Single & Single

by John le Carré

  “Fine. Great. Thank you. Excellent.”

  “There is, however, one small snag,” Herr Albrecht the headmaster confessed over Herr Stämpfli’s balding head pronouncing it “sneg.” “You asked for copies of all correspondence. I regret very much that the authorization does not permit you to take copies. No bank correspondences may leave the bank except by hand of Mr. Single Senior in person. This is written expressly in the instructions and we must accept this limitation.”

  “I shall expect to be able to take notes.”

  “That is what your father was expecting you to expect,” Herr Albrecht said gravely.

  So it’s ordained, Oliver thought. I don’t have to worry. The river of carpet was this time orange. Herr Stämpfli waded at Oliver’s side, a jailer jangling his keys.

  “Did my father take papers away with him?” Oliver asked.

  “Your father has an excellently developed instinct for security. But he would have been permitted, naturally.”

  “Naturally.”

  The room was a chapel of remembrance. Only Tiger’s corpse was missing. Wax flowers, a polished table for the dear departed. Trays of perforated printouts from the loved one’s private papers. Stacks of account sheets in imitation leather folders clamped together by brass rods. A stapler, a plastic dispenser of pins, paper clips and elastic bands and crisply bonded notepads. And a stack of complimentary picture postcards showing a peasant of the Engadine waving the Swiss flag from the top of a green mountain that reminded Oliver of Bethlehem.

  “You like coffee, Mr. Oliver?” Herr Stämpfli intoned, offering him his last meal on earth.

  Herr Stämpfli lived in Solothurn. He was divorced, which he regretted, but his wife had decided she preferred solitude to his company, so what could he do? He had a daughter named Alouette who lived with him, a little fat at present but she was only twelve and with exercise she would grow thinner. It was five o’clock and the bank was closing but Herr Stämpfli would be honored to remain till eight o’clock if Oliver required him, he had nothing particular to do and the evenings hung heavy on him.

  “Won’t Alouette mind your being late?”

  Alouette is playing basketball, Herr Stämpfli rejoined. On Tuesdays, she has always basketball till nine o’clock.

  Oliver was writing and reading and drinking too much coffee all at once. He was Brock. I want bald Bernard and his nasty companies. He was Tiger, landlord of the “satellite accounts,” which were in turn attached by drip feed to the parent account of Single Holdings Offshore. He was Oliver again, authorized in perpetuity to exercise all powers invested in his partner and father. He was bald Bernard, owner of a Liechtenstein foundation called Dervish, worth thirty-one million pounds sterling, and a company called Skyblue Holdings of Antigua. Bernard thinks he’s bulletproof, Brock is saying. Bernard thinks he can walk on the bloody water, and if I have my way he’ll go under for the rest of his dirty little life. He was Skyblue Holdings and the holdings were not one villa but fourteen, each the property of a separate owning company with a silly name like Janus, Plexus, or Mentor. Bernard is the paymaster, Brock had said, Bernard is the Hydra’s biggest head. He was Brock again, talking about less-than-perfect civil servants signing up for their second pensions. He was Oliver son of Tiger, writing patiently and legibly under the sobering eye of Herr Stämpfli. He was twelve years old and sitting an examination and Mr. Ravilious, not Herr Stämpfli, was invigilating. He was Alouette in Solothurn, playing basketball till nine o’clock for her figure. He was in Antigua on one page, Liechtenstein the next and Grand Cayman a page after that. He was in Spain, Portugal, Andorra and northern Cyprus, writing. He was the owner of a chain of casinos, hotels, holiday villages and discotheques. He was Tiger, totting up his personal assets and seeing by how much they fell short of two hundred million sterling. Answer, off the top of Tiger’s head: by one hundred and nineteen million pounds. “Liquid Account,” he read. No heading, just a six-figure number and the letters TS at the top of the page. Current value seventeen million pounds in various currencies. Two debits recorded in last two weeks: one of five million and thirty pounds sterling marked Transfer, the other of fifty thousand pounds sterling, dated and marked Bearer.

