flawed 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 uncongenial.
But I’ll accept that 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, not so 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 switched off 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 home to Prue after our final up-and-down handshake, I would take the longer route home through 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. Squash is 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 the knees, 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 stationed there. Singles only. He played it for the army before his decline. He played it with me. In summer holidays on Normandy beaches. In the garden in Neuilly over a washing line for a net, clutching a mahogany tumbler of Scotch in his spare hand. Badminton was the best of him. When I was packed off to Scotland to his godawful school I played badminton there, as he had, and afterwards for my Midlands university. When I was hanging round the Office waiting for my first overseas posting, I rustled up a bunch of my fellow trainees and under the cover name of the Irregulars we took on all comers.
And Ed? How did he become a convert to the game of games? We’re sitting at the Stammtisch. He is crystal-gazing into his lager, the way he did when he was solving the world’s problems or beating his brains about what was wrong with his backhand, or simply not talking at all but brooding. No question was ever simple once you’d put it to him. Everything needed tracking down to source.
‘There was this gym teacher we had at my Grammar,’ he says at last. Broad grin. ‘Took a couple of us over to her club one evening. That was it really. Her with her short skirt and shiny white thighs. Yeah.’
6
Here, for the edification of my chers collègues, is the