Ник Харкуэй: Tigerman

‘I wanted him to be my son,’ Lester said.

Africa laughed sharply and turned away. He thought she might be hiding tears, because anyone so angry must surely have them ready. ‘Well, no one will believe that, at least,’ she said. ‘You’re going to prison and everyone will think you’re a pervert.’

The man from the Press Office cleared his throat. ‘They will believe it,’ he said.

She stared at him.

‘They will believe it,’ the man clarified. ‘They already do. And we will encourage that belief. This may be a pig but right now it’s got lipstick on it and it’s our pig. We will not be pointing out that it stinks. Nor that it is something of a surprise to us to find that we own a pig. We will march it in triumph through the streets of the town, we will detail the painstaking care required to raise such an exemplary animal, and if we’re very lucky by the time it goes back to the wallow everyone will think this was something glorious we did on purpose.’

‘What do you mean, “march it through town”? Which town?’

The mild man frowned. ‘Any fucking town which will take us, Laura, and believe me, we are already fortunate that there is more than one. But specifically: tomorrow at three p.m. at the Royal Society in Carlton House Terrace. The Prime Minister will be attending a talk by a French lepidopterist to emphasise his devotion to science, and he will by complete chance encounter Lester Ferris, sergeant, newly retired and the man of the hour, who has a lifelong fondness for the insects of the British hedgerow. There will be a brief and quite spontaneous greeting, a handshake, and everyone will go home feeling good about themselves. Do I make myself clear, Lester, or do I need to get someone in your chain of command in here with my hand up their arse to puppet some orders?’

‘No,’ Lester said.

‘And you,’ the man told Africa, ‘don’t piss about. I’m saving your job and the honour of your service, insofar as it still has any in the eyes of the general public at this time. Do not even think about screwing this up or I will fall upon you with great fury and the weight of mountains. I don’t see that I can make myself any clearer.’

They glared at one another, and then for a wonder she nodded, and stalked out.

‘Be there at two forty-five,’ the man said. ‘So we can do your hair. Don’t extemporise.’

The Sergeant realised he was a hero.

He shook hands with the Prime Minister. The man had no calluses, and his eyes were perfectly empty.

The Sergeant went back to his father’s house and sat in the ghastly chair. He read comic books and laughed when they were funny. Every so often he turned around, looking for someone at his side who would enjoy the joke. Then he would remember and, in a fury, screw up the comic and rip it apart, only to find himself again a few moments later on his knees, tears all over the floor and tape in his hands as he pieced it back together. He had a stack of them like that. He refused to throw any of them away.

He tried to get work. It turned out to be very hard. The jobs which would otherwise have been offered to a retired soldier-diplomat were closed to him. A proven track record of insane idealism was evidently not a positive for employment by large financial institutions. He wondered whether Africa had put the word out, but he didn’t think she’d have had to. The Brevet-Consul would have been a safe pair of hands, a man experienced in not rocking the boat. There were a lot of positions in the world for someone who kept his mouth shut and filled a comfy chair. Far fewer for someone who actually did what the job suggested he should.

A local school briefly took him on as an assistant teacher, but after the first day the press arrived in vast numbers. DANGEROUS! Tigerman Sergeant Entrusted With Vulnerable Teens! The headmistress asked him to come to her study and he expected her to let him go. Instead she told him stoutly that she had spoken to the parents and the board and they wished to convey their absolute support. The school would keep him if this was what he wanted – the press would get bored after a few weeks. She was bristling with rage and ready for the fight, and he understood that here, finally, he’d found a decent officer. But he’d already realised he couldn’t stay. Every admiring face in the throng of students became in the action of blinking the face of the boy; the whole playground was a mute accusation he could not answer. So he shook her hand and told her the truth, and she embraced him. He left with a promise that he could return whenever he wanted to.

He was too shy for television.

In the end he settled to a sort of ugly mirror of his first days in Mancreu. He rose early, ran, and worked in the garden. He grew tomatoes, but they were weak and sallow and they died. The sun wasn’t bright enough for the exotic plants he wanted to try. His morning route took him through grey streets he vaguely remembered, and they seemed more modern but not more hopeful than they had thirty years ago. The same estates were sinks. The same factories were closed, the same shops had smashed windows. He concluded that governments were like wars: the reasons and the faces might change, but it was still the same dying over the same soil. When he allowed himself to see it with his sergeant’s eyes, the city seemed bent in upon itself like an addict. He looked for the enemy in the sky, in the wind, and saw just endless weight.

He realised that he could live like this until he died, outside the world. He had not reached the end of himself, he just didn’t know what else to do. So he ran, and read comics, and wept, and that was all.

On the first day of December, the postman arrived with a letter addressed in a very correct script. He opened it immediately, as he always did: he had acquired a hatred of delay. It contained a short card and an airline ticket, representing a significant expenditure, in the name of Lester Ferris.

Lester –

It’s time.

He sat for a while, cradling the paper in his hand. Finally, the inner sergeant took him upstairs, and ordered him to pack.

Driving in an implausibly enormous Toyota Hilux out of Chiang Mai, my nephews Chris and Dan and I were talking nonsense to one another. I have no idea what we were saying, but between one breath and the next this book was born. Thanks, guys.

Clare is always my first reader and my first editor. She denies having a particular talent in this direction. She is wrong about that, though about remarkably little else.

Clemency and Tom are just magic.

Patrick is wise, and into his orbit at Conville & Walsh are drawn other wise people, which is how the world ought to work.

Jason Arthur and Edward Kastenmeier continue to rein in my worser impulses – like using “worser” in a modern novel – and are calm and accepting when I stick to my idiosyncracies. Like Patrick, they have superb people around them.

A small team of test readers got early sight of this book, and they performed wonderfully: they said they liked it, and then very gently they pointed out where it was broken. You know who you are. Thank you.

And to everyone who patiently waited while I ran around looking for a pen or dictated a note to my iPhone during a meeting or stared abstractedly into space and then shouted “tomatoes”… This is what it was all about.

Nick Harkaway was born in Cornwall in 1972. He likes deckled edges, wine and breathtaking views. He does not like anchovies or reality television. He lives in London with his wife, Clare, and their two children.