The Looking Glass War Part 17

"Yes."

"Then we shall have to get to know each other," he insisted, "Mayfly and me. We ought to be together a lot, sir, the moment I begin working him on the set. It's like handwriting, this game, we've got to get used to one another's handwriting. Then there's schedules, times for coming up and that; signal plans for his frequencies. Safety devices. That's a lot to learn in a fortnight."

"Safety devices?" Avery asked.

"Deliberate mistakes, sir; like a misspelling in a particular group, an E for an A or something of that kind. If he wants to tell us he's been caught and is transmitting under control, he'll miss the safety device." He turned to Haldane. "You know the kind of thing, Captain."

"There was talk in London of teaching him high-speed transmission on tape. Do you know what became of that idea?"

"The Boss did mention it to me, sir. I understand the equipment wasn't available. I can't say I know much about it, really; since my time, the transistorized stuff. The Boss said we were to stick to the old methods but change the frequency every two and a half minutes, sir; I understand the Jerries are very hot on the direction finding these days."

"What set did they send down? It seemed very heavy for him to carry about."

"It's the kind Mayfly used in the war, sir, that's the beauty of it. The old B2 in the waterproof casing. If we've only got a couple of weeks, there doesn't hardly seem time to go over anything else. Not that he's ready to work it yet-"

"What does it weigh?"

"About fifty pounds, sir, in all. The ordinary suitcase set. It's the waterproofing that adds the weight, but he's got to have it if he's going over rough country. Specially at this time of year." He hesitated. "But he's slow on his Morse, sir."

"Quite. Do you think you can bring him up to scratch in the time?"

"Can't tell yet, sir. Not till we really get cracking on the set. Not till the second period, when he's had his little bit of leave. I'm just letting him handle the buzzer at present."

"Thank you," said Haldane.

Thirteen.

At the end of the first two weeks they gave him forty-eight hours' leave of absence. He had not asked for it and when they offered it to him, he seemed puzzled. In no circ.u.mstances was he to visit his own neighbourhood He could depart for London on Friday but he said he preferred to go on Sat.u.r.day. He could return Monday morning but he said it depended and he might come back late on Sunday. They stressed that he was to keep clear of anyone who might know him, and in some curious fashion this seemed to console him.

Avery, worried, went to Haldane.

"I don't think we should send him off into the blue. You've told him he can't go back to South Park, or visit his friends, even if he's got any. I don't see quite where he can go."

"You think he'll be lonely?"

Avery blushed. "I think he'll just want to come back all the time."

"We can hardly object to that."

They gave him subsistence money in old notes, fives and ones. He wanted to refuse it, but Haldane pressed it on him as if a principle were involved. They offered to book him a room but he declined. Haldane a.s.sumed he was going to London so in the end he went, as if he owed it to them.

"He's got some woman," said Johnson with satisfaction.

He left on the midday train, carrying one pigskin suitcase and wearing his camel's hair coat; it had a slightly military cut, and leather b.u.t.tons but no person of breeding could ever have mistaken it for a British officer's coat.

He handed in his suitcase to the checkroom at Paddington Station and wandered out into Praed Street because he had nowhere to go. He walked about for half an hour, looking at the shop windows and reading the tarts' advertis.e.m.e.nts on the glazed notice boards. It was Sat.u.r.day afternoon: a handful of old men in trilby hats and raincoats hovered between the p.o.r.nography shops and the pimps on the corner. There was very little traffic: an atmosphere of hopeless recreation filled the street.

The cinema club charged a pound and gave him a predated membership card because of the law. He sat among ghost figures on a kitchen chair. The film was very old; it might have come over from Vienna when the persecutions began. Two girls, quite naked, took tea. There was no sound track and they just went on drinking tea, changing position a little as they pa.s.sed their cups. They would be sixty by now if they had survived the war. He got up to go because it was after half past five and the pubs were open. As he pa.s.sed the kiosk at the doorway, the manager said: "I know a girl who likes a gay time. Very young."

"No thanks."

"Two and a half quid; she likes foreigners. She gives it foreign if you like. French."

"Run away."

"Don't you tell me to run away."

"Run away." Leiser returned to the kiosk, his small eyes suddenly alight. "Next time you offer me a girl, make it something English, see."

