think. Thank God. One minute she’s not playing Office rules any more, the next we’reall off to dinner.
Muttering something about Prue needing me, I step back into the corridor. But it’s not Prue and it’s not Florence. It’s Ilya, tonight’s duty officer at the Haven, and I’m assuming he’s about to give me the overdue news that we’ve got the sub-committee’s say-so on Rosebud and high bloody time too.
Except that’s not why Ilya has called.
‘Flash incoming, Nat. Your farmer friend.For Peter.’
For ‘farmer friend’ read Pitchfork, Russian research student, York University, inherited from Giles. For Peter, read Nat.
‘Saying what?’ I demand.
‘You’re please to pay him a visit at your earliest possible. You personally, nobody else. Plus it’s top urgent.’
‘His own words?’
‘I can send them to you if you want.’
I return to the changing room. It’s a no-brainer, as Steff wouldsay. Sometimes we’re bastards, sometimes we’re Samaritans and sometimes we get it plain wrong. But fail an agent in his hour of need and you fail him for ever, as my mentor Bryn Jordan liked to say. Ed is still sitting on the slatted bench, head slumped forward. He has his knees spread and is staring downwards between them while I’m checking railway timetables on my mobile. Last train for York leavesKing’s Cross in fifty-eight minutes.
‘Got to love you and leave you, I’m afraid, Ed,’ I say. ‘No Chinese for me after all. Bit of business to attend to before it goes sour on me.’
‘Tough,’ Ed remarks, without lifting his head.
I make for the door.
‘Hey, Nat.’
‘What is it?’
‘Thanks, okay? Very nice of you, that was. Florence too. I told her. Made Laura’s day. Just sorry you can’t do the Chinese.’
‘Me too. Go for the Peking Duck. It comes with pancakes and jam. What the hell’s the matter with you?’
Ed has opened his hands in theatrical display, and is rolling his head around as if in despair.
‘Want to know something?’
‘If it’s quick.’
‘Either Europe’s fucked or somebody with balls has to find an antidote to Trump.’
‘And who might that be?’ I enquire.
No answer. He has slumped backinto his thoughts, and I am on my way to York.
9
I am doing the decent thing. I am answering the cry that every agent-runner the world over takes to his grave. The tunes vary, the lines vary, but in the end it’s the samesong every time: I can’t live with myself, Peter, the stress is killing me, Peter, the burden of my treachery is too great for me, my mistress has left me, my wife is deceiving me, my neighbours suspect me, my dog’s been run over and you my trusted handler are the one person in the world who can persuade me not to cut my wrists.
Why do we agent-runners come running every time? Because we owe.
But I don’t feel I owe much to the notably quiescent agent Pitchfork, neither is he my first concern as I take my seat on a delayed train to York in a carriage crammed with screaming kids returning from a London outing. I am thinking about Florence’s refusal to join me in a cover story that is as natural to our secret lives as brushing our teeth. I am thinking about the go-ahead for Operation Rosebudthat still refuses to materialize. I am thinking of Prue’s reply when I called her to tell her I wouldn’t be home tonight and asked her whether she has news of Steff:
‘Only that she’s moved into posh new digs in Clifton and doesn’t say who with.’
‘
Clifton
. Whatever’s the rent?’
‘Not ours to ask, I’m afraid. An email. One-way traffic only’ – unable for once to hide the note of desperation inher voice.
And when Prue’s sad voice isn’t sounding in my ear, I have Florence’s to regale me:
I don’t feel like fucking lying any more. Not to him or anybody else. Got that?
Which in turn leads me back to a question that has been gnawing at me ever since Dom’s unctuous phone call with his offer of the chauffeur-driven car,
Muttering something about Prue needing me, I step back into the corridor. But it’s not Prue and it’s not Florence. It’s Ilya, tonight’s duty officer at the Haven, and I’m assuming he’s about to give me the overdue news that we’ve got the sub-committee’s say-so on Rosebud and high bloody time too.
Except that’s not why Ilya has called.
‘Flash incoming, Nat. Your farmer friend.For Peter.’
For ‘farmer friend’ read Pitchfork, Russian research student, York University, inherited from Giles. For Peter, read Nat.
‘Saying what?’ I demand.
‘You’re please to pay him a visit at your earliest possible. You personally, nobody else. Plus it’s top urgent.’
‘His own words?’
‘I can send them to you if you want.’
I return to the changing room. It’s a no-brainer, as Steff wouldsay. Sometimes we’re bastards, sometimes we’re Samaritans and sometimes we get it plain wrong. But fail an agent in his hour of need and you fail him for ever, as my mentor Bryn Jordan liked to say. Ed is still sitting on the slatted bench, head slumped forward. He has his knees spread and is staring downwards between them while I’m checking railway timetables on my mobile. Last train for York leavesKing’s Cross in fifty-eight minutes.
‘Got to love you and leave you, I’m afraid, Ed,’ I say. ‘No Chinese for me after all. Bit of business to attend to before it goes sour on me.’
‘Tough,’ Ed remarks, without lifting his head.
I make for the door.
‘Hey, Nat.’
‘What is it?’
‘Thanks, okay? Very nice of you, that was. Florence too. I told her. Made Laura’s day. Just sorry you can’t do the Chinese.’
‘Me too. Go for the Peking Duck. It comes with pancakes and jam. What the hell’s the matter with you?’
Ed has opened his hands in theatrical display, and is rolling his head around as if in despair.
‘Want to know something?’
‘If it’s quick.’
‘Either Europe’s fucked or somebody with balls has to find an antidote to Trump.’
‘And who might that be?’ I enquire.
No answer. He has slumped backinto his thoughts, and I am on my way to York.
9
I am doing the decent thing. I am answering the cry that every agent-runner the world over takes to his grave. The tunes vary, the lines vary, but in the end it’s the samesong every time: I can’t live with myself, Peter, the stress is killing me, Peter, the burden of my treachery is too great for me, my mistress has left me, my wife is deceiving me, my neighbours suspect me, my dog’s been run over and you my trusted handler are the one person in the world who can persuade me not to cut my wrists.
Why do we agent-runners come running every time? Because we owe.
But I don’t feel I owe much to the notably quiescent agent Pitchfork, neither is he my first concern as I take my seat on a delayed train to York in a carriage crammed with screaming kids returning from a London outing. I am thinking about Florence’s refusal to join me in a cover story that is as natural to our secret lives as brushing our teeth. I am thinking about the go-ahead for Operation Rosebudthat still refuses to materialize. I am thinking of Prue’s reply when I called her to tell her I wouldn’t be home tonight and asked her whether she has news of Steff:
‘Only that she’s moved into posh new digs in Clifton and doesn’t say who with.’
‘
Clifton
. Whatever’s the rent?’
‘Not ours to ask, I’m afraid. An email. One-way traffic only’ – unable for once to hide the note of desperation inher voice.
And when Prue’s sad voice isn’t sounding in my ear, I have Florence’s to regale me:
I don’t feel like fucking lying any more. Not to him or anybody else. Got that?
Which in turn leads me back to a question that has been gnawing at me ever since Dom’s unctuous phone call with his offer of the chauffeur-driven car,
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