John LeCarre - A New Collection of Three Novels Part 30

He took a last look up and down the road. A bra.s.s bellpush was set into the gatepost. He pressed it and waited but not long. He shoved the gate, it creaked and opened, he stepped inside and closed it after him. The garden was a secret patch of English countryside walled on three sides. Nothing overlooked it. The sounds of traffic ceased miraculously. The flagstone path was slippery with unswept leaves. Home, he rehea.r.s.ed again. Home in Scotland, home in Wales. Home by the sea. Home as an upper window and a church. Home as an aristocratic mother who took him visiting great houses. He pa.s.sed the statue of a draped woman, one stone breast offered to the autumn night. Home as a series of concentric fantasies, all with the same truth at the centre. Who had said that?--Pym or himself? Home as promises to women he didn't love. The front door was opening as he reached it. A young manservant was watching him approach. His monkey jacket had a regimental cut. Behind him, unrestored gilt mirrors and a chandelier glinted against dark wallpaper. "He's got a boy name of Stegwold living there," Superintendent Bellows of police liaison had reported. "If you were old enough, I'd read you his record of convictions."

"Sir Kenneth in, son?" said Brotherhood pleasantly as he wiped his shoes on the mat and shook off his raincoat.

"I don't know, do I? Who shall I say?"

"Mr. Marlow, son, and I'd like ten minutes with him alone on a mutual matter."

"From?" said the boy.

"His const.i.tuency, son," said Brotherhood just as pleasantly.

The boy tripped quickly upstairs. Brotherhood's gaze skimmed the hall. Hats, idiosyncratic. Coaching overcoat, green with age. One Guards bowler, ditto. Army service cap with Coldstream badge. Blue china urn stuffed with ancient golf clubs, walking-sticks and warped tennis racquets. The boy came mincing down the stairs again, trailing one hand on the banisters, unable to resist an entrance.

"He'll see you now, Mr. Marlow," he said.

The stairs were lined with portraits of rude men. In a dining-room, two places were laid with enough silver for a banquet. A decanter, cold meats, and cheeses lay on the sideboard. It was not till Brotherhood noticed a couple of dirty plates that he realised the meal was already over. The library smelled of mildew and the fumes of paraffin from a stove. A gallery ran along three walls. Half the bal.u.s.trade was missing. The stove had been shoved into the fireplace and in front of it stood a clothes-horse hung with socks and underpants. In front of the clothes-horse stood Sir Kenneth Sefton Boyd. He wore a velvet smoking jacket and an open-necked shirt and old satin slippers with gold-st.i.tched monograms worn away. He was burly and thick-necked, with uneven pads of flesh round his jaw and eyes. His mouth was bent to one side as if by a clenched fist. He spoke with the bent side while the other stayed still.

"Marlow?"

"How do you do, sir," said Brotherhood.

"What do you want?"

"I'd like to speak to you alone if I may, sir."

"Policeman?"

"Not quite, sir. Something like."

He handed Sir Kenneth a card. This is to certify that the bearer is engaged in enquiries affecting the national security. For confirmation please ring Scotland Yard extension so-and-so. The extension led to Superintendent Bellows's department, which knew all Brotherhood's names. Unimpressed, Sir Kenneth handed the card back.

"So you're a spy."

"Of a sort, I suppose. Yes."

"Want a drink? Beer? Scotch? What do you want to drink?"

"A scotch would be very welcome, sir, now you mention it."

"Scotch, Steggie," said Sir Kenneth. "Get him a scotch, will you? Ice? Soda? What do you want in your scotch?"

"A little water would be welcome."

"All right. Give him water. Bring him a jug. Put it on the table. Over there by the tray. Then he can help himself. You can go away. And top mine up, while you're about it. Want to sit down, Marlow? Over there do you?"

"I thought we were going to the Albion," said Steggie from the door.

"Can't now. Got to talk to this chap."

