Cambridge Spies

Guy Burgess:
I got beaten up by a keen theatergoer, Angleton.

James Jesus Angleton:
Why?

Guy Burgess:
In England, when one is having a piss at the urinal, and eight urinals on either side of one are unoccupied, and a man comes in and doesn't choose to piss seven urinals away or even three urinals away but stands right bloody next to you, then it means something. And when, apropos of bugger-all, he starts up a bit of a chat about new writing in the theater, it means "Bugger me," frankly. But not here, it would seem. Apparently, in this appallingly friendly country, it means nothing of the kind. It means what it is: passing pleasantries in a public lavatory in the middle of the night.

Guy Burgess:
Is it the uniforms, Givens?

Charlie Givens:
Keep out of this.

Guy Burgess:
Rowing eights, rugby fifteens. Large groups of men wearing the same clothes. Is that the attraction?

Charlie Givens:
Shut up.

Guy Burgess:
The best clothes are in Berlin, aren't they. Black boots, leather belts. Click your heels, Givens. Click, click, click.

Charlie Givens:
I'm warning you, keep out of this.

Guy Burgess:
Keep out? But that's the whole point, isn't it. Not keeping out.

Charlie Givens:
You're a bloody ponce.

Guy Burgess:
Hit me, go on. It's what you do, isn't it? Go on Givens, hit the bloody ponce.

Guy Burgess:
Isn't he beautiful? His name is Julian Bell. He frightens me 'cause he burns so brightly. Bright, beautiful flames burn out.

Kim Philby:
To the revolution!

Kim Philby:
It's a simple, unavoidable choice, Donald. Communism or fascism. Everything in the middle has gone to sleep. To fight fascism you have to be a communist. Anything else is appeasement.

Anthony Blunt:
Even when you're silent the noise is remarkable.

Guy Burgess:
Noise?

Anthony Blunt:
The noise of your heart pumping away on your sleeve. The cacophony of your gawp.

Guy Burgess:
Does it show that much?

Guy Burgess:
Listen. Babies are dying in this country because they are not fed properly. Old men and women die alone and without dignity. Why? Because they're poor. That's all. Because they're poor. I hate it. I hate it with all my being and I would do anything to change it, anything. Personal feelings, small indignities, they have to put aside. It's hard. Sometimes it's very hard. But it has to be. And I know you feel the same.

Anthony Blunt:
You kept your socks on.

Julian Bell:
My Aunt Virginia gave them to me. They're hers. "Whatever you do, don't take the socks off. Not under any circumstances."

Anthony Blunt:
I'm in bed with Virginia Woolf's socks.

Anthony Blunt:
Not in front of the socks, Julian.

Guy Burgess:
My father died f***ing my mother. I heard her calling, or bleating really. And I came into the room and for a horrible moment I thought I'd got it wrong and that her calls for help were in fact small bleats of pleasure. She's got a narrow range of expression, my mother.

Donald Maclean:
Why are you telling me this?

Guy Burgess:
I had to roll him off. And I rolled him a bit too vigorously and he fell off my mother, off the bed and onto the floor and broke his arm. I mean he was dead, of course, so he didn't mind. But it made it a bit tricky with the coroner. My mother had to give evidence about how he died and she did it very well, of course. As only an English woman of decent heart and stout bosom can. Rising splendidly above the banal and the absurd. It's how I'd like to be remembered.

Donald Maclean:
Rising above the banal and the absurd?

Guy Burgess:
As an English woman of stout heart and decent bosom.