There’s a glimmer here of something hopeful, a zip of optimism, but the stubbornness in me won’t grasp it.
‘If you could have just met some of the people I did the entrance exams with. To think that they could have got the job and not me. There was this one Cambridge guy. Sam Ogilvy. Smooth, rich, vacuous. I bet they took him.’
‘What does it matter if they did? You jealous or something?’
‘No. No, I’m not. He was…he was…’ How to describe Ogilvy to Saul? In an uncomfortable way, they reminded me of each other. ‘What did that man on TV call Tony Blair? “A walking Autocue in a sensible suit.” That’s exactly what this guy was like. In order to get anywhere these days we have to be like Sam Ogilvy. An ideas-free zone. A platitude in patent leather shoes. That’s what employers are looking for. Coachloads of Tony Blairs.’
There is a message from Hawkes on my answering machine when I get home at eight fifteen. Were it not for the fact that I have had four vodkas, I might be more surprised to hear from him.
‘Alec. It’s Michael. I’m coming to London tomorrow and I suggest we get together for lunch. Have a chat about things. Give me a ring in the country.’
His voice sounds stern. He leaves a contact number and I say, ‘Yeah, whatever,’ to the machine, but out of inquisitiveness scribble it down on a pad.
For dinner I microwave some pasta and watch television for an hour, unable to concentrate on much beyond the shock of SIS. The rejection begins to act like heartbreak. Just when I think I’ve found some respite, after six hours of soul-searching and self-pity, something triggers the pain again–a memory of Stevenson, of Rouse standing firm in the window. So many ideas and plans, so many secret aspirations that will now remain untested. I was absolutely prepared to live my life as a shadow of who I really am. Surely they saw that? Surely there was something I could have done for them? I cannot understand why I have been discarded with such speed and ruthlessness. It makes no sense. To be left with this shaming feeling, the grim realization that there is nothing that marks me out from the crowd.
At around nine, after finishing a half-empty bottle of wine in the fridge, I go out to the corner shop and buy a four-pack of Stella. By the time I have finished the first can, I have written this in longhand:
Alec Milius
111E Uxbridge Road
London W12 8NL
15 August 1995
Patrick Liddiard
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
No. 46A———Terrace
London SW1
Dear Mr Liddiard:
Further to our conversation on the telephone this morning, there are one or two points I would like to raise in relation to my failed application to join the Secret Intelligence Service.
It concerns me that your department is in possession of a file that contains detailed information about me, ranging across my background and education, with further confidential material about my professional and personal life.
Could you please confirm by return of post that this file has been destroyed?
Yours sincerely,
Alec Milius
I read it back a couple of times and extract ‘by return of post,’ which doesn’t sound right. Then, with the letter stamped, addressed, and in my pocket, I lock up the flat and head for a bar in Goldhawk Road.
TEN
Meaning
I am woken at nine forty-five by the noise of the telephone, the sound of it moving toward me out of a deep sleep, growing louder, more substantial, incessant. At first I turn over in bed, determined to let it ring out, but the answering machine is switched off and the caller won’t relent. I throw back the duvet and stand up.
It is as if one part of my brain lurches from the right side of my head to the left. I almost fall to the floor with the pain of it. And the phone keeps on ringing. Naked, stumbling across the hall, I reach the receiver.
‘Hello?’
‘Alec?’
It’s Hawkes. With the sound of his voice I immediately reexperience the stab of my failure at SIS, the numb regret and the shame.
‘Michael. Yes.’
‘Did I wake you?’
‘No. I was just listening to the radio. Didn’t hear it ring.’
‘My apologies.’
‘It’s fine.’
‘Can you meet me for lunch?’
The thought of gathering myself together sufficiently to spend two or three hours with Hawkes feels impossible with such a hangover. But there is a temptation here, a sense of unfinished business. I spot his telephone number scribbled on the pad beside the phone.
We haven’t exhausted every avenue. There are alternatives.
‘Sure. Where would you like to meet?’
He gives me an address in Kensington and hangs up.
There had better be something in this. I don’t want to waste my time listening to Hawkes tell me where I went wrong, saying over and over again how sorry he is. I’d rather he just left me alone.
He cooks lunch for the two of us in the kitchen of a small flat on Kensington Court Place, beef Stroganoff and rice that is still crunchy, with a few tired beans on the side. Never been married, and he still can’t cook. There is an open bottle of Chianti, but I stick to mineral water as the last of my hangover fades.
We barely discuss either SIS or Sisby. His exact words are, ‘Let’s put that behind us. Think of it as history,’ and instead the subjects are wide-ranging and unconnected, with Hawkes doing most of the talking. I have to remind myself continually that this is only the second occasion on which we have met. It is strange once again to encounter the man who has shaped the course of my life these last few months. There is something capricious about his face. I had forgotten how thin it is, drawn out like an addict’s. He is still wearing a frayed shirt and a haphazard cravat, still the same pair of velvet loafers embroidered on the toe with a coat of arms. How odd that a person who has given his life to secrecy and concealment should be so willing to stand out from the crowd.
Afterward, scraping creamy leftovers of rice into a garbage bin, he says, ‘I often like to go for a walk after lunch. Do you have time?’
And largely because there has not yet been any talk of improving my situation, I agree to go.
Hyde Park is buzzing with rollerbladers and a warm wind is blowing north to south across the grass. I have a desire for good, strong coffee, a double espresso to give me a lift after lunch. My energy feels sapped by the exercise.
We have been talking about Mum when Hawkes says, ‘You remind me very much of your father. Not just in the way you look–he always seemed about twenty-one, never appeared to age–but in manner. In approach.’
‘You’d lost touch? You said when we met…’
‘Yes. Work took me away. It’s what happens in the Office, I’m afraid.’
I don’t feel like asking a lot of questions about Dad. I’d rather Hawkes brought up another subject. As we are passing the Albert Memorial he says, ‘I admired his tenacity tremendously. He was entrepreneurial almost before the word had been invented. Always working on a plan, a scheme for making money. Not a fast buck. Not to cheat anyone. But he loved working, he was ambitious. He wanted to make the best of himself.’
And this intrigues me. I remember Dad more as an absence, always away on business, and never wanting to talk about work when he