Brotherhood sat. Sir Kenneth sat opposite him; his gaze was yellowed and unresponsive. Brotherhood had seen dead men whose eyes were more alive. His hands had fallen into his lap and one of them kept flipping like a beached fish. On the table between them lay a backgammon board with the pieces in mid-battle. Who was he playing with? thought Brotherhood. Who dined with him? Who was sharing his music with him? Who warmed my chair before I sat in it?

"You surprised to see me, sir?" said Brotherhood.

"Take a bit more than that to surprise me, old boy."

"Anyone else been here recently, making funny enquiries? Foreign gentlemen? Americans?"

"Not that I know of. Why should they?"

"There's a bunch going round from our own vetting side as well, I'm told. I wondered whether any of them had been here. I tried to find out before I left the office but there's a lack of coordination, it's all moving so fast."

"What is?"

"Well, sir, it seems that your old school friend Mr. Magnus Pym has disappeared. They're looking into everyone who might have knowledge of his whereabouts. That will include you naturally."

Sir Kenneth's eye lifted to the door.

"Something out there bothering you, sir?" said Brotherhood.

Sir Kenneth rose, went to the door and pulled it open.

Brotherhood heard a scuffle of footsteps on the stairs but he was too late to see who it was, though he jostled Sir Kenneth aside in his haste to look.

"Steggie, I want you to go to the Albion ahead of me," Sir Kenneth called into the well. "Go now. I'll join you later. I don't want him hearing this stuff," he told Brotherhood as he closed the door. "What he doesn't know can't hurt him."

"With his record I don't blame you," said Brotherhood. "Mind if I look upstairs now we're standing?"

"Yes I d.a.m.n well do. And don't lay hands on me again. I don't fancy you. Got a warrant?"

"No."

Resuming his chair, Sir Kenneth took a spent matchstick from the pocket of his smoking jacket and set to work on his fingernails with its charred end. "Get a warrant," he advised. "Get a warrant and I might let you look. Other hand I mightn't."

"Is he here?" said Brotherhood.

"Who?"

"Pym."

"Don't know. Didn't hear. Who's Pym?"

Brotherhood was still standing. He was unnaturally pale, and it took him a moment to steady his voice before he spoke again.

"I've got a deal for you," he said.

Sir Kenneth still did not hear.

"Hand him over to me. You go upstairs. Or you ring him. You do whatever you've agreed to do between you. And you hand him over to me. In return I'll keep your name out of it, and Steggie's name out of it. The alternative is 'Baronet M.P. shelters very old friend on the run.' It's also a serious possibility that you will be charged as an accomplice. How old is Steggie?"

"Old enough."

"How old was he when he started here?"

"Look it up. Don't know."

"I'm Pym's friend too. There are worse people than me coming looking for him. Ask him. If he agrees, I agree. I'll keep your name out of it. Just give him to me and you and Steggie need never hear from him or me again."

"Sounds to me as though you've more to lose than we have," said Sir Kenneth, surveying the results of his manicure.

"I doubt it."

"Question of what we've all got left, I suppose. Can't lose what you haven't got. Can't miss what you don't care about. Can't sell what isn't yours."

"Pym can, apparently," said Brotherhood. "He's been selling his nation's secrets by the looks of it."

Sir Kenneth continued to admire his fingernails. "For money?"

"Probably."

Sir Kenneth shook his head. "Didn't care about money. Love was all he cared about. Didn't know where to find it. Clown really. Tried too hard."

"Meanwhile he's wandering around England with a lot of papers that aren't his to give away, and you and I are supposed to be patriotic Englishmen."

"Lot of chaps do a lot of things they shouldn't do. That's when they need their chums."

"He wrote to his son about you. Do you know that? Some drivel about a penknife. Does that ring a bell?"

"Matter of fact it does."

"Who's Poppy?"

"Never heard of her."

"Or him?"

"Nice thought, but no."

"Wentworth?"

