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‘For example, you arrive at this place. But in one of the possible pasts you are my enemy, in another, my friend.’ ---Labyrinth
It started small, and for its smallness Jim felt obliged to repress. The war was murky enough as it was; shades of grey, no one knew where the lines were, no bang bangs.
He just returned from his latest tour of Europe, slipping back into English like a favourite sweater. Control wanted a debriefing straight away, so Jim dragged himself in from Sarratt, unwashed and unshaven.
An hour later, he shuffled out of Control’s office, feeling more drained than ever before---an usual side-effect from being under the old fox’s scrutiny. Blinking as the lift came to a halt, Jim found himself face to face with none other than Bill, all six foot something of him, a pleased flush sitting high on those cheek bones.
‘Jim! Old boy.’ the clap on the shoulder lingered as the lift door creaked shut again. ‘You look dreadful I say. All that exotic cuisine not agreeing with you?’
Jim let his own face relax into the first real smile in weeks, if not months. ‘I’ve learned to digest all manner of things, but tea and biscuit with Control might just have done me in.’
Bill guffawed, a full belly laugh that made Jim’s shoulders sag against the steel; he was alive, he was home, and he’s got a decent night’s conversation to look forward to, at thankfully last.
‘Well my friend, go get some rest. We’ll catch up some other time. You must tell me everything, all the sordid details of your expedition, I insist.’ Another firm squeeze on the arm and Bill was off, coat tails flapping like gull wings.
Jim frowned. They’d always meet up on the same day either of them returned from an operation: to have supper, or just winding down with a spot of whiskey. The point was, it’s been an unspoken tradition. No snow, no rain, no work, no conquest stood in the way of their private, and often regrettably brief reunion.
Until now.
Later, he casually wondered out aloud if Bill had been given some urgent mission. Alleline, eager to demonstrate his closeness to the top, firmly rejected the idea.
‘We’ve all been twiddling our thumbs up here. The fifth floor is getting as idle as the mothers.’
That was the first soap stud of doubt, crumbling just as quickly as it came.
What blindsided him wasn’t simply devotion or trust. But perhaps, most importantly, the sheer arrogance that he of all people knew Bill; every crook and turn of his brilliant and flawed mind.
None of them had the right to utter that sacred verb, he realized that now.
The pub they’d agreed to meet at was like any other; dim, smoky, a handful of patrons had their heads hanging low, conversing in quiet tones. Jim grabbed the usual for them, settling himself down facing the door. A record was revolving endlessly on its turntable, soft and tinny.
Jim wasn’t keeping track of time, shoulder-deep in his own thoughts. He didn’t miss the fact that by the time Bill showed up---scarf thrown halfway around his neck---the ice in his tumbler had all melted.
Bill hated being made to wait, and rarely subjected his friends to the same fate. Jim raised an eyebrow, part teasing and part baffled. Bill apologized half a dozen times and bought drinks for the rest of the evening.
When they eventually staggered out, Bill was leaning heavily against him; not Christmas party drunk but animated, jumping from language to language as he searched for some perfect expression, Jim could hardly keep up with him.
They came to a sudden stop in front of a tailor’s; Bill pressed one hand to the shop window and refused to budge, swaying slightly on his feet. Jim stood where he was, bewildered, as Bill peered intently at the display.
‘Do you ever get the feeling that---’ the trilby threw a splash of shadow across his nose, slicing that familiar profile in half, ‘---you just have to go out, and find something new, or the world will die on you?’
Trust Bill to bring a theatrical flair to even the most mundane evenings.
Jim thought about it for a moment, tilting his face up towards the streetlight. ‘No, I’m not the thrill seeking type.’
Bill snorted. ‘Says the veteran traveler.’
‘Most of my adventures were thrust upon me.’ Jim corrected, curling a hand around his elbow, tugging him upright.
Bill’s one visible eye caught the yellow light, fixed at somewhere beyond Jim’s left shoulder. A sudden shiver ran down Jim’s spine, he tightened his grip. ‘Come on, you can philosophize all you want in the comfort of your living room.’
Bill let himself be guided into a taxi, his warm weight slipping out of Jim’s arms easily enough.
Jim wasn’t privy to the comings and goings on the top floor; he was a worker bee, having scraps of information thrown his way on a need-to-know basis. More often than not, he’d be called into action on a short notice, dropping off the grid for months at a time.
