Our Kind of Traitor

‘Absolutely no. It’s a waste of time and we’re not into that stuff.’

‘If our pre-set lines to one another are encrypted, why do we need our funny names?’

‘Because people on buses earwig. Any more questions from the prosecution? Ollie, where’s the bloody malt?’

‘Got it right here, Skipper. Actually, I got a new bottle already’ – in that irritatingly unplaceable voice.

* * *

‘So your family, Luke?’ Gail had asked him over soup and a bottle of red in the kitchen one evening before they went home.

It amazed her that she hadn’t asked him the question before. Perhaps – dark thought – she hadn’t wanted to, preferring to keep him on a hook. It evidently amazed Luke too, because his hand rose sharply to his forehead to comfort a small, livid scar that seemed to come and go of its own accord. A fellow spy’s pistol butt? Or an angry wife’s frying pan?

‘One child only, I’m afraid, Gail,’ he said, as if he should be apologizing for not having more. ‘Boy. Marvellous little chap. Ben, we call him. Taught me everything I know about life. Beats me at chess too, I’m proud to say. Yes.’ Twitch of the stray eyelid. ‘Trouble is, we never get around to finishing a game. Too much of this.’

This? Did he mean booze? Spying? Or falling in love?

She had briefly suspected him of having a thing with Yvonne, largely from the way Yvonne discreetly mothered him. Then she decided they were just a man and a woman working side by side: until an evening when she caught his eyes staring now at Yvonne, now at herself, as if they were both some sort of higher being, and she thought she’d never seen such a sad face in all her life.

* * *

It’s last night. It’s end of term. It’s end of school altogether. There will never be another two weeks like these. In the kitchen, Yvonne and Ollie are cooking a sea bass in salt. Ollie is singing from La Traviata, rather well, and Luke is doing appreciation, smiling at everyone and shaking his head in exaggerated marvel. Hector has brought a grand bottle of Meursault – actually, two bottles. But first of all, he needs to talk to Perry and Gail alone in the Headmaster’s chintzy drawing room. Do we sit or stand? Hector is standing so Perry, ever the formalist despite himself, stands too. Gail selects an upright chair under a Roberts print of Damascus.

‘So,’ says Hector.

So, they agree.

‘Last words, then. Without witnesses. The Job is dangerous. I’ve told you before but I’m telling you again now. It’s fucking dangerous. You can still jump ship and no hard feelings. If you stay aboard, we’ll wet-nurse you all we can, but we’ve got no logistical support worth a hoot. Or as we say in the trade, we’re going in barefoot. You don’t have to say your goodbyes. Forget Ollie’s fish. Get your coats from the hall, walk out of the front door, none of it happened. Last call.’

The last of many, if he did but know. Perry and Gail have discussed the same question every night of the last fourteen. Perry was determined she should answer for them both, so she does:

‘We’re all right. We’ve decided. We’ll do it,’ she says, sounding more heroic than she means to, and Perry does a big, slow nod and says, ‘Yup, definitely,’ which doesn’t sound like him either – a thing he must know, because he promptly turns Hector’s question back on him:

‘So how about you people?’ he demands. ‘Don’t you ever have doubts?’

‘Oh, we’re fucked anyway,’ Hector replies carelessly. ‘That’s the point, isn’t it? If you’re going to be fucked, be fucked in a good cause.’

Which for Perry, of course, is balm to his puritan ear.

* * *

And to judge by the expression on Perry’s face as they pulled into the Gare du Nord, the same balm was still working, because there was a suppressed I-am-Britain look about him that was completely new to Gail. It wasn’t till they reached the Hotel des Quinze Anges – a typical Perry choice: scruffy, narrow, five rickety floors high, tiny rooms, twin beds the size of ironing boards, and a stone’s throw from the rue du Bac – that the full impact of what they had signed up to hit them. It was as if their sessions in the Bloomsbury house with its chummy family atmosphere – a cosy hour with Ollie, another with Luke, Yvonne has dropped by, Hector’s on his way over for a nightcap – had instilled in them a sense of immunity which, now they were alone, had evaporated.

They also discovered that they had lost the power of natural speech and were talking to each other like an ideal couple in a television commercial:

‘I’m really looking forward to tomorrow, aren’t you?’ says Doolittle to Milton. ‘I’ve never seen Federer in the flesh before. I’m really thrilled.’

‘I just hope the weather will hold,’ Milton replies to Doolittle with a worried glance at the window.

‘Me too,’ Doolittle agrees earnestly.

‘So how’s about we unpack this lot and find ourselves a spot of food?’ Milton suggests.

‘Good idea,’ says Doolittle.

But what they’re really thinking is: if the match is rained off, what on earth will Dima do?

Perry’s mobile is ringing. Hector.

‘Hi, Tom,’ says Perry idiotically.

‘Checked in OK, Milton?’

‘Fine, just fine. Good trip. Everything went perfectly,’ Perry says with enough enthusiasm for both of them.

‘You’re on your own tonight, OK?’

‘You said.’

‘Doolittle in the pink?’

‘Blooming.’

‘Call if you need anything. Service round the clock.’

* * *

In the hotel’s minuscule hallway on their way out, Perry discusses his anxieties about the weather with a formidable lady named Madame Mere after the mother of Napoleon. He has known her from his student days and Madame Mere, if she is to be believed, loves Perry like a son. She stands four foot nothing in her bedroom slippers and nobody, according to Perry, has ever seen her without a headscarf over her curlers. Gail enjoys hearing Perry rattling away in French, but his fluency has always been a challenge to her, perhaps because he is not forthcoming about his early instructors.

At a tabac in the rue de l’Universite, Milton and Doolittle eat indifferent steak frites and a tired salad and agree it’s the best in the world. They don’t finish their litre of house red, so take it back to their hotel.

‘Just do whatever you’d normally do,’ Hector had told them airily. ‘If you’ve got Paris-based buddies and want to hang out with them, why not?’

Because we wouldn’t be doing what we normally do, is why not. Because we don’t want to be hanging out in a St Germain cafe with our Paris-based buddies when we’ve got an elephant called Dima sitting in our heads. And because we don’t want to have to lie to them about where we got our tickets for tomorrow’s Final.

* * *

Back in their room, they drink the rest of the red out of tooth-mugs and make deep and adoring love without speaking a word, the best. When morning comes Gail sleeps late out of nervousness, and wakes to find Perry watching the rain spotting the grimy window, and worrying again about what Dima will do if the match is cancelled. And if it’s postponed till Monday – Gail’s thought now – will she have to call her Chambers with another cock-and- bull story about a sore throat, which is Chambers code for a bad period?

Suddenly everything is linear. After coffee and croissants brought to their bedside by Madame Mere – with an appreciative murmur to Gail of ‘Quel titan alors’ – and a vacuous call from Luke asking whether they had a good night and are they feeling fit for tennis, they lie in bed discussing what to do before start of play at 3 p.m., allowing plenty of time to get to the stadium and find their seats and settle in.

Their answer is to take it in turns to use the tiny handbasin and dress, then march at Perry’s pace to the