  “Did my father withdraw this sum in cash?”

  Cash, Herr Stämpfli confirmed. Herr Stämpfli had personally assisted him to load the money into his air bag.

  “In what currency?”

  “Swiss francs, dollars, Turkish liras,” Herr Stämpfli replied like a Swiss speaking clock, and added proudly, “I fetched them for him personally.”

  “Can you fetch some for me too?”

  The question, which surprised Oliver, turned out to have been forced on him by two external factors. The first, that he had stumbled upon his own numbered account and discovered it was worth three million pounds. The second, that he resented the fact that Brock had forbidden him money of his own while he was abroad, with the insulting implication that he might make an unscripted dash for freedom—a course of action he had contemplated repeatedly over the last three days.

  Herr Stämpfli was not permitted to leave Oliver alone with the papers. With tremendous circumstance, he therefore telephoned the night cashier and placed an order on Oliver’s behalf for thirty thousand U.S. dollars in hundreds, a couple of thousand Swiss francs, oh and some Turkish like my father. A vestal appeared, armed with a wad of notes and a receipt. Oliver signed the receipt and distributed the notes among the copious pockets of his Hayward suit. No magician could have done it more discreetly. By way of celebration, he helped himself to one of the bank’s postcards of a flag-swinger, scribbled a jolly message to Sammy and slipped that also into his pocket. He returned to the figures. Seven o’clock chimed before his courage ran out.

  “I just can’t bear to keep Alouette waiting,” he confessed to Herr Stämpfli with a shy laugh. Carefully he pulled his precious handwritten pages from the notepad, Herr Stämpfli produced a stout envelope and held it open while Oliver fed them into it. Then Herr Stämpfli escorted Oliver down the main staircase as far as the front doors.

  “Did my father mention where he was going from here?”

  Herr Stämpfli shook his head. “With the liras, maybe Turkey.” Outside in the half darkness, Derek was waiting. “You’re changing hats,” he announced as they strolled toward a parked cab. “Nat’s orders. You’re Mr. and Mrs. West and you’re staying in a commercial travelers’ love nest on the other side of town.”

  “Why?”

  “Ferrets.”

  “Whose ferrets?”

  “Not known. Could be Swiss, could be Hoban’s lot, could be Hydra. Maybe Conrad bubbled you.”

  “What did they do?”

  “Tailed Aggie, quizzed the hotel, sniffed your underpants. It’s orders. You lie low, stay clear of the bright lights and you’re on the first plane home in the morning.”

  “To London?”

  “The Gnat’s calling time-out. What do you expect him to do? Tie you to a tree and wait for the wolves?”

  Seated at Derek’s side in the cab, Oliver watched the lights along the lake. In the lobby of a dingy high-rise that smelled of old soup, Derek spoke to room 509 on the house telephone while Pat and Mike studied the notice board. Seizing his moment, Oliver magicked Sammy’s postcard from his pocket, scribbled “Charge to 509” where the stamp should have been and dropped it in the hotel mailbox.

  “She’s waiting for you,” Derek murmured, pointing Oliver at the lift. “Sooner you than me, mate.”

  It was a double bed in a very small bedroom. The bed was small even for small lovers and out of the question for two tall married strangers intent on not touching each other. There was a minibar and a television set. Two tiny armchairs were crammed at the foot of the bed, and there was a slot in the bed head that for two francs provided you with a therapeutic massage. She had unpacked for both of them. His spare suit hung in the wardrobe. She was wearing a rather nice scent. He had never associated her with scent, more with outdoors. All t
his he established before sitting himself on the edge of the bed with his back to her while she stood at the basin in the bathroom adding finishing touches to her makeup. He had brought Rocco the raccoon with him and was passing him round his shoulders and keeping his jacket on because of the money in the pockets.

  “Is it all right to talk in here?” he asked.

  “Unless you’re paranoid,” she retorted through the open doorway, while he discreetly unloaded the cash from his jacket, unbuttoned his shirt and set to work wedging the notes inside his waistband.

