‘I didn’t know he was after anything,’ said Smiley.
‘Ah, stop flirting around. Of course he is. I’ve got a source up there, one of the mothers, didn’t you know? Tells me indiscretions for chocolate. Control’s been toiling through personal dossiers of old Circus folk heroes, sniffing out the dirt, who was pink, who was a queen. Half of them are under the earth already. Making a study of all our failures: can you imagine? And for why? Because we’ve got a success on our hands. He’s mad, George. He’s got the big itch: senile paranoia, take my word for it. Ann ever tell you about wicked Uncle Fry? Thought the servants were bugging the roses to find out where he’d hidden his money. Get away from him, George. Death’s a bore. Cut the cord, move down a few floors. Join the proles.’
Ann had still not returned so they sauntered side by side down the King’s Road looking for a cab while Bill enunciated his latest vision of politics, and Smiley said ‘Yes, Bill,’ ‘No, Bill,’ and wondered how he was going to break it to Control. He forgot now which particular vision it was. The year before, Bill had been a great hawk. He had wanted to run down conventional forces in Europe and replace them outright with nuclear weapons. He was about the only person left in Whitehall who believed in Britain’s independent deterrent. This year, if Smiley remembered rightly, Bill was an aggressive English pacifist and wanted the Sweden solution but without the Swedes.
No cab came, it was a beautiful night, and like old friends they went on walking, side by side.
‘By the by, if you ever want to sell that Mieris, let me know, will you? I’ll give you a bloody decent price for it.’
Thinking Bill was making another bad joke, Smiley rounded on him, at last prepared to be angry. Haydon was not even conscious of his interest. He was gazing down the street, his long arm raised at an approaching cab.
‘Oh Christ, look at them,’ he shouted irritably. ‘Full of bloody Jews going to Quag’s.’
‘Bill’s backside must look like a damn gridiron,’ Control muttered next day. ‘The years he’s spent sitting on the fence.’ For a moment he stared at Smiley in an unfocused way, as if looking through him to some different, less fleshly prospect; then ducked his eyes and seemed to go on reading. ‘I’m glad he’s not my cousin,’ he said.
The following Monday, the mothers had surprising news for Smiley. Control had flown to Belfast for discussions with the army. Later, checking the travel imprests, Smiley nailed the lie. No one in the Circus had flown to Belfast that month but there was a charge for a first-class return to Vienna and the issuing authority was given as G. Smiley.
Haydon, also looking for Control, was cross: ‘So now what’s the pitch? Dragging Ireland into the net, creating an organisational diversion, I suppose. Jesus, your man’s a bore!’
The light in the van went out but Smiley continued to gaze at its garish roof. How do they live? he wondered. What do they do for water, money? He tried to fathom the logistics of a troglodyte life in Sussex Gardens: water, drains, light. Ann would work them out all right; so would Bill.
Facts. What were the facts?
Facts were that one balmy pre-Witchcraft summer evening I returned unexpectedly from Berlin to find Bill Haydon stretched on the drawing-room floor of my house in Bywater Street and Ann playing Liszt on the gramophone. Ann was sitting across the room from him in her dressing gown, wearing no make-up. There was no scene, everyone behaved with painful naturalness. According to Bill he had dropped by on his way from the airport, having just flown in from Washington; Ann had been in bed but insisted on getting up to receive him. We agreed it was a pity we hadn’t shared a car from Heathrow. Bill left, I asked ‘What did he want?’ And Ann said ‘A shoulder to cry on’. Bill was having girl trouble, wanted to pour out his heart, she said.
‘There’s Felicity in Washington who wants a baby and Jan in London who’s having one.’