The air was warmer, the wind had dropped, the street emptied; pleasures were indoors now. The woman behind the bar said, "Can't mix it for you now, dear. Not till the rush dies down. You can see for yourself."

"It's the only thing I drink."

"Sorry, dear."

He ordered gin and Italian instead and got it warm with no cherry. Walking had made him tired. He sat on the bench which ran along the wall, watching the darts foursome. They did not speak, but pursued their game with quiet devotion, as if they were deeply conscious of tradition. It was like the film club. One of them had a date, and they called to Leiser, "Make a four then?"

"I don't mind," he said, pleased to be addressed, and stood up; but a friend came in, a man called Henry, and Henry was preferred. Leiser was going to argue but there seemed no point.

Avery too had gone out alone. To Haldane he had said he was taking a walk, to Johnson that he was going to the cinema. Avery had a way of lying which defied rational explanation. He found himself drawn to the old places he had known: his college in the Turl; the bookshops, pubs and libraries. The term was just ending. Oxford had a smell of Christmas about it, and acknowledged it with prudish ill will, dressing the shop windows with last year's tinsel.

He took the Banbury Road until he reached the street where he and Sarah had lived for the first year of marriage. The flat was in darkness. Standing before it, he tried to detect in the house, in himself, some trace of the sentiment, or affection, or love, or whatever it was that explained their marriage, but it was not to be found and he supposed it had never been. He sought desperately, wanting to find the motive of youth; but there was none. He was staring into an empty house. He hastened home to the place where Leiser lived.

"Good film?" Johnson asked.

"Fine."

"I thought you were going for a walk," Haldane complained, looking up from his crossword.

"I changed my mind."

"Incidentally," Haldane said, "Leiser's gun. I understand he prefers the three eight."

"Yes. They call it the nine millimetre now."

"When he returns he should start to carry it with him; take it everywhere, unloaded of course." A glance at Johnson. "Particularly when he begins transmission exercises of any scale. He must have it on him all the time; we want him to feel lost without it. I have arranged for one to be issued; you'll find it in your room, Avery, with various holsters. Perhaps you'll explain it to him, would you?"

"Won't you tell him yourself?"

"You do it. You get on with him so nicely." Avery went upstairs to telephone Sarah. She had gone to stay with her mother. The conversation was very formal.

Leiser dialled Betty's number, but there was no reply.

Relieved, he went to a cheap jeweller's near the station, which was open on Sat.u.r.day afternoon, and bought a gold coach and horses for a charm bracelet. It cost eleven pounds which was what they had given him for subsistence. He asked them to send it by registered mail to her address in South Park. He put a note in saying Back in two weeks. Be good, signing it, in a moment of aberration, F. Leiser. So he crossed it out and wrote Fred.

He walked for a bit, thought of picking up a girl, and finally booked in at the hotel near the station. He slept badly because of the noise of the traffic. In the morning he rang her number again; there was no reply. He replaced the receiver quickly; he might have waited a little longer. He had breakfast, went out and bought the Sunday papers, took them to his room and read the football reports till lunch time. In the afternoon he went for a walk; it had become a habit, right through London, he hardly knew where. He followed the river as far as Charing Cross and found himself in an empty garden filled with drifting rain. The tarmac paths were strewn with yellow leaves. An old man sat on the bandstand, quite alone. He wore a black overcoat and a rucksack of green webbing like the case of a gas mask. He was asleep, or listening to music.

He waited till evening in order not to disappoint Avery, then caught the last train home to Oxford.

Avery knew a pub behind Balliol where they let you play bar billiards on Sundays. Johnson liked a game of bar billiards. Johnson was on Guinness, Avery was on whisky. They were laughing a good deal; it had been a tough week. Johnson was winning; he went for the lower numbers, methodically, while Avery tried cushion shots at the hundred pocket.

"I wouldn't mind a bit of what Fred's having," Johnson said with a sn.i.g.g.e.r. He played a shot; a white ball dropped dutifully into its hole. "Poles are dead randy. Go up anything, a Pole will. Specially Fred, he's a real terror. He's got the walk."

"Are you that way, Jack?"

"When I'm in the mood. I wouldn't mind a little bit now, as a matter of fact."

