The opening of a book may or may not hold up under subsequent revisions. Within the next few weeks I wrote a new opening chapter to focus directly on LaBrava and identify him through his work as a street photographer; that is, by looking at the kinds of photos he takes. The Christmas Eve pages were then used to open chapter 2, reprinted here, and did survive pretty much as they were written. Maurice’s describing how you could always spot a bookie in the old days was added later; so were the Yiddish words in reference to the old ladies who live in the hotel. It’s like adding a pinch of this and a pinch of that: seasoning that’s thrown in while the story is cooking.
My main concern in this sequence, as it continued, was how to work in LaBrava’s background as a Secret Service agent. Driving along with Maurice seemed an appropriate time to do it, if I could pull it off without interrupting the sound and continuity of the story. So I referred to another time: “He had told Maurice about it one Saturday morning driving down to Islamorada...” presented his Secret Service history in a somewhat conversational manner, and this way maintained the tone of the scene, two men riding in a car together talking.
But even after I’d finished the book, I was concerned. I felt that the story didn’t reach its first dramatic conflict quickly enough, the plot developing too leisurely, and that it was the description of LaBrava’s background, though only three pages, that was causing the problem.
I asked my publisher, Don Fine, about it, and he said, “That works okay. You need it there; it’s your first chapter that’s too long,” I had my doubts. But I cut seven pages from the original thirteen, and that was it. Amazing. The pace of the entire book seemed to pick up.
Right now I’m planning another book, assembling characters and settings, gathering research material, gradually closing in on that day when, quite unexpectedly, I’ll begin to write.
I can hardly wait.
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.