His last operation in the Zone¹, which should have been relatively straightforward, turned sour right at the end. After months of needling, the target changed his mind and had to be silenced before he grew an untimely conscience. Wet jobs were never pleasant, planned or not. Even less so when you were using a non-official cover; Jim didn’t get to play the diplomat very often---he was the journalist, the refugee who sneaked in and out of countries unseen.
It was three agonizing weeks of hide-and-seek, crawling back home using the soft route: Rhine barges, trains, shuttle buses. By the time he reached Bill’s front door he’d lost at least ten pound, and the shadows beneath his eyes were more permanent bruises.
Bill took one look at him and promptly got rid of the youth lounging on his sofa.
That night, they shared Bill’s ridiculously cushiony bed, covers pulled up to their chins---another tradition from their college years, holidays spent in each other’s company, not even bothering with guest bedrooms.
Conversation had been sparse during dinner; neither of them had felt the need for small talk. And now, now they were content to blink sluggishly at each other, all the rattling noises inside their heads gone quiet for once.
Bill squinted in the dark, brows bunching up.
‘Problems with your eyesight already, grandpa?’ Jim chuckled.
Bill huffed out a breath. ‘I thought the promotion would spare you those impromptu trips at last.’
‘I’m still a foot soldier.’ Jim shrugged. ‘And honestly? I prefer it this way. Word games bore me stiff.’
‘I know.’
For a split second Jim thought he looked darker, older, his tone more resigned than indulgent. Then the shadows receded, it was Bill Haydon gazing back again, eyes crinkling like the universe existed for his own amusement.
There were rumours about them, Jim knew they were. The great Haydon-Prideaux partnership, running deeper than you might think, people whispered. Most of which were false. It was true that their friendship began long before the war, a great deal longer than half the marriages within the Circus. And anything that lasted was a source of suspicion in their world. At every interview, from officer vetting to Special Operations Executive, this topic has been brought up, one way or another. Central Registry could probably quote the timeline down to the exact hour.
Spies, more than anyone else, held on to love (or its allusion) with a perverse fascination.
Then there was that damned painting.
It was something he bumped into while wandering around Bill’s study. Bill was in the kitchen making a symphony of noises, back to his old clumsy self when he wasn’t being Sir Haydon.
Jim lifted the cloth covering the easel as he waited, more out of boredom than curiosity.
He was familiar with Bill’s works, of course; from sketches to life-scale paintings. He knew Bill had a particular affinity for blues and greens, how the medium usually reflected his mood---watercolour was self-indulgent, oil for when he needed a distraction.
This, this was something else entirely, a war: reds in every shade imaginable, twisting and writhing on the canvas, tearing into each other. It was a wonder that the fabric didn’t rip from the sheer force of the brushstrokes.
A tap on the shoulder made him jump; Jim swirled around to meet Bill’s eyes, heart pounding.
‘You were miles away.’ The corner of Bill’s mouth twitched, handing him a steaming mug. ‘Very unbecoming of the famous Jim Prideaux.’
Jim shifted the mug around just to give his hands something to do. ‘Seems like I still haven’t developed a taste for art.’
‘It’s hardly art, just a game of sorts.’
A month later, the network in Morocco was blown sky high. Rounded up one by one like a flock of sheep. The shepherd, Peter Guillam, escaped by the skin of his teeth.
Between operations and his exile to Brixton (a welcome one, but an exile nonetheless), Jim only learned about Morocco after the whole mess had died down.
They’d never worked together, but he’d heard about Guillam; a chivalrous fellow, charming but never to the point of outrageous, the slow burning intensity of a natural agent runner.
Now young Peter was back to where he started three years ago, without a single agent worth a farthing. For the time being he was put on a shelf in Banking, which was one step away from a teaching post in Kent.
Still, they’d spared him months of evaluation, a rare act of mercy. Words had it that Haydon let slip his indignation when the Sarratt lot were rubbing their hands in glee.
Hasn’t the poor chap suffered enough already? Last time I saw him, he was crab-walking with his back against a wall.
That put a swift end to the investigation.
Jim was somewhat surprised; Peter was Smiley’s man, so to speak. And beneath their civil veneer, Bill and Smiley never saw eye to eye.
‘I wasn’t trying to recruit him into my club, if that’s what you’re wondering.’ Bill smirked, pale toes wriggling on the rug.
‘Then why?’
‘I like him well enough.’ Jim waited for him to continue. ‘Besides, he reminds me of me.’
