A Spy by Nature - Charles Cumming [141]
‘How do you mean?’ Kate asks. ‘Give me an example.’ It is not difficult recalling the bones of one of the monologues. I lean forward in the chair and it is like being back in their apartment, weaving a tale for the CIA.
‘I was predicted straight-A grades, but I got ill and took a string of Bs and Cs so I didn’t get my chance to go to Oxbridge. That would have changed everything. I meet Oxbridge graduates and none of them has qualities I don’t possess. And yet somehow they’ve found themselves in positions of influence. What do they have that I haven’t? Am I lazy? I didn’t waste my time at university. I’m not the sort of person who gets depressed. If I start feeling low I tell myself it’s just irrational and I pull myself out of it. I feel as if I have had such bad luck.’
Kate has a peculiar grin on her face as I continue. I am talking quickly now, giving the words no inflection.
‘I want to be recognized as someone who stands apart. But even at school I was always following on the heels of one or two students who were more able than I was. Smarter, more quick-witted, faster on the football pitch. They had an effortlessness about them which I never had. I always coveted that. I feel as though I have lived my life suspended between brilliance and mediocrity. Not ordinary, not exceptional. Do you ever feel like that?’
Kate interrupts me.
‘That’s not a prepared speech,’ she says. ‘That is you.’
I stare back at her, smarted.
‘No it’s not.’
She gives a sputtering, patronizing laugh which effectively kills off any chance of arguing this out.
‘Whatever,’ I say, unconvincingly. ‘It doesn’t matter. Think what you like. The basic idea was that I showed them how unsettled I was, how depressed I had become after breaking up with you…’
At this Kate baulks.
‘You brought me into this?’
I stall. I had not intended to mention her role at all. Her voice quickens into anger.
‘Fuck, Alec…’
‘Relax. It was just cover. In all this time I must have mentioned your name once to them. Nobody at SIS or Five knows anything about you. You didn’t even come up in the interviews.’
She appears to believe this, looking visibly calmer almost immediately. I keep on talking, to take her mind off the possibility that she was more acutely involved.
‘It was just a way of getting the Americans to sympathize with me.’
‘OK.’
‘That’s how I was taught to approach things. Show them something you’ve lost. That’s the first rule. A girlfriend, a job, a close relative. It doesn’t matter. Then you confide in them, you show them your weaknesses. Ultimately I gave Katharine and Fortner the impression that they understood me. The relationship between us became almost familial.’
‘And all the time it was just a pretence…’
Kate has that look she gets when learning lines for a play: an intense concentration, close to bewilderment, furrowing up her brow. It makes her look older.
‘They were not the innocent party, Kate. They knew Abnex had a small team that was exploring a sector of the North Basin that nobody else had access to. They wanted to get their hands on data from that project. And they cultivated the friendship with me to that end. That’s how it works. It’s grim and it’s cynical but it’s the way of things.’
She does not answer. Her half-eaten apple has turned brown.
‘So, to cut a long story short, they offered me the chance to spy for them. They made me feel that it would be in everyone’s interest in the long run…’
‘I just don’t know how you could do this.’
‘Do what?’
‘Pretend to be something that you’re not to people you care about.’
‘Who said I cared about them?’
‘Of course you do. You’re not capable of being that cold.’
She wants to believe that about me. She has always wanted to believe that people are essentially decent, that they adhere to certain standards of behaviour.
‘Kate, you’re an actress. When you go on stage or in front of a