John le Carre: Our kind of traitor

*

Friday was the last day of the Indian honeymooners' holiday, Perry is saying. They had therefore agreed to play the best of five sets instead of the usual three, and in consequence again missed breakfast.

'So we settled for a swim in the sea, and maybe brunch if we were hungry. We picked the busy end of the beach. It wasn't the bit we normally used, but we had our eye on the Shipwreck Bar.'

His efficient tone, Gail recognizes. Perry the English tutor. Facts and short sentences. No abstract concepts. Let the story tell itself. They chose a sunshade, he is saying. They laid out their gear. They were heading for the water when a people carrier with blackened windows came to a halt in the NO PARKING bay. From it emerged first the baby-faced bodyguard, next the tam-o'-shanter man from the tennis match, now wearing shorts and a yellow buckskin waistcoat, but the tam-o'-shanter still firmly in situ. Then Elspeth, wife to Ambrose, and after her an inflated rubber crocodile with its jaws open, followed by Katya – Perry says, parading his fabled powers of recall. And after Katya, exit an enormous red bouncy ball with a smiley face and grab handles which turned out to be the property of Irina, also dressed for the beach.

And finally Natasha emerged, he says, which is time for Gail to cut in. Natasha is my business, not yours:

'But only after a stage delay, and just when we're thinking there's no one left in the people carrier,' says Gail. 'Dressed to kill in a Hakka-style lampshade hat and a cheongsam dress with toggle buttons and Grecian sandals cross-tied round her ankles, and she's carting her leatherbound tome. After picking her way delicately over the sand for all eyes to see, she then settles herself languidly under the furthest sunshade of the row and begins her terribly serious reading. Right, Perry?'

'If you say so,' says Perry awkwardly, and jerks himself back in his chair as if to distance himself from her.

'I do say so. But the truly eerie thing, the really spooky thing,' she goes on stridently, now that Natasha is safely out of the way again, 'was that each member of the party, big or small, knew exactly where to go and what to do as soon as they hit the beach.'

The baby-faced bodyguard headed straight for the Shipwreck Bar, and ordered a can of root beer which he made last for the next two hours, she says, clinging to the initiative. The tam-o'-shanter man, despite his bulk – a cousin, according to Mark, one of the many cousins from Perm in Russia, the city not the hairdo – scaled the rickety steps of a lifeguard's lookout, hauled a rubber ring from his buckskin waistcoat, blew it up and sat on it, presumably for his piles. The two little girls, followed at a distance by the ample Elspeth with her bulging basket, came walking down the sand slope to where Perry and Gail had made their camp, bearing their crocodile and bouncy ball.

'Walking again,' Gail overemphasizes for Yvonne's benefit. 'Not hopping, skipping or yelling. Walking, and looking as tight-lipped and bug-eyed as they had at the tennis court. Irina with her thumb in her mouth and a big scowl, Katya's voice about as friendly as a speaking clock: "Will you swim with us, please, Miss Gail?" So I said – hoping to loosen things up a bit, I suppose – "Miss Katya, Mr Perry and I will be most honoured to swim with you." So we swam. Didn't we?' – to Perry, who having nodded his assent, again insisted on putting his hand on hers, either in a gesture of support or to steady her down, she wasn't sure which, but the result either way was the same; she was forced to close her eyes and wait several seconds before she was ready to resume, which she did in another gush.

'It was a total set-up. We knew it was a set-up. The children knew it was a set-up. But if ever two girls needed a splash-about with a crocodile and a bouncing ball, these two did, right, Perry?'

'Absolutely,' says Perry enthusiastically.

'So Irina battened on to my hand and practically frogmarched me into the water. Katya and Perry came after us with the crocodile. And all the time I was thinking: where on earth are their parents and why are we doing this instead of them? I didn't ask Katya outright. I suppose I had some sort of premonition it might be a bad question. A divorce situation, something like that. So I asked her who the nice gentleman in the hat was, the one sitting on the ladder? Uncle Vanya, says Katya. Great, I say, who's Uncle Vanya? Answer, just an uncle. From Perm? Yes, from Perm. No further explanation offered. Like: we don't go to school in Rome any more. Have I foot-faulted yet, Perry?'

'Not at all.'

'Then I'll continue.'

*

For a while, the sun and sea do their job, she goes on: 'The girls splash and leap around and Perry is a complete riot as mighty Poseidon rising from the deep and making his sea-monster noises – no, honestly, you were, Perry, you were marvellous, admit it.'

Exhausted, they stagger ashore, the girls to be dried, dressed and sun-creamed by Elspeth.

'But within literally seconds they're back, squatting on the edge of my towel. And one look at their faces tells me the gloomy shadows are still there, they've just been hiding. Right, I think: ice creams and fizzies. Perry, this is man's work, I tell him, do your duty. Right, Perry?'

Fizzies? she repeats to herself. Why am I sounding like my bloody mother again? Because I'm another failed actress with a six-acre voice that gets louder the longer I speak.

'Right,' Perry agrees belatedly.

'And off he strides to get them, don't you? Caramel-and-nut cones for everybody, pineapple juice for the girls. But when Perry comes to sign for them, the barman tells him everything is paid for. Who by?' – she gallops on with the same false gaiety – 'By Vanya! By the ever-so-kind fat uncle in the tam-o'-shanter stuck up on the ladder. But Perry, being Perry, you can't be doing with this, can you?'

Awkward shake of the elongated head to say he's out of earshot on the cliff face, but has got the message.

'He's pathologically uncomfortable freeloading on someone else's tab, aren't you? And this is someone you don't even know. So up the ladder Perry goes to tell Uncle Vanya, very kind of him and all that, but he prefers to pay his own way.'

She dries. With none of her desperate levity, Perry takes up the story for her:

'I went up the ladder where Vanya was sitting on his rubber ring. I ducked under the sunshade to say my piece and found myself staring at a very large black pistol butt sticking out from under his gut. He'd unbuttoned his buckskin waistcoat in the heat, and there it was, bright as day. I don't know guns, thank God. Don't want to. You people do, no doubt. This one was family size,' he says regretfully, and an eloquent silence falls as he shoots a plaintive glance at Gail and receives no answering look for his pains.

*

'And you didn't think to comment, Perry?' deft little Luke suggests, ever the one to paper over gaps. 'On the gun, I mean.'

'No I did not. I reckoned he hadn't seen that I'd noticed, so I decided it was tactically sensible of me not to have noticed either. I thanked him for the ice cream and went back down the ladder to where Gail was chatting to the girls.'

Luke reflects on this in a rather intense way. Something seems to have got under his skin. Could it perhaps be the tricky question of spy's etiquette that was bothering him? What do you do if you see a chap's gun sticking out of his waistcoat and you don't know him very well? Tell him it's showing, or just ignore it? Like when someone you don't know very well hasn't done their zip up.

The Scottish blue-stocking Yvonne decides to help Luke out of his dilemma:

'In English, Perry?' she asks severely. 'You thanked him in English, I take it. Did he reply in English at all?'

'He didn't reply in any language. However, I did notice that he was wearing a black mourning button pinned to his waistcoat, something I hadn't seen for a long time. And you didn't know they existed, did you?' he demanded accusingly.