Honourable Schoolboy (13 page)

‘I want him to hear from everyone just how dead we are,’ Smiley explained.

Soon this broken-wing technique was extended to other spheres, and one of Guillam’s more entertaining tasks was to make sure that Roddy Martindale was well supplied with woeful stories about the Circus’s disarray.

And still the burrowers toiled. They called it afterwards the phoney peace. They had the map, Connie said later, and they had the directions, but there were still mountains to be moved in spoonfuls. Waiting, Guillam took Molly Meakin to long and costly dinners but they ended inconclusively. He played squash with her and admired her eye, he swam with her and admired her body, but she warded off closer contact with a mysterious and private smile, turning her head away and downward while she went on holding him.

Under the continued pressure of idleness Fawn the factotum took to acting strangely. When Smiley disappeared and left him behind, he literally pined for his master’s return. Catching him by surprise in his little den one evening, Guillam was shocked to find him in a near foetal crouch, winding a handkerchief round and round his thumb like a ligature, in order to hurt himself.

‘For God’s sake, it’s nothing personal, man!’ Guillam cried. ‘George doesn’t need you for once, that’s all. Take a few days’ leave or something. Cool off.’

But Fawn referred to Smiley as the Chief, and looked askance at those who called him George.

It was toward the end of this barren phase that a new and wonderful gadget appeared on the fifth floor. It was brought in suitcases by two crew cut technicians and installed over three days: a green telephone destined, despite his prejudices, for Smiley’s desk and connecting him directly with the Annexe. It was routed by way of Guillam’s room, and linked to all manner of anonymous grey boxes which hummed without warning. Its presence only deepened the general mood of nervousness: what use was a machine, they asked each other, if they had nothing to put into it?

But they had something.

Suddenly the word was out. What Connie had found she wasn’t saying, but news of the discovery ran like wildfire through the building: ‘Connie’s home! The burrowers are home! They’ve found the new goldseam! They’ve traced it all the way through!’

Through what? To whom? Where did it end? Connie and di Salis still kept mum. For a day and a night they trailed in and out of the throne-room laden with files, no doubt once more in order to show Smiley their workings.

Then Smiley disappeared for three days and Guillam only learned much later that ‘in order to screw down every bolt’ as he called it, he had visited both Hamburg and Amsterdam for discussions with certain eminent bankers of his acquaintance. These gentlemen spent a great while explaining to him that the war was over and they could not possibly offend against their code of ethics, and then they gave him the information he so badly needed: though it was only the final confirmation of all that the burrowers had deduced. Smiley returned, but Peter Guillam still remained shut out, and he might well have continued in this private limbo indefinitely, had it not been for dinner at the Lacons.

Guillam’s inclusion was pure chance. So was the dinner. Smiley had asked Lacon for an afternoon appointment at the Cabinet Office, and spent several hours in cahoots with Connie and di Salis preparing for it. At the last moment Lacon was summoned by his parliamentary masters, and proposed pot-luck at his ugly mansion at Ascot instead. Smiley detested driving and there was no duty car. In the end, Guillam offered to chauffeur him in his draughty old Porsche, having first put a rug over him which he was keeping in case Molly Meakin consented to a picnic. On the drive, Smiley attempted small-talk, which came hard to him, but he was nervous. They arrived in rain and there was muddle on the doorstep about what to do with the unexpected underling. Smiley insisted that Guillam would make his own way and return at ten-thirty: the Lacons that he must stay, there was simply masses of food.

‘It’s up to you,’ said Guillam to Smiley.

‘Oh, of course. No I mean really, if it’s all right with the Lacons, naturally,’ said Smiley huffily and in they went.

So a fourth place was laid, and the overcooked steak was cut into bits till it looked like dry stew, and a daughter was despatched on her bicycle with a pound to fetch a second bottle of wine from the pub up the road. Mrs Lacon was doe-like and fair and blushing, a child bride who had become a child mother. The table was too long for four. She set Smiley and her husband one end. and Guillam next to her. Having asked him whether he liked madrigals, she embarked on an endless account of a concert at her daughter’s private school. She said it was absolutely ruined by the rich foreigners they were taking in to balance the books. Half of them couldn’t sing in a Western way at all:

‘I mean who wants one’s child brought up with a lot of Persians when they all have six wives apiece?’ she said. Stringing her along, Guillam strove to catch the dialogue at the other end of the table. Lacon seemed to be bowling and batting at once.

