Read Online The Naive and Sentimental Lover by John le Carré - Free Book Online Page B

gearbox. Shamus was not car-minded, but he was very appreciative.
    â€œJesus,” he kept saying, “this is the life, hey Helen can you hear me back there? . . . To hell with writing, from now on I’m going to be a big fat Gentile bourgeois.... Got your cheque book then, Cassidy? . . . Hey where’s the cigars?”
    All this in a nonstop monologue of breathless praise which made Cassidy wonder how a man who so clearly coveted property could have found the courage to renounce it.

    Sure enough they had not been in the bar ten minutes before Shamus made for the door.
    â€œThis place stinks,” he said in a very loud voice.
    â€œAbsolutely stinks,” Helen agreed.
    â€œThe landlord stinks too,” Shamus said and one or two heads turned to them in surprise.
    â€œThe landlord is a prole,” Helen agreed.
    â€œLandlord, you’re a lowlander and a sheep-shagger and you come from Gerrard’s Cross. Goodnight.”
    â€œNever hold him back,” said Helen. They were walking to the car, going ahead in the hope that Shamus would follow. “Promise you never will.”
    â€œI wouldn’t even try,” Cassidy assured her. “It would be an absolute crime.”
    â€œYou really feel for other people don’t you?” said Helen. “I watch you doing it all the time.”
    â€œWhy Gerrard’s Cross? ” asked Cassidy, who knew the place only as a desirable semi-rural dormitory town on the western fringes of Greater London.
    â€œIt’s where the worst proles come from,” she said. “He’s been there and he knows.”
    â€œChippenham,” Shamus called from behind them.
    At Chippenham railway station, they drank more whisky at the buffet. Shamus had a passion for terminals, Helen said, he saw all life as arrivals and departures, journeys to unnamed destinations.
    â€œWe have to keep moving,” she said. “I mean don’t you agree, Cassidy?”
    â€œGod yes,” said Cassidy, and thought—the analyser in him thought—yes, that’s what’s exciting about them, they share a mutual desire for somewhere to go.
    â€œThe ordinary hours just aren’t enough for him,” Helen said. “He needs the night as well.”
    â€œI know,” said Cassidy. “I can feel.”
    The platform ticket machine was out of order but the collector was Scottish and let them through for nothing because Shamus said he came from the Isle of Skye, and that Talisker was the best whisky in the world and that he had a friend called Flaherty who might be God. Shamus christened the collector Alastair and took him with them to the buffet.
    â€œHe’s completely classless,” Helen explained, while Shamus and Alastair at the other end of the bar discussed the similarities of their professions in rich Scottish accents. “He’s a sort of Communist really. A Jew.”
    â€œIt’s fantastic,” said Cassidy. “I suppose that’s what makes him a writer.”
    â€œBut you’re like that too aren’t you,” Helen said, “deep down? Don’t you have to get on with your workmen and that kind of thing? They don’t put up with any side, surely?”
    â€œI hadn’t thought of that,” said Cassidy.
    The train arrived while they were drinking, next stop Bath, and suddenly they were all standing in a first-class compartment, waving to Alastair through the window.
    â€œGoodbye Alastair, goodbye. God, look at him,” Helen urged. “What a face in that lamplight, it’s immortal.”
    â€œFantastic,” Cassidy agreed.
    â€œPoor little sodder,” said Shamus. “What a way to die.”
    â€œYou know,” said Helen later, when they had closed the window, “Cassidy really notices things.” Using her arms to help, she lifted her long legs on to the cushions. “He’s got a real eye, if only he’d use it,” she added drowsily