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Hillary opened the door, which was always stiff when it rained. The late September afternoon was grey, and sere, in the yard the barking of dogs and the clucking of chickens could be heard faintly.
Hillary found a slight dislike rising in herself, as she met George Smiley's gaze. Defensively Hillary said, "She's not well, I don't want to, tangle her in your nets, we're both well out of it."
Hillary's heart ached, as Connie's attention, as always, was fixed on George Smiley, as if the man were the center of the universe, as he had been along with Control and the others in the Circus.
Brusquely Connie, waving her fingers in her fingerless gloves in Hillary's direction, as she made her order, to go away, to see those animals, their animals, their shared life, without the shadows of the past, but as usual with Connie the past was always present, as she had been and still partly was Mother Russia, as it had been whispered in the corridors of the Circus. Her memory, her wealth of knowledge, which was again mercilessly exploited by George Smiley, was mined, like a miser after a hoard of precious gold.
The room was tense as Hillary returned. Connie's gaze was bright and sharp. The firelight fell on the amber liquid in the narrow glass, and on the half-full bottle on the side table.
George Smiley sat across from Connie, her beloved Connie, mercilessly.
Automatically Hillary went to Connie's side, wanting to give her loving support.
George Smiley's gaze was full of unyielding steely will, as he remarked in his quiet, modest way, "Remember Connie, go to the bone, the rest is just dead wood, as far as Karla is concerned."
The fire crackled in the fireplace, as Connie said slowly, dreamily, but at the same time sharply, "He had a girl for whom he did everything, or so the whispers said, a bit like Ann for you, George."
A slight shiver passed over George Smiley's face, or maybe it was just a shadow.
Hillary felt Connie's twisted fingers slowly touch her shoulder, as Connie declared, "Love."
George's voice became quietly commanding as he turned his attention to Hillary, "Forget everything you may have heard, you don't want to break the contract you wrote when you walked in the Circus."
As the door closed behind George Smiley, Hillary felt Connie's shoulders were trembling with suppressed sobs. And as always Hillary squeezed those twisted fingers, and said, aiming for lightness, "You shouldn't drink my dearest."
Connie's profile was in the shadows, her breathing labored, Hillary heard the liquid sloshing in her lungs as she murmured, "I'm one foot in the grave, if whiskey helps, as my darling George knows, half a bottle won't kill me."
Hillary rose, pressed a kiss to Connie's messy curls, as she walked to the gramophone, which was in the middle of the mess, piles of books, half-eaten plates, medicine bottles, and put the record on.
Galina Vishnevskaya's dark, bright silver voice pulsed through the room, as the notes of Tchaikovsky's romance filled the silence.
The crunch of the dogs' claws on the carpets was pleasant, as the music played, Connie noted with a sly twinkle, "We are all just blades of grass, and we will be cut sooner or later."
Hillary poured a glass of whiskey, and held it out with a steady hand, slowly, so very slowly Connie's hands clenched around the glass.
Outside, the tatter rain began to fall and it drummed on the messy leaf streamed lawn, like tears that Hillary could not, could not shed. With loving care she put the shawl better, on Connie, as she did so, she hoped, with a frevent burning desire, that George Smiley had gotten from Connie what he had wanted, that at last they could just be at peace, in the time they had left.