John le Carré - A Murder of Quality

'I'm afraid I left it in London.'

'Never mind.' Rode sounded disappointed. 'Thought we might have gone out for a drive, had a chat as we went. I get a bit fed-up, kicking around here on my own. Miss D'Arcy asked me to stay over at their place. Very good people they are, very good indeed; but somehow I didn't wish it, not yet.'

'I understand.'

'Do you?' They were in the hall now, Smiley was getting out of his overcoat, Rode waiting to receive it. 'I don't think many do—the loneliness I mean. Do you know what they've done, the Master and Mr D'Arcy? They meant it well, I know. They've farmed out all my correcting—my exam, correcting, you understand. What am I supposed to do here, all on my own? I've no teaching, nothing; they've all taken a hand. You'd think they wanted to get rid of me.'

Smiley nodded vaguely. They moved towards the drawing-room, Rode leading the way.

'I know they did it for the best, as I said. But after all, I've got to spend the time somehow. Simon Snow got some of my division to correct. Have you met him by any chance? Sixty-one per cent he gave one boy—sixty-one. The boy's an absolute fool; I told Fielding at the beginning of the Half that he wouldn't possibly get his remove. Perkins his name is, a nice enough boy; head of Fielding's house. He'd have been lucky to get thirty per cent… sixty-one, Snow gave him. I haven't seen the papers yet, of course, but it's impossible, quite impossible.'

They sat down.

'Not that I don't want the boy to get on. He's a nice enough boy, nothing special, but well-mannered. Mrs Rode and I meant to have him here to tea this Half. We would have done, in fact, if it hadn't been for…' There was a moment's silence. Smiley was going to speak when Rode stood up and said:

'I've a kettle on the stove, Mr…'

'Smiley.'

'I've a kettle on the stove, Mr Smiley. May I make you a cup of coffee?' That little stiff voice with the corners carefully defined, like a hired morning suit, thought Smiley.

Rode returned a few minutes later with a tray and measured their coffee in precise quantities, according to their taste.

Smiley found himself continually irritated by Rode's social assumptions, and his constant struggle to conceal his origin. You could tell at the time, from every word and gesture, what he was; from the angle of his elbow as he drank his coffee, from the swift, expert pluck at the knee of his trouser leg as he sat down.

'I wonder,' Smiley began, 'whether perhaps I might now…'

'Go ahead, Air Smiley.'

'We are, of course, largely interested in Mrs Rode's association with… our Church.'

'Quite.'

'You were married at Branxome, I believe.'

'Branxome Hill Tabernacle; fine church.' D'Arcy wouldn't have liked the way he said that; cocksure lad on a motor-bike. Pencils in the outside pocket.

'When was that?'

'September, fifty-one.'

'Did Mrs Rode engage in charitable work in Branxome? I know she was very active here.'

'No, not at Branxome, but a lot here. She had to look after her father at Branxome, you see. It was refugee relief she was keen on here. That didn't get going much until late 1956—the Hungarians began it, and then this last year…'

Smiley peered thoughtfully at Rode from behind his spectacles, forgot himself, blinked, and looked away.

'Did she take a large part in the social activities of Carne? Does the staff have its own Women's Institute and so on?' he asked innocently.

'She did a bit, yes. But, being Chapel, she kept mainly with the Chapel people from the town… you should ask Mr Cardew about that; he's the Minister.'

'But may I say, Mr Rode, that she took an active part in school affairs as well?'

Rode hesitated.

'Yes, of course,' he said.

'Thank you.'

There was a moment's silence, then Smiley continued: 'Our readers will, of course, remember Mrs Rode as the winner of our Kitchen Hints competition. Was she a good cook, Mr Rode?'

'Very good, for plain things, not fancy.'

'Is there any little fact that you would specially like us to include, anything she herself would like to be remembered by?'

Rode looked at him with expressionless eyes. Then he shrugged.

'No, not really. I can't think of anything. Oh, you could say her father was a magistrate up North. She was proud of that.'

Smiley finished his coffee and stood up.

'You've been very patient with me, Mr Rode. We're most grateful, I assure you. I'll take care to send you an advance copy of our notice…'

'Thanks. I did it for her, you see. She liked the Voice; always did. Grew up with it.'

They shook hands.

'By the way, do you know where I can find old Mr Glaston? Is he staying in Carne or has he returned to Branxome?'

'He was up here yesterday. He's going back to Branxome this afternoon. The police wanted to see him before he left.'

'I see.'

'He's staying at the Sawley.'

'Thank you. I might try and see him before I go.'

'When do you leave, then?'

'Quite soon, I expect. Good-bye, then, Mr Rode. Incidentally—' Smiley began.

'Yes?'

'If ever you're in London and at a loose end, if ever you want a chat… and a cup of tea, we're always pleased to see you at the Voice , you know. Always.'

'Thanks. Thanks very much, Mr—'

'Smiley.'

'Thanks, that's very decent. No one's said that to me for a long time. I'll take you up on that one day. Very good of you.'

'Good-bye.' Again they shook hands; Rode's was dry and cool. Smooth.

He returned to the Sawley Arms, sat himself at a desk in the empty resident's lounge and wrote a note to Mr Glaston:

Dear Mr Glaston,

I am here on behalf of Miss Brimley of the Christian Voice . I have some letters from Stella which I think you would like to see. Forgive me for bothering you at this sad moment; I understand you are leaving Carne this afternoon and wondered if I might see you before you left.

He carefully sealed the envelope and took it to the reception desk. There was no one there, so he rang the bell and waited. At last a porter came, an old turnkey with a grey, bristly face, and after examining the envelope critically for a long time, he agreed, against an excessive fee, to convey it to Mr Glaston's room. Smiley stayed at the desk, waiting for his answer.

Smiley himself was one of those solitaries who seem to have come into the world fully educated at the age of eighteen. Obscurity was his nature, as well as his profession. The byways of espionage are not populated by the brash and colourful adventurers of fiction. A man who, like Smiley, has lived and worked for years among his country's enemies learns only one prayer: that he may never, never be noticed. Assimilation is his highest aim, he learns to love the crowds who pass him in the street without a glance; he clings to them for his anonymity and his safety. His fear makes him servile—he could embrace the shoppers who jostle him in their impatience, and force him from the pavement. He could adore the officials, the police, the bus conductors, for the terse indifference of their attitudes.

But this fear, this servility, this dependence, had developed in Smiley a perception for the colour of human beings: a swift, feminine sensitivity to their characters and motives. He knew mankind as a huntsman knows his cover, as a fox the wood. For a spy must hunt while he is hunted, and the crowd is his estate. He could collect their gestures and their words, record the interplay of glance and movement, as a huntsman can record the twisted bracken and the broken twig, or as a fox detects the signs of danger.

Thus, while he waited patiently for Glaston's reply and recalled the crowded events of the last forty-eight hours, he was able to order and assess them with detachment. What was the cause of D'Arcy's attitude to Fielding, as if they were unwilling partners to a shabby secret? Staring across the neglected hotel gardens towards Carne Abbey, he was able, to glimpse behind the lead roof of the Abbey the familiar battlements of the school: keeping the new world out and the old world secure. In his mind's eye he saw the Great Court now, as the boys came out of Chapel: the black-coated groups in the leisured attitudes of eighteenth-century England. And he remembered the other school beside the police station: Carne High School; a little tawdry place like a porter's lodge in an empty graveyard, as detached from the tones of Carne as its brick and flint from the saffron battlements of School Hall.