The New Black Mask Quarterly (No 2)

John Le Carré George Smiley Goes Home

John le Carré has established the standard by which contemporary novels of international intrigue are measured. The chief character in six of his ten novels is George Smiley, the aging master spy for the British Secret Service who is also the subject of this television sketch written to set up his character for viewers of a 1977 BBC program on le Carré. “George Smiley Goes Home” was published in The Bell House Book (1979), a volume commemorating the John Farquharson literary agency. This is the first publication in America. John le Carré is the pseudonym of David Cornwell, a former British Foreign Servant. From 1960 to 1963, he was second secretary in the British Embassy in Bonn. In 1964 he served as consul in Hamburg. His eleventh novel is to be published in spring 1986.

Interior. A laundry and drycleaning business in the King’s Road, Chelsea, DAY.

A fogged picture slowly hardens, as the steady, near-expressionless monologue of a cockney working woman grinds on. It is the voice of LILY, the shop manageress, a dumpy, crippled little woman in a rabbit jacket. She is talking, near enough to herself, supplying background music to her own actions as she accepts the customers’ tickets, limps to one rack or the other, stands on a stool or uses a steel grappler in order to fetch down a brown paper parcel or a peg-full of dry cleaning.

Still talking, she takes the money, rings up the change, turns to the next customer, receives a fresh supply of dirty clothes. The shop is busy and she deals with the shifting knot of customers expertly. Among them is George SMILEY, and though he is already near the counter, there is unobtrusive comedy in the way he constantly allows himself to be bypassed by less diffident customers. He holds out his ticket, almost gets LILY to take it — only at the last moment to see himself supplanted.

SMILEY is late fifties, bespectacled, fat, shy-looking. He wears a dark suit.

LILY

(busy all the time)

...I don’t like youth. I’m not saying anything about young people — (fetches down a parcel) — we were all young once — laundry or dry, dear? — We all missed our chances, I dare say, or took them and lived to regret it — (to another customer) — Done your list, have you? In the basket then, that’s the way — They don’t do anything, they don’t want to work, they’re half dead, same as my nephew. I said to his mother — (taking a ticket) — name, dear?

YOUNG MALE CUSTOMER

Eldridge.

LILY

(pulling down a parcel)

—“give him everything he wants,” I said, “but don’t spoil him. If you spoil him he’ll turn to crime, then where will he be?” Gives him an electric guitar for his Christmas, all her savings and half next year’s. Still it’s what she wants, you can’t stop them. Name, dear?

SMILEY

(as LILY takes his ticket)

Smiley. George Smiley.

LILY

(studying ticket)

You want to learn to stand up for yourself, darling, don’t you. I like “George.” I always said I’d have had a George, if I’d had one. Which is it, dear?

SMILEY

I’m sorry?

LILY

Laundry or dry, dear?

SMILEY

Oh laundry. Yes, laundry.

Turning her back on him, LILY peers up into the shelves, as she continues her flat monologue.

Hey-diddle-dee, where can you be? (Starts climbing a ladder, grapple in hand) How long ago, darling, remember?

SMILEY

Last October. The twenty-ninth. A Thursday. Reaching, LILY turns and peers down at him. Beat.

LILY

What are you, brain of Britain?

SMILEY

No, no, it was just the day she left... for the country... (repeats) Smiley...

LILY

(still searching)

...That’s the most important thing in life. Smile. They ask me at the training course. Lily, they say, what’s the most important thing? — (as she takes down parcels, examines labels, returns them) — Give them a smile, I say. I had a bloke walk in yesterday, no class but chivalrous. He said to me “that’s the first smile I’ve seen all week.” (She takes down another parcel and stares at the label, then at SMILEY, seeming somehow to compare them. Finally:) What’s your address, then, dear?

SMILEY

Bywater Street

LILY

(still unsatisfied)

What number, darling?

SMILEY

Nine. Nine, Bywater Street.

With a shrug, LILY starts down the ladder.

LILY

It says “Lady Ann Smiley.”

SMILEY

That’s my wife. She’s away.

LILY

(approaching till)

You a lord then?

SMILEY

No, no. She is. I mean she’s the daughter of one.

LILY

What does that make you, then? (Rings up two pounds eighty, takes his money, turns to the next customer) Laundry or dry, dear? In the basket then, that’s the way...

SMILEY

(as he takes his change and escapes)

Excuse me... good day... thank you...

As he exits, we hear LILY’s voice, to the other customers, droning on.

