The Hunter Code 6
Martin Wells
It had been five years since he had last seen the broad plains of the Serengeti. He remembered the searing heat of the midday sun and how he had sat with Elias the elder under the solitary thorn acacia tree while they watched the herds of antelope beginning their annual migration.
Elias had told him everything about the tracking of the animals that provided the tribe with their basic diet. ‘You have to look for the weak and the wounded and then strike. It’s when they’re alone that they’re at their most vulnerable.’ But that was a long time ago and he had been forced to leave his homeland to seek prosperity in a land far away.
Now he was in the big city, and looking up he saw the rays of the early morning sun glint against the high windows of the towering office building across the road. He was on a mission.
When he had first arrived in the city, he had been approached by a friend of his tribal chief who had arrived there some years before. He had been told that an agency of the authorities was looking for men with his skills and education.
‘They will welcome you with open arms – have no fear.’
An interview had been arranged and despite his apprehension he had indeed been successful.
‘This is no ordinary job,’ they said. ‘For your own safety, it would be advisable never to tell people where you work and what you do.’
The training had been vigorous, and he had to spend many hours alone, memorising various codes.
‘These are vital for your work. You must always use them when you contact HQ,’ they had told him. When his training was complete, he’d had no trouble convincing his liaison officer that he was ready. Soon he became known throughout the service as the Hunter.
When he arrived at work that morning, his Head of Operations took him aside.
‘We believe you are ready for a special assignment, so don’t let us down.’ He handed the Hunter a small brown envelope. ‘Inside is a picture of a man we’ve been trailing for some time. You will also find the address of his office. He always arrives there at about nine, but we’ve never had enough evidence to bring him to court. Use your tracking skills to ensure that this time he faces the justice he deserves. Good luck.’
The Hunter shook the hand of the man he knew only as S, and ignoring the stares of the other men gathered downstairs, he made his way out of the building.
He was well aware that this was his opportunity to shine. As he walked along the empty streets he checked that he had all the equipment that he needed. Would Elias be proud that he was now hunting a bigger prize than he could ever have imagined in their days together on the plains?
The Hunter arrived at the address he had been given and immediately scanned the surroundings for a place to conceal himself. A recess in a narrow alleyway was perfect. He glanced at his watch. Ten to nine. The street was virtually empty and he had an excellent view of the building opposite. He took out of his pocket the miniature six million pixel camera with its small zoom lens. He focused it on the building. He couldn’t afford to make a mistake.
Almost exactly on time, a shiny black Range Rover drew up directly across the road. The subject of the photograph got out of the car and looked around. The Hunter was reminded of a lone antelope sniffing the air, wary of possible dangers that could be lurking in the long grass.
Lifting the camera to his eye, the Hunter took three quick photographs of the subject with the building and the car in the background. The subject looked over in his direction as if he had heard the almost silent click of the shutter, but the Hunter remained in the shadows, confident that he had not been spotted. A flash of orange sidelights indicated that the subject had locked the Range Rover, and without looking round again he strode swiftly up the stairs into the building.
The Hunter remembered his instructions. ‘You must wait until the subject is inside the building before making contact with us.’ He put the camera into his pocket and took out the encrypted two-way radio that would connect him with HQ.
Pushing the transmit button he whispered, ‘HQ, this is Agent Yellow 542.’
There was a slight crackling from the radio and a voice answered, ‘Come in 542.’
‘I have a Code 6, HQ.’
There was a moment’s delay before the voice at the other end of the phone replied, ‘Are you certain it’s a Code 6?’
‘Yes I’m sure, and I have the evidence on camera.’
There was another slight delay. ‘Well done 542. Return to HQ as soon as you can.’
The Hunter smiled to himself and began his walk back. He hoped that S would be pleased with the results.
Whilst he was on his way back, news of the Code 6 Operation had been transmitted to S who leant back in his chair and picked up his own internal phone. ‘Put me through to the Director, please.’
There was a moment’s silence, then a gruff voice barked, ‘I hope it’s good news, Simpson.’
‘Yes Sir, very good news. We’ve got our target, and it’s a Code 6, Sir.’
‘At last! Well done Simpson. Our subject may be a Cabinet Minister but it’s our job to keep the streets of this city free from all those who seek to transgress, regardless of their position. Have we got the evidence?’
S thought quickly. He hadn’t seen the pictures, but now was not the time to put any doubt into the Director’s mind.
‘Absolutely clear as a bell, Sir. No doubt at all. I had my best man on the job, Sir.’
‘Who was that then?’
S cleared his throat. ‘Agent Yellow 542. The Hunter.’
‘You mean the Masai fellow?’
‘Yes sir, that’s correct.’
‘Well Simpson, make sure the other departments don’t poach him. We will want to use him again.’
There was a click, and S realised that as far as the Director was concerned the conversation was over. S looked at the shabby worn carpet of his office and for a moment dreamt of a move up to the second floor. There he could have his own grey four-drawer filing cabinet, a separate rug and a coffee percolator, which he would admittedly have to share with two others on the same corridor. But it was advancement.
He picked up the phone. ‘Reception? When Agent 542 returns, tell him to wait for me in the Report Office as I’m in conference at the moment.’
He replaced the receiver and picked the Telegraph out of his briefcase. ‘No need to work too hard this morning,’ he said to himself and set about studying the sports page. His phone rang.
‘Simpson.’ It was the Director. S threw the paper under the desk as if the phone had given the Director a clear CCTV picture of his office.
‘Yes sir!’
‘What is a Code 6, for goodness sake?’
‘One moment Sir.’ S swivelled in his chair and reached behind him to take a thick file from the bookcase. ‘Would you like me to quote from the file Sir? And are you quite sure the phone is safe?’
‘Just get on with it, Simpson.’
‘Right, Sir.’ S cleared his throat again. ‘The City of Westminster Parking regulations 1984, sub section g, paragraphs 9 to 15. Code 5 states, “A motor vehicle shall be causing an offence if the vehicle is stationery and unattended where there are two quite distinct yellow lines painted on the highway.” But Code 6 is more serious Sir. That forbids any motor vehicle to have two wheels on the pavement whilst parked by those two yellow lines.’