"Never been there. Hate the place. What about it?"

"There was a girl called Sabina he apparently got caught up with in Austria. He ever mention her?"

"Not that I remember. Pym got caught up with a lot of girls. Not that it did him much good."

"He rang you, didn't he? On Monday night, from a callbox."

With startling abruptness, Sir Kenneth flung up one arm in pleasure and gave a hoot of merriment. "p.i.s.sed out of his skull," he declared, very loud. "Ossified. Haven't heard him so p.i.s.sed since Oxford when six of us put away a case of his father's port. Pretended some queen from Merton gave it to him, I don't know why. There weren't any queens in Merton in those days. Not rich ones. We were all at Trinity."

It was after midnight. Back in the confinement of his Shepherd Market flat with the pigeons on the parapet Brotherhood poured himself another vodka and added orange juice from a carton. He had thrown his jacket on the bed, his pocket tape-recorder lay before him on the desk. He was jotting as he listened.

"... don't go to Wiltshire a lot as a rule while Parliament's in session but Sunday was my second wife's birthday and our boy was down from school so I went and did my stuff and thought I'd stay on for a day or two and see what gives in the const.i.tuency...."

Forward again: "... don't normally answer the phone in Wiltshire but Monday's her bridge night and I was in the library playing a game of backgammon so when the phone rang I thought I might as well take it rather than spoil her four. Half past eleven it must have been but Jean's bridge nights go on for ever. Chap's voice. Must be her boyfriend, I thought. b.l.o.o.d.y cheek, really, this time of night. 'Hullo? Sef ? That Sef?' 'Who the h.e.l.l's that?' I said. 'It's me. Magnus. My father's died. Over here to bury him.' I thought, Poor old chap. n.o.body likes to have his old man die on him.... That right for you? More water? Help yourself."

Brotherhood hears himself roar "Thanks" as he leans towards the water jug. Then the sounds of a flood as he pours.

"'How's Jem?' he says. Jemima's my sister. They had a ding-dong once, never came to much. Married a florist. Extraordinary thing. Chap grows flowers all along the road to Basingstoke. Puts his name up on a board. Doesn't seem to bother her. Not that she sees much of him. Navigational problems, our Jem. Same as me."

Forward again: "... p.i.s.sed. Couldn't tell whether he was laughing or crying. Poor chap, I thought. Drowning his sorrows. I'd do the same. Next thing I know, he's prosing on about our private school. I mean Christ, we'd done two or three schools together, Oxford, not to mention a couple of holidays, yet all he wants to talk about forty years later, on the blower middle of the night, party going on, is how he carved my initials in the staff loo at our private and got me flogged for it. 'Sorry I carved your initials, Sef.' All right. He did it. He carved 'em. I never doubted he carved 'em. c.o.c.ked it up too. He would. Know what he did? b.l.o.o.d.y fool put a hyphen between the 'S' and the 'B' where we don't have one. I told old Grimble, the headmaster. 'Why would I put a hyphen in?' I said. 'Not how I spell my name,' I said. 'No hyphen in it. Look at the school list.' Not a blind bit of difference, flogged me. Way it goes, you see. No justice. I don't know I minded much. Everybody flogged everybody in those days. Besides, I wasn't very nice to him myself. Always ragging him about his people. Father was a con man, you know. Nearly ruined my aunt. Had a go at my mother too. Tried to bed her but she was too fly. Some scheme to build a new airport in Scotland somewhere. He'd squared the locals, all he needed was buy the land, get the formal permission, make a fortune. Cousin of mine owns half Argyll. I asked him about it. Hok.u.m, the whole thing. Extraordinary. I stayed with 'em once. Tarts' parlour in Ascot. All these crooks hanging about and Magnus calling them 'sir.' Father tried to get into Parliament once. Pity he didn't. He'd have been good company...."