They played a couple of shots, each lost in an alcoholic euphoria of erotic fancy.

"Still," said Johnson gratefully, "I'd rather be in our shoes, wouldn't you?"

"Any day."

"You know," Johnson said, chalking his cue, "I shouldn't be speaking to you like this, should I? You've had college and that. You're different cla.s.s, John."

They drank to each other, both thinking of Leiser.

"For Christ's sake," Avery said, "we're fighting the same war, aren't we?"

"Quite right."

Johnson poured the rest of the Guinness out of the bottle. He took great care, but a little ran over the side onto the table.

"Here's to Fred," Avery said.

"To Fred. On the nest. And b.l.o.o.d.y good luck to him."

"Good luck, Fred."

"I don't know how he'll manage the B2," Johnson murmured. "He's got a long way to go."

"Here's to Fred. Fred. He's a lovely boy. Here: do you know this bloke Woodford, the one who picked me up?"

"Of course. He'll be coming down next week."

"Met his wife at all; Babs? She was a girl, she was; give it to anyone ... Christ! Past it now, I suppose. Still, many a good tune, eh?"

"That's right."

"To him that hath shall be given," Johnson declared.

They drank; that joke went astray.

"She used to go with the admin bloke, Jimmy Gorton. What happened to him then?"

"He's in Hamburg. Doing very well."

They got home before Leiser. Haldane was in bed.

It was after midnight when Leiser hung his wet camel's hair coat in the hall, on a hanger because he was a precise man: tiptoed to the drawing room and put on the light. His eye ran fondly over the heavy furniture, the tallboy elaborately decorated with fretwork and heavy bra.s.s handles; the escritoire and the Bible table. Lovingly he revisited the handsome women at croquet, handsome men at war, disdainful boys in boaters, girls at Cheltenham; a whole long history of discomfort and not a breath of pa.s.sion. The clock on the mantelpiece was like a pavilion in blue marble. The hands were of gold, so ornate, so fashioned, so flowered and spreading that you had to look twice to see where the points of them lay. They had not moved since he went away, perhaps not since he was born, and somehow that was a great achievement for an old clock.

He picked up his suitcase and went upstairs. Haldane was coughing but no light came from his room. He tapped on Avery's door.

"You there, John?"

After a moment he heard him sit up. "Nice time, Fred?"

"You bet."

"Woman all right?"

"Just the job. See you tomorrow, John."

"See you in the morning. Night, Fred. Fred ..."

"Yes, John?"

"Jack and I had a bit of a session. You should have been there."

"That's right, John."

Slowly he made his way along the corridor, content in his weariness, entered his room, took off his jacket, lit a cigarette and threw himself gratefully into the armchair. It was tall and very comfortable with wings on the side. As he did so he caught sight of something. A chart hung on the wall for turning letters into figures and beneath it, on the bed, lying in the middle of the eiderdown was an old suitcase of continental pattern, dark green canvas with leather on the corners. It was open; inside were two boxes of grey steel. He got up, staring at them in mute recognition; reached out and touched them, wary, as if they might be hot; turned the dials, stooped and read the legend by the switches. It could have been the set he had in Holland: transmitter and receiver in one box; power unit, key and earphones in the other. Crystals, a dozen of them, in a bag of parachute silk with a green drawstring threaded through the top. He tested the key with his finger; it seemed much smaller than he remembered.

He returned to the armchair, his eyes still fixed upon the suitcase; sat there, stiff and sleepless, like a man conducting a wake.

He was late for breakfast. Haldane said, "You spend all day with Johnson. Morning and afternoon."

"No walk?" Avery was busy with his egg.

"Tomorrow perhaps. From now on we're concerned with technique. I'm afraid walks take second place."

Control quite often stayed in London on Monday nights, which he said was the only time he could get a chair at his club; Smiley suspected he wanted to get away from his wife.

"I hear the flowers are coming out in Blackfriars Road," he said. "LeClerc's driving around in a Rolls-Royce."

"It's a perfectly ordinary Humber," Smiley retorted. "From the Ministry pool."

"Is that where it comes from?" Control asked, his eyebrows very high. "Isn't it fun? So the blackfriars have won the pools."