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The school had been struck by a mysterious stomach bug that had started with the boys and spread to the staff. Matron had done her best to keep the infection confined, but after the number of empty seats in class had grown alarming, Marjoribanks had succumbed, and Jim had had to pitch in to compensate for his absence. Thursgood could have helped, but he had insisted Jim should do it. That morning, Jim had yawned over his coffee in the staff room, and caught Thursgood's smug expression when he thought Jim wasn't looking. It had enraged him for a fraction of a second to think that Thursgood, that jumped-up little nobody, was delighting in making Jim dance to his tune; but the rage passed quickly, transformed into amusement. If Thursgood knew -- !
But he would never know.
The smugness vanished, replaced by the same look of suspicion Thursgood usually wore around Jim, and Thursgood looked for all the world as if he was going to ask Jim what was so damned funny, if Marjoribanks had not burst in to the staff room to a smattering of applause, and Jim had not immediately secured from him, in front of all the staff, a promise that he would take charge of his classes once more, as Jim had an urgent appointment in Taunton that afternoon. The disgruntled look on Thursgood's face kept Jim's spirits up all morning, and through the long walk to Taunton, where he had no appointment, urgent or otherwise.
There was a teashop in Taunton that Jim favoured because it had picture windows with no curtains or blackboards obscuring his view of the street, and a clear path through the gents' toilets to the alley behind. Although this made it superior to any of the other teashops or cafés in the town, it still had seats where visibility was poor, and so he did not always call into it when he had to make a trip.
On this afternoon it was crowded, which suited Jim very well, especially since despite the crowd his favourite table was free: a table in a corner close to the counter and the door leading to the toilets, with a clear view of the entire room and the street outside. Jim ordered tea and a scone and took out the Telegraph, letting himself get absorbed in the national news.
"Bloody unions," he muttered to himself, turning a page.
Someone sat down in the chair opposite his, without so much as a word. He lowered his paper to complain, and found the words knocked out of him as surely as if someone had thumped him on the back.
"Hello, Jim," said George Smiley. "Is the coffee here any good, do you know? Ah, but I see you're drinking tea."
The waitress passed the table, and Smiley caught her attention with a small gesture and ordered a pot of tea, his manner so polite and his smile so gracious that she seemed almost touched to be spoken to.
Jim found his voice. "What are you doing in this part of the world?" he said with the best imitation of casualness that he could muster.
"Oh," said Smiley, "nothing terribly important. It's nothing to do with the old firm, if that's what you're thinking."
"It had crossed my mind," said Jim drily.
"I've retired. Again," said Smiley. "They have no need of me now that the mess has been cleared up."
"You'd retired the last time you came to visit, too," said Jim. "It didn't seem to have slowed you down."
"Nevertheless," said Smiley, "this visit is purely personal."
Jim lowered his voice. "What kind of damned fool do you take me for? If it's personal, why didn't you come to the school? Why follow me here?"
Smiley blinked. "I did come to the school," he said. "Mr Thursgood told me you had left to attend an appointment in Taunton. I hoped I could catch you before you came back."
And of course, Smiley would have known as soon as he saw this place that Jim would prefer it to any of the others, with their crowded floors and obscured lines-of-sight. Jim tried to talk his heart into slowing down.
"Well," he said, "here I am."
The waitress arrived with Smiley's tea, and he thanked her and poured himself a cup. "Did it ever seem strange to you, that you and I were never friends?" he said. "Considering our shared work, and our mutual acquaintance."
One mutual acquaintance in particular, Jim thought but did not say. He studied Smiley's face for any sign of bitterness, and found none.
"Too different," he said instead. "Not really same work, anyhow. You've always been the brains, you and -- I'm brawn. Muscle. Not a juju man like you."
Smiley gave him a sharp look, and for the first time in years Jim remembered that it had been Bill who had taught him that phrase, had used it self-deprecatingly of himself when Jim had confessed himself baffled by some theory he had concocted. Oh, don't listen, he'd said, it's no more than the babbling of a juju man, really. And Jim had laughed, and Bill had smiled a delighted, triumphant smile, as if making Jim laugh was a rare and wonderful achievement of which he was uncommonly proud.
"You do yourself an injustice," Smiley said, adding sugar to his tea. "Though there is something in what you say. I should think there is rather a gap between us. Of sensibility, if nothing else."
"Exactly," said Jim. (He had started calling anyone he couldn't understand a "juju man" because it made Bill smile, put a soft fondness into his eyes, and it had become a habit, kept up long after it stopped having any effect on Bill.)
"That is what matters the most in personal relations, I think," said Smiley, taking a sip of his tea and grimacing slightly. "What was it George Orwell said?" (At this, Jim couldn't stop himself from scowling. Orwell? Was he going to start quoting Marx next?) "'One can be friends with a murderer or a sodomite, but not with a man whose breath stinks.' That is quite true, I find."
(Another man than Jim might have said Do you know many murderers or sodomites, then? Friendly types, are they? Another man than Smiley might have laughed.)
"Take Ann, for instance," Smiley went on. "Ann and I were thought to be a very odd match, when we married. Her family... well, she is Lady Ann, after all, and I am only Mr Smiley. Nonetheless, there was always, from the very start, a kind of affinity between us. That is more important than..."
Smiley broke off, frowning. He took off his glasses, picked up the end of his tie, and flipped it over, using the silk lining to wipe the lenses clean. With his glasses off, his face looked oddly naked, the eyes watery and vulnerable. It occurred to Jim that there was nothing holding him there. He could get up and walk out, leave the bill to Smiley.
Instead he folded his newspaper and set it aside. "More important than being faithful?" he said, knowing he was being rude and not caring.
