Sweet Tooth (15 page)

There it was. Only as I reached the end did I realise that I had failed to take in the title. ‘This is love’. He seemed too worldly, too knowing, this twenty-seven-year-old who was to be my innocent target. Here was a man who knew what it was to love a destructive woman afflicted by mood storms, a man who had noted the lid of an ancient font, who knew that the wealthy stocked their moats with carp and the downtrodden kept their stuff in supermarket trolleys – both
supermarkets and trolleys were recent additions to life in Britain. If Jean’s mutant genitalia were not an invention but a memory, then I already felt belittled or outclassed. Was I a touch jealous of his affair?

I was packing away the file, too tired to face another story. I’d experienced a peculiar form of wilful narrative sadism. Alfredus may have earned the narrowing of his life, but Haley had driven him into the ground. Misanthropy or self-loathing – were they entirely distinct? – must be part of his make-up. I was discovering that the experience of reading is skewed when you know, or are about to know, the author. I had been inside a stranger’s mind. Vulgar curiosity made me wonder if every sentence confirmed or denied or masked a secret intention. I felt closer to Tom Haley than I would if he’d been a colleague in the Registry these past nine months. But if I sensed intimacy, it was hard to say exactly what I knew. I needed an instrument, some measuring device, the narrative equivalent of movable compass points with which to gauge the distance between Haley and Edmund Alfredus. The author may have been keeping his own demons at arm’s length. Perhaps Alfredus – not a necessary man after all – represented the kind of person Haley feared he could become. Or he may have punished Alfredus in the spirit of moral primness for adultery and presuming to impersonate a pious man. Haley might be a prig, even a religious prig, or he could be a man with many fears. And priggishness and fear could be twin aspects of a single larger character defect. If I hadn’t wasted three years being bad at maths at Cambridge, I might have done English and learned how to read. But would I have known how to read T.H. Haley?

9

T
he following night I had a date with Shirley at the Hope and Anchor in Islington to hear Bees Make Honey. I was half an hour late. She was sitting alone at the bar smoking, hunched over her notebook, with a couple of inches of beer in her pint glass. It was warm outside but it had been raining heavily and the place had a canine smell of damp jeans and hair. Amp lights glowed in a corner where a lone roadie was setting up. The crowd, which probably included the band and their pals, was hardly more than two dozen. In those days, at least in my circle, even women didn’t embrace on greeting. I slipped onto the bar stool beside Shirley and ordered drinks. It was still something back then for two girls to assume a pub was as much theirs as any man’s and to drink at the bar. In the Hope and Anchor and a handful of other places in London no one cared. The revolution had arrived and you could get away with it. We pretended to take it for granted, but it was still a kick. Elsewhere across the kingdom they would have taken us for whores, or treated us as though we were.

At work we ate our lunches together but there was still something between us, a little piece of gritty residue from that brief dispute. If her politics were so infantile or bone-headed, how much of a friend could she be? But at other
times I believed that time would settle the matter and that, by simple contagion at work, her political views would mature. Sometimes
not
talking is the best way through a difficulty. The fad for personal ‘truth’ and confrontation was doing great damage in my view and blighting many friendships and marriages.

Not long before our date, Shirley had gone missing from her desk for most of one day and part of the next. She wasn’t ill. Someone had seen her getting into the lift and had seen the button she pushed. The gossip was she’d been summoned to the fifth floor, the misty heights where our masters conducted their unknowable business. The gossip also hinted that since she was smarter than the rest of us, she was up for some unusual form of promotion. From the large debutante faction this provoked some amiable snobbery of the ‘Oh, if only
I’d
been born into the working class’ sort. I checked my own feelings. Would I feel jealous at being left behind by my best friend? I thought I would.

When she was back among us she ignored questions and told us nothing, didn’t even lie, which was taken by most as confirmation of superior advancement. I wasn’t so sure. Her plumpness sometimes made her expression hard to read, her subcutaneous fat being the mask she lived behind. Which would have made this line of work a good choice for her, if only the women were sent out to do more than clean houses. But I thought I knew her well enough. There was no triumph there. Did I feel just a tiny bit relieved? I thought so.