‘How so?’
‘Idealistic.’ Bill raised his glass in a perfunctory salute. ‘But, he retained that quality a hell lot longer than I did.’
Jim drained his own drink in one gulp, wincing at the burn.
He bumped into Peter a few times after that; exchanging words with Bill in the corridor, or smoking in each other’s offices. Nothing that would warrant too many raised eyebrows (because that was the height of excitement in their clandestine lives, whispered speculations of who said what to whom the day before).
It took some effort to keep a neutral expression, however, when Jim found Peter pulling on a coat in Bill’s foyer.
They said a hasty hello and squeezed past each other in the narrow hallway, their mirrored movements precise, and Jim suspected, vaguely comical.
Bill’s hair was standing up in all directions. He kept his back turned as Jim paused by the doorway, picking up the morning paper then putting it down again.
‘There are plenty of others, both in and out of the Circus.’ Jim kept his tone light.
‘He was particularly upset last night.’ Bill still didn’t turn around.
In their line of work, the sharing of burdens was a very short step to the bed. Jim appreciated that. ‘Well, I don’t suppose George---’
Something dropped into the sink with a clutter.
‘Think, Jim, Think!’ Bill didn’t raise his voice, but irritation bled through every syllable. ‘Smiley is the last person he wants to talk to. And I don’t just mean about last night.’
‘I’m merely concerned, on your behalf.’
‘Sorry, I was…’ Bill left the sentence hanging, rubbing a hand across his face. Jim waved the apology off.
‘You were saying?’
‘Smiley has been distancing himself for a while.’ Bill slumped down into the couch. ‘A wise move. He can’t afford to have his name dragged into the Morocco business. It’s bad enough that people know Peter as his protégé.’
They lapsed into silence. Jim ran the tip of his tongue over the right molar, a habit he was yet to shake off. Bill’s eyes slid shut, index finger tapping out a jerky beat on the arm rest.
At length, Jim sighed. ‘Sometimes I miss the war.’
Bill’s head snapped up at that, eyes narrowing.
‘We were fighting the Germans, end of story. Now it’s the Russians, the Cousins², the fifth floor against the Whitehall. Chaos, absolute chaos.’
‘Just some minor details they left out at our recruitment, huh?’ Bill smiled wryly.
‘Speak for yourself. I didn’t get much of a sales pitch at all. Apparently someone else put my name on the dotted line and that was that.’
Bill closed one eye, feigning uncertainty. ‘My memories could be failing, but I seem to remember there was a lot of, convincing involved.’
Both men burst out laughing, tears leaking from the corners of their eyes.
No one in the Circus has ever had the guts to just ask, point blank: were you lovers?
If they did, Jim might have handed them the gold on a platter---briefly, yes.
They were children. Everyone knew children were freaks, they’d try anything. Even though most friends didn’t occasionally slip their sleep-hot hands into each other’s boxers. He remembered Bill telling him it was just like kissing a girl, except you had to mentally decide who was going to do the head tilt.
Bill did, Jim stared woodenly at his left earlobe the whole time.
It hadn’t felt like a big deal back in Oxford, then it just stopped, a phase they grew out of. It didn’t change anything between them.
The Inseparables, as Connie so helpfully pointed out.
Christmas parties were the same loud, obnoxious affair every year; alcohol free flowing and music on full blast, cheap decorations hanging off the ceilings. It was like a switch being flipped, for one night of the year they’d drop the suit-and-brolly act, and let their real faces emerge. If only the Russians could see them now, poster children for the Moral Decline in the West. One time even the police were brought in because the noise got too damn much. The Competition³ must have laughed themselves silly all the way into January.
Jim talked and mingled with polite interest, studiously hanging onto his almost empty glass. Brixton had hosted their own party three days ago, and his liver was still recovering.
Bill, on the other hand, was a whirlwind whipping from one table to the next, dispensing jokes and backslaps like they were going out of style. Every now and then he’d seek Jim out, flashing a grin like they just shared some private joke.
Control was twirling Connie around the room, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. The wind of the waltz made the tips of his silver hair flutter. His sunken eyes looked askance, as was the case with all reluctant dancers. They described a circle around Smiley, who threw in a clumsy little step-shuffle of his own. Toby was dancing with two ladies at once, his monstrosity of a shirt (blue eaten up by silver paisley) no less eye-stabbing among all the festive getups. Smiley’s wife was here too, dark hair cascading down the back of her red dress, drawing all eyes wherever she went.
