“I only ever had eyes for Ann.”
The admission came quietly, shamefully, mere seconds before the kettle clicked off the boil with a defeated whine. It came like a blast of freezing autumn air and and rushed to fill the tiny kitchen, plastering itself across all four whitewashed walls, burrowing into the cracks and worming its way into the skeletal structure of their two-bedroom terraced house.
Peter let the second helping of sugar gracelessly fall to the depths of his tea-stained mug and reached for the box of PG Tips.
“I know, George,” he said, because he did; he really, truly did. The winter years hadn’t done anything to diminish his memory (except perhaps when it came to checking the lottery), where the George Smiley of his junior years at the Circus still lurked, blinking owlishly at him behind thick-rimmed spectacles when chance would have them pass in dingy, damp-infested corridors.
Peter was not an idiot. The George Smiley of those days did not have eyes for him, just as the hassled, blonde youth, caught between boy and manhood in George’s memory did not even deign to look at him twice.
The teabags went the same way as the sugar, if thrown a little more forceful than usual.
“I am a fool,” George said.
“You couldn’t have known.” A part of him desperately wished he could have made the tea before this, so he could wash away the lie instead of letting it fester in the back of his throat. Nothing got past George. Nothing. Not even Ann Smiley.
“I knew.” George didn’t seem to notice, somewhere far away from Peter. “It didn’t change anything. I suppose to love is to play the fool.”
“I don’t understand.”
George spread out his arms and leaned back against the counter. His eyes rolled slowly, almost lazily in their sockets until he was staring at the ceiling – no, through it, at something Peter could never, probably would never, see.
“The ghost of Ann has been haunting this house for far too long. I propose to send it on its way.”
“You’ve never mentioned her before.”
“Precisely.” George’s smile was grim, with an unpleasant twist at the corners. “I’ve made it no secret. We signed the deed together, Ann and I. Her signature is still there, I believe. I’ve never felt the need to change it, even after…”
Peter knew what came after. He didn’t need George to elaborate, instead watched him with quiet reservation as George’s head rolled on his shoulders and gave a series of creaks and cracks.
“I carried her over the threshold,” he continued quietly after a moment. “I kissed her in this kitchen. I made love to her in the bed upstairs.”
“You fucked her,” Peter gently corrected. There was no anger in his voice.
“Yes,” George said. “I fucked her.”
An easy silence fell between them as Peter resumed bustling about his corner of the kitchen, setting bowls and boxes back where they belonged. He poured the boiling water into both mugs one after the other, his hand and breathing perfectly steady even while reaching for the milk. Meanwhile the ghost of Ann curled itself around brickwork and floorboards and gave a guttural moan. The windows rattled in the gale outside.
Peter had nothing against Ann. There would be very little point in it. She was a stranger to him, the creature found wrapped around George’s sturdy, loving arm that courtesy dictated him to nod and smile at, offer a drink, perhaps crack a joke or two, then naturally gravitate away from.
Ann came before. Peter came after. It was simply the way of things.
Without warning, George spoke again. Peter was ready for him.
“I only ever had eyes for Ann.”
“‘Had’. Past tense.”
“I proposed to her right here in this very kitchen.”
“You proposed to me in Hyde Park, when I was dying from a gunshot wound to the chest.”
“I thought we were going to grow old together.”
“We are.”
Suddenly the George before and the George now converged into one, both blinking owlishly behind thick-rimmed spectacles. The nostalgic mist that had slowly clouded his eyes for the past few minutes dissipated, leaving them sharp and clear. They focused on Peter for the first time, who watched as the busy network of lines around George’s mouth bent backwards to accommodate a tiny smile.
George slowly pushed himself off the counter and approached, that smile still gracing his features, and Peter was on the cusp of entertaining the idea of George proposing to him again, here, in this very kitchen, before he was moving past him to collect the mugs of tea stewing on the counter. George turned on his heel and strode through into the living room. Not a single word passed his lips.
Peter sighed and did the only thing he could do, the one thing he had spent his whole life doing. He followed.
