“That’s all I can remember, really,” said Peter Worthington. “After that, it’s a blank.”
“Yes,” said Smiley, inadvertently taking refuge in Worthington’s own repeated assertion: “Yes, I understand.”
He rose to leave. A little boy was standing in the doorway. He had a shrouded, hostile stare. A placid, heavy woman stood behind him, holding him by both wrists above his head, so that he seemed to swing from her, though really he was standing by himself.
“Look, there’s Daddy,” said the woman, gazing at Worthington with brown, attaching eyes.
“Jenny, hi. This is Mr. Standfast from the Foreign Office.”
“How do you do?” said Smiley politely, and after a few minutes’ meaningless chatter, and a promise of further information in due course should any become available, he quietly took his leave.
“Oh, and Happy Christmas,” Peter Worthington called from the steps.
“Ah, yes. And to you, too. To all of you. Happy indeed and many more of them.”
In the transport café they put in sugar unless you asked them not to, and each time the Indian woman made a cup, the tiny kitchen filled with steam. In twos and threes, not talking, men ate breakfast, lunch, or supper, depending on the point they had reached in their separate days. Here also Christmas was approaching. Six greasy coloured glass balls dangled over the counter for festive cheer; and a net stocking appealed for help for spastic kids.
Smiley stared at an evening paper, not reading it. In a corner, not twelve feet from him, little Fawn had taken up the baby-sitter’s classic position. His dark eyes smiled agreeably on the diners and on the doorway. He lifted his cup with his left hand, while his right idled close to his chest. Did Karla sit like this, Smiley wondered. Did Karla take refuge among the unsuspecting?
Control had. Control had made a whole second, third, or fourth life for himself in a two-room upstairs flat, beside the Western bypass, under the plain name of Matthews, not filed with housekeepers as an alias. Well, “whole” life was an exaggeration. But he had kept clothes there, and a woman—Mrs. Matthews herself—even a cat. And taken golf lessons at an artisans’ club on Thursday mornings early, while from his desk in the Circus he poured scorn on the great unwashed, and on golf, and on love, and on any other piffling human pursuit which secretly might tempt him. He had even rented a garden allotment, Smiley remembered, down by a railway siding. Mrs. Matthews had insisted on driving Smiley to see it in her groomed Morris car on the day he broke the sad news to her. It was as big a mess as anyone else’s allotment: standard roses, winter vegetables they hadn’t used, a tool-shed crammed with hose-pipe and seed boxes.
Mrs. Matthews was a widow, pliant but capable. “All I want to know,” she had said, having read the figure on the cheque. “All I want to be sure of, Mr. Standfast, is he really dead, or has he gone back to his wife?”
“He is really dead,” Smiley assured her, and she believed him gratefully. He forbore from adding that Control’s wife had gone to her grave eleven years ago, still believing her husband was something in the Coal Board.
Did Karla have to scheme in committees? Fight cabals, deceive the stupid, flatter the clever, look in distorting mirrors of the Peter Worthington variety, all in order to do the job?
He glanced at his watch, then at Fawn. The coin-box stood next to the lavatory. But when Smiley asked the proprietor for change, he refused it on the grounds that he was too busy.
“Hand it over, you awkward bastard,” shouted a long-distance driver all in leather. The proprietor briskly obliged.
“How did it go?” Guillam asked, taking the call on the direct line.
“Good background,” Smiley replied.
“Hooray,” said Guillam coolly.
Another of the charges later levelled against Smiley was that he wasted time on menial matters, instead of delegating them to his subordinates.
There are blocks of flats near the Town and Country Golf Course on the northern fringes of London that are like the superstructure of permanently sinking ships. They lie at the end of long lawns where the flowers are never quite in flower; the husbands man the lifeboats all in a flurry at about eight-thirty in the morning, and the women and children spend the day keeping afloat until their men-folk return too tired to sail anywhere. These buildings were built in the thirties and have stayed a grubby white ever since. Their oblong, steel-framed windows look on to the lush billows of the links, where women in eye-shades wander like lost souls.
