Walking with Ghosts

the Press offices. ‘If you hang on for a minute I’ll get you photocopies of the file. Then you’ll know as little as the rest of us.’
     

19
     
    Billy is asleep when Smiley comes. Diana is ready for bed, she has washed and brushed her hair. The hem of her white nightie is showing beneath her dressing-gown. She takes him by the hand and shows him the table which she has helped you to set. She points to the candles and explains that they are not to be lit until the meal is served.
    They sit on either side of the fireplace, their faces lit by the flames as you baste the lamb one last time. Diana has discovered a face of utter serenity. She sits with her hands clasped together in her lap, her wondering eyes drinking in the potent sweetness of this god who has descended on her house.
    ‘Billy’s in bed,’ she tells him. ‘He’s too young to stay up.’ Smiley shrugs his shoulders, shifts uncomfortably in the chair. He has nothing to say to her. He tugs at his cravat and looks at the pictures on the wall.
    ‘We don’t usually have a fire,’ Diana continues. ‘It’s specially for you.’ Her wide eyes follow the movements of his fingers as he scratches his nose.
    ‘Mmm,’ he says, making a superhuman effort. ‘Mmm.’ And a little later, ‘Mmm. Hmm.’
    ‘It’s lamb,’ says Diana, leaning forward in her chair, gaining confidence from his obvious encouragement. ‘In the oven? Lamb with mint sauce and potatoes. Are you hungry?’ Smiley opens his mouth, but then closes it again, contenting himself with a nod of the head. Diana sits back in the chair, satisfied. She lets the serenity seep back into her face, and speaks again, her voice steady. ‘Do you know my name? It’s Diana Miriam Greenhills.’
    ‘Mmm. Hmm.’
    ‘And you’re called Smiley,’ she says. ‘Smiley Thompson. Is it true? Are you really called Smiley?’
    He clears his throat and finds a word. ‘Yes.’
    ‘Oh.’ Diana leaps from her chair and jumps up and down on the carpet. ‘Wonderful. It’s the most wonderful name in the world. Smiley. It’s so, so happy.’ She claps her hands together and rushes through to the kitchen. ‘It’s true, Dora,’ she says. ‘He is called Smiley. He is. He really is.’
    When you have put her to bed you light the candles and serve the lamb. Smiley comes alive in his memories. He talks of the campaigns and the personalities of the Party before ’56 and the later betrayals, Czechoslovakia, Poland. He was born in the year that Ramsay MacDonald’s Labour government resigned, and was visiting the seventy-year-old Ernest Bevin the day that China invaded Tibet. The old man talked him out of a career in politics, something that Smiley has regretted for the rest of his life.
    You were ten then, Dora. Dylan Thomas was wandering Under Milk Wood between orgies of alcoholism, but the memory of his lips had already faded. You knew nothing about the Chinese invasion of Tibet. You were in love with King George VI and his beautiful daughters Elizabeth and Margaret. You cried when he died. It seemed so unfair.
    Smiley tells you he has been dreaming about your body, and you push the fat of the lamb to the side of your plate and stand. You are already forty-one. Your body has a lot of lost time to make up.
    Lady Day is singing ‘Carelessly’ on the turntable but neither of you is listening.
    Afterwards, when Smiley has gone home to his wife, you go to the children’s rooms to tuck them in. Billy is a sleeping angel spilling out of the quilt. Diana is clutching a photograph of Smiley, stolen from your dressing-table. It is wet with her kisses.
     

20
     
    Russell Wright told Sam where Billy lived. Wright didn’t know Billy personally, but his name was entered in an old address book which had belonged to Pammy. The house was in St Mary’s, a bleak edifice, badly in need of paint and general maintenance. It was dusk when he arrived, and Sam found himself walking past the front door. He had intended to knock on the door and confront Billy, tell him that Dora was ill, that she wanted to see him. But he didn’t do it. Instead, he walked beyond the house, then crossed over to the other side of St Mary’s and slowly retraced his steps.
    Some kind of instinct at work? Sam didn’t know what it was. There was an unconscious process going on which had kept him from knocking on Billy’s door, and he needed to sort out what it was. Alcoholics learn to distrust the unconscious, knowing better than most that it