A Spy by Nature - Charles Cumming [12]
I am too ashamed to look at Saul.
‘Nik, I’m sorry, but -‘
‘Sorry? Oh, well then, that’s all right…’
‘No, sorry, but -‘
‘I don’t care if you’re sorry.’
‘Look!’
This from Saul. He is on his feet. He’s going to say something. Oh, Jesus.
‘He’s not saying he’s sorry. If you’d just listen, he’s not saying he’s sorry. It’s not his fault if some wanker in Warsaw catches on to what you’re up to and starts giving him an earful! Why don’t you calm down, for Christ’s sake?’
‘Who the fuck are you?’ says Nik. He really likes this guy.
‘I’m a friend of Alec’s. Take it easy.’
‘And he can’t take care of himself? Can’t you take care of yourself now, Alec, eh?’
‘Of course he can take care of himself…’
‘Nik, I can take care of myself. Saul, it’s all right. We’ll go and get a coffee. I’ll just get out of here for a while.’
‘For more than a while,’ says Nik. ‘Don’t come back. I don’t want to see you. You come back tomorrow. It’s enough for one day.’
‘Jesus, what a cunt.’
Now Saul is someone who really knows the time and place for effective use of the word ‘cunt’. I feel like asking him to say it again.
‘I can’t believe you work for that guy.’
We are standing on either side of a table football game in a cafe on the Edgware Road. I take a worn white ball from the trough below my waist and feed it through the hole on to the table. Saul traps the ball with the still black feet of his plastic man before gunning it down the table into my goal.
‘The object of the game is to stop that kind of thing from happening.’
‘It’s my goalkeeper.’
‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘He has personal problems.’
Saul gives a wheezy laugh, lifts his cigarette from a Coca-Cola ashtray and takes a drag.
‘What language was it that Nik was speaking?’
‘Czech. Slovak. One of the two.’
‘Play, play.’
The ball thunders and slaps on the rocking table.
‘Better than Nintendo, eh?’
‘Yes Grandpa,’ says Saul, scoring.
‘Fuck.’
He slides another red counter along the abacus. Five-nil.
‘Don’t be afraid to compete, Alec. Carpe diem.’
I attempt a deft sideways shunt of the ball in midfield, but it skewers away at an angle. Coming back down the table, Saul saying, ‘Now that is skill’, it rolls loose in front of my centre half. I grip the clammy handle with rigid fingers and whip it so that the neat row of figures rotate in a propeller blur. Saul’s hand flies to the right and his goalkeeper saves the incoming ball.
‘That’s illegal,’ he says. The shorter haircut suits him.
‘I’m competing.’
‘Oh, right.’
Six-nil.
‘How did that happen?’
‘Because you’re very bad at this game. Listen, I’m sorry if I interfered back there…’
‘No.’
‘What?’
‘It’s OK.’
‘No, I mean it. I’m sorry.’
‘I know you are.’
‘I probably shouldn’t have stuck my foot in.’
‘No, you probably shouldn’t have stuck your foot in. But that’s how you are. I’d rather you spoke your mind and stood up for your friends than bit your tongue for the sake of decorum. I understand. You don’t have to explain. I don’t care about the job, so it’s OK.’
‘OK.’
We tuck the subject away like a letter.
‘So what are you doing up here?’
‘I just thought I’d come up and see you. I’ve been busy with work, haven’t seen you for a week or so. You free tonight?’
‘Yeah.’
‘We can go back to mine and eat.’
‘Good.’
Saul has been the only person in whom I have considered confiding, but now that we have been face to face it does not seem necessary to tell him about SIS. My reluctance has nothing to do with official secrecy: if I asked him to, Saul would keep his mouth shut for thirty years. Trust is not an element in the decision.
There has always been something quietly competitive about our friendship - a rivalry of intellects, a need to kiss the prettier girl. Adolescent stuff. Nowadays, with school just a vague memory, this competitiveness manifests itself in an unspoken system of checks and balances on each other’s lives: who earns more money, who drives the faster car, who has laid the more promising path