The Director said nothing for a moment. Then he replied, ‘I can see a resignation from the Cabinet here Simpson – that’s damned serious.’
‘I agree Sir. That’s what makes our job so worthwhile.’
The Director put the phone down and S picked up his newspaper.
‘Well done Hunter,’ he said to himself. ‘I’ll have you on the clamping unit next week.’
MARTIN WELLS decided that since he’d been coming down to Lyme for forty-three consecutive years, it might be cheaper to buy a house and live here. His career path has wandered from being a waiter in Selfridges and a policeman in Rhodesia to running his own furniture business. Writing has become a wonderful form of escape and he has found that it feeds his various delusions which include being Thomas Hardy’s soul mate and Bathsheba Everdene’s suitor.
Purple Pansies
Alex Tulji
The memories always caught him unawares, in the mundane. One hot day it was when the ice slipped from his fingers and skidded over the worktop, winking at him accusingly in the sunlight. Jeffery had learnt over the years to avoid the obvious triggers, like travel programmes or the strange, colourful areas of town which still held a faint fragrant appeal. No, they came in subtle ways; a woman’s sideways glance, the distant sound of a child’s tambourine, the embossed threads on a certain type of scarf. A few years ago, during the fashion for flamboyant jewellery, he developed such a loathing for the sight of gold that he refused to leave the house for months. His wife called the doctor, fearing he was becoming a recluse.
Today, in the weak morning sun of early spring, the silver strands in his wife’s hair sparkled softly. Irene was doing the gardening, kneeling on the padded mat he had bought her last Christmas. ‘So much easier on the knees,’ she had said with a smile. Jeffery sat watching her from the living room on his favourite faded red leather chair next to the window. He was dressed in his Sunday best, the thin strands of hair over his scalp neatly combed to one side and wearing his military navy, red and white striped bow tie.
In the garden Irene was weeding, digging up the persistent intruders to her patch of beloved pansies. Jeffery watched the neat bun in her hair bob up and down as she worked. He often thought of Irene in terms of these flowers and had come to see a resemblance to her in their round open faces, warm colour and easy presence. Yet today the pansies were to blame. For some of them were coming into flower purple, the deep purple of night and memories and insufferable heat.
Jeffery felt something like hot ice slide down his neck and seep into his collar. He had started sweating. He shifted uncomfortably in the leather chair. The grandfather clock in the corner suddenly beat a loud gong eleven times and he felt the disturbed movement of blood in his veins. He was angry now. Why did they have to be purple?
Jeffery was momentarily distracted from his thoughts as his wife straightened her back and looked across the garden, shielding her eyes from the sun. Following her gaze he saw two birds flitting around a nut feeder hanging off one of the branches of the old apple tree. They flew around each other as they picked nuts in a cooperative manner, their wings beating closely but never touching. Aware of each other’s presence, as soon as one became too close the other would fly obligingly around the other side. The winged duet lasted for several minutes before the birds flew off, one after the other.
Irene plunged her trowel back into the hard clay earth and Jeffery felt himself sink into the chair and into his mind of memories. He did not see her as she disappeared off to the potting shed, his eyes now glazed and fixed on a point in the distance far beyond where the birds had flown.
He could smell her perfume, lingering on his clothes in a sweetness that mingled with the smell of spices into a strange heady scent that he carried with him. It had given him headaches and the tablets that the doctor had prescribed only dulled it and made him drowsy. The girl had been wearing purple, the first time he saw her, the purple of the pansies his wife was tending. Across his forehead salty beads formed and slid down his forehead. In an unconscious gesture, he removed the handkerchief from his top pocket and swept it across his forehead.
He had been young, just nineteen, when he was stationed abroad during the Second World War. The vivid colours, smells and heat of northern India were overwhelming and disorientated him. In the monsoon heat he grew a new skin, snakelike and slick with sweat, his gun slippery in his hands. The crowded, claustrophobic streets clattered with rickshaws and the strange sounds of a language he didn’t understand.
Women were colourful, dark beauties in vivid saris that shone in the sun and jingled as they walked. Gold jewellery hung from their ears and nose, and they walked in packs, often barefoot on the sweltering pavements. Jeffery didn’t know what to make of them. He knew women in terms of clean defined lines with every feminine feature held firmly in place. In India were new loose curves wrapped in rivers of material which flowed out onto the ground tantalisingly close to his boots.
He kept a careful distance. Irene had always been his, ever since school, and he was waiting for the war to end to marry her. That was until one night, drinking at the soldier’s bar, the girl had come. She brushed past him and when he turned to look he got lost in sheaths of purple sari and wide brown eyes. She was young, only just of age and with a naïve look still, but she knew enough. When he asked her name she whispered ‘Sarah,’ and he knew it was a lie. They knew that the soldiers needed a name they could recognise, at least. She took his hand and the maze of dark twisted henna over hers lead inexorably to the tiny room with white washed walls and a black, wrought iron bed. The heat became unbearable and he closed his eyes, purple overwhelming him.
Irene was back from the potting shade, a larger trowel in her hand and a determined look on her face. A strand had worked its way loose from her bun and she pushed it away from her eyes in irritation. Jeffery longed for her to move on from the pansies but knew she would not until all the weeds and their roots were gone. She dug the trowel into the soil.
In the insufferable heat of the night, actions communicated a language where words could not. One night she put her hand over his and placed it on the lower part of her belly, which was firm and slightly swollen. Her brown eyes fixed on his. He recoiled, staring at her, a moan escaping from his lips. She watched his reaction in the hot silence and, cautiously now, moved her own hand down protectively to replace where his had been.
‘It’s the heat, God damn it. I just can’t think straight anymore Sir,’ Jeffery had pleaded desperately with his superior. The Captain frowned back at him; everyone always wanted relocating away from India. Jeffery had never come to know why he had been one of the lucky ones. He remembered the Captain reach into a pocket and pull out a handkerchief, passing it across the table to him. It was not enough to contain the streams that ran down his forehead and from his eyes. Jeffery knew that he was going home.
Irene was gone and the patch of pansies looked perfect, clean and tidy, as was her way. Jeffery felt a fresh, cool wind enter the room and Irene’s bustling presence beside him. He could feel himself return. Turning to look at his wife, his eyes met a bunch of purple pansies in her outstretched hand, their dark brown centres staring at him.