Forward again: "... banging in the cash. I asked him where he was, he said London but he had to use phone boxes, he was being followed. I said, 'Whose initials have you been carving now?' Joke actually, but he didn't see it. I was sorry about his old man, you see. Didn't want him moping. Dramatic chap, always has been. Nothing going on in his life unless he's got some frightful problem on his hands. You could have sold him the Egyptian pyramids long as you said they were falling down. I said, give me the number of your phone, I'll ring you back. He said somebody must have told me to say that. I said 'Absolute bilge, h.e.l.l are you talking about? Half my friends are on the run.' He said his father was dead and he was looking at his life for the first time. Fundamental. Always has been. Then he went back to these initials he'd carved. 'I'm really sorry, Sef.' I said, 'Look here, old boy, I always knew it was you and I don't think we should go through life wearing hairshirts about what we did at our private. Do you need cash? Want a bed? Take a cottage on the estate.' 'I'm really sorry, Sef. Really sorry.' I said, 'You tell me what I can do, I'll do it. I'm in the book in London, give me a buzz if I can help." Well I mean d.a.m.n it, he'd been on for twenty minutes. I put the phone down and half an hour later he's back. 'Hullo, Sef. Me again.' Jean was pretty shirty this time. Thought it was Steggie having a tantrum. 'Got to talk to you, Sef. Listen to me.' Well, you can't ring off on an old chum when he's down, can you?"

Brotherhood heard Sir Kenneth's clock chime twelve. He was jotting fast. Concentric fantasies, he repeated to himself, defining the truth at the centre. He had reached the pa.s.sage he was waiting for.

"... said he was in secret work. That didn't surprise me, who isn't these days?... Said there was this Englishman he worked for, called him the Brotherhood. I don't think I listened to all of it, to be honest. There was the Brotherhood and there was this other chap. Said he was working for both of 'em. They were like two parents for him. Kept him going. I said bully for you, if they keep you going, you stick to them. Said he had to write this book about them, put the record right. What record? G.o.d knows. He'd write to the Brotherhood, write to the other chap, then he'd take himself off to a secret place and do his number." Brotherhood heard his own patient murmur in the background. "... Well maybe I got that one a bit wrong then. Maybe he was going to hunker down in his secret place first and write to them from there. I wasn't listening to all of it. Drunks bore me. I'm one myself."

Prompt from Brotherhood.

Long pause.

Renewed prompt from Brotherhood.

Sir Kenneth indistinct: "Said he was his runner."

"Who was whose runner?"

"Pym was t'other chap's runner. Not the Brotherhood's. The other fellow's. Said he'd crippled him somehow. p.i.s.sed, I told you."

Brotherhood again, riding him a little harder: "... name for this person?"

"Don't think so. Don't think it stuck. Sorry. No, it didn't."

"And the secret place? Where was that?"

"Didn't say. His business."

Brotherhood let the tape continue. Avalanche as Sefton Boyd lights himself a cigarette. Cannon-blast of the front door being slammed open and shut again, signalling Steggie's petulant return.

Brotherhood and Sir Kenneth are on the landing.

"What's that, old boy?" Sir Kenneth very loud.

"I said, so where do you think he might be?" says Brotherhood.

"Upstairs, old boy. That's what you said." In his memory's eye, Brotherhood sees Sir Kenneth's pouch face approach close to his own, smiling its downward twist. "Get a warrant, maybe you can have a look. Maybe you can't. Don't know. Have to see."

Brotherhood heard his own heels clumping down Sir Kenneth's stairs. He heard himself reach the hall and Steggie's lighter footsteps mingle with his own. He heard Steggie's pointed "Good night" and the clatter of bolts as he unlocks the door for him. Followed by Steggie's m.u.f.fled shriek as Brotherhood hauls him out of the house, one hand over his mouth, the other at the back of his head. Then the thump as he taps Steggie's head against the plaster pillar of Sir Kenneth's gracious porch, and his own voice, very near to Steggie's ear.