by Ian Mcewan
At work we ate our lunches together but there was still something between us, a little piece of gritty residue from that brief dispute. If her politics were so infantile or bone-headed, how much of a friend could she be? But at other times I believed that time would settle the matter and that, by simple contagion at work, her political views would mature. Sometimes not talking is the best way through a difficulty. The fad for personal ‘truth’ and confrontation was doing great damage in my view and blighting many friendships and marriages.
Not long before our date, Shirley had gone missing from her desk for most of one day and part of the next. She wasn’t ill. Someone had seen her getting into the lift and had seen the button she pushed. The gossip was she’d been summoned to the fifth floor, the misty heights where our masters conducted their unknowable business. The gossip also hinted that since she was smarter than the rest of us, she was up for some unusual form of promotion. From the large debutante faction this provoked some amiable snobbery of the ‘Oh, if only I’d been born into the working class’ sort. I checked my own feelings. Would I feel jealous at being left behind by my best friend? I thought I would.
When she was back among us she ignored questions and told us nothing, didn’t even lie, which was taken by most as confirmation of superior advancement. I wasn’t so sure. Her plumpness sometimes made her expression hard to read, her subcutaneous fat being the mask she lived behind. Which would have made this line of work a good choice for her, if only the women were sent out to do more than clean houses. But I thought I knew her well enough. There was no triumph there. Did I feel just a tiny bit relieved? I thought so.
This was our first meeting outside the building since then. I was determined not to ask questions about the fifth floor. It would have looked undignified. Besides, I now had my own assignment and promotion, even if they emanated from two floors below hers. She switched to gin and orange, a large one, and I had the same. In low voices we talked office gossip for the first quarter of an hour. Now that we were no longer new girls, we felt at liberty to ignore some of the rules. There was a substantial new item. One of our intake, Lisa – Oxford High, St Anne’s, bright and charming – had just announced her engagement to a desk officer called Andrew – Eton, King’s, boyish and intellectual. It was the fourth such alliance in nine months. If Poland had joined NATO it would not have caused more excitement in the ranks than these bilateral negotiations. Part of the interest was speculating who would be next. ‘Who whom?’ as some Leninist wag put it. Early on, I’d been spotted on the bench in Berkeley Square with Max. I used to feel a thrill in my stomach when I heard our names fed through the mill, but lately we’d been dropped for more tangible outcomes. So Shirley and I discussed Lisa and the consensus that her wedding date was too remote, and then touched on Wendy’s prospects with a figure who may have been too grand – her Oliver was an assistant head of section. But I thought there was something flat or routine in our exchange. I sensed that Shirley was putting something off, lifting her glass too frequently, as if summoning her courage.
Sure enough, she ordered another gin, took a swig, hesitated, then said, ‘I have to tell you something. But first you have to do something for me.’
‘Yes.’
‘Smile, like you were just now.’
‘What?’
‘Just do as I say. We’re being watched. Put on a smile. We’re having a happy conversation. OK?’
I stretched my lips.
‘You can do better than that. Don’t freeze.’
I tried harder, I nodded and shrugged, trying to look animated.
Shirley said, ‘I’ve been sacked.’
‘Impossible!’
‘As of today.’
‘Shirley!’
‘Just keep smiling. You mustn’t tell anyone.’
‘OK, but why?’
‘I can’t tell you everything.’
‘You can’t have been sacked. It doesn’t make sense. You’re better than all of us.’
‘I could have told you somewhere private. But our rooms aren’t secure. And I want them to see me talking to you.’
The lead guitarist had strapped on his guitar. He and the drummer were with the roadie now, all three bent over some piece of equipment on the floor. There was a howl of feedback, quickly subdued. I stared at the crowd, knots of people with their backs to us, mostly men, standing about with their pints waiting for the band to start. Could one or two be from A4, the Watchers? I was sceptical.
I said, ‘Do you really think you’re being followed?’
‘No, not me. You.’
My laughter was genuine. ‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘Seriously. The Watchers. Ever since you joined. They’ve probably been into your room. Put in a mike. Serena, don’t stop smiling.’