LILY

(as we dissolve)

I remember her, see? That’s why I was suspicious. Beauty and brains, they’re like oil and water, that’s what I say.

We have long DISSOLVED over LILY’s voice to: EXT. KING’S ROAD DAY, and are following SMILEY as he walks, laundry parcel under his arm, along the pavement, past swinging shoppers to the turning marked “Bywater Street.” He enters it.

NEW ANGLE, SMILEY’s POV.

Bywater Street is a cul-de-sac. We follow SMILEY past the parked cars.

NEW ANGLE, showing the door of Number Nine, Bywater Street. One full milk bottle on the doorstep. SMILEY still has the parcel under his arm as he moves up the steps to his own front door. He is at the top step when: CLOSE on SMILEY. Nothing dramatic, almost nothing at all. But a momentary hardening of his expression.

CLOSE on the lower window. Did we see a shadow? Did SMILEY? Is the net curtain very slightly moving?

CLOSE on SMILEY. He holds his own front door key in his hand. Transferring his gaze from the window, he looks downward, at his feet.

NEW ANGLE, SMILEY’s POV. At SMILEY’s feet, a tiny wedge of wood lies on the doorstep, where it has fallen from its place in the lintel.

NEW ANGLE. The door in CLOSE-UP, showing the two sturdy Banham deadlocks. Reaching up, SMILEY very quickly runs his hand along the lintel, confirming his suspicion that the wedge is no longer in place.

CLOSE on SMILEY as he discreetly drops the door key back into his pocket. Then, without further hesitation, he presses his own front door bell.

HOLD SMILEY as he waits impassively, the parcel under his arm. From inside the house, footsteps approach.

We HEAR the sound of a chain being unlatched.

ANOTHER ANGLE, over SMILEY’s shoulder, to show life continuing perfectly normally in the street. A mother pushes her pram, a lonely queer exercises his dog, the milkman continues his round.

ANOTHER ANGLE as the door brightly opens, showing: A tall, fair, handsome thirty-five-year-old man, dressed in a light grey suit and silver tie. Scandinavian or German. Could be a diplomat. His left hand nonchalantly in his jacket pocket.

STRANGER

(German accent)

Good morning.

SMILEY

Oh. Good morning. I’m sorry to bother you.

STRANGER

Not at all. How can I help you?

SMILEY

Is Mr. Smiley in, please? Mr. George Smiley? My name is Mackie, I live round the corner. He does know me.

STRANGER

George is upstairs just at the moment. I am a friend of his, just visiting. Won’t you come in?

SMILEY

No, no, it’s not necessary. If you’d give him this. (He takes the parcel, hands it to him.) Mackie, Bill Mackie. He asked me to pick it up for him.

Ignoring the parcel, the stranger opens the door still wider.

STRANGER

But I’m sure he would like to see you for a moment!

(He calls into the house)

George! Bill Mackie is here. Come down! He has not been well, you see. He loves to be visited. But today he is up at last, such a joy.

(Back to SMILEY)

There, I can hear him coming now. Please come in. You know how he is about the cold.

SMILEY

(dumping the parcel into the stranger’s one free arm)

Thanks, but I must be getting along.

EXT. BYWATER STREET, SMILEY making briskly along the pavement, away from his house, towards the King’s Road. As he walks, CLOSE fast on successive car numbers, aerials, wing mirrors, etc. SMILEY’s expression impassive, functional, not a backward glance. Track him round the corner, into the King’s Road, along the pavement towards a line of phones, most of them smashed.

INT. a filthy phone box. SMILEY talking into the phone.

SMILEY

...height five eleven, colour of eyes blue, colour of hair light brown, youthful hairline, powerful build, clean shaven, German accent, northern at a guess, possibly left handed. Two unfamiliar cars parked in the street, GRK 117F, black Ford van, no rear windows, two aerials, two wing mirrors, looks like an old surveillance horse. OAR 289G, green Datsun saloon with scratch marks on the offside rear wing, could be hired. Both empty, but the Datsun had today’s Evening Standard on the driving seat, late edition. They’re to wait till he leaves, then house him, that’s all. Two teams and ring the changes all the time. A lace-curtain job. No branch lines, no frightening the game. Tell Toby.

(So far, he has a deadpan expression. Now his manner is torn between fear for his wife and plain anger.)

And then, Peter... ring Ann for me, will you.

Tell her that if by any chance she was thinking of coming back to the house in the next few days — don’t.