One such block is called Arcady Mansions, and the Pellings lived in number 7, with a cramped view of the ninth green which vanished when the beeches were in leaf. When Smiley rang the bell, he heard nothing except the thin electric tinkle: no footsteps, no dog, no music. The door opened and a man’s cracked voice said “Yes?” from the darkness, but it belonged to a woman. She was tall and stooping. A cigarette hung from her hand.
“My name is Oates,” Smiley said, offering a big green card encased in cellophane. To a different cover belongs a different name.
“Oh, it’s you, is it? Come in. Dine, see the show. You sounded younger on the telephone,” she boomed, in a curdled voice striving for refinement. “He’s in here. He thinks you’re a spy,” she said, squinting at the green card. “You’re not, are you?”
“No,” said Smiley. “I’m afraid not. Just a snooper.”
The flat was all corridors. She led the way, leaving a vapour trail of gin. One leg slurred as she walked, and her right arm was stiff. Smiley guessed she had had a stroke. She dressed as if nobody had ever admired her height or sex. And as if she didn’t care. She wore flat shoes and a mannish pullover with a belt that made her shoulders broad.
“He says he’s never heard of you. He says he’s looked you up in the telephone directory and you don’t exist.”
“We like to be discreet,” Smiley said.
She pushed open a door. “He exists,” she reported loudly, ahead of her into the room. “And he’s not a spy, he’s a snooper.”
In a far chair a man was reading the Daily Telegraph, holding it in front of his face so that Smiley only saw the bald head, and the dressing-gown, and the short crossed legs ending in leather bedroom slippers; but somehow he knew at once that Mr. Pelling was the kind of small man who would only ever marry tall women. The room carried everything he could need in order to survive alone: his television, his bed, his gas fire, a table to eat at, and an easel for painting by numbers. On the wall hung an over-coloured portrait photograph of a very beautiful girl, with an inscription scribbled diagonally across one corner in the way that film stars wish love to the unglamorous. Smiley recognised it as Elizabeth Worthington; he had seen a lot of photographs already.
“Mr. Oates, meet Nunc,” she said, and all but curtsied.
The Daily Telegraph came down with the slowness of a garrison flag, revealing an aggressive, glittering little face with thick brows and managerial spectacles.
“Yes. Well, just who are you precisely?” said Mr. Pelling. “Are you Secret Service or aren’t you? Don’t shilly-shally, out with it and be done. I don’t hold with snooping, you see. What’s that?” he demanded.
“His card,” said Mrs. Pelling, offering it. “Green in hue.”
“Oh, we’re exchanging notes, are we? I need a card too then, Cess, don’t I? Better get some printed, my dear. Slip down to Smith’s, will you?”
“Do you like tea?” Mrs. Pelling asked, peering down at Smiley with her head on one side.
“What are you giving him tea for?” Mr. Pelling demanded, watching her plug in the kettle. “He doesn’t need tea. He’s not a guest. He’s not even intelligence. I didn’t ask him. Stay the week,” he said to Smiley. “Move in if you like. Have her bed. ‘Bullion Universal Security Advisors,’ my Aunt Fanny.”
“He wants to talk about Lizzie, darling,” said Mrs. Pelling, setting a tray for her husband. “Now be a father for a change.”
“Fat lot of good her bed would do you, mind,” said Mr. Pelling, taking up hi
s Telegraph again.
“For those kind words,” said Mrs. Pelling, and gave a laugh. It consisted of two notes like a bird-call, and was not meant to be funny. A disjointed silence followed.
Mrs. Pelling handed Smiley a cup of tea. Accepting it, he addressed himself to the back of Mr. Pelling’s newspaper. “Sir, your daughter Elizabeth is being considered for an important appointment with a major overseas corporation. My organisation has been asked in confidence—as a normal but very necessary formality these days—to approach friends and relations in this country and obtain character references.”
“That’s us, dear,” Mrs. Pelling explained, in case her husband hadn’t understood.
The newspaper came down with a snap.
“Are you suggesting my daughter is of bad character? Is that what you’re sitting here, drinking my tea, suggesting?”
“No, sir,” said Smiley.
“No, sir,” said Mrs. Pelling unhelpfully.