‘First, you petition me,’ he boomed. ‘You are doing that now, very properly. At this stage, you should give no more than a preliminary outline. Traditionally Ministers like nothing that cannot be written on a postcard. Preferably a picture postcard,’ he said, and took a prim sip at the vile red wine.

Mrs Lacon, whose intolerance had a beatific innocence about it, began complaining about Jews.

‘I mean they don’t even eat the same food as we do,’ she said. ‘Penny says they get special herring things for lunch.’

Guillam again lost the thread till Lacon raised his voice in warning.

‘Try to keep Karla out of this, George. I’ve asked you before. Learn to say Moscow instead, will you? They don’t like personalities - however dispassionate your hatred of him. Nor do I.’

‘Moscow then,’ Smiley said.

‘It’s not that one dislikes them,’ Mrs Lacon said. ‘They’re just different.’

Lacon picked up some earlier point. ‘When you say a large sum, how large is large?’

‘We are not yet in a position to say,’ Smiley replied.

‘Good. More enticing. Have you no panic factor?’

Smiley didn’t follow that question any better than Guillam.

‘What alarms you most about your discovery, George? What do you fear for, here, in your role of watchdog?’

‘The security of a British Crown Colony?’ Smiley suggested, after some thought.

‘They’re talking about Hong Kong,’ Mrs Lacon explained to Guillam. ‘My uncle was Political Secretary. On Daddy’s side,’ she added. ‘Mummy’s brothers never did anything brainy at all.’

She said Hong Kong was nice but smelly.

Lacon had become a little pink and erratic. ‘Colony my God, hear that, Val?’ he called down the table, taking time off to educate her. ‘Richer than we are by half, I should think and, from where I sit, enviably more secure as well. A full twenty years their Treaty has to run, even if the Chinese enforce it. At this rate, they should see us out in comfort!’

‘Oliver thinks we’re doomed,’ Mrs Lacon explained to Guillam excitedly, as if she were admitting him to a family secret, and shot her husband an angelic smile.

Lacon resumed his former confiding tone, but he continued to blurt and Guillam guessed he was showing off to his squaw.

‘You would also make the point to me, wouldn’t you as background to the postcard as it were - that a major Soviet intelligence presence in Hong Kong would be - appalling embarrassment to the Colonial government in her relations with Peking?’

‘Before I went as far as that -’

‘On whose magnanimity,’ Lacon pursued, ’she depends from hour to hour for her survival, correct?’

‘It’s because of these very implications -’ Smiley said.

‘Oh Penny, you’re naked!’ Mrs Lacon cried indulgently.

Providing Guillam with a glorious respite, she bounded off to calm an unruly small daughter who had appeared at the doorway. Lacon meanwhile had filled his lungs for an aria.

‘We are therefore not only protecting Hong Kong from the Russians - which is bad enough, I grant you, but perhaps not quite bad enough for some of our higher-minded Ministers - we are protecting her from the wrath of Peking, which is universally held to be awful, right Guillam? However -’ said Lacon, and to emphasise the volte face went so far as to arrest Smiley’s arm with his long hand so that he had to put down his glass - ‘however,’ he warned, as his erratic voice swooped and rose again, ‘whether our masters will swallow all that is quite another matter altogether.’

‘I would not consider asking them to until I had obtained corroboration of our data,’ Smiley said sharply.

‘Ah, but you can’t, can you?’ Lacon objected, changing hats. ‘You can’t go beyond domestic research. You haven’t the charter.’

‘Without a reconnaissance of the information -’

‘Ah, but what does that mean, George?’

‘Putting in an agent.’

Lacon lifted his eyebrows and turned away his head, reminding Guillam irresistibly of Molly Meakin.

‘Method is not my affair, nor are the details. Clearly you can do nothing to embarrass since you have no money and no resources.’ He poured more wine, spilling some. ‘Val!’ he yelled. ‘Cloth!’

‘I do have some money.’

‘But not for that purpose.’ The wine had stained the tablecloth. Guillam poured salt on it while Lacon lifted the cloth and shoved his napkin ring under it to spare the polish.

A long silence followed, broken by the slow pat of wine falling on the parquet floor. Finally Lacon said: ‘It is entirely up to you to define what is chargeable under your mandate.’

