‘He got the jump on me,’ Toby managed to blurt out. ‘It could have happened to anyone.’
The Section Chief reached towards the horse ornament again. ‘Don’t make me do it,’ he said. ‘One solid blow, that’s all it will take. Your medical report assures me that Yoosuf has weakened your cranium considerably.’
Toby sighed and lowered his head. A beaten dog accepting the flexed belt of his master.
‘It was a simple assignment, Greene,’ his Chief continued, ‘pathetically so. You just had to babysit him. A man whose hobbies include collecting sheet music and playing the bassoon. A man I would have previously considered one of the most delicate in espionage. Before he brained you, that is. At which point you became the most fragile flower on the books. A fragile flower that I now have to replant.’
His chief sat back in his chair and looked out of the window. ‘Somewhere shady, I think. Somewhere the bad weeds won’t immediately throttle you.’
The ensuing silence seemed to swell like a tick feeding on awkwardness. Toby wondered if it might eventually crush them both beneath its terrible weight.
‘Of course,’ said his Chief finally, ‘there was that fuss in Basra wasn’t there?’ He clicked away at his computer, making a show of searching for information that Toby knew well enough he already had. ‘A possible PTSD diagnosis?’
Toby didn’t know if he was really expected to answer. He chose to assume not.
‘A diagnosis you fiercely denied at the time. Is that the root of the problem?’ his superior continued. ‘Was that the chink of vulnerability that brought the whole lot crumbling down?’
He looked at Toby. ‘Was that when I should have realised you weren’t cut out for our line of work? That you didn’t have the…’ he looked up at the office roof, as if hoping to find the word he was thinking of scribbled on one of the ceiling tiles, ‘fortitude?’
He brought his gaze back down to the computer. ‘I always said there was a problem with sending non-military personnel into hot zones. I should have seen that you weren’t ready for it.’
Toby thought back to those few months, and one night in particular, when the sky had filled with harsh light and noise and the whole city had trembled. Who could have been ready?
‘In the old days it was so much easier,’ his Section Chief mused, ‘you threw a man into hell and he managed. These days I’m surrounded by analysts and doctors telling me to mind my poor, genteel boys.’ The man gazed into space, remembering the glory days when he hadn’t been expected to mind his operatives’ feelings.
‘The problem,’ he said, ‘has always been that you’re a dreamer. You joined up wanting to be James Bond, grown fat on a diet of TV shows and spy novels.’
Toby remained silent.
‘You expected to be working for George Smiley, no doubt,’ his chief continued, ‘a genteel old chap with a penchant for cardigans held together with pipe smoke. Instead you got me.’
He sighed and swiped his mouse on the surface of the desk. ‘Well, if this is the Circus,’ he said, referencing the slang term for the Secret Service, ‘then Section 37 is where we keep the clowns. And frankly, they’re welcome to you.’
He scribbled on a piece of paper and pushed it across the desk. ‘Report there on Monday and never trouble me again.’
Toby stared at the piece of paper and opened his mouth to speak.
The Section Chief snarled, grabbed the horse statuette off his desk and threw it at him.
b) Flat 3, Palmer Court, Euston, London
Toby uncoiled the bandage from his head, then leaned back with a handheld vanity mirror so that he could see his wound in the reflection. A crop circle with puckered flesh at the centre of it. He wondered if combing carefully might cover it up. A couple of minutes’ effort resulted only in an even sorer head and a piling of hair whose position was obviously contrived. Blatant as dust swept into the corner of an ugly room.
Throwing the comb at the sink, Toby went into the kitchen to find something to drink.
His doctor had been unequivocal with regards to mixing alcohol with his medication. It was something that Should Not Be Done. Finding he couldn’t care less, he opened a bottle of wine.
After draining half a glass while standing at the worktop, he refilled it and tried to decide what to do next. Naturally, given his self-destructive streak, he called his father.
‘Who is it?’
‘Toby.’
There was a lengthy pause at the end of the line. Then, ‘Is there something wrong?’
‘No, just calling to see how you are.’
‘Oh.’ There was another pause; his father couldn’t have made his disinterest clearer had he hung up.
‘So, how are you?’
‘Fine. Busy.’
‘Busy doing what? You haven’t broken a sweat in four years.’ Toby had meant the comment to sound light-hearted. It was out of his mouth before it occurred to him that it might come across as a criticism. His father certainly took it as such.
‘Retired doesn’t mean lazy,’ he said. ‘I can still be busy.’
‘I know. I was joking.’
Toby’s father made a noise that could have been dismissal or phlegm. Then was silent again.
‘I’ll ring back another time, shall I?’
‘No,’ his father replied, ‘chat away.’
‘Right, well it was more to find out how you were really.’
‘Busy, like I said.’
‘Yes.’ There was a pause, then Toby added, ‘With what?’
‘Stuff, you know, just… stuff.’ His father seemed to suddenly remember how conversations worked. ‘You?’
‘Oh, some fuss at work, nothing major. I could do without it, though.’
‘I bet. You’re lucky to have a job in this recession. So, what have you done now?’
‘Done?’
‘You say there’s been trouble. What have you done?’
The fact that his father was right hardly helped Toby forgive him the assumption. ‘Why would I have done anything?’ he countered. ‘All I said was that there was trouble at work. Why do you automatically think that means I’ve fucked up somehow?’
‘Experience,’ his father laughed. Toby was familiar with that laugh. It was a common shield, his jolly weapon to be re-employed should Toby argue over the comment. ‘Don’t be so sensitive,’ his father would say. ‘Couldn’t you tell I was joking?’
Toby refused to give his father any satisfaction. He took another mouthful of wine. ‘I’m being transferred, actually – moved to a better department.’
‘Better, eh? Says who?’
‘Says me. But I would rather have had a bit more notice; it leaves a lot of unfinished business on my desk.’
‘You always flitted about, never could settle.’
‘Not my choice,’ Toby replied, feeling his anger build, a roaring tension that made him stiffen from neck to toe, becoming one clenched muscle. ‘They need me elsewhere.’
‘God help them!’ – that laugh again. Toby felt the stem of his wine glass snap in his hand and the bowl tumbled to the floor to spill wine across the carpet. ‘What’s wrong now?’ his father asked, responding to Toby’s short, startled cry.
‘Nothing,’ Toby insisted, refusing to admit anything that might be seen as idiocy in the eyes of his father. God, how tiring it was trying to be perfect. He threw the stem onto the sofa and squatted down to pick up the bowl of the glass.
‘You made a noise,’ his father said, utterly attentive for the first time in the phone call.
Toby went to the kitchen, meaning to tug some kitchen roll off the holder but it was empty. He always forgot to replace the roll. Stupid.