His mind rocked crazily. He stared at the purple flowers and at Irene’s face and then back again. She was smiling.
Irene knew.
Perhaps a letter had arrived from Archie, a fellow soldier and his only confidante. Or maybe it was that tiny piece of cloth that he had kept, ripped from the end of the girl’s sari as she ran the last time he saw her. It was hidden in the attic next to his badge of honour. Or maybe it was the child, fully grown and come in person to meet the absent father. Jeffery’s body exploded with heat.
‘I know the purple ones are your favourite,’ said Irene, still smiling.
‘What?’ Jeffery said, desperately, unable to make sense of her words.
‘You always stare at anything purple for ages. So I only picked the purple ones, for you.’ With that, she leaned forward and pushed the stems inside the clammy creases in the fist of one of his hands. ‘Hold these while I get a vase,’ she said.
Jeffery’s eyes were a sea of purple and dizziness overtook him. He felt her cool hand rest against his forehead.
‘Hmm. feverish…’ she muttered as he slumped back in the chair, suffering under the weight of the purple pansies.
ALEX TULJI has recently moved to be near the Bosnian strand of her family in Bosnia-Herzegovina. She’s currently teaching in an international school in Sarajevo and preparing to help set up a new branch of the school in Mostar. Juggling a new culture and lifestyle, two small children and a full-time job is keeping her extremely busy, but she’s trying hard to organise some breathing space so she can continue to work on her novel.
Clothes Talking
Sue Roberts
I wonder if the same thing happens to you? A single passing thought, apparently possessed of little significance, flits through your mind and in the micro-second that follows, a whole host of associated pictures and memories flash before you. And each of those pictures and memories is simply the label for another whole scene in your life. A bit like a list of chapters at the start of a novel – a very long novel.
That’s how it is with me this morning. I’ve just got out of bed and come into the dressing room to think what to wear. It’s an important day today: the fourth meeting of a group of eight clergy, a group convened personally by the Bishop, a group of four men and four women. Four men, all priests, all utterly opposed to the ordination of women to the priesthood and four women who are already priests. More than that: four men who are utterly opposed to the ordination of women to the episcopate and four women who are committed to the same.
It’s a tough one, and what I decide to wear for the day is crucial. To the uninitiated I realise that it might seem obvious: surely I can wear the same clothes as I wear on any other work day? However, it’s Monday, today, and so normally it would be my day off, but this is very clearly work, so should it be clericals or civvies? A clerical collar or ‘my own’ clothes? This isn’t really the question this morning. Given the nature of the group I’m joining, it has to be clericals. It’s just a question of what sort.
Perhaps I should rephrase that last remark. It’s not ‘just’ a question at all. It’s a huge question. I don’t know if you know – (I don’t know why you should know) – but there’s a whole unspoken code behind what clergy wear. Every shade of colour, every style of collar, cassock, cotta, every cut of suit or type of cloth gives out a decipherable message to anyone else in the know.
So what message do I need to give out this morning? First of all I need my clothes to say unequivocally, ‘I am a priest.’ That was abundantly clear from very early in the first meeting of our group, when one of the men in it announced, ‘I don’t wish to upset you girls’ – (how patronising could he be?) – ‘but I don’t actually believe you, or any other women, are priests anyway, so for me there can be no question of you becoming bishops.’
We were supposed to find this entirely understandable, to sit and take it calmly, on the chin, sympathetically even, understanding that of course we had by our very acceptance of God’s calling wrecked this and many other men’s lives. So, with that conversation in mind, there is no question this morning – I will wear a dog collar.
Now the minute you start talking about dog collars, you are into the vexed area of shirts too. The two items of clothing are inseparable, although historically they have of course been two entirely separate ones.
Let’s take collars first. There are the full collars – the ones I call the ‘ring of confidence’ jobs. These are made of either linen or plastic, both complete with studs. I once tried one of these – not linen, because a friend had already shown me what a sore neck he’d developed from where his had rubbed. I went for plastic with an unconvincing ‘linen-effect’ finish instead. I only wore it half a dozen times – it took twenty minutes of straining my neck, and my patience, to get the front stud in. Then five minutes later, by the time I’d got the back one in too, the front one would work its way out again and fall down inside my bra. Not worth it. So, although I still possess it, I certainly shan’t be wearing that one this morning. Besides which, it would send out a message I really do not want to give today. Namely, Anglican with a very large capital ‘A’. (That is, unless it’s worn with white, or even stripy shirt cuffs showing, in which case it says overly concerned with appearance and very possibly gay.)
I do want to say Anglican this morning, but in a very different way. I want to say catholic as well as Anglican. I want to say, ‘Here is a priest who has a deep sense of the sacramental, who believes in a life of quiet prayer, who doesn’t believe that using the word Mass or talking about Our Lady will produce instant death by thunderbolt, who believes in the Anglican use of the sacrament of penance - ‘confession’, who doesn’t flinch when a priest is referred to as ‘Father’, and who above all has a thoroughly grounded sense of the realities of human nature as well as the grace of God.’
However, to continue with the collars. In total contrast to these beastly ‘ring of confidence’ jobs, there are also the silly little slip-in ones, about three inches in length, so beloved of priests in the 1970s. To them, having only ever struggled with the afore-mentioned stud affair, this was undoubtedly bliss, a luxurious release from the itching neck and the waste of time every morning fiddling with the stupid little studs. However, to many of us ordained in the opening decade of the twenty first century, they simply say ‘lazy.’ There is good evidence that because they are so easy to put in, they get forgotten, and there is a host of stories about plastic British Rail coffee cups being hastily sliced up as the end of a journey draws near so that a forgetful bishop can descend onto the station platform properly attired. So I don’t even possess one of those!
As this brief heading ‘Collars’ flies through my mind, it pauses just long enough for me to note that Father Gavin -(he of the ‘no woman can be a priest’ opinion) - will undoubtedly be wearing one of these, which says it all. He is undoubtedly of that generation.