‘May I have that in writing?’

‘No, sir.’

‘May I have your authority to take what steps are needed to corroborate the information?’

‘No, sir.’

‘But you won’t block me?’

‘Since I know nothing of method, and am not required to, it is hardly my province to dictate to you.’

‘But since I make a formal approach -’ Smiley began.

‘Val, do bring a cloth! Once you make a formal approach I shall wash my hands of you entirely. It is the Intelligence Steering Group, not myself, who determines your scope of action. You will make your pitch. They will hear you out. From then on it’s between you and them. I am just the midwife. Val, bring a cloth, it’s everywhere!’

‘Oh, it’s my head on the block, not yours,’ said Smiley, almost to himself. ‘You’re impartial. I know all about that.’

‘Oliver’s not impartial,’ said Mrs Lacon gaily as she returned with the girl over her shoulder, brushed and wearing a nightdress. ‘He’s terrifically in favour of you, aren’t you, Olly?’ She handed Lacon a cloth and he began mopping. ‘He’s become a real hawk these days. Better than the Americans. Now say good night to everyone, Penny, come on.’ She was offering the child to each of them in turn. ‘Mr Smiley first… Mr Guillam, now Daddy… How’s Ann, George, not off to the country again, I hope?’

‘Oh very bonny, thank you.’

‘Well, make Oliver give you what you want. He’s getting terribly pompous, aren’t you, Olly?’

She danced off, chanting her own rituals to the child.

‘Hitty-pitty without the wall… hitty-pitty within the wall… and bumps goes Pottifer!’

Lacon proudly watched her go.

‘Now, win you bring the Americans into it, George?’ he demanded airily. ‘That’s a great catchpenny, you know. Wheel in the Cousins and you’d carry the committee without a shot fired. Foreign Office would eat out of your hand.’

‘I would prefer to stay my hand on that.’

The green telephone, thought Guillam, might never have existed.

Lacon ruminated, twiddling his glass.

‘Pity,’ he pronounced finally. ‘Pity. No Cousins, no panic factor…’ He gazed at the dumpy, unimpressive figure before him. Smiley sat, hands linked, eyes closed, seemingly half asleep. ‘And no credibility either,’ Lacon went on, apparently as a direct comment upon Smiley’s appearance. ‘Defence won’t lift a finger for you, I’ll tell you that for a start. Nor will the Home Office. The Treasury’s a toss-up, and the Foreign Office - depends who they send to the meeting and what they had for breakfast.’ Again he reflected. ‘George.’

‘Yes?’

‘Let me send you an advocate. Somebody who can ride point for you, draft your submission, carry it to the barricades.’

‘Oh I think I can manage, thank you!’

‘Make him rest more,’ Lacon advised Guillam in a deafening whisper as they walked to the car. ‘And try and get him to drop those black jackets and stuff. They went out with bustles. Goodbye, George! Ring me tomorrow if you change your mind and want help. Now drive carefully, Guillam. Remember you’ve been drinking.’

As they passed through the gates Guillam said something very rude indeed but Smiley was too deep inside the rug to hear.

‘So it’s Hong Kong then?’ Guillam said, as they drove.

No answer, but no denial either.

‘And who’s the lucky fieldman?’ Guillam asked, a little later, with no real hope of getting an answer. ‘Or is that all part of foxing around with the Cousins?’

‘We’re not foxing around with them at all,’ Smiley retorted, stung for once. ‘If we cut them in, they’ll swamp us. If we don’t, we’ve no resources. It’s simply a matter of balance.’

Smiley dived back into the rug.

But the very next day, lo and behold, they were ready.

At ten, Smiley convened an operational directorate. Smiley talked, Connie talked, di Salis fidgeted and scratched himself like a verminous court tutor in a Restoration comedy, till it was his own turn to speak out, in his cracked, clever voice. The same evening still, Smiley sent his telegram to Italy: a real one, not just a signal, codeword Guardian, copy to the fast growing file. Smiley wrote it out, Guillam gave it to Fawn, who whisked it off triumphantly to the all-night post office at Charing Cross. From the air of ceremony with which Fawn departed, one might have supposed that the little buff form was the highest point so far of his sheltered life. This was not so. Before the fall, Fawn had worked under Guillam as a scalp-hunter based in Brixton. By actual trade, though, he was a silent killer.

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