile to find an angry message from his wife complaining about his wrecking of their flat. Give that she was a journalist and her father a lawyer it is extraordinary that he did not chose the opportunity to share his story with them.

But I can say from personal experience that when you are in a situation of conspiracy against you it is difficult to know who to trust and it is difficult to make the same level of reason judgement and decision taking as you would do in other circumstances.

There was also a message later from his official employers saying they had more work from him and a complaint from his wife. This may have been an innocent contact but he believed it was intended to get him into a situation where he could be investigated a la Haj and brought into line. It should have evident that Lord Brinkley would have immediately contacted all those concerned.

His next action of substance was to make a document which he headed J’Accusé a la Zola and Colonel Drefus for his boss at the MOD Mr Anderson which he planned to hand to him coinciding with his attendance at the Sevenoaks Choral Society. Again the production of a written record is something which I know only too well pitfalls including legal pitfalls of doing so. It could also be argued that my 101 project is an endless written record of my life divided between the public and private.

Nest there was a meeting with Baptiste who Salvo records as having a high level of resemblance to Haj noting his designer clothing, Ray-Ban gold necklaces and a Rolex together with cowboy style boots. Hannah after an embrace and kiss which caused Salvo to note his own concern at their familiarity commented on the attire questioning what had happened when visiting the USA indicating this was not his normal or previous look.

Hannah had prepared a cover story of friend of a friend but outlined the basic to which Baptiste reacted with a mixture of disbelief and anger arguing that his was the kind of disinformation put out by the Rwandans to discredit the Mwangaza and his Middle Path movement. He then explained how dangerous such information could become, a match to start a conflagration. He then turned towards Salvo who he had worked out was the friend saying that his leader had been playing golf in Marbella at the time he was supposed to be involved with the coup planning and the admission that he had cut a deal with Kinshasa.

Hannah who was naturally inclined to weep did so on the return journey

Later Hannah returned to the part of the tape after Haj had been tortured when he appeared to be singing and that he have given Salvo his card and email address. She suggested that he had wanted to be contacted and provided with evidence of what had happened if his assumption of being recorded and listened too was correct. He had identified Salvo as a friend.

The next idea was to send the evidence to Haj if they failed to prevent the coup with a few days. Hannah says she has a contact that can organise this

Salvo then gatecrashed Mr Anderson at Sevenoaks and tells him his assignment was not in the national interest but to plunder the Kivu, thus further misunderstanding how the national interest can be interpreted and forgetting how Great Britain became Great by plundering the wealthy of other nations including using populations as slave labour. It is that Anderson follows the cue of Lord Brinkley by ascertaining the nature of supporting information, the seven key tapes and the notebooks and their present location.
Mr Anderson presses for the information saying that he assigned Salvo to the mission and others did not want to take him on despite his irregular temperament and background. He had protected him. He should have known of my experience at the Henley Senior Management Course learning about psychological profiling and the creative, their uses and limitations.

Mr Anderson added that there were those who thought he was too impressionable and too generous hearted for his own good and who therefore might turn out rebellious. Salvo insists that he will only provide the location of the evidence if Anderson is willing to tell them to stop. Asked what he will do if Mr Anderson does not undertake his request Salvo replies he will go to an M.P or someone. Anderson asks what does stopping mean. Peace. To which Anderson asks Salvo if God’s Will might be that the scarce mineral resources should be held by Christian peoples with an advanced cultural way of life rather than remain in the hands of heathens. Salvo says he is not sure who the heathen are!

Mr Anderson argues that a rogue nation, one freely given to genocide and cannibalism is not more entitled to the protection international law than a rouge individual such as Salvo is entitled to indulge his naivety at the expense of his adopted country. He asked again where the materials are held and then made a citizen’s arrest. When Salvo indicates he will resist Anderson reminds of his age and offers a deal which Salvo will be his domestic guest until the morning when they will retrieve the evidence and then he will arrange things in Salvo’s interests. Salvo is then left further disillusioned by those he had admired.

Hannah was away for two days taking children for the Church youth group on a seaside trip having taken a week of unpaid leave and which had enabled her to help Salvo directly. He phoned to explain the latest predicament.
It is then Salvo decided to approach the editor of his wife’s paper who first thinks it is a kiss and tell story and then thinks he is also up to no good in offering to provide him for free the dirt on Lord Brinkley who had successfully sued the paper as previously mentioned,

They agree to meet at a drinking club close to the Savoy where he finds the Editor with a couple of reporters to hand. The Editor like the others expresses reservations about the authenticity of the document presented to him but then realising its full potential sets about confirmatory investigations including the contract creator who was already known as part of the successful libel case brought by Lord Brinkley, on the House in Berkley, on Maxie and his security firm, on the location of the Island, on flights from Luton, The Fortnum Hamper. They were told to stay clear of the Big players mentioned in order to avoid the slapping of an injunction. While all this sounded of excellence to Salvo it of course also indicated his naiveté about the choice of media and the time that would be required for the story to be checked and the evidence gathered, the legal assessment, before it could be published as a news story.

