A Spy by Nature - Charles Cumming [31]
Shortly before four o’clock, Keith asks us with nasal exactitude to stop writing. Ogilvy immediately glances across to gauge how things have gone. He tilts his head to one side, creases his brow and puffs out his cheeks at me, as if to say: ‘I fucked that up and I hope you did too.’ For a moment I am tempted into intimacy, a powerful urge to reveal to him the extent of my exhaustion. But I cannot allow any display of weakness. So instead I respond with a self-possessed, almost complacent shrug which will suggest that things have gone particularly well. This makes him look away.
A few minutes later we emerge narrow-eyed into the bright white light of the corridor. Better air out here, cool and clean. The Hobbit and Ann immediately walk away in the direction of the toilets, but Ogilvy lingers outside, looking bloodshot and leathery.
‘Christ,’ he says, pulling on his jacket with exaggerated swagger. ‘That was tough.’
‘You found it difficult?’ Elaine asks. My impression has been that she does not like him.
‘God, yeah. I couldn’t seem to concentrate. I kept looking at you guys scribbling away. How did it go for you, Alec?’
He smiles at me, like we’re long-term buddies.
‘I don’t go in for post mortems, much.’ To Elaine: ‘You got a cigarette?’
She takes out a packet of high-tar Camels.
‘I only have one left. We can share.’
She lights up, crushing the empty packet in her hand. Ogilvy mutters something about giving up smoking, but he looks excluded and weary.
‘I need to get some fresh air,’ he says, moving away from us down the hall. ‘I’ll see you later on.’
Elaine exhales through her nostrils, two steady streams of smoke, watching him leave with a critical stare.
‘Have you got anything else today?’ she asks me. ‘An interview or anything?’
I don’t feel like talking. My mind is looped around the penultimate question in the last batch of tests. The answer was closer to 54 than 62, and I circled the wrong box. Damn.
‘I have to meet Rouse. The SIS officer.’
She glances quickly left and right.
‘Careless talk costs lives, Alec,’ she whispers, half-smiling. ‘Be careful what you say. The five of us are the only SIS people here today.’
‘How do you know?’
‘It’s obvious,’ she says, offering the cigarette to me. The tip of the filter is damp with her saliva and I worry that when I hand it back she will think the wetness is mine. ‘They only process five candidates a month.’
‘According to who?’
She hesitates.
‘It’s well known. A lot more reach the initial interview stage, but only five get through to Sisby. We’re the lucky ones.’
‘So you work in the Foreign Office already. That’s how you know?’
She nods, glancing again down the corridor. My head has started to throb.
‘Pen-pushing,’ she says. ‘I want to step up. Now, no more shop talk. What time are you scheduled to finish?’
‘Around five.’
Her hair needs brushing and she has a tiny spot forming on the right-hand side of her forehead. Thirty-two years old.
‘That’s late,’ she says, sympathetically. ‘I’m done for the day. Back tomorrow at half-eight.’
The cigarette is nearly finished. I had been worried that it would set off a fire alarm.
‘I guess I’ll see you then.’
‘Guess so.’
She is turning to leave when I say:
‘You don’t have anything for a headache, do you? Dehydration.’
‘Sure. Just a moment.’
She reaches into the pocket of her jacket, rustles around for something and then