I turned back to the crowd. Shoulder-length hair for men was by then a minority taste, and the terrible moustaches and big sideburns were still some while ahead. So, plenty of ambiguous-looking types, plenty of candidates. I thought I could see a possible half-dozen. Then, suddenly, everyone in the room looked a possibility.
‘But Shirley. Why?’
‘I thought you could tell me.’
‘There’s nothing. You’ve made this up.’
‘Look, I’ve got something to tell you. I did something stupid and I’m really ashamed. I don’t know how to say it. I was going to do it yesterday, then my nerve failed. But I need to be honest about this. I’ve fucked up.’
She took a deep breath and reached for another cigarette. Her hands were shaking. We looked over towards the band. The drummer was sitting in, adjusting the hi-hat, showing off a tricky little turn with the brushes.
Shirley said at last, ‘Before we went to clean that house, they called me in. Peter Nutting, Tapp, that creepy kid, Benjamin someone.’
‘Jesus. Why?’
‘They laid it on. Said I was doing well, possibility of promotion, softening me up like. Then they said they knew we were close friends. Nutting asked if you ever said anything unusual or suspicious. I said no. They asked what we talked about.’
‘Christ. What did you say?’
‘I should have told them to get stuffed. I didn’t have the courage. There was nothing to hide so I told them the truth. I said we talked about music, friends, family, the past, chit-chat, nothing much at all.’ She looked at me a touch accusingly. ‘You would’ve done the same.’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘If I’d said nothing they’d have been even more suspicious.’
‘All right. Then what?’
Tapp asked me if we ever spoke about politics and I said no. He said he found that hard to believe, I said it was a fact. We went round and round for a bit. Then they said OK, they were going to ask me something delicate. But it was very important and they’d be deeply appreciative, etc., if I could see my way to oblige, on and on, you know the greasy way they talk.’
‘I think so.’
‘They wanted me to get into a political conversation with you, and to come on like a real closet leftie, draw you out and see where you stood and …’
‘Let them know.’
‘I know. I’m ashamed. But don’t get sour. I’m trying to be straight with you. And remember to smile.’
I stared at her, at her fat face and its scattered freckles. I was trying to hate her. Almost there. I said, ‘You smile. Faking’s your thing.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘So that whole conversation … you were on the job.’
‘Listen, Serena, I voted for Heath. So yes, I was on the job, and I hate myself for it.’
‘That workers’ paradise near Leipzig was a lie?’
‘No, it was a real school trip. Boring as shit. And I was homesick, wept like a baby. But listen, you did all right, you said all the right things.’
‘Which you reported back!’
She was looking at me sorrowfully, shaking her head. ‘That’s the point. I didn’t. I went to see them that evening and told them I coul
dn’t do it, I wasn’t playing. I didn’t even tell them we’d had the conversation. I said I wasn’t going to inform on a friend.’
I looked away. Now I was really confused, because I rather wished she had told them what I’d said. But I couldn’t say that to Shirley. We drank our gin in silence for half a minute. The bass player was on now and the thing on the floor, some sort of junction box, was still giving trouble. I glanced around. No one in the pub was looking in our direction.
I said, ‘If they know that we’re friends they must have guessed that you’d tell me what they asked you to do.’
‘Exactly. They’re sending you a message. Perhaps they’re warning you off something. I’ve been straight with you. Now you tell me. Why are they interested in you?’
Of course, I had no idea. But I was angry with her. I didn’t want to look ignorant – no, more than that, I wanted her to believe that there were matters I preferred not to discuss. And I wasn’t sure I believed anything she was saying.
I turned the question back to her. ‘So they sacked you because you wouldn’t inform on a colleague? That doesn’t sound plausible to me.’
She took a long time getting out her cigarettes, offering one, lighting them. We ordered more drinks. I didn’t want another gin, but my thoughts were too disordered, I couldn’t think of what else to have. So we had the same again. I was almost out of money.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘I don’t want to talk about it. So there you are. This career is over. I never thought it would last anyway. I’m going to live at home and look after my dad. He’s acting a bit confused lately. I’ll help out in the shop. And I might even do some writing. But listen. I wish you’d tell me what was going on.’
