Peter Carey - The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith

‘It’s the Sirkus,’ Malide began.

‘He should have been with you all the time,’ Wally said to Bill. ‘You should never have left him behind. You could have taught him things I never could. All this behaviour tonight, it should never have happened. You don’t know how he pined for you. He did his exercises, the same ones you taught him, year after year. Even when he was making a stack on the Bourse, he would do his exercises in the afternoons. You were very important to him. You were the one who let him imagine he could be an actor.’

He sat down on the sofa, looking up at Bill from under his nicotine-stained brows.

‘No,’ Bill said. ‘We never discussed acting. How could he ever be an actor?’

‘Oh yes. It was you. You had an idea for some character in the Sad Sack Sirkus.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Bill said, his face now very pale. ‘I wouldn’t have.’

‘These things are nothing to you. You forget them. But the things you forget, mo-frere — those things are the centre of his life. You can say, “I don’t think so,” but he did those exercises for ten rucking years.’

‘I wrote to him,’ Bill said. ‘I know what I wrote. Now he is here, we’ll be fine. Whatever has been wrong, we’ll fix it. It’s not too late.’

‘I always thought he would be better with you, but you’ve got no job, no bedroom. Do you have any idea of what we’ve risked to do this? I must tell you, mo-ami, I’m shocked.’

Bill wiped his hands across his face. ‘He got my letters, though. You say he read my letters. How could he be surprised?’

‘You made him love you,’ Wally said. ‘You came and you got him eating out of your hand. He gave me up. He took up with you, and then you just dropped him. It was very cruel, mo-ami.’

‘Bill cares,’ Malide said. ‘He is tortured by it. He writes letters every week.’

Wally did not comment. He wiped his face.

‘He got them?’ Bill asked.

‘Yes, yes, they arrived.’

‘But he didn’t get them?’

‘I didn’t say that I was perfect,’ Wally said.

There was a long silence.

‘I thought you were rich and famous,’ Wally said at last. ‘I thought you had everything. He was all I had. No matter what was wrong with me, I knew I would never let him down.

‘It was wrong of me.’ He picked white specks from the black trousers of his rumpled dress suit. ‘I admit it was very wrong.’

Bill gave a small laugh, and then threw the pillow on the bed.

‘I was a prick,’ Wally said. ‘I’m sorry.’

The lift button was cracked and the light inside it flickered. Wendell pushed it without releasing his hold on Jacqui’s elbow.

‘What a dump,’ he said, and the mouth which Jacqui had once thought of as his best feature now looked spoiled and sulky.

The DoS had sent Wendell here — obviously. They had approved the expenditure, signed the forms, issued the air tickets, which meant that the whole case had now moved three or four levels higher than Section Head.

‘Where are you staying?’ she asked.

‘You stay here, what fucking choice have I got?’ His lower lip was droopy, almost pendulous.

‘What floor are you on?’

‘Come on, professor, you’re meant to be an operative.’ He slammed the button with his fist. ‘Use your head. What floor do you think?’

The elevator arrived. They rode up together in silence, Jacqui looking earnestly at the numbers while Wendell stared at her malevolently.

‘Anybody thinks you’re an homme,’ he said, ‘must be blind.’

She led the way to the room, very conscious of her walk.

She opened the door, and Wendell, having hesitated a moment, went first. He was a big man and overweight, and inelegant in his clothes: and yet when he moved around the room now he did it with a certain dangerous grace: checking for people or bugs or bombs, who could guess. It gave Jacqui a small ambivalent chill at the back of her neck.

When Wendell had finished with the bathroom, he took from his briefcase a small electronic device — a little black box with a series of tiny amber and red lights flashing on it. She knew what it was: a brand new bug-blocker. He placed this in the middle of the room, but the device would not arm itself. The lights, which should have switched to green, remained stubbornly on amber. Wendell stood over it, staring down at it like a golfer at a golfball. Then he kicked it.

The device slid across the floor, fast as a hockey puck, and slammed into the skirting board.

‘Fuck you ,’ he said.

He took off his suit jacket, folded it, and laid it on Wally’s bed. He went back to the bug-blocker, picked it up, turned it off, threw it on the bed. Then he opened the briefcase and removed the faked-up numbers (a photocopy, not the original) which Jacqui had printed out from Tristan’s fax machine.

Jacqui sat on the edge of the other bed.

Wendell held the photocopy in front of her.

‘You’re a fucking child ,’ he whispered.

She took the paper from his hand. She noted the small green stamp and date which showed it had already been through Analysis. There was also a small black key number which indicated it had been to CRYPT-IT. So, she thought, the game is up.

Wendell took the photocopy back from her fingers and replaced it in his briefcase. She was surprised to see how carefully he handled it, how he slid the photocopy softly into its red plastic folder. He turned, his face frozen in anger.

‘Christ, Jacqui, what are you trying to do to us? Do you know what it takes to set up an action like this? The Efican Department sent someone to Neu Zwolfe to meet you. Not some rucking baby-sitter. A real Voorstandish operative. That’s VIP treatment, do you realize that?’

He picked up his suit jacket. She felt alert, in danger, but then he turned to the closet and she realized he merely wished to place it on a hanger. Once he had done this he seemed a little calmer.

‘You’ve now got Gabe Manzini on your case. Aren’t you even smart enough to be afraid? You know who Manzini is?’

‘Wendell, I know who he is.’

Wendell sat down beside his briefcase. ‘This fax printout links the mutant with the Zawba’a.’

‘I know.’

‘I know you know, you stupid bitch. You retrieved those numbers from your dedicated terminal and you fed them into Tristan Smith’s fax machine and then you printed out the call report. We know exactly what you did. But what you did not know is that the VIA has a major operation on to round up Zawba’a. Gabe Manzini is very interested in your case. Mr Manzini is a good friend of Efica’s. We’d really hate to have him as our enemy.’

‘Oh,’ she said.

Their knees were almost touching. ‘Do you know how many years it took for us to persuade the VIA to take us seriously? They’re New World people like us, but you would never know it from their patronizing attitude. They’re worse than the English or even the French. Do you know what it took, the things we did for them so they would trust us? The shit we ate? Friends of mine got killed just so these fuckers would share information with us. So when some little spin drier …’

‘Don’t call me that …’

‘I thought you were smart. Doctor, right? Am I right? Doctor of fucking Philosophy?’

She knew that she should not be so near him, but it was equally dangerous to move away.

‘We can’t trust you, Jacqui. You’re acting like the enemy.’

He took her face in his hand. She tried to push the hand away, but he was too big, too strong. Her face was small, his hand large, and he held the jaw so hard, pressed his thumb so cruelly, she thought it would break through the skin, and she was frightened, not just of the pain now, but what the pain would grow to, of his size, his bulk, his pale, pale eyes, the level of resentment she saw there. But then his face softened, his hand loosened.