So what are my options this morning? Well, not great actually. In fact, as I look at the top of my chest of drawers, I note as on every other morning that the choice is between two pieces of plastic, both identical in style. It’s just that one is rather less battered than the other – so I go for that one. Both of these collars are for ‘tonsure’ style shirts, the neat, easy, business-like looking garments favoured by priests of the ‘catholic’ persuasion ordained any time since the late 80s. I fiddle around for a moment and find which one stays done up better – it rests neatly in a double ring of black shirt, and with a couple of concealed poppers leaves 1 inch showing in full at the front, and about ¼ inch above the black the rest of the way round the neck. Easy. Neat. Professional – and that’s become the buzz word for clergy in the twenty first century. That’s one of the things I want to say today. Along with catholic Anglican, I want to say ‘I am a thoroughly professional priest. I know what I’m doing and where I’m going. (Believe it or not, even the width showing in full at the front is of huge significance – one and a half inches would be much too evangelical!)
And so to shirts and the colour thereof. It must be a very black one, not a faded ageing, several times re-dyed one! Actually, I don’t possess shirts in any colour other than black. I never have, and I’m fairly certain that I never will. And that’s saying something about me, and what my understanding of a priest is. Grey, despite the fact that my godfather, whom I loved and respected deeply, always wore a grey clerical shirt, is, these days, for the cissies, the weak, the wishy-washy, those who either don’t know quite what they believe, or who aren’t quite sure whether they are priests or not. They’re for those who call themselves ‘ministers’ – a horrible word, and one I won’t use.
What’s a minister, for heaven’s sake? Somebody who ‘ministers’ – who does things to others. I don’t do things to others. My role as a priest is to allow God to do things in the lives of others, and to enable them to respond to him. In short it’s to be a bridge-maker between God and others, God and the world, a pontifex. Just as the Pope is the pontifex maximus. It’s very simple really when you stop and think about it. Grey, dark or pale, does not suggest somebody who is clear about what they do. And it’s strange just how many ordained people are iffy about claiming the authority that is given to them, preferring to pussyfoot around it. So I start rummaging through the wardrobe for a garment of a suitably profound black.
Naively, when I was preparing for ordination, I assumed it would be dead simple to buy black clerical shirts. How wrong I was! Venturing one morning into a very well-known and old-established firm of clerical outfitters, I found myself sinking in a mire of prejudice – or was the guy behind the counter just deaf? I don’t think so. I explained very clearly what I wanted: a black shirt, with a tonsure neck, double cuffs and no bust darts. Moreover, I wanted one that was long enough to stay reliably tucked into a pair of black jeans, not some short, end-on-end affair that would ride up within minutes. I could have been asking for a pair of Y-fronts for the level of consternation and confusion I caused!
‘You want a ladies’ blouse with a clerical collar, madam?’ the bumbling, elderly, rotund ball of tweed questioned, apparently seeking confirmation that he had heard me aright.
He hadn’t.
‘No, a plain black shirt, with no bust darts, with double cuffs and a tonsure neck please,’ I tried once more, hoping that I was making myself abundantly clear this time.
Clearly this was a picture the ball of tweed simply couldn’t conjure up.
‘Having – how can I put it – a different shaped figure from the gentlemen we frequently supply, I believe you want a blouse, madam.’ We were getting nowhere fast. I repeated my request once more.
‘Usually the ladies we supply prefer tailored blouses, madam.’
So they do actually supply ladies! I resisted the temptation to respond, ‘Well then I’m not one of your usual ladies,’ instead repeating yet again my desire for something that was long, unfitted and black.
‘Most of our ladies prefer something with some colour, madam.’ He steered away from the vexed question of tailoring. Did he realise, I wondered, how exasperating he was being? I have more than a suspicion that he did.
‘Well, I only ever wear black.’
‘Mmm?’ he raised his eyebrows questioningly, ‘Have you considered Liberty prints – or stripes? Our pin-stripes are extremely popular.’ Clearly I was trouble: I was no longer ‘Madam.’
Resisting the temptation simply to say, ‘Oh, don’t bother’ and walk out of the shop, I tried once more. Black, unfitted, double cuffs, tonsure neck.
‘Allow me to find you something to try on, my dear.’ Clearly, in his eyes I was at least a penny short of a shilling. (He probably only worked in imperial.) To me, he was treading on extremely dangerous ground indeed – ‘my dear.’ I’d give him ‘my dear.’
I was ushered over to a fitting room, and handed...a maroon and white pin-striped blouse, highly tailored, single cuffs – and without a chance of staying tucked in.
I left.
I buy my shirts now, exactly as I like them, by mail order from a small firm in an anonymous industrial estate somewhere in Essex, to whom I am neither ‘madam’ nor ‘my dear’, but simply The Revd S. Roberts!
So shirt, collar – it’s just which cuff-links now. White or stripy cuffs, as I’ve said, are an indication – amongst other things - of an excessive concern with personal appearance! Black cuffs with the right links, however, say smart and working, neat and efficient. So it won’t be my pink and turquoise silk knots – nor the black and red ones (college colours). It won’t be the gold pair with the college crest on either – the last thing I want to suggest this morning is that I’m still hanging on to my student days. In the end, tempted as I am by the small gold monogrammed ones that were my father’s, I go for simple gold ovals. Unobtrusive but smart.
By now time is ticking on, and I need to start thinking about feeding the dogs and sorting my own breakfast out too, so it’s just the top layer that needs my attention. Jacket? Jumper? Definitely the latter: it’s warm, it’s comfy and it’s not stand-offish. As everything else (at least all that’s visible) is black, I content myself with grey, and hope nobody will notice the myriad holes which are the result of standing too close to a jolly good bonfire in the Rectory garden. And anyway, every other garment says ‘conformity.’ This one says ‘eccentricity’ and that’s part of being human!
With sincere apologies to all my ordained colleagues, some of whom I will have undoubtedly offended whilst having a thoroughly enjoyable rant!
SUE ROBERTS was born in Exeter and has lived in Devon for most of her life. She has had a rich and varied career including stints as a potter, a chef and a nanny, culminating in ordination as an Anglican priest in 1997. She loves her work and is touched to be described by her colleagues as a ‘gifted and caring pastor.’ She is also, fortunately, the owner of an acute sense of humour inherited from her grandfather, which means that she finds it impossible not to see the funny side of human life, including – often – her own work.
