Single & Single

by John le Carré

  He turned the key a second time, without success. He’s flooded it again, she thought. He’ll be late for his own funeral. “If we haven’t got Take That, we’re not to bother, right, Sammy?”— twisting the key a third time. The van’s engine hobbled reluctantly to life. “So long, Else. Tell him I’ll phone him tomorrow, please. Morning. Before work. And stop playing silly buggers, you,” he ordered Sammy. “Don’t bang your head like that, it’s stupid.”

  Sammy stopped banging his head. Elsie Watmore watched the van zigzag down the midlevels of the hillside to the harbor front. Then round the roundabout twice before Oliver took the ring road, fumes pouring from the exhaust. And as she watched she felt the anxiety rise in her the way it always did; she couldn’t hold it back and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. Not on account of Sammy, which was the strange thing, but of Ollie. It was the fearing he’d never come back. Every time he walked out of the house or drove off in his van—even when he took Sammy down to the Legion for a game of billiards—she found herself saying good-bye to him for good, the same as when her Jack went off to sea.

  Still daydreaming, Elsie Watmore relinquished her sun spot on the front porch and, returning to her hall, discovered to her surprise that Arthur Toogood was still waiting on the telephone.

  “Mr. Hawthorne’s got performances all afternoon,” she told him disdainfully. “He won’t be back till late. He’ll telephone tomorrow if it’s convenient to his schedule.”

  But tomorrow wasn’t good enough for Toogood. In immense confidence he had to give her his ex-directory home telephone number. Ollie should please to ring him at whatever hour, never mind how late, Elsie, are you with me? He tried to make her tell him where Ollie was performing, but she remained aloof. Mr. Hawthorne may have said something about a grand hotel in Torquay, she conceded airily. And a disco up the Salvation Army hostel at six. Or maybe it was seven, she forgot. Or if she didn’t forget, she pretended to. There were times when she had no wish to share Ollie with anyone, least of all a randy small-town bank manager who last time she had gone to him about her loan suggested they sort the details in bed.

  “Toogood,” Oliver repeated indignantly as he drove round the roundabout. “Routine papers. Friendly chat. Stupid tit. Damn.” He had missed the turning. Sammy let out a great honking laugh. “What’s there left to sign?” Oliver demanded, appealing to Sammy as if they were equals, which was how he always spoke to him. “She’s got the bloody house. She’s got the bloody money. She’s got Carmen. All she hasn’t got anymore is me, which is how she wanted it.”

  “Then she’s lost the best bit, hasn’t she?” Sammy shouted hilariously.

  “The best bit’s Carmen,” Oliver growled, and Sammy held his tongue for a while.

  They crawled up a hill. An impatient lorry forced them into the curb. The van wasn’t very good at hills.

  “What are we giving?” Sammy asked when he judged the moment safe.

  “Menu A. Bouncy ball, magic beads, find the birdie, windmills of the mind, puppy sculpture, origami, thuds and get out. What’s wrong now?”—for Sammy had let out a horror-film wail of despair.

  “No spinning plates!”

  “If there’s time we’ll do plates. Only if there’s time.”

  Spinning plates were Sammy’s best thing. He had practiced them night and day, and though he had never succeeded in getting one spinning, he had convinced himself he was a star. The van entered a grim council estate. A threatening poster warned of heart attacks but the remedy was unclear.

  “Watch out for balloons,” Oliver commanded.

  Sammy was already doing so. Pushing aside the red ball, he was standing in his seat belt, his arm flung out. Four balloons, two green, two red, drooped from an upper window of number 24. Bumping the van onto the verge, Oliver handed Sammy the keys to start unloading, and with the skirts of his gray-wolf coat flapping round him in the crisp sea breeze, strode up the short concrete path. Pasted across the frosted-glass front door, a lackluster streamer read, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARY JO. Smells of cigarette smoke, baby and deep-fried chicken issued from indoors. Oliver pressed a bell and heard it chiming above the war whoops of demented children. The door was wrenched open and two tiny breathless girls in party frocks stared up at him. Oliver removed his beret and performed a deep Oriental obeisance.