  “Everyone’s ganged up on him. Only Yevgeny’s on his side. Even I’m not,” he complained, shoving a wad of hundreds into the small of his back.

  “So?”

  “I owe him.”

  “Owe him what?” He guessed she was biting in her lipstick or something, because she sounded a bit like Heather. “Oliver, we cannot owe ourselves to everybody.”

  “You do,” he said. The money was all inside his shirt. He took off his jacket and put Rocco back to work. “I’ve seen you. You’re like a nurse on her rounds. Everyone’s your patient.”

  “That is total crap.” But she lost the p because of whatever she was doing with her lips. “And stop wiggling that animal at me, because you’re just putting yourself down, and it pisses me off.”

  Our first marital row, Oliver thought, rubbing Rocco’s snout and pulling faces at him. She came out of the bathroom. He went in, closed the door behind him and locked it. He took the money from round his waist and wedged it behind the cistern. He flushed and ran the taps. He returned to the bedroom and poked round for a clean shirt. She pulled open a drawer and handed him a new one that went with the tie she’d bought him at Heathrow.

  “When did you get this?”

  “What else was I meant to do all day?”

  He remembered the ferrets and supposed that was what was annoying her. “So who’s been following you?” he asked solicitously.

  “I don’t know, Oliver, and I didn’t see them to ask. The crew saw them. It is not my part to act surveillance-conscious.”

  “Oh, right. Yes. Of course. Sorry.” It seemed silly to go back to the bathroom to put a new shirt on. Besides, it was always good to show the audience you’d nothing up your sleeve when you hadn’t. He peeled off his old shirt and held his stomach in while he tore off the cellophane and groped inexpertly for the pins that held the new shirt to the cardboard inside. “They ought to print it on the packet how many you’re supposed to look for,” he groused when she took the shirt from him and finished the job. “You could impale yourself, just pulling it over your head.”

  “It’s plain cuffs,” she said. “They’re what you like.”

  “I’m not very fond of the links,” he explained.

  “You don’t need to tell me. I’m aware.”

  He put the shirt on and turned his back to her while he unzipped his fly to tuck in the tails. He’d always tied his tie badly and remembered how Heather had insisted on retying it in a Windsor knot, a trick that the great magician had never mastered. Then he wondered how many men it had taken Heather to teach her the knack, and whether Nadia tied Tiger’s tie, or Kat did, and whether Tiger was wearing one at the moment, or whether for instance he had hanged himself with it, or been strangled with it, or had his head blown off while he was wearing it, because Oliver’s mind was bouncing round inside his head like a rubber ball and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it except act naturally and be his charming self and get hold of one of those air-and-railway timetables that he’d spotted peeping out of the rack beside the reception desk.

  Their table was a lovers’ niche with cowbells hanging over it. In the rest of the dining room interchangeable men in gray suits ate without expression. Pat and Mike sat alone against a wall being covertly undressed by a hundred lonely male eyes. Aggie ordered U.S. beef and chips. Same for me, please. If she’d ordered tripe and onions, he would have said same for me. Small decisions were eluding him. He ordered half a liter of Dôle but Aggie would drink only mineral water: sparkling, she told the waiter, but don’t let me stop you, Oliver.

  “Is that because you’re on duty?”

  “Is what?”

  “Staying on the wagon.” She answered but he didn’t notice what she said. You’re beautiful, he was telling her with his eyes. Even in this sickly white light, you’re absurdly, healthily, radiantly beautiful. “It’s a bit of a tall order,” he complained.

  “What is?”

  “Being one person all day and somebody else in the evening. I’m not sure who to be anymore.”

  “Be yourself, Oliver. Just for once.”

  He rubbed his head. “Yeah, well, there’s not that much left to be, really. Not after Tiger and Brock have finished with me.” “Oliver, if you’re going talk like that, I think I’ll eat alone.”

  He gave it a rest for a while, then tried again, asking the questions the young master used to ask Single’s female staff at the all-ranks Christmas bash: what her larger ambitions were, how she’d like to see herself five years from now, whether she wanted babies or a career or both.