Martin Wells
It had been five years since he had last seen the broad plains of the Serengeti. He remembered the searing heat of the midday sun and how he had sat with Elias the elder under the solitary thorn acacia tree while they watched the herds of antelope beginning their annual migration.
Elias had told him everything about the tracking of the animals that provided the tribe with their basic diet. ‘You have to look for the weak and the wounded and then strike. It’s when they’re alone that they’re at their most vulnerable.’ But that was a long time ago and he had been forced to leave his homeland to seek prosperity in a land far away.
Now he was in the big city, and looking up he saw the rays of the early morning sun glint against the high windows of the towering office building across the road. He was on a mission.
When he had first arrived in the city, he had been approached by a friend of his tribal chief who had arrived there some years before. He had been told that an agency of the authorities was looking for men with his skills and education.
‘They will welcome you with open arms – have no fear.’
An interview had been arranged and despite his apprehension he had indeed been successful.
‘This is no ordinary job,’ they said. ‘For your own safety, it would be advisable never to tell people where you work and what you do.’
The training had been vigorous, and he had to spend many hours alone, memorising various codes.
‘These are vital for your work. You must always use them when you contact HQ,’ they had told him. When his training was complete, he’d had no trouble convincing his liaison officer that he was ready. Soon he became known throughout the service as the Hunter.
When he arrived at work that morning, his Head of Operations took him aside.
‘We believe you are ready for a special assignment, so don’t let us down.’ He handed the Hunter a small brown envelope. ‘Inside is a picture of a man we’ve been trailing for some time. You will also find the address of his office. He always arrives there at about nine, but we’ve never had enough evidence to bring him to court. Use your tracking skills to ensure that this time he faces the justice he deserves. Good luck.’
The Hunter shook the hand of the man he knew only as S, and ignoring the stares of the other men gathered downstairs, he made his way out of the building.
He was well aware that this was his opportunity to shine. As he walked along the empty streets he checked that he had all the equipment that he needed. Would Elias be proud that he was now hunting a bigger prize than he could ever have imagined in their days together on the plains?
The Hunter arrived at the address he had been given and immediately scanned the surroundings for a place to conceal himself. A recess in a narrow alleyway was perfect. He glanced at his watch. Ten to nine. The street was virtually empty and he had an excellent view of the building opposite. He took out of his pocket the miniature six million pixel camera with its small zoom lens. He focused it on the building. He couldn’t afford to make a mistake.
Almost exactly on time, a shiny black Range Rover drew up directly across the road. The subject of the photograph got out of the car and looked around. The Hunter was reminded of a lone antelope sniffing the air, wary of possible dangers that could be lurking in the long grass.
Lifting the camera to his eye, the Hunter took three quick photographs of the subject with the building and the car in the background. The subject looked over in his direction as if he had heard the almost silent click of the shutter, but the Hunter remained in the shadows, confident that he had not been spotted. A flash of orange sidelights indicated that the subject had locked the Range Rover, and without looking round again he strode swiftly up the stairs into the building.
The Hunter remembered his instructions. ‘You must wait until the subject is inside the building before making contact with us.’ He put the camera into his pocket and took out the encrypted two-way radio that would connect him with HQ.
Pushing the transmit button he whispered, ‘HQ, this is Agent Yellow 542.’
There was a slight crackling from the radio and a voice answered, ‘Come in 542.’
‘I have a Code 6, HQ.’
There was a moment’s delay before the voice at the other end of the phone replied, ‘Are you certain it’s a Code 6?’
‘Yes I’m sure, and I have the evidence on camera.’
There was another slight delay. ‘Well done 542. Return to HQ as soon as you can.’
The Hunter smiled to himself and began his walk back. He hoped that S would be pleased with the results.
Whilst he was on his way back, news of the Code 6 Operation had been transmitted to S who leant back in his chair and picked up his own internal phone. ‘Put me through to the Director, please.’
There was a moment’s silence, then a gruff voice barked, ‘I hope it’s good news, Simpson.’
‘Yes Sir, very good news. We’ve got our target, and it’s a Code 6, Sir.’
‘At last! Well done Simpson. Our subject may be a Cabinet Minister but it’s our job to keep the streets of this city free from all those who seek to transgress, regardless of their position. Have we got the evidence?’
S thought quickly. He hadn’t seen the pictures, but now was not the time to put any doubt into the Director’s mind.
‘Absolutely clear as a bell, Sir. No doubt at all. I had my best man on the job, Sir.’
‘Who was that then?’
S cleared his throat. ‘Agent Yellow 542. The Hunter.’
‘You mean the Masai fellow?’
‘Yes sir, that’s correct.’
‘Well Simpson, make sure the other departments don’t poach him. We will want to use him again.’
There was a click, and S realised that as far as the Director was concerned the conversation was over. S looked at the shabby worn carpet of his office and for a moment dreamt of a move up to the second floor. There he could have his own grey four-drawer filing cabinet, a separate rug and a coffee percolator, which he would admittedly have to share with two others on the same corridor. But it was advancement.
He picked up the phone. ‘Reception? When Agent 542 returns, tell him to wait for me in the Report Office as I’m in conference at the moment.’
He replaced the receiver and picked the Telegraph out of his briefcase. ‘No need to work too hard this morning,’ he said to himself and set about studying the sports page. His phone rang.
‘Simpson.’ It was the Director. S threw the paper under the desk as if the phone had given the Director a clear CCTV picture of his office.
‘Yes sir!’
‘What is a Code 6, for goodness sake?’
‘One moment Sir.’ S swivelled in his chair and reached behind him to take a thick file from the bookcase. ‘Would you like me to quote from the file Sir? And are you quite sure the phone is safe?’
‘Just get on with it, Simpson.’
‘Right, Sir.’ S cleared his throat again. ‘The City of Westminster Parking regulations 1984, sub section g, paragraphs 9 to 15. Code 5 states, “A motor vehicle shall be causing an offence if the vehicle is stationery and unattended where there are two quite distinct yellow lines painted on the highway.” But Code 6 is more serious Sir. That forbids any motor vehicle to have two wheels on the pavement whilst parked by those two yellow lines.’
