Charles Cumming - A spy by nature

“Look, Nik, here’s the thing. I want to move on.”

This has been coming for months. It feels good to tell him.

“You want to move on.”

This isn’t said as a question. More as a statement. Nik swallowing the news whole.

“I feel I’ve achieved everything that I can working for you. And things have got very bad between me and Anna. We can’t work together anymore. It’s better that one of us should go.”

I have brought him to a small greasy spoon cafe on Edgware Road. It is ten A.M. Traffic and people clapping by outside. There’s a red plastic bottle containing ketchup-probably not Heinz-sitting on the table between us. Nik stares at it.

“Okay,” he says.

I had expected more of a reaction, a trace of hurt.

“I’ve been offered a chance to do something…larger. Something more meaningful. You know?”

Nik shakes his head, still looking at the ketchup.

“No, I don’t know. You tell me what that is, Alec. I’m not a mind reader.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve hurt your feelings. You’ve invested a lot of time in me and I’ve let you down.”

Now he lifts his head and looks me straight in the eye. There may be pity in his leering, condescending grin.

“Oh, Alec. That’s what I always hated about you. You always think you’re the most important person in the room. Let me tell you something. The world is bigger than you. You understand? You don’t hurt my feelings. You think something like you handing in your notice could hurt my feelings? You think I can’t go out onto that street right now and find someone to replace you? You think I can’t do that?”

This is more like it. This is what I was expecting.

“I’m sure you can, Nik. I’m sure you can. You’re amazing like that.”

“Don’t make fun of me, all right? I gave you a job of work. You come into my offices and all you’re interested in doing is fucking my staff, fucking Anna. And now you say you cannot speak with her. This is your problem. I gave you a job of work. That is a precious thing…”

“Oh, please. ”

I really draw out the please here, and it deflects him. I often wonder when he is angry like this how much gets lost in translation, how much of what he wants to say is denied to him by his mediocre English.

“This operation I have,” he says, gesturing freely with his right hand. He’s about to embark on one of his delusional monologues. “You’re just a tiny fragment of something much larger. Something that you can’t even comprehend. I plan expansion, more offices, more people and workers. And do you know why you can’t comprehend that?”

“Is it just too complicated for me, Nik? Is it just too global and secret and amazing?”

“I tell you why. It’s not because I don’t allow you to comprehend it. No. It’s because you won’t allow yourself to see it. You see only what’s in front of your nose. You never see the bigger picture, the possibilities your work can offer. You and me, we could go places, make some money. The world is bigger than you, Alec. The world is bigger than you.”

“What does that fucking mean, Nik? What exact brand of shit are you talking?”

“You’re a clever boy. I thought this when I first met you. I still think it. But you need to take your head out of your arse. You’re soft.”

It’s time to draw things to a close.

“Nik, I’m not about to take life lessons from you. These plans, these ambitions you talk about. I can’t tell you how little I care about them. You’re not running Ogilvy and Mather. You’re a crook, a petty thief.”

“You want to be careful what you-”

I interrupt him.

“I don’t have much stuff at the office. Someone will come and get it next week.”

“Fine.”

And with that he stands up, pivots away from the table, and walks out of the cafe, leaving me with the bill.

Now it’s just a question of waiting for SIS to call.

I don’t go outside for twenty-four hours in case the telephone rings, but by three o’clock on Tuesday I am growing impatient. The only person to have rung since lunchtime on Monday is Saul, who is just back from Spain. Perhaps SIS wants us to call them?

I dial Liddiard’s office and a woman answers.

“Seven-two-zero-four.”

They never say anything other than the number of the extension. It might just as well be a launderette.

“Patrick Liddiard, please.”

“May I say who’s speaking?”

“Alec Milius.”

“Yes. Just one moment.”

Five seconds of dead noise. Ten. Then a click and Liddiard picks up.

“Alec.”

“Good afternoon. How are you?”

“Very well, thank you.”

I can’t tell anything by the tone of his voice. He’s cheery and polite, but that is his manner.

“I was ringing about the results of Sisby.”

“Yes. Of course.”

Well, say something, then. Tell me. Good or bad.

“I wondered if you knew anything.”

“Yes, we do.”

And there’s a terrible beat now, a gathering of courage before bad news.

“I’m afraid that the board felt you were not up to the very high standards required. I’m sorry, Alec, but we won’t be able to take your application any further.”

My first instinct is that he has mistaken me for somebody else: the Hobbit, perhaps even Ogilvy. But there has been no confusion. Soon every glimpse of promise I have ever shown is ebbing from me like a wound. Liddiard is talking, but I cannot pick up the words. I feel debilitated, bone weak, crushed. In the circumstances I should try to say something dignified, accept defeat graciously, and withdraw. But I am too shocked to react. I stand in the hall holding the phone against my ear, ingesting failure. And because I am not saying anything, Liddiard tries to placate me.

“Would you like me to indicate to you where we felt the weakness was in your application?”

“Okay.”

“It was the group exercise primarily. The board felt you did not display sufficient depth of knowledge about the subjects under discussion.”

“Did anybody else make it through? Sam? Matthew?”

This is all I want to know. Just tell me that I came the closest out of all of them.

“For obvious reasons I can’t reveal that.”

I think I detect contempt in the way he says this, as if my asking such a stupid question has only verified their decision not to hire me.

“No, of course you can’t.”

“But thank you for your enthusiastic participation in the recruitment procedure. We all very much enjoyed meeting you.”

Oh, fuck off.

“It’s nice of you to say so. Thank you.”

“Good-bye.”

My first instinct, and this shames me, is to ring Mum. No sooner have I put the phone down on Liddiard than I am picking it up again and dialing her number in Somerset. She never goes out in the afternoon. She’ll tell me everything’s all right.

The number rings out shrill and clean. I can tell her everything, I can get it all off my chest. And I can do so in the full assurance that she will actually express relief at my failure. She might even be horrified to learn that I had even considered employment in such a murky organization. That her only child, her son, could have gone into such a thing without telling his mother…

I hang up. She’ll never know. It’s as simple as that.

Receiving bad news is always like this: there’s too much information to process, too much at stake that has been irretrievably lost. Something similar happened when Mum told me that my father had died. My mind went absolutely numb, and there was nothing I could do to put his loss into perspective.

The telephone rings, a volt of shock in my chest. I don’t even think about screening the call on my answering machine. I know it’s Hawkes.