This forced Salvo to play his card on the availability the tapes, including the one in which Philip used a Satellite phone to communicate with the Syndicate leader getting authority to immediately transfer an additional three million into the account of Haj’s father. It was then to his horror he discovered that two of the tapes were missing, the two most important tapes, the two that would have persuaded the paper to go with the story that weekend thus pre-empting the coup. He realised that the two had been taken by Hannah.

He checked the programme of the visit she was making and found that it would five hours before direct contact was likely to be possible. He listens to the news and then goes on line receives a call from Hannah about the same time as the news story appears of unconfirmed reports of fighting between rival militias in Eastern Congo and the government put the blame on imperialist backed forces from Rwanda which is denied from Rwanda. Rumours of British mercenaries in the region dismissed by British Consul. Four Swiss aviation technicians have requested protection from UN forces in Bukavu. There was more with the holding of 22 players of visiting football team following the discovery of arms. Later on the TV news he sees four of those on the island party in custody including Maxie shackled. A British Government denies any knowledge of the event saying that to suggest otherwise because one or two of those apprehended are British was absurd.

Then there is information about Maxie from an ex wife. He is British Officer trained and had various position including a contract for an Arab government. There is reference to an academic said to be behind the attempt coup.

It is the established that Hannah had been picked up by the police. The contact however mentions that while she was on the tip she made arrangement to have a sound file made for him as a surprise.

Salvo then gets a phone message from Philip saying he had a deal and Salvo had to contact. He does and gets an address to visit. Without knowing what the outcome will be Salvo then assumed he might not be returning so made the accommodation good order and dressed in comfortable, and potentially long term clothing, gathering his important possession including prized photo of Noah who he still hoped would be his step son to be.

He then reports what happened next and that he is able to do so means that at the time of recounting he is still alive because in all the Le Carré adventures someone I have come to care about or wish they had a different end dies, even Bill Haydon who I did not care about because his death seemed too easy for him given his level of treachery.

Salvo’s anger and frustration at what could have happened Hannah spills over when he visited the location for the meeting with Philip with the consequence he is rendered unconscious in such a manner that its effect remained for several months after. When he awoke he was confronted by Philip and a Gentleman from the Home Office with executive power. He was reassured that Hannah was well and returning to her home as her visa having been withdrawn because of her involvement in political agitation. This was because she had marched against the war in Iraq and because her Birmingham trip to hear the Mwangaza was also considered political, and further she was caught possessing and passing on to a foreign power restricted material and where the recipient of the material was involved in non government militia which makes it straight terrorism. That she was attempting to stop an illegal war was neither here or there. He explained that that she was departing voluntarily having signed all waivers and would be reunited with her son in Kampala.

It was then attention was directed at Salvo who the Home Office gentleman said had only been able to come to the UK which as research had discovered was due to the misguided action of the British Consul presumably under the pressure of the Holy See. Salvo was confronted by the reality that since the age of ten he had been an illegal immigrant and never attempted to regularise his position.

The Congolese have agreed to organise an official birth certificate and he will be welcomed there in due course. He is served with an official notice as an unwanted person and taken into police custody and onto a detention centre to await his departure.
He receives a communication from Hannah working in a new teaching ward in Kampala looking forward to seeing him again with her son and fending off advances with a pretend wedding ring.

He then received a letter via Mr Anderson from Haj addressed Dear Zebra. Haj explains that Hannah, whoever she was, had not needed to send him the tapes as he already pulled the plug as soon as he had returned home getting his father to turn in the Mwangaza and then contact the other two conspirators and get them to understand what they were doing before confessing to the UN and taking an extended holiday a long way from home. When Salvo is allowed back he is promised a teaching post at Bukavu University but it was up to him if he spends his time teaching languages or beer drinking. He mentions having got to a priest who knew his father and to quote it is evident he screwed for the whole mission. He has a bungalow on his former colonial palace at the lake’s edge which Salvo can have.

The books end with Salvo still waiting, writing to his future step son. Probably as close to a happy ending as one will ever experience with Monsieur Le Carré! It has not been into a film, I wonder why?