A long silence followed, which Smiley was at no great pains to end.
“Mr. Pelling,” he said finally, in a firm and patient voice. “I understand that you spent many years in the Post Office and rose to a high position.”
“Many many years,” Mrs. Pelling agreed.
“I worked,” said Mr. Pelling from behind his newspaper once more. “There’s too much talk in the world. Not enough work done.”
“Did you employ criminals in your department?”
The newspaper rattled, then held still.
“Or Communists?” said Smiley, equally gently.
“If we did, we damn soon got rid of them,” said Mr. Pelling, and this time the newspaper stayed down.
Mrs. Pelling snapped her fingers. “Like that,” she said.
“Mr. Pelling,” Smiley continued, in the same bedside manner, “the position for which your daughter is being considered is with one of the major Eastern companies. She will be specialising in air transport, and her work will give her advance knowledge of large gold shipments to and from this country, as well as the movement of diplomatic couriers and classified mails. It carries an extremely high remuneration. I don’t think it unreasonable—and I don’t think you do—that your daughter should be subject to the same procedures as any other candidate for such a responsible—and desirable—post.”
“Who employs you,” said Mr. Pelling. “That’s what I’m getting at. Who says you’re responsible?”
“Nunc,” Mrs. Pelling pleaded. “Who says anyone is?”
“Don’t Nunc me! Give him some more tea. You’re hostess, aren’t you? Well, act like one. It’s high time Lizzie was rewarded and I’m frankly displeased that it hasn’t occurred before now, seeing what they owe her.”
Mr. Pelling resumed his reading of Smiley’s impressive green card: “‘Correspondents in Asia, U.S.A., and the Middle East.’ Pen-friends, I suppose they are. Head Office in South Molton Street. Any enquiries, telephone blah-blah-blah. Who do I get then? Your partner in crime, I suppose.”
“If it’s South Molton Street, he must be all right,” said Mrs. Pelling.
“Authority without responsibility,” Mr. Pelling said, dialling the number. He spoke as if someone were holding his nostrils. “I don’t hold with it, I’m afraid.”
“With responsibility,” Smiley corrected him. “We as a company are pledged to indemnify our customers against any dishonesty on the part of staff we recommend. We are insured accordingly.”
The number rang five times before the Circus switchboard answered it, and Smiley hoped to God there wasn’t going to be a muddle.
“Give me the Managing Director,” Mr. Pelling ordered. “I don’t care if he’s in conference! Has he got a name? Well, what is it? Well, you tell Mr. Andrew Forbes-Lisle that Mr. Humphrey Pelling desires a personal word with him. Now.” Long wait. Well done, thought Smiley; nice touch. “Pelling here. I’ve a man calling himself Oates sitting in front of me. Short, fat, and worried. What do you want me to do with him?”
In the background, Smiley heard Peter Guillam’s resonant, officer-like tones all but ordering Pelling to stand up when he addressed him. Mollified, Mr. Pelling rang off.
“Does Lizzie know you’re talking to us?” he asked.
“She’d laugh her head off if she did,” said his wife.
“She may not even know she is being considered for the post,” said Smiley. “More and more, the tendency these days is to make the approach after clearance has been obtained.”
“It’s for Lizzie, Nunc,” Mrs. Pelling reminded him. “You know you love her, although we haven’t heard of her for a year.”
“You don’t write to her at all?” Smiley asked sympathetically.
“She doesn’t want it,” said Mrs. Pelling, with a glance at her husband.
The tiniest grunt escaped Smiley’s lips. It could have been regret, but it was actually relief.
“Give him more tea,” her husband ordered. “He’s wolfed that lot already.” He stared quizzically at Smiley yet again. “I’m still not sure he’s not Secret Service, even now,” he said. “He may not be glamour, but that could be deliberate.”
Smiley had brought forms. The Circus printer had run them up last night, on buff paper—which was fortunate, for in Mr. Pelling’s world, it turned out, forms were the legitimisation of everything, and buff was the respectable colour. So the men worked together, like two friends solving a crossword, Smiley perched at his side, and Mr. Pelling doing the pencil work while his wife sat smoking and staring through the grey net curtains, turning her wedding ring round and round. They did date and place of birth: “Up the road at the Alexandra Nursing Home. Pulled it down now, haven’t they, Cess? Turned it into one of those ice-cream blocks.” They did education, and Mr. Pelling gave his views on that subject.