The Director said nothing for a moment. Then he replied, ‘I can see a resignation from the Cabinet here Simpson – that’s damned serious.’
‘I agree Sir. That’s what makes our job so worthwhile.’
The Director put the phone down and S picked up his newspaper.
‘Well done Hunter,’ he said to himself. ‘I’ll have you on the clamping unit next week.’
MARTIN WELLS decided that since he’d been coming down to Lyme for forty-three consecutive years, it might be cheaper to buy a house and live here. His career path has wandered from being a waiter in Selfridges and a policeman in Rhodesia to running his own furniture business. Writing has become a wonderful form of escape and he has found that it feeds his various delusions which include being Thomas Hardy’s soul mate and Bathsheba Everdene’s suitor.
Purple Pansies
Alex Tulji
The memories always caught him unawares, in the mundane. One hot day it was when the ice slipped from his fingers and skidded over the worktop, winking at him accusingly in the sunlight. Jeffery had learnt over the years to avoid the obvious triggers, like travel programmes or the strange, colourful areas of town which still held a faint fragrant appeal. No, they came in subtle ways; a woman’s sideways glance, the distant sound of a child’s tambourine, the embossed threads on a certain type of scarf. A few years ago, during the fashion for flamboyant jewellery, he developed such a loathing for the sight of gold that he refused to leave the house for months. His wife called the doctor, fearing he was becoming a recluse.
Today, in the weak morning sun of early spring, the silver strands in his wife’s hair sparkled softly. Irene was doing the gardening, kneeling on the padded mat he had bought her last Christmas. ‘So much easier on the knees,’ she had said with a smile. Jeffery sat watching her from the living room on his favourite faded red leather chair next to the window. He was dressed in his Sunday best, the thin strands of hair over his scalp neatly combed to one side and wearing his military navy, red and white striped bow tie.
In the garden Irene was weeding, digging up the persistent intruders to her patch of beloved pansies. Jeffery watched the neat bun in her hair bob up and down as she worked. He often thought of Irene in terms of these flowers and had come to see a resemblance to her in their round open faces, warm colour and easy presence. Yet today the pansies were to blame. For some of them were coming into flower purple, the deep purple of night and memories and insufferable heat.
Jeffery felt something like hot ice slide down his neck and seep into his collar. He had started sweating. He shifted uncomfortably in the leather chair. The grandfather clock in the corner suddenly beat a loud gong eleven times and he felt the disturbed movement of blood in his veins. He was angry now. Why did they have to be purple?
Jeffery was momentarily distracted from his thoughts as his wife straightened her back and looked across the garden, shielding her eyes from the sun. Following her gaze he saw two birds flitting around a nut feeder hanging off one of the branches of the old apple tree. They flew around each other as they picked nuts in a cooperative manner, their wings beating closely but never touching. Aware of each other’s presence, as soon as one became too close the other would fly obligingly around the other side. The winged duet lasted for several minutes before the birds flew off, one after the other.
Irene plunged her trowel back into the hard clay earth and Jeffery felt himself sink into the chair and into his mind of memories. He did not see her as she disappeared off to the potting shed, his eyes now glazed and fixed on a point in the distance far beyond where the birds had flown.
He could smell her perfume, lingering on his clothes in a sweetness that mingled with the smell of spices into a strange heady scent that he carried with him. It had given him headaches and the tablets that the doctor had prescribed only dulled it and made him drowsy. The girl had been wearing purple, the first time he saw her, the purple of the pansies his wife was tending. Across his forehead salty beads formed and slid down his forehead. In an unconscious gesture, he removed the handkerchief from his top pocket and swept it across his forehead.
He had been young, just nineteen, when he was stationed abroad during the Second World War. The vivid colours, smells and heat of northern India were overwhelming and disorientated him. In the monsoon heat he grew a new skin, snakelike and slick with sweat, his gun slippery in his hands. The crowded, claustrophobic streets clattered with rickshaws and the strange sounds of a language he didn’t understand.
Women were colourful, dark beauties in vivid saris that shone in the sun and jingled as they walked. Gold jewellery hung from their ears and nose, and they walked in packs, often barefoot on the sweltering pavements. Jeffery didn’t know what to make of them. He knew women in terms of clean defined lines with every feminine feature held firmly in place. In India were new loose curves wrapped in rivers of material which flowed out onto the ground tantalisingly close to his boots.
He kept a careful distance. Irene had always been his, ever since school, and he was waiting for the war to end to marry her. That was until one night, drinking at the soldier’s bar, the girl had come. She brushed past him and when he turned to look he got lost in sheaths of purple sari and wide brown eyes. She was young, only just of age and with a naïve look still, but she knew enough. When he asked her name she whispered ‘Sarah,’ and he knew it was a lie. They knew that the soldiers needed a name they could recognise, at least. She took his hand and the maze of dark twisted henna over hers lead inexorably to the tiny room with white washed walls and a black, wrought iron bed. The heat became unbearable and he closed his eyes, purple overwhelming him.
Irene was back from the potting shade, a larger trowel in her hand and a determined look on her face. A strand had worked its way loose from her bun and she pushed it away from her eyes in irritation. Jeffery longed for her to move on from the pansies but knew she would not until all the weeds and their roots were gone. She dug the trowel into the soil.
In the insufferable heat of the night, actions communicated a language where words could not. One night she put her hand over his and placed it on the lower part of her belly, which was firm and slightly swollen. Her brown eyes fixed on his. He recoiled, staring at her, a moan escaping from his lips. She watched his reaction in the hot silence and, cautiously now, moved her own hand down protectively to replace where his had been.
‘It’s the heat, God damn it. I just can’t think straight anymore Sir,’ Jeffery had pleaded desperately with his superior. The Captain frowned back at him; everyone always wanted relocating away from India. Jeffery had never come to know why he had been one of the lucky ones. He remembered the Captain reach into a pocket and pull out a handkerchief, passing it across the table to him. It was not enough to contain the streams that ran down his forehead and from his eyes. Jeffery knew that he was going home.
Irene was gone and the patch of pansies looked perfect, clean and tidy, as was her way. Jeffery felt a fresh, cool wind enter the room and Irene’s bustling presence beside him. He could feel himself return. Turning to look at his wife, his eyes met a bunch of purple pansies in her outstretched hand, their dark brown centres staring at him.