One happy, dysfunctional, co-dependent family. Fitting, it would seem, in this hellscape where house plants had ears and fountain pens killed.
The guests started to thin out in batches after midnight; the retired librarians and janitors left first, then the mothers in a flurry of heels and curls, until eventually there were only the old-timers left, staring into their glasses with a perpetual frown. Jim stood up, meaning to say goodbye to Bill before he’d head off.
He did a full sweep of the room and the corridors, no sign of Bill. Probably too busy hiking some pretty young thing’s skirt up, Jim mused to himself. As a last attempt, he poked his head through the double doors leading to the back garden.
There were rustling noises coming out of several shaded spots. Jim ignored them; all too familiar with the fleeting romances around this time of the year. Until a flash of red caught his eye---Jim did a double take, picking out the distinctly expensive cut of Lady Ann’s dress.
And the hands anchoring her around the waist.
Jim hastily retreated, picking his way back as silently as possible. Even though the whole building must have heard the drums in his chest.
He emptied the nearest punch bowl into a glass, swallowing half of it in one go.
How typically Bill, Jim tipped back another mouthful, wincing; always ravenous for the exotic.
His racing thoughts were interrupted by a clank from the other end of the hall. A familiar bespectacled figure paused by the entrace, back hunched. The expression on Smiley’s face was so perfectly blank he might as well not had a face at all, just an obsolete collection of wrinkles.
With a sickening empathy, Jim looked away, unable to bear witness to such private heartbreak.
It could have been ten minutes or an eternity before Bill wandered back in, not a hair out of place. A numbing sense of jamais vu crept over Jim; he was gazing upon the face of a stranger, while frantically searching for some sawdust of recognition.
Bill, sensing eyes on him, turned and waved.
Jim has been on the receiving end of countless smiles from Bill: delighted, puzzled, bashful, gloating, and once or twice, flirtatious.
This was the one that replayed in his head, again and again, for a long time to come: starting from the corners of Bill's mouth, a conscious warmth that came and went all at once.
It was the beginning of the end.
Control had as many faces as his secrets. Jim’s last impression of him was an old man, lit up from the inside by his own delirium. A skeleton trapped in a crooked house, playing with chess pieces and dusty paper clippings.
A man running out of time, and friends.
Jim left the cramped flat in a daze, lungs leaden with smoke. Around the corner, the hum of a milk float drew closer. London was waking up.
One could question a lot of things about Bill Haydon: his methods, his goals, his values. But one thing Jim never doubted was his love for England; a faith that bordered on chauvinism from time to time.
Ultimately, that was what Jim placed his bets on, as much as anything else.
He got to Bill’s house a littler after 8. In ten hours’ time he would board a plane to Paris, kitted with less than half a story he wrestled out of Control.
‘Where to this time?’ Bill took his coat and hung it up.
‘Budapest.’
Jim remembered their conversation that night in bits and pieces. His narrative jerky, hardly making any sense. Bill didn’t comment much on the whole hypothesis, only seemed to find his codename entertaining.
‘Tailor? Surely that should be Toby instead.’
Jim croaked out a laugh, mind elsewhere.
Before he left, Bill put a hand to his shoulder, thumb grazing the bare skin above Jim’s collar. They were standing toe to toe in the foyer, cocooned by the shadows. Bill’s voice soft, so soft, as if worried they might be overheard.
‘Stay safe, Jim.’
Jim patted his elbow, offering reassurance he didn’t feel. ‘You too.’
They did say that by tradition, death sentences were announced in a whisper.
He kept waiting for the inquisitors to order his execution; just like what had happened to that poor nameless woman. Kept waiting for them to get fed up with him, after all he was only parroting what they’d already known.
Some days he wished they did.
Draw a line, that was what Esterhase said. Forget about tinker tailor, forget about Control, the Circus. You are a lucky man Jim; you get to live a new life.
And for a while, he did, out of sheer obstinacy to survive, perhaps, which was something far more durable than courage.
Jim busied himself with the most mundane tasks: fixing the caravan so it wouldn’t wobble every time he moved, meticulously marking every half-hearted essay, chopping up vegetables into smaller and smaller chunks for stew. The two mile run in the evenings kept him fit, and too exhausted to do anything but sleep when his head hit the pillow.