“I never let one school have her too long, did I, Cess? Keep her mind alert. Don’t let it get into a rut. A change is worth a holiday, I said. Didn’t I, Cess?”
“He’s read books on education,” said Mrs. Pelling.
“We married late,” he said, as if explaining her presence.
“We wanted her on the stage,” she said. “He wanted to be her manager, among other things.”
He gave other dates. There was a drama school and there was a secretarial course.
“Grooming,” Mr. Pelling said. “Preparation, not education, that’s what I believe in. Throw a bit of everything at her. Make her worldly. Give her deportment.”
“Oh, she’s got the deportment,” Mrs. Pelling agreed, and with a click of her throat blew out a lot of cigarette smoke. “And the worldliness.”
“But she never finished secretarial college?” Smiley asked, pointing to the panel. “Or the drama.”
“Didn’t need to,” said Mr. Pelling.
They came to previous employers. Mr. Pelling listed half a dozen in the London area, all within eighteen months of one another.
“All bores,” said Mrs. Pelling pleasantly.
“She was looking around,” said her husband airily. “She was taking the pulse before committing herself. I made her, didn’t I, Cess? They all wanted her but I wouldn’t fall for it.” He flung out an arm at her. “And don’t say it didn’t pay off in the end!” he yelled. “Even if we aren’t allowed to talk about it!”
“She liked the ballet best,” said Mrs. Pelling. “Teaching the children. She adores children. Adores them.”
This annoyed Mr. Pelling very much. “She’s making a career, Cess!” he shouted, slamming the form on his knee. “God Almighty, you cretinous woman, do you want her to go back to him?”
“Now, what was she doing in the Middle East exactly?” Smiley asked.
“Taking courses. Business schools. Learning Arabic,” said Mr. Pelling, acquiring a sudden largeness of view. To Smiley’s surprise, he even stood and, gesticulating imperiously, roamed the room. “What got her there in the first place, I don’t mind telling you, was an unfortunate marriage.”
“Jesus,” said Mrs. Pelling.
Uprigh
t, he had a prehensile sturdiness which made him formidable. “But we got her back. Oh, yes. Her room’s always ready when she wants it. Next door to mine. She can find me any time. Oh, yes. We helped her over that hurdle, didn’t we, Cess? Then one day I said to her—”
“She came with a darling English teacher with curly hair,” his wife interrupted. “Andrew.”
“Scottish,” Mr. Pelling corrected her automatically.
“Andrew was a nice boy but no match for Nunc, was he, darling?”
“He wasn’t enough for her. All that Yogi Bear stuff. Swinging by your tail is what I call it. Then one day I said to her, ‘Lizzie: Arabs. That’s where your future is.’” He snapped his fingers, pointing at an imaginary daughter. “‘Oil. Money. Power. Away you go. Pack. Get your ticket. Off.’”
“A night-club paid her fare,” said Mrs. Pelling. “It took her for one hell of a ride too.”
“It did no such thing!” Mr. Pelling retorted, hunching his broad shoulders to yell at her, but Mrs. Pelling continued as if he weren’t there.
“She answered this advertisement, you see. Some woman in Bradford with a soft line of talk. A bawd. ‘Hostesses needed, but not what you’d think,’ she said. They paid her air fare and the moment she landed in Bahrein they made her sign a contract giving over all her salary for the rent of her flat. From then on they’d got her, hadn’t they? There was nowhere she could go, was there? The Embassy couldn’t help her, no one could. She’s beautiful, you see.”
“You stupid bloody hag! We’re talking about a career! Don’t you love her? Your own daughter? You unnatural mother! My God!”
“She’s got her career,” said Mrs. Pelling complacently. “The best in the world.”
In desperation Mr. Pelling turned to Smiley. “Put down ‘reception work and picking up the language,’ and put down—”
John Le Carré: Three Complete Novels Page 63