Small Town in Germany

Chapter One: Mr. Meadowes and Mr. Cork"Why don't you get out and walk? I would if I was your age. Quicker than sitting with this scum.""I'll be all right," said Cork, the albino cypher clerk, and looked anxiously at the older man in the driving seat beside him. "We'll just have to hurry slowly," he added in his most conciliatory tone. Cork was a cockney, bright as paint, and it worried him to see Meadowes all het up. "We'll just have to let it happen to us, won't we, Arthur?""I'd like to throw the whole bloody lot of them in the Rhine.""You know you wouldn't really."It was Saturday morning, nine o'clock. The road from Friesdorf to the Embassy was packed tight with protesting cars, the pavements lined with photographs of the Movement's leader, and the banners were stretched across the road like advertisements at a rally: "The West has deceived us; Germans can look East without shame." "End the Coca-Cola culture now!" At the very centre of the long column sat Cork and Meadowes, becalmed while the clamour of horns rose all round them in unceasing concert. Sometimes they sounded in series starting at the front and working slowly back, so that their roar passed overhead like an aeroplane sometimes in unison, dash dot dash, K for Karfeld our elected leader; and sometimes they just had a free for all, tuning for the symphony."What the hell do they want with it then? All the screaming? Bloody good haircut, that's what half of them need, a good hiding and back to school.""It's the farmers," Cork said, "I told you, they're picketing the Bundestag.""Farmers? This lot? They'd die if they got their feet wet, half of them. Kids. Look at that crowd there then. Disgusting, that's what I call it."To their right, in a red Volkswagen, sat three students, two boys and a girl. The driver wore a leather jacket and very long hair, and he was gazing intently through his windscreen at the car in front, his slim palm poised over the steering wheel, waiting for the signal to blow his horn. His two companions, intertwined, were kissing deeply."They're the supporting cast," Cork said. "It's a lark for them. You know the students' slogan: 'Freedom's only real when you're fighting for it.' It's not so different from what's going on at home, is it? Hear what they did in Grosvenor Square last night?" Cork asked, attempting once again to shift the ground. "If that's education, I'll stick to ignorance."But Meadowes would not be distracted."They ought to bring in the National Service," he declared, glaring at the Volkswagen. "That would sort them out.""They've got it already. They've had it twenty years or more." Sensing that Meadowes was preparing to relent, Cork chose the subject most likely to encourage him. "Here, how did Myra's birthday party go, then? Good show was it? I'll bet she had a lovely time."But for some reason the question only cast Meadowes into even deeper gloom, and after that Cork chose silence as the wiser course. He had tried everything, and to no effect. Meadowes was a decent, churchy sort of bloke, the kind they didn't make any more, and worth a good deal of anybody's time; but there was a limit even to Cork's filial devotion. He'd tried the new Rover which Meadowes had bought for his retirement, tax free and at a ten per cent discount. He'd admired its build, its comfort and its fittings until he was blue in the face, and all he'd got for his trouble was a grunt. He'd tried the Exiles Motoring Club, of which Meadowes was a keen supporter; he'd tried the Commonwealth Children's Sports which they hoped to run that afternoon in the Embassy gardens. And now he had even tried last night's big party, which they hadn't liked to attend because of Janet's baby being so near; and as far as Cork was concerned, that was the whole menu and Meadowes could lump it. Short of a holiday, Cork decided, short of a long, sunny holiday away from Karfeld and the Brussels negotiations, andle Carré, John is the author of 'Small Town in Germany' with ISBN 9780743431712 and ISBN 0743431715.