So, I just passed my driving test. I also recently finished reading Smiley's People, and a running joke throughout the Tinker, Tailor series is that Peter Guillam drives like he's on a race track the entire time. Obviously, I had to combine these two facts into a hideously-OOC borderline-crackfic in which Guillam is a terrible driver and Ricki Tarr yells at him a lot about it.
This fic is vaguely inspired by book-canon, but I was imagining the recent film incarnations of Guillam and Tarr as I wrote it (mostly because, uh, Benedict Cumberbatch). However, the hilariously bitchy relationship between the two characters in the BBC TV series also influenced the tone, so, y'know, feel free to fill in the blanks with your preferred version.
People make assumptions; it's part of what makes them people. And spies are trained to exploit those assumptions; using their appearance to belay their actions. Therefore, when an ordinary member of the public - or even, in many cases, another member of the Circus - looks at Peter Guillam and his determinedly insubordinate subordinate Ricki Tarr, they tend to classify them neatly into boxes based on appearance. Tarr is tattooed, muscular, dressed in jeans and jumper with permanently shaggy hair. His teeth are crooked; his nose has been broken at least twice; he looks like the last possible person you'd trust with your wife and children. Guillam, on the other hand - slender, elegantly dressed, most likely queer - is the very picture of an upstanding Oxbridge-educated citizen.
An ordinary member of the public would think all this, and they would be, by and large, correct. With one exception.
Peter Guillam drives like a fucking maniac.
"Jesus Christ!" yelps Ricki as they race down Oxford Street at around four times the speed limit. "Guillam, what the fuck are you- this isn't- oh bloody hell, watch out for that bus!"
"Smiley said it was urgent," replies Peter calmly as they escape death by about two inches.
"It's not going to do him any good if we end up squashed under a lorry!" says Ricki, and whilst he's not proud of the high-pitched quasi-squeal his voice has become, he doesn't think anyone could really blame him when he's stuck in a car with a man who appears to be attempting death by accelerator.
"It's only twelve miles!" protests Ricki helplessly. "Couldn't you at least- that light was red!" The light before it had been red too, as had - as far as he could remember through the fugue of terror - the one before that. And the one before that.
Ricki Tarr has always known that there's a good chance he'll die in service. He has even, in his darker moments, contemplated the myriad ways in which it might happen. Strung up by his feet in some sweating basement in Burma, electrocuted in Istanbul, beaten to death in East Berlin. Strangely, the one scenario that has never crossed his mind is Overzealous Superior With An Unhealthy Aversion To The Brake. This is not a mistake he'll be making again, at least if he survives his first encounter with Peter's unique interpretation of the Highway Code.
"Christ, Guillam!" Ricki blurts, knuckles clenched white against the dashboard as they scrape through a gap that would have been overambitious for a Mini, let alone Peter's flashy Jag. If Ricki had a car this good, he certainly wouldn't be risking the paintwork on an eighty-mile-an-hour dash across central London. But then, Ricki has always prided himself on a certain level of pragmatism and self-preservation, which Guillam apparently does not possess. Jesus. If he survives this he'll never complain about wearing a seatbelt again.
Finally, somewhere between Tottenham Court Road ("Are you fucking insane; who ever thought it was okay to let you drive a fucking car in the first place?") and Mornington Crescent ("Here lie the mortal remains of Ricki Tarr, cut down in his prime by the callous Peter Guillam"), Ricki slips into a Zen-like state of calm. His death is clearly inevitable. Best to face it with dignity.
Of course, this is precisely the moment that Peter chooses to slam on the brakes so hard that Ricki almost flies through the windscreen. Whoever invented seatbelts is getting a thank-you note from him in very short order.
"We're here," says Peter, giving him a look that Ricki parses as, One more word about my driving and you'll be demoted to pavement artist from now till Doomsday. Ricki stays silent; he supposes they do have more important considerations right now. Smiley wouldn't have summoned them to this particular safe house unless something significant had happened in the Karla case.
As Guillam raps the doorknocker in the agreed pattern, Ricki promises himself that he will never allow his immediate superior to drive anywhere ever again. It's for his own good, really. And for Britain's. How will they ever win this dirty little war of betrayal and counter-betrayal if their best agent (alright, agents; he's willing to concede that Peter may have his uses) are smeared across Oxford Circus doing their best impression of strawberry jam?
The door opens. "Ah, Peter," says Smiley. "And Ricki Tarr. Do come in." He's wearing an expression that Ricki always thinks of as his hunting-dog look: alert; on edge; at once restrained and poised for the attack.
"Admirably prompt, as ever, Peter," says Smiley as they follow him down the hall. Ricki pulls a face. Then Smiley says something else; something that starts with, "Ricki, I'm afraid I'll need you to fly out to Berlin tonight," and although Ricki's mouth shapes the familiar words, "Ours or theirs, sir?", he doesn't really hear what comes next. It's late evening already, shadows congealing outside the windows, and he'll have to get to the airport fast if he's going to catch a plane tonight. And fast means no time for the creaking, unreliable Tube or rickety buses. Fast means Peter's car.
Ricki sighs, says a silent prayer and attends to Smiley's briefing. There's one upside to the suicide mission he's just been sent on. After prolonged exposure to Guillam's driving, surviving the Soviets is going to seem easy.