The Spy Quartet: An Expensive Place to Die, Spy Story, Yesterday’s Spy, Twinkle Twinkle Little Spy. Len Deighton

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      18

      Les Chiens is everything that delights the yeh yeh set. It’s dark, hot, and squirming like a tin of live bait. The music is ear-splitting and the drink remarkably expensive even for Paris. I sat in a corner with Byrd.

      ‘Not my sort of place at all,’ Byrd said. ‘But in a curious way I like it.’

      A girl in gold crochet pyjamas squeezed past our table, leaned over and kissed my ear. ‘Chéri,’ she said. ‘Long time no see,’ and thereby exhausted her entire English vocabulary.

      ‘Dash me,’ said Byrd. ‘You can see right through it, dash me.’

      The girl patted Byrd’s shoulder affectionately and moved on.

      ‘You do have some remarkable friends,’ said Byrd. He had ceased to criticize me and begun to regard me as a social curiosity well worth observing.

      ‘A journalist must have contacts,’ I explained.

      ‘My goodness yes,’ said Byrd.

      The music stopped suddenly. Byrd mopped his face with a red silk handkerchief. ‘It’s like a stokehold,’ he said. The club was strangely quiet.

      ‘Were you an engineer officer?’

      ‘I did gunnery school when I was on lieutenants’ list. Finished a Commander; might have made Captain if there’d been a little war, Rear-Admiral if there’d been another big one. Didn’t fancy waiting. Twenty-seven years of sea duty is enough. Right through the hostilities and out the other side, more ships than I care to remember.’

      ‘You must miss it.’

      ‘Never. Why should I? Running a ship is just like running a small factory; just as exciting at times and just as dull for the most part. Never miss it a bit. Never think about it, to tell you the truth.’

      ‘Don’t you miss the sea, or the movement, or the weather?’

      ‘Good grief, laddie, you’ve got a nasty touch of the Joseph Conrads. Ships, especially cruisers, are large metal factories, rather prone to pitch in bad weather. Nothing good about that, old boy – damned inconvenient, that’s the truth of it! The Navy was just a job of work for me, and it suited me fine. Nothing against the Navy mind, not at all, owe it an awful lot, no doubt of it, but it was just a job like any other; no magic to being a sailor.’ There was a plonking sound as someone tapped the amplifier and put on another record. ‘Painting is the only true magic,’ said Byrd. ‘Translating three dimensions into two – or if you are a master, four.’ He nodded suddenly, the loud music started. The clientele, who had been stiff and anxious during the silence, smiled and relaxed, for they no longer faced the strain of conversing together.

      On a staircase a wedge of people were embracing and laughing like advertising photos. At the bar a couple of English photographers were talking in cockney and an English writer was explaining James Bond.

      A waiter put four glasses full of ice cubes and a half-bottle of Johnnie Walker on the table before us. ‘What’s this?’ I asked.

      The waiter turned away without answering. Two Frenchmen at the bar began to argue with the English writer and a bar stool fell over. The noise wasn’t loud enough for anyone to notice. On the dance floor a girl in a shiny plastic suit was swearing at a man who had burned a hole in it with his cigarette. I heard the English writer behind me say, ‘But I have always immensely adored violence. His violence is his humanity. Unless you understand that you understand nothing.’ He wrinkled his nose and smiled. One of the Frenchmen replied, ‘He suffers in translation.’ The photographer was clicking his fingers in time to the music.

      ‘Don’t we all?’ said the English writer, and looked around.

      Byrd said, ‘Shocking noise.’

      ‘Don’t listen,’ I said.

      ‘What?’ said Byrd.

      The English writer was saying ‘… a violent Everyman in a violent but humdrum …’ he paused, ‘but humdrum world.’ He nodded agreement to himself. ‘Let me remind you of Baudelaire. There’s a sonnet that begins …’

      ‘So this bird wants to get out of the car …’ one of the photographers was saying.

      ‘Speak a little more quietly,’ said the English writer. ‘I’m going to recite a sonnet.’

      ‘Belt up,’ said the photographer over his shoulder. ‘This bird wanted to get out of the car …’

      ‘Baudelaire,’ said the writer. ‘Violent, СКАЧАТЬ