And then, in a sudden gesture of affection, conjuring up the old days of our friendship she took the lapel of my cotton jacket and shook it. Shaking sense into me. ‘You’ve got yourself caught up in something. It’s crazy, Serena. They look and talk like a bunch of stuffed shirts, and they are, but they can be mean. It’s what they’re good at. They’re mean.’
I said, ‘We’ll see.’
I was anxious and completely baffled, but I wanted to punish her, make her worry about me. I could almost fool myself that I really had a secret.
‘Serena. You can tell me.’
‘Too complicated. And why should I tell you anything? What could you do about it anyway? You’re bottom of the heap like me. Or you were.’
‘Are you talking to the other side?’
It was a shocking question. In that reckless tipsy moment I wished I did have a Russian controller and a double life, and dead-letter drops on Hampstead Heath, or better, that I was a double agent, feeding useless truths and destructive lies into an alien system. At least I had T. H. Haley. And why would they give me him if I was under suspicion?
‘Shirley, you’re the other side.’
Her reply was lost to the opening chords of ‘Knee Trembler’, an old favourite with us, but we didn’t enjoy it this time round. It was the end of our conversation. Stalemate. She wouldn’t tell me why she was sacked, I wouldn’t tell her the secret I didn’t have. A minute later, she slid from her bar stool and left without saying or miming goodbye. I wouldn’t have responded anyway. I sat there a while, trying to enjoy the band, trying to calm myself and think straight. When I’d finished my gin, I drank the remains of Shirley’s. I didn’t know which upset me more, my good friend or my employers snooping on me. Shirley’s betrayal was unforgivable, my employers’ frightening. If I was under suspicion, there must have been an administrative error, but that didn’t make Nutting and Co any less frightening. It was no comfort to learn they had sent the Watchers into my room and that, in a moment’s incompetence, someone had dropped my bookmark.
Without a pause the band cruised straight into their second song, ‘My Rockin’ Days’. If they really were there, down among the punters and their pints, the Watchers would have been far closer to the speakers than I was. I guessed that this wouldn’t have been their kind of music. Those stolid A4 types would be more the easy-listening sort. They’d hate this throbbing jangling din. There was some comfort in that, but not in much else.
I decided to go home and read another story.
No one knew how Neil Carder came by his money or what he was doing living alone in an eight-bedroom Highgate mansion. Most neighbours who passed him occasionally in the street didn’t even know his name. He was a plain-looking fellow in his late thirties, with a narrow pale face, very shy and with an awkward manner, and no gift for the kind of easy small talk that might have led him towards the beginnings of some local acquaintance. But he caused no trouble, and kept his house and garden in good order. If his name came up in the rounds of gossip, what generally featured was the large white 1959 Bentley he kept parked outside the house. What was a mousy fellow like Carder doing with a showy vehicle like that? Another item of speculation was the young, cheerful, colourfully dressed Nigerian housekeeper who came in six days a week. Abeje shopped, laundered, cooked, she was attractive, and was popular with the watchful housewives. But was she also Mr Carder’s lover? It seemed so unlikely that people were tempted to think it might even be true. Those pale silent men, you never knew … But then, they were never seen together, she was never in his car, she always left just after teatime and waited at the top of the street for her bus back to Willesden. If Neil Carder had a sex life it was indoors and strictly nine till five.
The circumstances of a brief marriage, a large and surprising inheritance and an inward, unadventurous nature had combined to empty Carder’s life. It had been a mistake to buy so large a house in an unfamiliar part of London, but he couldn’t motivate himself to move out and buy another. What would be the point? His few friends and Civil Service colleagues had been repelled by his sudden enormous wealth. Perhaps they were jealous. Either way, people were not queuing up to help him spend his money. Beyond the house and car he had no great material ambitions, no passionate interests he could at last fulfil, no philanthropic impulses, and travelling abroad didn’t appeal. Abeje was certainly a bonus, and he fantasised about her a fair bit, but she was married with two small children. Her husband, also a Nigerian, had once kept goal for the national soccer team. One glance at a snapshot of him and Carder knew he was no match, he was not Abeje’s type.