His mind rocked crazily. He stared at the purple flowers and at Irene’s face and then back again. She was smiling.
Irene knew.
Perhaps a letter had arrived from Archie, a fellow soldier and his only confidante. Or maybe it was that tiny piece of cloth that he had kept, ripped from the end of the girl’s sari as she ran the last time he saw her. It was hidden in the attic next to his badge of honour. Or maybe it was the child, fully grown and come in person to meet the absent father. Jeffery’s body exploded with heat.
‘I know the purple ones are your favourite,’ said Irene, still smiling.
‘What?’ Jeffery said, desperately, unable to make sense of her words.
‘You always stare at anything purple for ages. So I only picked the purple ones, for you.’ With that, she leaned forward and pushed the stems inside the clammy creases in the fist of one of his hands. ‘Hold these while I get a vase,’ she said.
Jeffery’s eyes were a sea of purple and dizziness overtook him. He felt her cool hand rest against his forehead.
‘Hmm. feverish…’ she muttered as he slumped back in the chair, suffering under the weight of the purple pansies.
ALEX TULJI has recently moved to be near the Bosnian strand of her family in Bosnia-Herzegovina. She’s currently teaching in an international school in Sarajevo and preparing to help set up a new branch of the school in Mostar. Juggling a new culture and lifestyle, two small children and a full-time job is keeping her extremely busy, but she’s trying hard to organise some breathing space so she can continue to work on her novel.
Clothes Talking
Sue Roberts
I wonder if the same thing happens to you? A single passing thought, apparently possessed of little significance, flits through your mind and in the micro-second that follows, a whole host of associated pictures and memories flash before you. And each of those pictures and memories is simply the label for another whole scene in your life. A bit like a list of chapters at the start of a novel – a very long novel.
That’s how it is with me this morning. I’ve just got out of bed and come into the dressing room to think what to wear. It’s an important day today: the fourth meeting of a group of eight clergy, a group convened personally by the Bishop, a group of four men and four women. Four men, all priests, all utterly opposed to the ordination of women to the priesthood and four women who are already priests. More than that: four men who are utterly opposed to the ordination of women to the episcopate and four women who are committed to the same.
It’s a tough one, and what I decide to wear for the day is crucial. To the uninitiated I realise that it might seem obvious: surely I can wear the same clothes as I wear on any other work day? However, it’s Monday, today, and so normally it would be my day off, but this is very clearly work, so should it be clericals or civvies? A clerical collar or ‘my own’ clothes? This isn’t really the question this morning. Given the nature of the group I’m joining, it has to be clericals. It’s just a question of what sort.
Perhaps I should rephrase that last remark. It’s not ‘just’ a question at all. It’s a huge question. I don’t know if you know – (I don’t know why you should know) – but there’s a whole unspoken code behind what clergy wear. Every shade of colour, every style of collar, cassock, cotta, every cut of suit or type of cloth gives out a decipherable message to anyone else in the know.
So what message do I need to give out this morning? First of all I need my clothes to say unequivocally, ‘I am a priest.’ That was abundantly clear from very early in the first meeting of our group, when one of the men in it announced, ‘I don’t wish to upset you girls’ – (how patronising could he be?) – ‘but I don’t actually believe you, or any other women, are priests anyway, so for me there can be no question of you becoming bishops.’
We were supposed to find this entirely understandable, to sit and take it calmly, on the chin, sympathetically even, understanding that of course we had by our very acceptance of God’s calling wrecked this and many other men’s lives. So, with that conversation in mind, there is no question this morning – I will wear a dog collar.
Now the minute you start talking about dog collars, you are into the vexed area of shirts too. The two items of clothing are inseparable, although historically they have of course been two entirely separate ones.
Let’s take collars first. There are the full collars – the ones I call the ‘ring of confidence’ jobs. These are made of either linen or plastic, both complete with studs. I once tried one of these – not linen, because a friend had already shown me what a sore neck he’d developed from where his had rubbed. I went for plastic with an unconvincing ‘linen-effect’ finish instead. I only wore it half a dozen times – it took twenty minutes of straining my neck, and my patience, to get the front stud in. Then five minutes later, by the time I’d got the back one in too, the front one would work its way out again and fall down inside my bra. Not worth it. So, although I still possess it, I certainly shan’t be wearing that one this morning. Besides which, it would send out a message I really do not want to give today. Namely, Anglican with a very large capital ‘A’. (That is, unless it’s worn with white, or even stripy shirt cuffs showing, in which case it says overly concerned with appearance and very possibly gay.)
I do want to say Anglican this morning, but in a very different way. I want to say catholic as well as Anglican. I want to say, ‘Here is a priest who has a deep sense of the sacramental, who believes in a life of quiet prayer, who doesn’t believe that using the word Mass or talking about Our Lady will produce instant death by thunderbolt, who believes in the Anglican use of the sacrament of penance - ‘confession’, who doesn’t flinch when a priest is referred to as ‘Father’, and who above all has a thoroughly grounded sense of the realities of human nature as well as the grace of God.’
However, to continue with the collars. In total contrast to these beastly ‘ring of confidence’ jobs, there are also the silly little slip-in ones, about three inches in length, so beloved of priests in the 1970s. To them, having only ever struggled with the afore-mentioned stud affair, this was undoubtedly bliss, a luxurious release from the itching neck and the waste of time every morning fiddling with the stupid little studs. However, to many of us ordained in the opening decade of the twenty first century, they simply say ‘lazy.’ There is good evidence that because they are so easy to put in, they get forgotten, and there is a host of stories about plastic British Rail coffee cups being hastily sliced up as the end of a journey draws near so that a forgetful bishop can descend onto the station platform properly attired. So I don’t even possess one of those!
As this brief heading ‘Collars’ flies through my mind, it pauses just long enough for me to note that Father Gavin -(he of the ‘no woman can be a priest’ opinion) - will undoubtedly be wearing one of these, which says it all. He is undoubtedly of that generation.