This was our first meeting outside the building since then. I was determined not to ask questions about the fifth floor. It would have looked undignified. Besides, I now had my own assignment and promotion, even if they emanated from two floors below hers. She switched to gin and orange, a large one, and I had the same. In low voices we talked office gossip for the first quarter of an hour. Now that we were no longer new girls, we felt at liberty to ignore some of the rules. There was a substantial new item. One of our intake, Lisa
– Oxford High, St Anne’s, bright and charming – had just announced her engagement to a desk officer called Andrew – Eton, King’s, boyish and intellectual. It was the fourth such alliance in nine months. If Poland had joined NATO it would not have caused more excitement in the ranks than these bilateral negotiations. Part of the interest was speculating who would be next. ‘Who whom?’ as some Leninist wag put it. Early on, I’d been spotted on the bench in Berkeley Square with Max. I used to feel a thrill in my stomach when I heard our names fed through the mill, but lately we’d been dropped for more tangible outcomes. So Shirley and I discussed Lisa and the consensus that her wedding date was too remote, and then touched on Wendy’s prospects with a figure who may have been too grand – her Oliver was an assistant head of section. But I thought there was something flat or routine in our exchange. I sensed that Shirley was putting something off, lifting her glass too frequently, as if summoning her courage.

Sure enough, she ordered another gin, took a swig, hesitated, then said, ‘I have to tell you something. But first you have to do something for me.’

‘Yes.’

‘Smile, like you were just now.’

‘What?’

‘Just do as I say. We’re being watched. Put on a smile. We’re having a happy conversation. OK?’

I stretched my lips.

‘You can do better than that. Don’t freeze.’

I tried harder, I nodded and shrugged, trying to look animated.

Shirley said, ‘I’ve been sacked.’

‘Impossible!’

‘As of today.’

‘Shirley!’

‘Just keep smiling. You mustn’t tell anyone.’

‘OK, but why?’

‘I can’t tell you everything.’

‘You can’t have been sacked. It doesn’t make sense. You’re better than all of us.’

‘I could have told you somewhere private. But our rooms aren’t secure. And I want them to see me talking to you.’

The lead guitarist had strapped on his guitar. He and the drummer were with the roadie now, all three bent over some piece of equipment on the floor. There was a howl of feedback, quickly subdued. I stared at the crowd, knots of people with their backs to us, mostly men, standing about with their pints waiting for the band to start. Could one or two be from A4, the Watchers? I was sceptical.

I said, ‘Do you really think you’re being followed?’

‘No, not me.
You
.’

My laughter was genuine. ‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘Seriously. The Watchers. Ever since you joined. They’ve probably been into your room. Put in a mike. Serena, don’t stop smiling.’

I turned back to the crowd. Shoulder-length hair for men was by then a minority taste, and the terrible moustaches and big sideburns were still some while ahead. So, plenty of ambiguous-looking types, plenty of candidates. I thought I could see a possible half-dozen. Then, suddenly, everyone in the room looked a possibility.

‘But Shirley. Why?’

‘I thought you could tell me.’

‘There’s nothing. You’ve made this up.’

‘Look, I’ve got something to tell you. I did something stupid and I’m really ashamed. I don’t know how to say it. I was going to do it yesterday, then my nerve failed. But I need to be honest about this. I’ve fucked up.’

She took a deep breath and reached for another cigarette. Her hands were shaking. We looked over towards the band. The drummer was sitting in, adjusting the hi-hat, showing off a tricky little turn with the brushes.

Shirley said at last, ‘Before we went to clean that house,
they called me in. Peter Nutting, Tapp, that creepy kid, Benjamin someone.’

‘Jesus. Why?’

‘They laid it on. Said I was doing well, possibility of promotion, softening me up like. Then they said they knew we were close friends. Nutting asked if you ever said anything unusual or suspicious. I said no. They asked what we talked about.’

‘Christ. What did you say?’

‘I should have told them to get stuffed. I didn’t have the courage. There was nothing to hide so I told them the truth. I said we talked about music, friends, family, the past, chit-chat, nothing much at all.’ She looked at me a touch accusingly. ‘You would’ve done the same.’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘If I’d said nothing they’d have been even more suspicious.’

‘All right. Then what?’

Tapp asked me if we ever spoke about politics and I said no. He said he found that hard to believe, I said it was a fact. We went round and round for a bit. Then they said OK, they were going to ask me something delicate. But it was very important and they’d be deeply appreciative, etc., if I could see my way to oblige, on and on, you know the greasy way they talk.’

