Section:GDN 1N PaGe:13 Edition Date:190907 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 6/9/2019 14:27 cYanmaGentaYellowbl
Saturday 7 September 2019 The Guardian •
13Exclusive extract
‘I just knew I was
on the right side’
“If they hadn’t persuaded
themselves already, yes.”
“Just chaps , or did you persuade
female chaps too?” – which if
you’d heard Steff on the subject of
feminism is not as light-hearted as
it might otherwise sound. “Largely
male chaps, Steff. Yes, men,
overwhelmingly men,” I assure her.
We have reached the top. We
again uncouple and descend, Steff
streaking ahead. Once more we
meet at the bottom of the lift. No
queue. Until now she has pushed her
goggles up on to her forehead for the
ride. This time she leaves them in
place. They’re the mirrored kind that
you can’t see into.
“Persuade how exactly?” she
resumes as soon as we set off.
“Well, we’re not talking
thumbscrews , Steff ,” I reply, which
is pilot error on my part: Humour at
serious moments is simply an escape
route as far as Steff ’s concerned.
“So how?” she persists, gnawing
at the subject of persuasion.
“Well, Steff , a lot of people will do
a lot of things for money and a lot of
people will do things for spite or ego.
There are also people who do things
for an ideal , and wouldn’t take your
money if you shoved it down their
throats.”
“And what ideal would that be
exactly, Dad ?” – from behind the
shiny goggles. It’s the fi rst time for
weeks that she’s called me Dad. Also
I notice that she is not swearing,
which with Steff can be a bit of a red
warning light.
“Well, let’s say, just for instance,
somebody has an idealistic vision
of England as the mother of all
democracies. Or they love our dear
Queen with an unexplained fervour.
It may not be an England that exists
for us any more, if it ever did, but
they think it does, so go with it.”
“Do you think it does?”
“With reservations.”
“Serious reservations?”“Well, who wouldn’t have, for
Christ’s sake?” I reply, stung by the
suggestion that I’ve somehow failed
to notice that the country’s in free
fall. “A minority Tory cabinet of
tenth-raters. A pig-ignorant foreign
secretary who I’m supposed to be
serving. Labour no better. The sheer
bloody lunacy of Brexit ” – I break off.
I have feelings too. Let my indignant
silence say the rest.
“Then you do have serious reser-
vations?” she insists in her purest
tone. “Even very serious. Yes?”
Too late I realise I have left myself
wide open, but perhaps that was
what I wanted to achieve all along:
to give her the victory, acknowledge
I’m not up to the standards of her
brilliant professors, and then we can
all go back to being who we were.
“So if I’ve got this right,” she
resumes, as we embark on our next
ascent, “for the sake of a country
that you have serious reservations
about, even very serious, you
persuade other nationals to betray
their own countries.” And as an
afterthought: “The reason being
that they don’t share the same
reservations that you have about
your country, whereas they do
have reservations about their own
country. Yes?”
At which I let out a merry
exclamation that accepts honourable
defeat while simultaneously
asking for mitigation: “But they’re
not innocent lambs, Steff! They
volunteer. Or most of them do. And
we look after them. We welfare
them. If it’s money they’re after,
we give them a pot of it. If they’re
into God, we do God with them. It’s
whatever works, Steff. We’re their
friends. They trust us. We provide
for their needs. They provide for
ours. It’s the way of the world.”
But she’s not interested in the
way of the world. She’s interested in
mine, as becomes apparent on the
next ride up: “When you were telling
other people who to be, did you ever
consider who you were?”
“I just knew I was on the right
side, Steff ,” I reply.Agent Running in the Field is
published by Viking on 17 OctoberS
teff , there’s something
about me that your
mother and I feel it’s time
you knew. ”
“I’m illegitimate,” she
says eagerly.
“No, but I’m a spy.”
She too is staring ahead of her.
This wasn’t quite how I meant it to
begin. Never mind. I say my piece as
drafted, she listens. No eye contact
so no stress. I keep it short and cool.
“So there you are, Steff , now you
have it. I’ve been living a necessary
lie and that’s all I’m allowed to tell
you. I may look like a failure, but I
do have a certain status in my own
Service. ”
She doesn’t say anything. We
reach the top, uncouple and set off
down the hill, still nothing said.
She’s faster than I am, or likes to
think she is, so I let her have her
head. We meet up again at the
bottom of the lift.
Standing in the queue we don’t
speak to each other and she doesn’t
look in my direction, but that
doesn’t disconcert me. Steff lives
in her world, well, now she knows
I live in mine too, and it’s not some
knacker’s yard for Foreign Offi ce
low-fl yers. She’s in front of me so she
grabs the T-bar fi rst. We have barely
set off before she asks in a matter-
of-fact voice whether I’ve ever killed
anyone. I chuckle, say no, Steff ,
absolutely not, thank God, which is
true. Others have, if only indirectly,
but I haven’t. Not even arm’s length
or third fl ag, not even as the Offi ce
calls it, deniable authorship.
“Well if you haven’t killed anyone,
what’s the next -worst thing you’ve
done as a spy? ” – in the same casual
tone.
“Well, Steff , I suppose the next
worst I’ve done is persuade chaps to
do things they might not have done
if I hadn’t talked them into it, so to
speak.”
“Bad things? ”
“Arguably. Depends which side of
the fence you’re on. ”
“Such as what, for instance?”
“Well, betray their country for
starters.”
“And you persuaded them to do
that?”‘A minority Tory
cabinet of tenth-
raters ... the sheer
lunacy of Brexit’▼ John le Carré at home in Cornwall.
‘After the referendum,’ his editor says,
‘there was no choice for him except
to look at where we are now’
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