  “Actually, Oliver, I don’t have the least fucking idea,” she said.

  The meal dragged to an end, she signed the bill and he watched her: Charmian West. He proposed a nightcap in the bar—the bar being the other side of the reception desk. One brush past it and I’m home free, he was thinking. All right, she agreed, let’s have a nightcap in the bar. Perhaps she was grateful for a delay before returning to the room.

  “What the hell are you looking for?” she asked.

  “Your coat.” Heather had always worn a coat when they went out. She liked him to sweep her in and out of it, and hang it up for her between acts.

  “Why on earth should I wear a coat to go from the bedroom to the dining room and back?”

  Of course not. Silly of me. At the reception desk Aggie asked the concierge whether there were any messages for West. There were none, but by the time they had resumed their passage to the bar Oliver had a bunch of timetables in the left pocket of his jacket and the audience hadn’t seen a thing. Love is what you can get away with. In the bar he ordered brandy and she another mineral water, and this time when she signed the bill he made an ambiguous joke about being a kept man, but she didn’t smile. In the lift, which they had to themselves, she remained distant: No Katrina she. In the bedroom, which she entered ahead of him, she had it all worked out. He was larger than she was, so he got the bed, she said. The two armchairs would suit her fine. She would have the duvet and two pillows, Oliver the blanket and the quilted bedspread and first use of the bathroom. He thought he caught a glimpse of disappointment in her eye and wondered whether, if he’d managed to bring his act down instead of pursuing an agenda of his own, the sleeping arrangements might have been more conciliatory. He took off his shirt but kept his shoes and trousers on. He hung his jacket in the wardrobe, extracted the timetables, wedged them under his arm, slung a bathrobe over his shoulder, collected his sponge bag and, mumbling something about taking a bath in the morning, shuffled into the bathroom and locked the door. He sat on the lavatory, studying the timetables. He fished the money from behind the cistern and put it in his sponge bag and made a show of sloshing water and brushing his teeth while he added the last touches to his plan. Through the door he heard the martial fanfares of American television news.

  “If that’s Larry King, turn the bastard off,” he called in a show of bravura.

  He rinsed his face, cleaned the hand basin, knocked on the door, heard “Come in,” and returned to the bedroom to find her shrouded to the neck in a bathrobe with her hair packed into a shower cap. She entered the bathroom, closed the door and locked it. The television was showing disasters in black Africa, brought to us courtesy of a well made-up woman in a flak jacket. Oliver waited for the sound of water but heard none. The door opened and without a glance at him she fetched her hairbrush and comb, returned to the bathroom and relocked the door. He heard the showe
r running. He put his shirt back on, dropped his sponge bag into a canvas grip, threw in Rocco, socks, underpants, a couple more shirts, his thuds and Brearly on balloons. The shower was still running. Reassured, he slipped on his jacket, took up the grip and tiptoed toward the door. Passing the bed, he paused to scribble a message to her on the telephone pad: Sorry I have to do this. Love you, O. Feeling better, he put his hand on the doorknob and turned it, relying on disaster in the African jungle to cover the sound. The door yielded, he turned round to take a last look at the room and saw Aggie without her shower cap, watching him from the doorway.

  “Shut the door. Gently.”

  He shut it.

  “Where the fuck do you think you’re going? Keep your voice down.”

  “To Istanbul.”

  “By air or rail? Decided yet?”

  “Not really.” Anxious to escape her glare, he peered at his watch. “There’s a twenty-two thirty-three from Zurich station gets to Vienna round eight in the morning. I could make the Vienna–Istanbul flight at ten-thirty.”

  “Otherwise?”

  “Twenty-three hundred to Paris and nine-fifty-five from Charles de Gaulle.”

  “How are you reckoning to get to the station?”

  “Tram or walk.”

  “Why not a cab?”

  “Well, a cab if I find one. Depends.”

  “Why not fly from Zurich?”

  “I thought trains were more anonymous, sort of thing. Fly from somewhere different. Anyway, I’d have to wait till morning.”