I’ve often wondered if I could have been a spy. Not the James Bond type wrestling with
supervillains in underground lairs, but more like George Smiley, teasing out
inferences and confessions by the practice of “tradecraft.” The kind of spy who goes for a walk in the
local park and has a “chance meeting” with some disaffected underling from the
Russian embassy. Information and a slim
envelope of money are exchanged, we both go on our way, but the course history
has been changed, that sort of thing.
This has been on my mind because a little while ago I was staying in
somebody’s spare room, and being unable to sleep I picked up John le Carré’s Tinker Tailor
Soldier Spy and (as they say) couldn't put it down. I tried to read le Carré a long time ago, and I found it all a bit slow and
talky. Now, of course its slowness and
talkiness are what seem so totally wonderful about it.
There’s a certain amount of walking in the novel, and also in the BBC miniseries, though it's not a direct “opening out.” Certain conversations that are static in the novel do take place while the characters in the series are walking. But certain exchanges are, if anything, even more static.
There’s a scene in the book, a flashback, on the cliffs in Cornwall
between Smiley and his faithless wife Ann.
We all kind of wish he’d push her off the cliff edge, but that would be
unsporting, dishonorable, and above all out of character.
Walking helps when Smiley’s trying to get
information from his fellow spooks. Like
this:
Sensing Jim's
antagonism, Smiley opened his door and let the cold air pour in.
'How about a
stroll?' he said. 'No point in being cooped up when we can walk around.'
With
movement, as Smiley anticipated, Jim found a new fluency of speech.
They
were on the western rim of the plateau, with only a few trees standing and
several lying felled. A frosted bench was offered, but they ignored it. There
was no wind, the stars were very clear, and as Jim took up his story they went
on walking side by side, Jim adjusting always to Smiley's pace, now away from
the car, now back again. Occasionally they drew up, shoulder to shoulder,
facing down the valley.
And walking
itself may be part of tradecraft:
“In the stairwell, Smiley lightly touched his arm.
'Peter, I want you to watch my back. Will you do that for me? Give me a couple
of minutes, then pick me up on the corner of Marloes Road, heading north. Stick
to the west pavement.'
Guillam
waited, then stepped into the street. A thin drizzle lay on the air, which had
an eerie warmness like a thaw… He completed one round of the gardens then
entered a pretty mews well south of the pick-up point. Reaching Marloes Road he
crossed to the western pavement, bought an evening paper and began walking at a
leisurely rate past villas set in deep gardens. He was counting off
pedestrians, cyclists, cars, while out ahead of him, steadily plodding the far
pavement, he picked out George Smiley, the very prototype of the homegoing
Londoner. 'Is it a team?' Guillam had asked. Smiley could not be specific.
'Short of Abingdon Villas, I'll cross over,' he said. 'Look for a solo. But
look!'
As Guillam
watched, Smiley pulled up abruptly, as if he had just remembered something,
stepped perilously into the road and scuttled between the angry traffic to
disappear at once.
I do believe I could manage that kind of thing, though perhaps I
wouldn’t have
had Smiley’s chilly, patrician calm.
At this point in literary history it’s impossible to
read the name George Smiley without picturing Alec Guinness: I can’t imagine
many people picture Gary Oldman in the movie remake, though I know it got
decent reviews.
There are generally reckoned to be three real-world
models for George Smiley, all of them walkers to some degree. On was John Bingham, a spy for 20 odd years,
also a novelist, less successful than John le Carré, but then who
isn’t? When his picture appears in print, it’s more
often than not this one, showing him walking his dogs.
Another model was the Reverend Vivian Green, le Carré’s tutor at Oxford, and a keen
walker, who wrote a book titled The Swiss
Alps (1961).
And thirdly Maurice Oldfield, a career intelligence
officer who rose through the ranks to become head of MI6 from 1973-8. I haven’t been able to find any photographs
of him walking, though the obituaries tell us he was a farmer’s son in
Derbyshire who had to milk the cows each morning before he
walked the two miles to school. There's a great deal more to be said about Oldfield's public and private life, but I think this isn't the place.
Le Carré has said in
recent times “I live on a Cornish cliff and hate cities. I write and walk and swim
and drink.” In a piece in the New York
Times Dwight Garner wrote, “John le Carré remains
obsessed with this terrain. He’s more agile than men 20 years his junior mostly
because, when his mornings spent writing fiction are complete, he sets out on
arduous hikes. His wife only recently made him curtail these adventures. ‘I now
walk the interior, instead of scampering along the cliffs, because she worries
about me taking a fall,’ he said. ‘The cellphone reception is almost
nonexistent here. If I didn’t die immediately, I’d be stuck for some time.’”
Elsewhere le
Carré has said, “Writing
is like walking in a deserted street. Out of the dust in the street you make a
mud pie.” I’m not sure that makes it
VERY like walking in the street, but ultimately I think that any metaphor you
care to use about writing is workable.
While writing this piece I did a
bit of research on Alec Guinness and discovered that he was born at 155 Lauderdale Mansions South, Lauderdale Road, Maida Vale, London W9. For 15 years or
so I lived in Maida Vale, less than half a mile from there, and must have walked
past his birth place scores if not hundred of times. I had no idea. And I don’t know what difference it would
have made, and of course he wasn’t there and hadn’t been there for many
decades, but somehow I wish I’d known.
