Call For The Dead by John Le Carré

Author:John Le Carré
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-02-24T16:00:00+00:00

11. The Unrespectable Club

Mendel found Smiley sitting in an armchair fully dressed. Peter Guillam was stretched luxuriously on the bed, a pale green folder held casually in his hand. Outside, the sky was black and menacing.

‘Enter the third murderer,’ said Guillam as Mendel walked in. Mendel sat down at the end of the bed and nodded happily to Smiley, who looked pale and depressed.

‘Congratulations. Nice to see you on your feet.’

‘Thank you. I’m afraid if you did see me on my feet you wouldn’t congratulate me. I feel as weak as a kitten.’

‘When are they letting you go?’

‘I don’t know when they expect me to go—’

‘Haven’t you asked?’

‘No.’

‘Well, you’d better. I’ve got news for you. I don’t know what it means but it means something.’

‘Well, well,’ said Guillam; ‘everyone’s got news for everyone else. Isn’t that exciting. George has been looking at my family snaps’—he raised the green folder a fraction of an inch—‘and recognizes all his old chums.’

Mendel felt baffled and rather left out of things. Smiley intervened: ‘I’ll tell you all about it over dinner tomorrow evening. I’m getting out of here in the morning, whatever they say. I think we’ve found the murderer and a lot more besides. Now let’s have your news.’ There was no triumph in his eyes. Only anxiety.

Membership of the club to which Smiley belonged is not quoted among the respectable acquisitions of those who adorn the pages of Who’s Who. It was formed by a young renegade of the Junior Carlton named Steed-Asprey, who had been warned off by the Secretary for blaspheming within the hearing of a South African bishop. He persuaded his former Oxford landlady to leave her quiet house in Hollywell and take over two rooms and a cellar in Manchester Square which a monied relative put at his disposal. It had once had forty members who each paid fifty guineas a year. There were thirty-one left. There were no women and no rules, no secretary and no bishops. You could take sandwiches and buy a bottle of beer, you could take sandwiches and buy nothing at all. As long as you were reasonably sober and minded your own business, no one gave twopence what you wore, did or said, or whom you brought with you. Mrs Sturgeon no longer devilled at the bar, or brought you your chop in front of the fire in the cellar, but presided in genial comfort over the ministrations of two retired sergeants from a small border regiment.

Naturally enough, most of the members were approximate contemporaries of Smiley at Oxford. It had always been agreed that the club was to serve one generation only, that it would grow old and die with its members. The war had taken its toll of Jebedee and others, but no one had ever suggested they should elect new members. Besides, the premises were now their own, Mrs Sturgeon’s future had been taken care of and the club was solvent.

It was a Saturday evening and only half a dozen people were there.

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