Smiley put his glasses back on. "I think you know as well as I do," he said slowly, "that there are infidelities that can be forgiven."
Jim felt a clench in his throat. He swallowed it, took a sip of tea to cover the pause. "And some that can't."
"Quite so," said Smiley, nodding. "I have been fortunate, you might say, that so far Ann has done nothing to me that I could not forgive. I don't say this in self-praise. I am not so forgiving as all that. Not where other people are concerned. But we all make exceptions, I think. Ann is my exception, in more ways than one. 'The only illusion of an illusionless man', someone called her."
"Who?"
But Smiley's eyes had gone distant, and he went on as if he had not heard. "I wonder," he said, "how many people saw her that way -- or perhaps I mean: saw me that way. Everyone knew, you see. She was never discreet, never kept it a secret that she had affairs. The pity and the blasted knowing looks were almost worse than the betrayal."
Jim raised his eyebrows. "Past tense?"
Smiley looked at him, dipped his head in acknowledgement. "Perhaps not. Well, hope springs eternal. At present we are, shall we say, in a state of détente."
"Hope it lasts."
Smiley sighed. "Everyone says that, and no one believes it will. And yet no one ever tells me to get free of her, or asks me why I stay. I wonder why. Well, she is young, beautiful, well-bred. A catch. Admired by all. That must be part of it. And the rest is... something they see in me."
There was something in his voice that Jim had never heard in anyone's voice before, much less the voice of the stern, stony-faced George Smiley. It almost seemed indecent that he should be hearing it at all, and because he could not stop up his ears he turned his face away, to give Smiley the chance to pretend he had said nothing.
"I know why you did it," said Smiley quietly, and Jim felt the blood freezing in his veins.
(A clink of china. Smiley setting his cup down on the saucer. Slightly muffled; some of the tea must have spilled.)
"Perfectly understandable," Smiley added. "I felt the urge myself when I first realised. It passed, of course, but then he and I were not friends. At least, not in the way you and he were friends."
"Nobody -- " His voice was hoarse, no more than a croak. Jim cleared his throat and took a slow breath. His heart was racing. Calm down, he told himself. "Nobody ever asked me either. Why we were... Why I put up with him." He blinked. "Not that people knew. Guessed. Wondered, maybe. Didn't know." He closed his eyes. "Even now, I can't -- " Another slow breath. The words were caught in his throat; so many years of silence had left him barely able to speak.
He opened his eyes to see Smiley sipping his tea, his face blank -- to a casual observer; to Jim's eyes, there was a faint but clear warmth in his expression that gave Jim courage, loosened the knots in his chest.
"Don't sleep much, these days," he said. "Get trapped. In my mind. There's a question, like a damned fish-hook, and I can't answer it, so it stays stuck there, tearing at me."
Smiley set his cup down. "What question?" he said softly, and he leaned forward a little. Eager to hear it, Jim thought, as if he thought he could help. Damn fool notion.
Jim leaned forward all the same. So many ways he could phrase it, and not one of them would guarantee an answer he'd want to hear. "Was he lying all along? Even back then, before the war -- He tipped off Fanshawe. Was he -- Was I -- He lied to everyone at the Circus for years. Decades. Did he -- was any of it true?"
Did he ever love me? he wanted to say. Did he ever care for me at all?
He wasn't sure what answer would hurt the least.
He kept his eyes on Smiley, and saw the lines of his face rearrange themselves into an expression not much less blank than the one he'd worn before, yet communicating, to Jim's practised gaze, a deep and compassionate sorrow. Ann, Jim thought, with a jolt. He's thinking of Ann.
"It was all true, Jim," said Smiley, and the weariness in his voice settled on Jim's shoulders like a heavy blanket. "Above all else, Bill was good at what he did. It's poor tradecraft to concoct a lie when the truth will serve just as well. Think of Witchcraft. You couldn't fit a cigarette-paper between what Percy thought they were doing and what they were actually doing."
"A cigarette-paper." Jim clenched his jaw. He was finding it hard to breathe.
"And you could never fit a cigarette-paper between what Bill said and what he meant."
"It was enough."
"It was too much." Smiley shook his head. "All the same. He didn't come to see you after Testify."
"No."
"Why did you think that was?"
Jim felt his mind falter at the question. What could he say? I didn't think. I hoped. At first for a reunion; then for a goodbye. When it didn't come, I did my level best to put him from my mind. I didn't think about why. Bill always had reasons for everything he did. A long time ago, I got out of the habit of asking what those reasons were.
He shook his head. "I don't know."
Smiley took a sip of his tea. "I think he was hiding," he said. "I don't believe he would have been able to keep it from you any longer, after what happened in Czecho."
Jim considered this, digested it. "You think I would have seen through him?"
"I think..." Smiley frowned. "I think no matter what else he betrayed, there was a part of him that always remained loyal to you. I think he didn't want to risk discovering that he still had a sense of shame."
Jim thought of Bill's face at the end, before he made the final blow. The cigarette in his hand, trembling slightly. The pallor of his skin under the Sarratt floodlights.
"You won't be called on again," said Smiley. "Not, I fear, out of compassion, which is a quality the Circus does not rate very highly. The whole affair is an embarrassment, and you will be kept out of sight in the hope that you might stay out of mind." He sipped his tea, and checked his watch. "My, how time catches up on one. I must have taken longer to travel to Taunton than I thought." With absent, slightly clumsy movements, he took out his wallet, counted out money. A little more than was needed to pay for the tea. "Good luck," he said, rising to go. "I dare say I shan't see you again."
"Goodbye, then," said Jim, not raising his eyes to watch Smiley leave.