Neil Carder was a dull fellow and his life was making him duller. He slept late, checked on his portfolio and spoke with his stockbroker, read a bit, watched TV, walked on the Heath now and then, occasionally went to bars and clubs, hoping to meet someone. But he was too shy to make approaches and nothing ever happened. He felt he was held in suspension, he was waiting for a new life to begin, but he felt incapable of taking an initiative. And when at last it did begin, it was in a most unexceptional way. He was walking along Oxford Street, at the Marble Arch end, on his way from his dentist in Wigmore Street when he passed a department store with immense plate-glass windows behind which was an array of mannequins in various poses, modelling evening wear. He paused a moment to look in, felt self-conscious, walked on a few paces, hesitated, and went back. The dummies – he came to hate that term – were disposed in such a way as to suggest a sophisticated gathering at cocktail hour. One woman leaned forwards, as though to divulge a secret, another held up a stiff white arm in amused disbelief, a third, languorously bored, looked across her shoulder towards a doorway, where a rugged fellow in dinner jacket leaned with his unlit cigarette.
But Neil wasn’t interested in any of these. He was looking at a young woman who had turned away from the entire group. She was contemplating an engraving – a view of Venice – on the wall. But not quite. Through an error of alignment by the window dresser, or, as he suddenly found himself imagining, a degree of stubbornness in the woman herself, her gaze was off the picture by several inches and was angled straight into the corner. She was pursuing a thought, an idea, and she didn’t care how she appeared. She didn’t want to be there. She wore an orange silk dress of simple folds and, unlike all the re
st, she was barefoot. Her shoes – they must have been her shoes – were lying on their sides by the door, discarded as she came in. She loved freedom. In one hand she held a small black and orange beaded purse, while the other trailed at her side, wrist turned outwards as she lost herself to her idea. Or perhaps a memory. Her head was slightly lowered to reveal the pure line of her neck. Her lips were parted, but only just, as though she was formulating a thought, a word, a name … Neil.
He shrugged himself out of his daydream. He knew it was absurd and walked on purposefully, glancing at his watch to convince himself that he did indeed have a purpose. But he didn’t. All that waited for him was the empty house in Highgate. Abeje would have gone by the time he got home. He wouldn’t even have the benefit of the latest bulletin on her toddler children. He forced himself to keep walking, well aware that a form of madness was lying in wait, for an idea was forming, and becoming pressing. It said something for his strength of mind that he made it all the way to Oxford Circus before he turned around. Not so good, though, that he hurried all the way back to the store. This time he felt no embarrassment standing by her, gazing into this private moment of hers. What he saw now was her face. So thoughtful, so sad, so beautiful. She was so apart, so alone. The conversation around her was shallow, she had heard it all before, these were not her people, this was not her milieu. How was she to break out? It was a sweet fantasy and an enjoyable one, and at this stage Carder had no difficulty acknowledging that it was a fantasy. That token of sanity left him all the freer to indulge himself as the shopping crowds stepped around him on the pavement.
Later, he was not able to remember actually weighing up or making a decision. With a sense of a destiny already formed, he went into the shop, spoke to one person, was referred up to another, then a more senior third who refused outright. Quite out of order. A sum was mentioned, eyebrows were raised, a superior summoned, the sum was doubled and the matter agreed. By the end of the week? No, it had to be now, and the dress must come too, and he wished to buy several others of the correct size. The assistants and the managers stood around him. Here they had on their hands, not for the first time, an eccentric. A man in love. All present knew that a mighty purchase was under way. For such dresses were not cheap, and nor were several pairs of matching shoes, and the shot silk underwear. And then – how calm and decisive the fellow was – the jewellery. And, an afterthought, the perfume. All done in two and a half hours. A delivery van was made immediately available, the address in Highgate was written down, the payment made.