‘I think so.’

‘They wanted me to get into a political conversation with you, and to come on like a real closet leftie, draw you out and see where you stood and …’

‘Let them know.’

‘I know. I’m ashamed. But don’t get sour. I’m trying to be straight with you. And remember to smile.’

I stared at her, at her fat face and its scattered freckles. I was trying to hate her. Almost there. I said, ‘
You
smile. Faking’s your thing.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘So that whole conversation … you were on the job.’

‘Listen, Serena, I voted for
Heath
. So yes, I was on the job, and I hate myself for it.’

‘That workers’ paradise near Leipzig was a lie?’

‘No, it was a real school trip. Boring as shit. And I was homesick, wept like a baby. But listen, you did all right, you said all the right things.’

‘Which you reported back!’

She was looking at me sorrowfully, shaking her head. ‘That’s the point. I didn’t. I went to see them that evening and told them I couldn’t do it, I wasn’t playing. I didn’t even tell them we’d had the conversation. I said I wasn’t going to inform on a friend.’

I looked away. Now I was really confused, because I rather wished she had told them what I’d said. But I couldn’t say that to Shirley. We drank our gin in silence for half a minute. The bass player was on now and the thing on the floor, some sort of junction box, was still giving trouble. I glanced around. No one in the pub was looking in our direction.

I said, ‘If they know that we’re friends they must have guessed that you’d tell me what they asked you to do.’

‘Exactly. They’re sending you a message. Perhaps they’re warning you off something. I’ve been straight with you. Now you tell me. Why are they interested in you?’

Of course, I had no idea. But I was angry with her. I didn’t want to look ignorant – no, more than that, I wanted her to believe that there were matters I preferred not to discuss. And I wasn’t sure I believed anything she was saying.

I turned the question back to her. ‘So they sacked you because you wouldn’t inform on a colleague? That doesn’t sound plausible to me.’

She took a long time getting out her cigarettes, offering one, lighting them. We ordered more drinks. I didn’t want another gin, but my thoughts were too disordered, I couldn’t think of what else to have. So we had the same again. I was almost out of money.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I don’t want to talk about it. So there you
are. This career is over. I never thought it would last anyway. I’m going to live at home and look after my dad. He’s acting a bit confused lately. I’ll help out in the shop. And I might even do some writing. But listen. I wish you’d tell me what was going on.’

And then, in a sudden gesture of affection, conjuring up the old days of our friendship she took the lapel of my cotton jacket and shook it. Shaking sense into me. ‘You’ve got yourself caught up in something. It’s crazy, Serena. They look and talk like a bunch of stuffed shirts, and they
are
, but they can be mean. It’s what they’re good at. They’re
mean
.’

I said, ‘We’ll see.’

I was anxious and completely baffled, but I wanted to punish her, make her worry about me. I could almost fool myself that I really had a secret.

‘Serena. You can tell me.’

‘Too complicated. And why should I tell you anything? What could you do about it anyway? You’re bottom of the heap like me. Or you were.’

‘Are you talking to the other side?’

It was a shocking question. In that reckless tipsy moment I wished I did have a Russian controller and a double life, and dead-letter drops on Hampstead Heath, or better, that I was a double agent, feeding useless truths and destructive lies into an alien system. At least I had T. H. Haley. And why would they give me him if I was under suspicion?

‘Shirley,
you’re
the other side.’

Her reply was lost to the opening chords of ‘Knee Trembler’, an old favourite with us, but we didn’t enjoy it this time round. It was the end of our conversation. Stalemate. She wouldn’t tell me why she was sacked, I wouldn’t tell her the secret I didn’t have. A minute later, she slid from her bar stool and left without saying or miming goodbye. I wouldn’t have responded anyway. I sat there a while, trying to enjoy the band, trying to calm myself and think straight. When I’d finished my gin, I drank the remains of Shirley’s. I didn’t
know which upset me more, my good friend or my employers snooping on me. Shirley’s betrayal was unforgivable, my employers’ frightening. If I was under suspicion, there must have been an administrative error, but that didn’t make Nutting and Co any less frightening. It was no comfort to learn they had sent the Watchers into my room and that, in a moment’s incompetence, someone had dropped my bookmark.