The Tailor of Panama by John le Carré

‘Right,’ Simon agrees under torture.

A different Maltby, one Fran hasn’t met before but always guessed at because he was so under-used and under-appreciated. A different Stormont too, who frowns into a void every time he speaks, and endorses whatever Maltby says.

And a different Andy? Or is he the same model as before, only I never knew till now?

Covertly, she allows her eyes to focus on him.

A changed man. Not larger or fatter or thinner. Just further away. So far away in fact that she hardly recognised him across the table. His departure had begun in the casino, she now realised, and gathered speed with the dramatic news of Mellors’ imminent arrival.

‘Who needs the little shit?’ he had demanded of her furiously, as if he held her responsible for summoning the wretched man. ‘BUCHAN won’t see him. BUCHAN TWO won’t see him. She won’t even see me. None o’ them will see him. I’ve told him that already.’

‘Then tell him again.’

‘This is my fucking patch. Not his. My fucking operation. Fuck’s it got to do with him?’

‘Do you mind not swearing at me? He’s your boss, Andy. He posted you here. I didn’t. Regional heads have a right to drop in on their flock. Even in your Service, I presume.’

‘Bullshit,’ he retorted and the next thing she knew she was calmly packing up her possessions and Andy was telling her to make sure there were no nasty little hairs in the bath.

‘What are you so afraid of him finding?’ she demanded, ice cold. ‘He’s not your lover, is he? You’re not sworn to chastity, are you? Are you? So you had a woman here. What’s wrong with that? It doesn’t have to have been me.’

‘No. It doesn’t.’

‘Andy!’

He made a brief and graceless show of penitence.

‘Don’t like being spied on, that’s all,’ he said sulkily.

But when she broke out in relieved laughter at this good joke, he grabbed her car key from the sideboard, forced it into her palm and marched her with her luggage to the lift. All day long they had succeeded in avoiding each other until now, when they were obliged to sit across a table in this gloomy white jail with Andy glowering and Fran tightlipped, keeping her smiles for the stranger – who to her secret indignation was flattering Andy and deferring to him in the most nauseating way imaginable:

‘But do these proposals make sense to you, now, Andrew?’ Mellors insists, with a suck of his teeth. ‘Speak up, now, young Mr Osnard. It’s your achievement, good Heavens! You’re the man at the controls here, the star – saving His Excellency’s presence. Is it not better for the man in the field – at the front line, my God – to be unfettered by wearisome administration, Andrew, tell us frankly now? Nobody round this table wishes to impair your exemplary performance.’

To which sentiment Maltby then lends his enthusiastic support, seconded some moments later and with less enthusiasm by Stormont – the point at issue being the two-key system for controlling the Silent Opposition’s finances, a task which, it is generally agreed, is best entrusted to senior officers.

So why is Andy down in the mouth at having such a heavy load lifted from his shoulders? Why isn’t he grateful that Maltby and Stormont are falling over themselves to take the job off his hands?

‘Up to you people,’ he mumbles churlishly, with a sideways glower at Maltby. And goes back into deep sulk.

And when the question arises of how Abraxas and Domingo and the other Silent Opponents can be persuaded to deal directly with Stormont on matters of finance and logistics, Andy comes close to losing his temper altogether.

‘Why don’t you take over the whole bloody network while you’re about it?’ he flares, flushing crimson. ‘Run it from Chancery in office hours, five days a week, be done with it. Help yourselves.’

‘Andrew, Andrew, come, no hard words here please!’ cries Mellors, tutting like an old Scottish hen. ‘We are a team, Andrew, are we not? All that is being offered here is a helping hand – the counsel of wise heads – a steadying influence upon a brilliantly managed operation. Is it not, Ambassador?’ Suck of the teeth, sad frown of troubled father, the placatory tone raised to entreaty. ‘These Opposition fellows, they’ll be driving a hard bargain, Andrew. Binding assurances will have to be given from the hip. Snap decisions of immense consequence will abound. Deep waters, Andrew, for a fellow of your tender years. Better to leave such matters in the capable hands of men of the world.’

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