'Oliver thinks we're doomed,' Mrs Lacon explained to Guillam excitedly, as if she were admitting him to a family secret, and shot her husband an angelic smile.
Lacon resumed his former confiding tone, but he continued to blurt and Guillam guessed he was showing off to his squaw.
'You would also make the point to me, wouldn't you as background to the postcard as it were — that a major Soviet intelligence presence in Hong Kong would be — appalling embarrassment to the Colonial government in her relations with Peking?'
'Before I went as far as that -'
'On whose magnanimity,' Lacon pursued, 'she depends from hour to hour for her survival, correct?'
'It's because of these very implications -' Smiley said.
'Oh Penny, you're naked!' Mrs Lacon cried indulgently.
Providing Guillam with a glorious respite, she bounded off to calm an unruly small daughter who had appeared at the doorway. Lacon meanwhile had filled his lungs for an aria.
'We are therefore not only protecting Hong Kong from the Russians — which is bad enough, I grant you, but perhaps not quite bad enough for some of our higher-minded Ministers — we are protecting her from the wrath of Peking, which is universally held to be awful, right Guillam? However -' said Lacon, and to emphasise the volte face went so far as to arrest Smiley's arm with his long hand so that he had to put down his glass — 'however,' he warned, as his erratic voice swooped and rose again, 'whether our masters will swallow all that is quite another matter altogether.'
'I would not consider asking them to until I had obtained corroboration of our data,' Smiley said sharply.
'Ah, but you can't, can you?' Lacon objected, changing hats. 'You can't go beyond domestic research. You haven't the charter.'
'Without a reconnaissance of the information -'
'Ah, but what does that mean, George?'
'Putting in an agent.'
Lacon lifted his eyebrows and turned away his head, reminding Guillam irresistibly of Molly Meakin.
'Method is not my affair, nor are the details. Clearly you can do nothing to embarrass since you have no money and no resources.' He poured more wine, spilling some. 'Val!' he yelled. 'Cloth!'
'I do have some money.'
'But not for that purpose.' The wine had stained the tablecloth. Guillam poured salt on it while Lacon lifted the cloth and shoved his napkin ring under it to spare the polish.
A long silence followed, broken by the slow pat of wine falling on the parquet floor. Finally Lacon said: 'It is entirely up to you to define what is chargeable under your mandate.'
'May I have that in writing?'
'No, sir.'
'May I have your authority to take what steps are needed to corroborate the information?'
'No, sir.'
'But you won't block me?'
'Since I know nothing of method, and am not required to, it is hardly my province to dictate to you.'
'But since I make a formal approach -' Smiley began.
'Val, do bring a cloth! Once you make a formal approach I shall wash my hands of you entirely. It is the Intelligence Steering Group, not myself, who determines your scope of action. You will make your pitch. They will hear you out. From then on it's between you and them. I am just the midwife. Val, bring a cloth, it's everywhere!'
'Oh, it's my head on the block, not yours,' said Smiley, almost to himself. 'You're impartial. I know all about that.'
'Oliver's not impartial,' said Mrs Lacon gaily as she returned with the girl over her shoulder, brushed and wearing a nightdress. 'He's terrifically in favour of you, aren't you, Olly?' She handed Lacon a cloth and he began mopping. 'He's become a real hawk these days. Better than the Americans. Now say good night to everyone, Penny, come on.' She was offering the child to each of them in turn. 'Mr Smiley first... Mr Guillam, now Daddy... How's Ann, George, not off to the country again, I hope?'
'Oh very bonny, thank you.'
'Well, make Oliver give you what you want. He's getting terribly pompous, aren't you, Olly?'
She danced off, chanting her own rituals to the child.
'Hitty-pitty without the wall... hitty-pitty within the wall... and bumps goes Pottifer!'
Lacon proudly watched her go.
'Now, will you bring the Americans into it, George?' he demanded airily. 'That's a great catchpenny, you know. Wheel in the Cousins and you'd carry the committee without a shot fired. Foreign Office would eat out of your hand.'
'I would prefer to stay my hand on that.'
The green telephone, thought Guillam, might never have existed.
Lacon ruminated, twiddling his glass.
'Pity,' he pronounced finally. 'Pity. No Cousins, no panic factor...' He gazed at the dumpy, unimpressive figure before him. Smiley sat, hands linked, eyes closed, seemingly half asleep. 'And no credibility either,' Lacon went on, apparently as a direct comment upon Smiley's appearance. 'Defence won't lift a finger for you, I'll tell you that for a start. Nor will the Home Office. The Treasury's a toss-up, and the Foreign Office — depends who they send to the meeting and what they had for breakfast.' Again he reflected. 'George.'
'Yes?'
'Let me send you an advocate. Somebody who can ride point for you, draft your submission, carry it to the barricades.'
'Oh I think I can manage, thank you!'
'Make him rest more,' Lacon advised Guillam in a deafening whisper as they walked to the car. 'And try and get him to drop those black jackets and stuff. They went out with bustles. Goodbye, George! Ring me tomorrow if you change your mind and want help. Now drive carefully, Guillam. Remember you've been drinking.'
As they passed through the gates Guillam said something very rude indeed but Smiley was too deep inside the rug to hear.
'So it's Hong Kong then?' Guillam said, as they drove.
No answer, but no denial either.
'And who's the lucky fieldman?' Guillam asked, a little later, with no real hope of getting an answer. 'Or is that all part of foxing around with the Cousins?'
'We're not foxing around with them at all,' Smiley retorted, stung for once. 'If we cut them in, they'll swamp us. If we don't, we've no resources. It's simply a matter of balance.'
Smiley dived back into the rug.
But the very next day, lo and behold, they were ready.
At ten, Smiley convened an operational directorate. Smiley talked, Connie talked, di Salis fidgeted and scratched himself like a verminous court tutor in a Restoration comedy, till it was his own turn to speak out, in his cracked, clever voice. The same evening still, Smiley sent his telegram to Italy: a real one, not just a signal, codeword Guardian, copy to the fast growing file.
Smiley wrote it out, Guillam gave it to Fawn, who whisked it off triumphantly to the all-night post office at Charing Cross. From the air of ceremony with which Fawn departed, one might have supposed that the little buff form was the highest point so far of his sheltered life. This was not so. Before the fall, Fawn had worked under Guillam as a scalp-hunter based in Brixton. By actual trade, though, he was a silent killer.
Chapter 5 — A Walk in the Park
Throughout that whole sunny week Jerry Westerby's leave-taking had a bustling, festive air which never once let up. If London was holding its summer late, then so, one might have thought, was Jerry. Stepmothers; vaccinations, travel touts, literary agents and Fleet Street editors; Jerry, though he loathed London like the pest, took them all in his cheery pounding stride. He even had a London persona to go with the buckskin boots: his suit, not Savile Row exactly, but a suit undeniably. His prison gear, as the orphan called it, was a washable, blue-faded affair, the creation of a twenty-four-hour tailor named 'Pontschak Happy House of Bangkok', who guaranteed it unwrinkable in radiant silk letters on the tag. In the mild midday breezes it billowed as weightlessly as a frock on Brighton pier. His silk shirt from the same source had a yellowed, locker-room look recalling Wimbledon or Henley. His tan, though Tuscan, was as English as the famous cricketing tie which flew from him like a patriotic flag. Only his expression, to the very discerning, had that certain watchfulness, which also Mama Stefano the postmistress had noticed, and which the instinct describes as 'professional', and leaves at that. Sometimes, if he anticipated waiting, he carted the book-sack with him, which gave him a bumpkin air: Dick Whittington had come to town.