Free Agent Running in the Field by John le Carré Page A

steady now, and giving him the older-wiser man’s chuckle. Onlyrarely, and in the mildest of tones, did I question his more salty assertions – but always with circumspection, because my instinctive knowledge of Ed from the outset was that he was fragile.
    Sometimes it was as if someone else was talking out of him. His voice, which was a good one when it was just being itself, would go up an octave, hit a level and stick there on one didactic note, not forlong, but long enough for me to think: hullo, I know this register, and Steff’s got one too. It’s the one you can’t argue with because it just rolls on as if you’re not there, so best nod him along and wait till it’s run its course.
    The substance? In a sense, each time the mixture as before. Brexit is self-immolation. The British public is being marched over a cliff by a bunch of rich elitistcarpetbaggers posing as men of the people. Trump is Antichrist, Putin another. For Trump, the draft-dodging rich boy brought up in a great ifflawed democracy, there is no redemption in this world or the next. For Putin, who has never known democracy, there is a shimmer. Thus Ed, whose Nonconformist background has become by stages a notable feature of these outpourings.
    Was there progress, Nat?my
chers collègues
asked me. Did his views
advance
? Did you have a feeling that he was heading for some sort of absolute resolution? Again I could offer them no comfort. Maybe he grew freer and more outspoken once he felt more confident of his audience: me. Maybe I became a more congenial audience for him with time, though I don’t remember ever being particularly
un
congenial.
    But I’ll acceptthat Ed and I had a few sessions at the
Stammtisch
when I wasn’t worrying overmuch – about Steff, or Prue, or some newly acquired agent who was acting up, or the flu epidemic that took half our handlers off the road for a couple of weeks – and I was giving him near enough my full attention. On such occasions I might feel moved to join issue with one or other of his more radical outpourings, notso much to challenge the argument as to temper the assertiveness with which he delivered it. So in that sense: well, if not progress, a growing familiarity on my side, and on Ed’s a willingness, if only reluctantly, to laugh at himself now and then.
    But bear in mind this simple plea, which is one not of self-exculpation but of fact: I didn’t always listen very carefully, and sometimes I switchedoff altogether. If I was under pressure at the Haven – which happened increasingly to be the case – I would make sure I had my Office mobile in my back pocket before we repaired to the
Stammtisch
, and I would furtively consult it while he banged on.
    And from time to time, when his monologues in all their youthful innocence and assertiveness got under my skin, then rather than head straight hometo Prue after our final up-and-down handshake, I would take the longer route homethrough the park in order to give my thoughts a chance to settle.
    *
    One last word about what the game of badminton meant to Ed and for that matter means to me. For unbelievers, badminton is a namby-pamby version of squash for overweight men afraid of heart attacks. For true believers there is no other sport. Squashis slash and burn. Badminton is stealth, patience, speed and improbable recovery. It’s lying in wait to unleash your ambush while the shuttle describes its leisurely arc. Unlike squash, badminton knows no social distinctions. It is not public school. It has nothing of the outdoor allure of tennis or five-a-side football. It does not reward a beautiful swing. It offers no forgiveness, spares theknees, is said to be terrible for hips. Yet, as a matter of proven fact, it requires faster reactions than squash. There is little natural conviviality between us players, who tend on the whole to be a lonely lot. To fellow athletes, we’re a bit weird, a bit friendless.
    My father played badminton in Singapore when he was