Spies by Michael Frayn

Author:Michael Frayn [Michael Frayn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571249206
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Published: 2011-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Close, as I come running blindly round the corner, is full of wildly swinging torch beams and demented figures running back and forth. The torches swing at once towards me and stab at my eyes. A storm of frantic clutching and whispering bursts over me.

‘Where have you been …? What in heaven’s name do you think you’re doing …? Have you gone out of your mind …? We were going to call the police …! Do you know what time it is …?’

The streetful of frenzied figures resolves itself into my two parents in their dressing gowns, hustling me towards our front door, still trying to keep their voices down so as not to wake the neighbours. Geoff watches sardonically from the doorstep. I suppose it’s Geoff who told on me.

As soon as the front door closes behind us, they’re free to raise their voices at last, and when my father turns on the lights a fresh subject for consternation appears. ‘You’re soaking wet!’ cries my mother. ‘You’re wet from head to foot!’

It’s true; I seem to have run straight through the water in the tunnel and fallen headlong.

My mother tears the wet clothes off me, as if I were three years old again.

‘Jesus wept,’ says Geoff. ‘What were you hunting this time? U-boats?’

‘Oh, this was some tomfoolery with Keith, was it?’ shouts my father. I’ve never seen him in this state before.

‘Keith?’ cries my mother. ‘Keith’s not running around out there as well, is he?’

I say nothing. My teeth have started to chatter again.

‘Is he?’ demands my father. ‘Have I got to go knocking on his door to check he’s home?’

At this transcendentally awful prospect I change my policy and shake my head.

‘You’re sure?’ says my mother. ‘You’re sure you didn’t get Keith into this kind of state as well? Because if you did I don’t know what his mother will be thinking!’

Once again I shake my head. Does she really think that I’m the one who gets Keith into states, and not the other way round? How has Keith managed to fool both our mothers so completely?

‘So what were you up to?’ demands my father. ‘If you wouldn’t think it impertinent of me to enquire …’

But here I revert to total uncommunicativeness. Am I deliberately refusing to speak about things that I know must never be revealed to outsiders? Or am I simply too shocked to open my mouth? All I can think, as I stand there naked and shivering, mute and infantile, is one single despairing thought: that I could have turned round and seen who it was. I could have turned. I could have seen him. I’ve failed yet again.

There’s something still clutched in my hand, I discover, as my mother throws a towel round me and rubs me violently dry – the ridged and furrowed thing that I took hold of in the box just before I heard him coming. I examine it at last, and it’s exactly what I thought it was. It’s

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