  “Uncle Ollie,” he declared with immense gravity—though not enough to scare—“magician extraordinary. At your service, ladies. Rain or shine. Kindly take me to your leader.”

  A shaven-headed man appeared behind them. He wore a string vest and had tattoos on the first knuckle of each broad finger. Following him into the living room, Oliver took a reading of stage and audience. In his short recent life he had worked mansions, barns, village halls, crowded beaches and a promenade bus shelter in a force eight gale. He had practiced in the mornings and performed in the afternoons. He had worked poor kids, rich kids, sick kids and kids in care. At first he had let them push him into a corner with the TV set and the Encyclopædia Britannica. But these days he was able to speak up for himself. Conditions this afternoon were tight but adequate. Six adults and thirty children were crammed into a tiny living room, the kids on the floor in a half circle, facing him, the adults in a group photograph on one settee, men on the lower deck, women perched above them on the backrest with their shoes off. Unpacking, Oliver did not remove his gray-wolf coat. Swooping and rising, lugubriously piecing together with Sammy’s help the birdcage with the vanishing canary and the Aladdin’s lamp that filled with priceless treasure when you rubbed it, he used its folds for cover. And when he sank to his haunches to address the kids at their level—for it was a principle with him never to talk down but only upward or along—and his massive knees rose up beside his ears, and his spongy hands dangled ponderously forward of them, he resembled some sort of praying mantis, part prophet, part giant insect.

  “Hullo, you lot,” he began in a surprisingly mellow voice. “I’m Uncle Ollie, man of mystery, skill and magic.” He was speaking middle-low English, not posh but not too many aitches either. His smile, released from its confinement, had become a friendly light. “And here on my right we have the great and not very good Sammy Watmore, my invaluable assistant. Sammy, take a bow, please—OUCH!”

  Ouch for the moment when Rocco the raccoon bites him, which at this point Rocco always does, sending Oliver’s huge frame bounding into the air and down again with unlikely ease while, under the pretext of restraining him, Oliver surreptitiously works the clever spring in Rocco’s tummy. And when Rocco is brought to heel, he too has to be formally introduced, then make a flowery speech of welcome to the children, singling out Mary Jo, the birthday girl, who is frail and very beautiful. And from here on it is Rocco’s job to demonstrate to the kids what a truly awful magician his master is, which he does by poking his snout out of the gray-wolf coat and exclaiming, “Oh boy, you should see what else is in here!” then flinging out playing cards—all aces—and a stuffed canary, and a packet of half-eaten sandwiches, and a lethal-looking plastic bottle marked BOOZE. And having trashed Oliver as a magician—though not quite—Rocco trashes him as an acrobat, by clinging to his shoulder and squealing in fright while Oliver with unlikely grace rides the bouncy red ball round the tiny arena of the living room, arms outstretched and the skirts of his gray-wolf coat billowing behind him. Almost but never quite, he crashes into bookcases and tables and the television set and squashes the toes of the nearest children, to the clamor of Rocco’s backseat warnings that he is exceeding the speed limit, has overtaken a police car, is headed for a priceless family heirloom, is riding the wrong way down a one-way street. There’s a shimmer in the room by now and a shimmer in Oliver’s bearing also. His flushed head is thrown back, his rich black locks fly behind him like a great conductor’s, his fluid cheeks are glazed with strenuous pleasure, his eyes are clear and young again and he is laughing, and the children are laughing louder. He is the Prince of Shimmer, the unlikely rainmaker in their midst. He is a clumsy buffoon and therefor
e to be protected; he is a nimble god who can call down laughter, and enchant without destroying.

  “Now, Princess Mary Jo, I want you to take this wooden spoon from Sammy—give her the wooden spoon, sport—and Mary Jo, I want you to stir this pot very, very slowly and with tremendous concentration. Sammy, offer her the pot. Thank you, Sammy. Now. You’ve all of you seen inside the pot, haven’t you? You all know the pot is empty except for a few boring loose beads that are no good to man or beast.”

  “And they all know it’s got a false bottom too, you fat old fool,” Rocco yells to huge applause.

  “Rocco, you are a nasty, smelly little furry ferret!”

  “Raccoon! Raccoon! Not ferret! Raccoon!”

