Free Our Man In Havana by Graham Greene Page B

to be of use to people like ourselves. We’ll judge by his first reports, but it’s always well to plan a step ahead. Have a word with Miss Jenkinson and see if she has a Spanish speaker in her pool.’
    Hawthorne rose in the elevator floor by floor from the basement: a rocket’s-eye view of the world. Western Europe sank below him: the Near East: Latin America. The filing cabinets stood around Miss Jenkinson like the pillars of a temple round an ageing oracle. She alone was known by her surname. For some inscrutable reason of security every other inhabitant in the building went by a Christian name. She was dictating to a secretary when Hawthorne entered, ‘Memo to A.O. Angelica has been transferred to C.5 with an increase of salary to £8 a week. Please see that this increase goes through at once. To anticipate your objections I would point out that Angelica is now approaching the financial level of a bus-conductress.’
    ‘Yes?’ Miss Jenkinson asked sharply. ‘Yes?’
    ‘The Chief told me to see you.’
    ‘I have nobody to spare.’
    ‘We don’t want anybody at the moment. We’re just discussing possibilities.’
    ‘Ethel, dear, telephone to D.2 and say I will not have my secretaries kept after 7 p.m. except in a national emergency. If a war has broken out or is likely to break out, say that the secretaries’ pool should have been informed.’
    ‘We may be needing a Spanish-speaking secretary in the Caribbean.’
    ‘There’s no one I can spare,’ Miss Jenkinson said mechanically.
    ‘Havana – a small station, agreeable climate.’
    ‘How big is the staff?’
    ‘At present one man.’
    ‘I’m not a marriage bureau,’ Miss Jenkinson said.
    ‘A middle-aged man with a child of sixteen.’
    ‘Married?’
    ‘You could call him that,’ Hawthorne said vaguely.
    ‘Is he stable?’
    ‘Stable?’
    ‘Reliable, safe, emotionally secure?’
    ‘Oh yes, yes, you may be certain of that. He’s one of those old-fashioned merchant-types,’ Hawthorne said, picking up where the Chief had left off. ‘Built up the business from nothing. Uninterested in women. You might say he’d gone beyond sex.’
    ‘No one goes beyond sex,’ Miss Jenkinson said. ‘I’m responsible for the girls I send abroad.’
    ‘I thought you had nobody available.’
    ‘Well,’ Miss Jenkinson said, ‘I might possibly, under certain circumstances, let you have Beatrice.’
    ‘Beatrice, Miss Jenkinson!’ a voice exclaimed from behind the filing cabinets.
    ‘I said Beatrice, Ethel, and I mean Beatrice.’
    ‘But, Miss Jenkinson …’
    ‘Beatrice needs some practical experience – that is really all that is amiss. The post would suit her. She is not too young. She is fond of children.’
    ‘What this station will need,’ Hawthorne said, ‘is someone who speaks Spanish. The love of children is not essential.’
    ‘Beatrice is half-French. She speaks French really better than she does English.’
    ‘I said Spanish.’
    ‘It’s much the same. They’re both Latin tongues.’
    ‘Perhaps I could see her, have a word with her. Is she fully trained?’
    ‘She’s a very good encoder and she’s finished a course in microphotography at Ashley Park. Her shorthand is weak, but her typewriting is excellent. She has a good knowledge of electrodynamics.’
    ‘What’s that?’
    ‘I’m not sure, but a fuse box holds no terrors for her.’
    ‘She’d be good with vacuum cleaners then?’
    ‘She’s a secretary, not a domestic help.’
    A file drawer slammed shut. ‘Take her or leave her,’ Miss Jenkinson said. Hawthorne had the impression that she would willingly have referred to Beatrice as ‘it’.
    ‘She’s the only one you can suggest?’
    ‘The only one.’
    Again a file drawer was noisily closed. ‘Ethel,’ Miss Jenkinson said, ‘unless you can relieve your feelings more silently, I shall return you to D. 3.’
    Hawthorne went thoughtfully away; he had the impression that Miss Jenkinson with considerable agility