So what are my options this morning? Well, not great actually. In fact, as I look at the top of my chest of drawers, I note as on every other morning that the choice is between two pieces of plastic, both identical in style. It’s just that one is rather less battered than the other – so I go for that one. Both of these collars are for ‘tonsure’ style shirts, the neat, easy, business-like looking garments favoured by priests of the ‘catholic’ persuasion ordained any time since the late 80s. I fiddle around for a moment and find which one stays done up better – it rests neatly in a double ring of black shirt, and with a couple of concealed poppers leaves 1 inch showing in full at the front, and about ¼ inch above the black the rest of the way round the neck. Easy. Neat. Professional – and that’s become the buzz word for clergy in the twenty first century. That’s one of the things I want to say today. Along with catholic Anglican, I want to say ‘I am a thoroughly professional priest. I know what I’m doing and where I’m going. (Believe it or not, even the width showing in full at the front is of huge significance – one and a half inches would be much too evangelical!)
And so to shirts and the colour thereof. It must be a very black one, not a faded ageing, several times re-dyed one! Actually, I don’t possess shirts in any colour other than black. I never have, and I’m fairly certain that I never will. And that’s saying something about me, and what my understanding of a priest is. Grey, despite the fact that my godfather, whom I loved and respected deeply, always wore a grey clerical shirt, is, these days, for the cissies, the weak, the wishy-washy, those who either don’t know quite what they believe, or who aren’t quite sure whether they are priests or not. They’re for those who call themselves ‘ministers’ – a horrible word, and one I won’t use.
What’s a minister, for heaven’s sake? Somebody who ‘ministers’ – who does things to others. I don’t do things to others. My role as a priest is to allow God to do things in the lives of others, and to enable them to respond to him. In short it’s to be a bridge-maker between God and others, God and the world, a pontifex. Just as the Pope is the pontifex maximus. It’s very simple really when you stop and think about it. Grey, dark or pale, does not suggest somebody who is clear about what they do. And it’s strange just how many ordained people are iffy about claiming the authority that is given to them, preferring to pussyfoot around it. So I start rummaging through the wardrobe for a garment of a suitably profound black.
Naively, when I was preparing for ordination, I assumed it would be dead simple to buy black clerical shirts. How wrong I was! Venturing one morning into a very well-known and old-established firm of clerical outfitters, I found myself sinking in a mire of prejudice – or was the guy behind the counter just deaf? I don’t think so. I explained very clearly what I wanted: a black shirt, with a tonsure neck, double cuffs and no bust darts. Moreover, I wanted one that was long enough to stay reliably tucked into a pair of black jeans, not some short, end-on-end affair that would ride up within minutes. I could have been asking for a pair of Y-fronts for the level of consternation and confusion I caused!
‘You want a ladies’ blouse with a clerical collar, madam?’ the bumbling, elderly, rotund ball of tweed questioned, apparently seeking confirmation that he had heard me aright.
He hadn’t.
‘No, a plain black shirt, with no bust darts, with double cuffs and a tonsure neck please,’ I tried once more, hoping that I was making myself abundantly clear this time.
Clearly this was a picture the ball of tweed simply couldn’t conjure up.
‘Having – how can I put it – a different shaped figure from the gentlemen we frequently supply, I believe you want a blouse, madam.’ We were getting nowhere fast. I repeated my request once more.
‘Usually the ladies we supply prefer tailored blouses, madam.’
So they do actually supply ladies! I resisted the temptation to respond, ‘Well then I’m not one of your usual ladies,’ instead repeating yet again my desire for something that was long, unfitted and black.
‘Most of our ladies prefer something with some colour, madam.’ He steered away from the vexed question of tailoring. Did he realise, I wondered, how exasperating he was being? I have more than a suspicion that he did.
‘Well, I only ever wear black.’
‘Mmm?’ he raised his eyebrows questioningly, ‘Have you considered Liberty prints – or stripes? Our pin-stripes are extremely popular.’ Clearly I was trouble: I was no longer ‘Madam.’
Resisting the temptation simply to say, ‘Oh, don’t bother’ and walk out of the shop, I tried once more. Black, unfitted, double cuffs, tonsure neck.
‘Allow me to find you something to try on, my dear.’ Clearly, in his eyes I was at least a penny short of a shilling. (He probably only worked in imperial.) To me, he was treading on extremely dangerous ground indeed – ‘my dear.’ I’d give him ‘my dear.’
I was ushered over to a fitting room, and handed...a maroon and white pin-striped blouse, highly tailored, single cuffs – and without a chance of staying tucked in.
I left.
I buy my shirts now, exactly as I like them, by mail order from a small firm in an anonymous industrial estate somewhere in Essex, to whom I am neither ‘madam’ nor ‘my dear’, but simply The Revd S. Roberts!
So shirt, collar – it’s just which cuff-links now. White or stripy cuffs, as I’ve said, are an indication – amongst other things - of an excessive concern with personal appearance! Black cuffs with the right links, however, say smart and working, neat and efficient. So it won’t be my pink and turquoise silk knots – nor the black and red ones (college colours). It won’t be the gold pair with the college crest on either – the last thing I want to suggest this morning is that I’m still hanging on to my student days. In the end, tempted as I am by the small gold monogrammed ones that were my father’s, I go for simple gold ovals. Unobtrusive but smart.
By now time is ticking on, and I need to start thinking about feeding the dogs and sorting my own breakfast out too, so it’s just the top layer that needs my attention. Jacket? Jumper? Definitely the latter: it’s warm, it’s comfy and it’s not stand-offish. As everything else (at least all that’s visible) is black, I content myself with grey, and hope nobody will notice the myriad holes which are the result of standing too close to a jolly good bonfire in the Rectory garden. And anyway, every other garment says ‘conformity.’ This one says ‘eccentricity’ and that’s part of being human!
With sincere apologies to all my ordained colleagues, some of whom I will have undoubtedly offended whilst having a thoroughly enjoyable rant!
SUE ROBERTS was born in Exeter and has lived in Devon for most of her life. She has had a rich and varied career including stints as a potter, a chef and a nanny, culminating in ordination as an Anglican priest in 1997. She loves her work and is touched to be described by her colleagues as a ‘gifted and caring pastor.’ She is also, fortunately, the owner of an acute sense of humour inherited from her grandfather, which means that she finds it impossible not to see the funny side of human life, including – often – her own work.