  “Hold your tongue, Rocco. Mary Jo, have you ever been a princess before?” A minuscule shake of Mary Jo’s head tells us she has no previous experience of royalty. “Then I want you to wish a wish, please, Mary Jo. A very big, splendid, very secret wish. As big as you like. Sammy, hold that pot very still now. OUCH! Rocco, if you do that again I’ll—”

  But Oliver decides on reflection to give Rocco no second chance. Grabbing him by head and tail he bends Rocco’s midriff to his mouth and takes an enormous cathartic bite out of him, then to peals of laughter and cries of fear spits out a convincing lump of fur conjured from the recesses of his coat.

  “Tee-hee, didn’t hurt, didn’t hurt!” Rocco yells above the applause. But Oliver ignores him. He has gone back to his act.

  “Boys and girls, I want you all to see inside that pot and watch the boring loose beads for me. Will you wish a wish for us, Mary Jo?”

  A demure nod advises us that Mary Jo will wish a wish for us.

  “Stir slowly now, Mary Jo—give the magic a chance—stir the boring loose beads! Have you wished, Mary Jo? A good wish takes time. Ah. Superb. Divine.”

  Oliver leaps back dramatically, fingers splayed to protect his eyes from the splendor of his creation. The birthday princess, decked overall, stands before us, a collar of silver beads round her neck, a silver diadem on her head. Oliver weaves his hands through the air around her, careful not to touch her because touching is taboo.

  “Oncers all right for you, squire?” the shaven-headed man inquires, counting twenty-five pound coins from a chamois leather bag into Oliver’s open palm.

  Watching the coins collect, Oliver remembers Toogood and the bank, and his stomach turns without his knowing why, except that there is a stink of the unnatural about Arthur Toogood’s behavior and it is getting stronger all the time.

  “Can we play billiards Sunday?” Sammy asks as they drive again.

  “We’ll see,” says Oliver, helping himself to a free sausage roll.

  Oliver’s second engagement of that same Friday afternoon took place in the banqueting hall of the Majestic Hotel Esplanade in Torquay, where his audience consisted of twenty upper-class children with voices from his childhood, a dozen bored mothers in jeans and pearls, and two supercilious waiters with grimy shirtfronts who slipped Sammy a plate of smoked salmon sandwiches.

  “We absolutely adored you,” said a fine lady, writing out a check in the bridge room. “Twenty-five pounds seems frightfully cheap. I don’t know anyone who does anything for twenty-five pounds these days,” she added, putting up her eyebrows and smiling. “You must be booked up the whole time.” Uncertain of the purpose of her question, Oliver mumbled something unintelligible and blushed scarlet. “Well, at least two people rang for you during the show,” she said. “Unless it was the same man twice. Desperate for you. I’m afraid I told the switchboard to say you were in flagrante—was that awful?”

  The Salvation Army building at the bottom of the town was a contemporary redbrick fortress with curved corners and arrow-slit windows to provide the soldiers of Jesus with an all-round field of fire. Oliver had dropped Sammy at the foot of West Hill because Elsie Watmore didn’t want him late for his tea. Thirty-six children sitting at a long table in the assembly room waited to eat potato chips out of paper boxes brought by a man in a beaver-lamb coat. At the head of the table stood Robyn, a redheaded woman in a green tracksuit and flyaway spectacles.

  “All raise your right hands like so,” Robyn ordered, whipping up her own hand. “Now raise your left hand like so. Put them together. Jesus, help us enjoy our meal and our evening of games and dancing and not take it for granted. Let us not get out of order and let us remember all the poor children in hospital and elsewhere who are not having any fun tonight. When you see me or the lieutenant wave our arms like so, you’ll stop whatever you’re doing and freeze because it will mean we have something to say or you are getting out of order.”

  To clumping nursery music the children played pass the parcel, galloping elephants, and statues when the music stops. They played sleeping lions and a longhaired Venus of nine became the last remaining lion to stay asleep. Draped at the center of the floor, she kept her eyes pressed shut while boys and girls reverently tickled her without visible effect.

  “So it’s on your feet for Take That!” Oliver cried hastily as Robyn gave a roar of fury.

