Plenty Page #7

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Our tour has been extended another two years.

I've left my job.

Oh, really?

Being a teacher; I decided

to throw it all in.

I'm starting a home for women who

are victims of domestic violence.

Really?

A place where they

can be safe from their husbands.

What a wonderful idea.

What will you do?

I'll run it. I will. I've decided

it's time to do good.

What was that phrase about

"having to move on"?

Oh, yes.

I felt such relief. Just

for a while not to think of yourself.

Shall we go back to the car?

Hm.

It's what I want to do.

Please, Susan, let's

just sit and talk about this!

No. Not just at the moment.

Please, if we can...just talk it over.

Susan. Susan. Come back!

Raymond. Raymond,

what's happening?

Leonard Darwin is dead.

Oh, no. Awful.

Susan wants to go to the

funeral. In England.

Damn you. This is your fault.

Man, that is born of woman,

hath but a short time to live.

He cometh up, and is

cut down like a flower.

He fleeth and never continueth in one stay.

In the midst of life we are in death.

Of whom may we seek

for succour but of thee, O Lord,

who for our sins are justly displeased

Even when you die

they don't forgive you.

He spoke his mind over Suez.

That's why nobody is here today.

I knew if I came over

I would never return.

Darling, I think the driver is ready. We have to

be at Heathrow. We've only an hour to get there

Raymond, I've decided to stay.

Please, before you say anything,

if you could just think about it.

I knew we were going to be

treated to some such nonsense.

Not at all.

I have to tell you that

this is out of the question

Have you any idea of the

implications of what you're suggesting?

Now, who do you know?

I'm sure you'll see some familiar faces.

Hang on... I'll just get you a drink.

and Tony died?

Yes, that's right.

In Brussels?

And you were with him?

Was he your best friend?

He was my only friend.

Apart from one other.

And it doesn't look as

if he's coming today.

You were one of the few women in

Special Operations to be flown into France?

Yes.

And, er... one of the youngest. At the time,

what did you feel you were fighting for?

Well, I suppose we were

fighting for freedom.

But, I'm not saying um, please,

it wasn't a grand idea.

It was in us.

It was bred in us.

We were fighting for a world

which could be better.

I suppose, in spite of everything,

you must miss those days.

Not really, no. We don't

think about them much.

Sir Andrew will see you now, Mrs Brock.

He only has a few moments, I'm afraid.

Ah, Mrs Brock.

Sir Andrew.

How do you do?

We have met. The Queen's garden party.

That's right.

And I heard you on the wireless only recently

how extraordinary it must have been.

This must seem a very strange request.

If you could leave us, Begley.

Sir.

Just shuffle some paper for a while.

Sir Andrew, as you know, I take very little

interest in my husband's professional life

Indeed.

but... for the first time in my husband's career

I am beginning to feel the need to intervene.

I had a message, yes.

I hope you appreciate my loyalty

- Oh, yes.

- coming here at all.

Brock is a man who has seen

me through some very difficult times.

I am told.

But this is a matter on

which I need to go behind his back.

It's my impression that since our recall from

Jordan he is in some way being penalised.

I do understand the Foreign Service now; I know my

husband could never come to ask what his prospects are.

Signs indications are all you are given.

Your stock is rising; your stock is falling.

Yes.

Brock has been

allocated to a fairly lowly job

backing up the EEC negotiating team.

He's part of

the push into Europe, yes.

And the foreign posts he's since

been offered have not been glittering.

We offered him Monrovia.

Monrovia. Yes. He took

that to be an insult.

Was he wrong?

Monrovia is not an insult.

But?

Monrovia is more in

the nature of a test.

A test of nerve, it's true. If a man is

stupid enough to accept Monrovia

then he probably deserves

Monrovia. That is how we think.

But you...

And Brock refused.

Had we wanted to insult him

there are far worse jobs.

And in this building, too.

In my view, town-twinning

is the coup de grace.

I'd rather be a martyr to the tsetse fly than

have to twin Rotherham with Bergen op Zoom.

You are evading me.

I'm sorry. It's a habit,

as you might say.

Your husband has never

been a flier, Mrs Brock.

Everyone is streamed.

A slow stream, a fast stream.

My husband is "slow"?

Slow-ish.

Well, what is he? First Secretary struggling towards

counsellor. At 41, it's not remarkable, you know.

- But it's got worse.

- You think?

In the last six months. He's never

been excluded from his work before.

Oh, does he feel that?

I think you know he does.

Well, I'm sure the intention

was not to punish him.

We have had some trouble

placing him; it's true.

The rather startling decision

to desert his post.

That was not his fault.

We were told.

We were sympathetic.

Psychiatric reasons

I was daunted at the prospect

of returning to Jordan.

Or course. Arab psychiatry I shudder at the

thought. A heavy-handed people at the best of times.

Look, we understood. Family problems.

Our sympathy goes out

But you are blocking his advance.

Mrs Brock. Believe me,

I recognise your tone.

Women have come in

here and used it before.

I am very keen he should

not suffer on my account.

I also have read the stories in your file,

so nothing in your manner is likely to amaze.

When you have chosen a particular course, when

there is something that you very badly want

but in this matter I must tell you, Mrs Brock,

it is more than likely you have met your match.

We are speaking

of achievement at the highest level.

No-one can be

expect to be cosseted, through.

It's not enough to be clever.

Everyone here is clever; everyone is gifted

everyone is diligent. These are simply the minimum

skills. Far more important is an attitude of mind.

Along the corridor, I boast a colleague who in 1945 advised the

Government not to accept the Volkswagen works as war reparation

as the Volkswagen plainly

had no commercial future.

I must tell you, unlikely as it may seem,

that man has risen to the very, very top.

Perhaps you begin to understand.

You are saying

I am saying that certain qualities are valued here

above a simple gift for being right or wrong.

Qualities that

are sometimes hard to define.

What you are saying is that nobody

may speak. Nobody may question.

Certainly tact is valued very high.

Sir Andrew. Do you never find it in yourself to despise

a profession in which nobody may speak their mind?

But that is the nature

of the service, Mrs Brock.

It is called "diplomacy".

And in its practice the

English lead the world.

The irony is when there was an Empire to administer

there was six-hundred of us in this place.

Now it's to be dismantled,

and there are six thousand.

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