The chubby kid who approached him on the first day stuck around, too, adding a flickering shadow to the tin walls. Jim accepted his tokens of friendship with a hallowing sense of dread: a marble, a piece of woodwork, a clay figure. It was exactly what he’d done when his grandpa was wasting away in a hospital bed, brittle and mute.
He wondered if the kid could smell death snapping at his heels.
Jim decided to call his new friend Jumbo, because the name Bill, like everything else, belonged to the other side of the Line.
It was Smiley who brought him the letter, sealed in a brown envelope. Jim barely registered taking it, his ears ringing.
‘Have you read it?’
‘No.’ Smiley looked faintly surprised. That was when Jim knew: the operation was well and truly over. Bill had no more use to either side now, whatever he had to say were just words; written down, thrown away, forgotten.
He read it several times, until a persistent pain in his knee made him let out a hiss. Jim looked down and realized he’d been pinching himself.
He went for a long walk afterwards, across the empty cricket fields, up the brown combes, wet boots squeaking. He was shivering, icy rain pouring down the back of his neck, the mackintosh became completely useless before long. But he kept going, one foot in front of the other. Needed some air anyway.
The headmaster ate up his story about an ill mother without a hitch, frowning that Jim was dripping all over the carpet. No one stopped to question how he received the message in the first place.
The security measure at Sarratt was dire. Jim watched it for two days. The perimeter wasn’t even patrolled anymore, either by day or night. Bill hardly left the hut, the guards brought him change of clothes and food, plus cigarettes bought from the local shop.
It was kid’s play.
The shopkeeper was puzzled but did as he was told, swapping a normal pack for the one Jim provided. Promising to sell it specifically to the guy with a scarred face.
Jim had learnt you could hide a lot in a cigarette pack: a map, rolls of negatives, even weapons. His had a simple note tucked in between the two sheets of foil.
A time and a place.
It had always worked before, there was no use thinking it would go unnoticed this time.
Jim got to the little clearing deep in the woods like he promised, just after 11. Moon up in the sky about a week past new. Everything was navy and tar-black and soft, rustling shadows.
Snow was in those clouds; Jim could smell it, the bite of sharpness.
He spotted the hunched over silhouette, smoke curling off its side.
Jim froze, that damned shoulder playing up again, shooting tendrils of pain along his ribcage.
He thought he knew why he’d agreed. Thought he’d scrutinized his own reasons enough to know how many ticks there were in each column. But now, nothing, a metaphorical bucket with its bottom kicked out.
Bill ground out the cigarette with the tip of his shoe. ‘I was beginning to think you weren’t going to come.’
Jim stepped closer, eyes lingering on the wrinkled collar of Bill’s nightshirt. ‘I've lost count of how many times I changed my mind.’
Bill’s fingers twitched. ‘So what made you finally decide?’
‘You got me out, in the end.’ Jim dug his fingernails into sweaty palms, the shaking didn’t ease.
He wanted to say I would like to think we’d been friends longer than we’d been… whatever we were now. But a thousand other things were bubbling up, crowding in, even though he was determined that their last conversation wouldn’t dwell on the useless whys and hows.
‘Jim.’ Bill inhaled, a muscled jumped in his cheek. ‘I am a deeply selfish man, I’m fully aware of that. And I only ask this of you because—’ he opened and closed his mouth several times, no sound came out.
Jim felt his jaw grew tense. Bill was supposed to be the quick one, the polemicist.
‘Do it out of vengeance.’ Bill took a step forward, pale eyes eerily colorless. ‘Or pity, or love. But for god’s sake Jim, just do it.’
And live with it for the rest of my life. Waking up with the knowledge every morning, go to bed with these words every night. Jim huffed out a humourless laugh, tasting cold iron on his tongue. ‘You’ve always had a knack for getting exactly what you want.’
Bill held his gaze, unflinching. There was a small cut on his temple, gun barrel, no doubt. The writings on that crumpled piece of paper came rushing back:
Let it end here, Jim. Not ten years down the line, cut off from the world.
Jim closed the gap between them, his forehead to Bill’s shoulder. Knees buckling as if all his bones have escaped from this body, running in a straight line for stage left.
I need you, he thought, soundlessly laughter straining to climb out of his throat. I need you for one moment, just one little moment. I need you because I’m not ready to do what I’ve already done.
They stood there, motionless. Jim’s left hand holding on to Bill’s right, gripping tight enough to bruise.
He felt Bill jerk against him, once.
Startled wings fluttered past overhead.