  The children punched air, made conventional signs of ecstasy. Soon the strobes and the din were giving Oliver a headache, which they always did. Robyn handed him a cup of tea and bawled at him but he couldn’t hear her. He thanked her in mime but still she didn’t leave. He yelled “Thanks” above the uproar but she went on talking until Oliver lowered the volume and tipped his head sideways to her mouth.

  “There’s a man in a hat needs to speak to you,” she screamed, unaware the music had gone quiet. “A green one and the brim turned up. Oliver Hawthorne. It’s urgent.”

  Peering into the flickering haze, Oliver made out Arthur Toogood at the tea bar in the custody of the beaver-lamb coat. He was wearing a curly trilby and an upholstered ski jacket over his suit. The strobes were making a podgy devil of him while he grinned and flapped his rainbow hands to show he wasn’t carrying an offensive weapon.

  3

  The hospital supervisor clutched his hands in Oriental supplication and regretted that the refrigeration was deficient. A spectral doctor in a bloodstained white overall agreed with him. So also did the mayor, who had put on a black suit, either out of respect for the dead or in honor of the English diplomatic visitors from Istanbul.

  “The refrigeration will be replaced this winter,” Her Majesty’s consul translated for Brock’s benefit, while the assembled company listened and nodded without comprehension. “A new apparatus will be installed regardless of expense. A British apparatus. It will be personally inaugurated by His Excellency the mayor. A date has already been appointed for the ceremony. The mayor has great regard for British products. He has insisted that only the best materials be purchased.” Brock acknowledged this intelligence with a hob-goblin’s twinkly smile of complicity, while the mayor energetically confirmed his commitment to things British, and his people, crowded uncomfortably round him in the cellar, nodded in energetic agreement. “The mayor wishes you to know that it is a particular sadness to him that our friend is from London. The mayor has been to London on a visit. He has seen the Tower of London and Buckingham Palace and many other attractions. He has great respect for British continuity.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” said Brock gravely without lifting his white head. “Kindly thank the mayor for his trouble, will you please, Harry?”

  “He asked who you are,” said the consul in a lower voice when he had done this. “I said Foreign Office. Special line in dead Brits abroad.”

  “That’s quite correct, Harry. You spoke well. I thank you,” Brock replied courteously.

  But a deal of authority in the voice despite its meekness, the consul noted, not for the first time. And that Merseyside twang not always quite as homey as it meant to be. A man of layers, not all of them savory. A predator in disguise. The consul was a timid soul who hid his sensitivity behind a wispy, offhand elegance. When interpreting he frowned into the middle distance in the manner of his father, a distinguished E
gyptologist. “I shall puke,” he had warned Brock as they drove up the hill. “I always do. I’ve only to see a dead dog at the roadside to bring up instantly. Death and I simply aren’t made for one another.” But Brock had merely smiled and shaken his head as if to say it takes all sorts to make a world.

  The two Britons stood one side of the galvanized iron bathtub. The hospital supervisor and the chief doctor and the mayor and all his corporation stood above them on a raised stage on the other, their smiles bravely hoisted. Between them, naked and with half his head blown off, reclined the late Mr. Alfred Winser. He was in the fetal position, on a bed of ice pellets from the machine in the main square, just down the hill. A part-eaten ring of sugared bread, somebody’s unfinished breakfast, lay amid several cans of fly spray on a trolley at his feet. An electric fan whined uselessly in one corner, next to an ancient elevator which the consul assumed was used for conveying bodies. Sometimes the wheels of an ambulance went past, sometimes a pair of busy feet, bringing hopeful news of the living. The air inside the mortuary stank of putrefaction and formaldehyde. It nipped at the consul’s larynx and turned his stomach like a slow key.

  “The postmortem will be conducted on Monday or Tuesday,” the consul translated, frowning vigorously. “The pathologist is heavily engaged in Adana. He’s the best in Turkey, et cetera. They always are. The widow must first make the identification. Our friend’s passport isn’t enough. Oh, and it was suicide.”

  All this to Brock’s left ear in murmured confidences while Brock went on studying the corpse.

  “I beg your pardon, Harry?”