Brendan the Spy Part 1: Ass. Man & The Lezza.

BRENDON THE SPY
I met him, when, as young men, we both attended the same 6th Form College. He was retaking his GCSEs in between acting as a secret agent for Her Majesty’s Government. Some of you may have been a mite more credulous about such a revelation, but really his credentials were impeccable. He told us everything (perhaps the only clue that these stories were not of the first truthfulness). So brilliant were the deceptions that he even had cover stories for his lies:
Brendan the Spy was recruited by MI 6 at the age of 17 owing to the skill he demonstrated at Cooden Air Pistol Club at the age of 9.
His explanation for such an unlikely turn of events, “well you see, it’s the last thing anyone would think of.”
Another version was that he responded to an ad in Friday Ad. ‘Wanted Spy. Must be British,’ or somesuch.
His explanation for such an unlikely turn of events, “well you see, it’s the last thing anyone would think of.”

In several evenings of drunken sincerity he told a number of people how he had acquired a scar on his leg.
1. He parachuted into France, landing on the edge of an old airstrip somewhere in Normandy. The government was using trainee spies because foreign governments would have no record of them, making them ‘Perfect Spies.’
Unfortunately all of them were killed in a firefight, except Brendan, who managed to shoot his way out.

2. Using the codename H.17 he parachuted into Bosnia. With the rest of his team he abseiled up a building (yes) and killed everyone in an office.
Unfortunately all of them were killed in a firefight, except Brendan, who managed to shoot his way out.
That story was told to us by his then girlfriend. As he told her, he wept and punched the wall, all was silent outside Errols Kebabs except for his anguished cry, “I’ve got blood on my hands.”
I know what you must be thinking, how on earth does he have a girlfriend ?
I had first met her sporting a t-shirt that he had had made for her. It had a passport photo of them both (thankfully small, for her sake) with the immortal words ‘Yum Yum, He’s The One’
He wasn’t it turned out. You may be surprised by this, after all he had a pet name for her, ‘the Lezza.’

Brendan (the Spy) quickly decided that GCSE Maths and English weren’t for him, he was (as he often told me), “such a smart bloke” so qualifications were largely irrelevant.
He had got a part time job which became a full time career, working at the local independent cinema, he was rapidly promoted to Assistant Manager,or Ass. Man as he insisted we call him without irony. The Proprietor of the cinema would routinely empty the till and spent the day in the pub avoiding creditors. Brendan in a gesture of lofty patronage would employ a few of us: someone on the till,an usher, whilst the Ass. Man put on the film. He didn't really know how the projector worked, and it was not uncommon for the film to get shredded whilst we drank snakebite on the roof. There is some sort of moral to this tale about not leaving your livelihood in the hands of a seventeen year old and his mates but it was lost on us. The owner eventually and inevitably lost the cinema, last time I saw him he gave me some speed and told me of his elaborate plans to ‘get it all back,’ that was a decade ago. More recently I heard he ran as the BNP candidate in the General Election last year.
Some evenings he and Brendan would drive up to Galley Hill, “to watch the gays.”
I recall BtS sauntering into the cinema one day clutching an envelope bearing the legend O.H.M.S.

‘See,’ he said proudly. It contained a letter from H.19 (Robbo) to H.17 (Brendan the Spy). It confirmed that his ‘transfere’ was approved. He was going to Europe, Switzerland most likely, so he and the Lezza could stay together when she had a year abroad at University. I was puzzled, the letter was written on tracing paper. “Easier to burn,” he informed me sagely.

The Lezza went to University then moved to Paris. She is fluent in French and German, with a passable knowledge of Italian. She is always rather vague about what she does.

Brendan, for a long time, worked in a series of mobile phone shops. After some months each would close and he would move on. He did go to France in the end, leaving behind debts, an estranged wife and a young son who gets into trouble at school. The boy’s teacher thinks he would do better if his father was in England. It is just another in a long line of sacrifices Brendan the Spy has had to make for Queen & Country. Defende Regnum young man, Defende Regnum.