Living with not knowing must be awful. He had only a shadow of that, growing up without knowing what had become of his father; he doesn't mention it because he accepts that Irina is far worse.
Ricki said this much to him, a while ago in Paris - the way he'd told it, discovering (heavily suspecting?) that they'd known all along had been his reason to slip away from the Circus altogether. But if he'd been going by suspicion, hearing the confirmation really vindicates nothing, at this stage.
"When I was meeting George, I was a mess. I loved her, I felt guilty, I felt betrayed- Circus men had been trying to kill me, I had no money, no food, and nowhere to stay. So even though they knew she was dead, they didn't tell me, in order that I go to Paris for them and act as bait to draw out the mole. I went and held the wire office at gunpoint to do it, you know, and they were making plans to intercept me and get me to Russia when George and Peter stepped in. Me- a wreck, and the work, fucking dangerous, right? So it made absolute and utter sense to lie to me."
Eggsy makes a quiet sound of agreement - yes, absolutely sensible to avoid breaking a cracked man, in the brutally utilitarian kind of way that he knows will come about frequently in their line of work - but says nothing. Whatever's Ricki's wondering, he's waiting for the question.
"And I know you're young, but- it's such a long time, and it was all of my adult life. I'd come back, when it would have been far easier to up and vanish. I'd sounded the alarm."
He clears his throat.
"I wonder if they'd- you know. Let me have a chance to make the choice to do the right thing, would I be an inmate right now?"
Eggsy doesn't address that directly, because he feels that in the context of his relationship with Ricki, it is distinctly Not His Place to opine on the inmate/warden barrier. But something he's said tugs on something, and he mentions it:
"He mentioned that when I talked to him. Said it's pretty much impossible to tell what the right thing is, most of the time."
So either Smiley and Guillam had done wrong, or Ricki would've done right in different circumstances, or neither, or both. Eggsy wants to believe that inmates end up on the Barge because of the choices they've made, not the ones made for them, but sometimes the evidence doesn't always bear that out. Grey areas all over the shop, to say the very least.
"Don't think so," Eggsy says, a bland sort of disagreement. "Think most
people'd like to know what the fuck they're doin' where they are, no
matter where that is."
"I know. Training was over a year of just, do as you're fuckin' told, do it better'n anybody else." A shrug. "I was used to it by then."
Which is an observation, not a criticism, because he had already encountered it - in Marines, in his own home life. 'Would like to' doesn't mean 'are entitled to'. He knows exactly how little a person is entitled to, in most parts of their lives.
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He admits, expression clouding over as well.
"Yeah- did you?"
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"Yeah. Not for long, but...I did, yeah. He asked if I was a probationer, I sort of went with it."
He eyes Ricki warily.
"He must have thought you were...."
Dead, or at the very least irretrievably gone.
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He says, with an arch of his eyebrows.
"I gave him quite a fright."
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He admits, with a bit of a shiver.
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"Did he - did he tell you what you needed to know?"
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Living with not knowing must be awful. He had only a shadow of that, growing up without knowing what had become of his father; he doesn't mention it because he accepts that Irina is far worse.
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He admits.
"He told me, he'd known all along she was dead."
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"Like you told me."
Ricki said this much to him, a while ago in Paris - the way he'd told it, discovering (heavily suspecting?) that they'd known all along had been his reason to slip away from the Circus altogether. But if he'd been going by suspicion, hearing the confirmation really vindicates nothing, at this stage.
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He says, and clears his throat.
"When I was meeting George, I was a mess. I loved her, I felt guilty, I felt betrayed- Circus men had been trying to kill me, I had no money, no food, and nowhere to stay. So even though they knew she was dead, they didn't tell me, in order that I go to Paris for them and act as bait to draw out the mole. I went and held the wire office at gunpoint to do it, you know, and they were making plans to intercept me and get me to Russia when George and Peter stepped in. Me- a wreck, and the work, fucking dangerous, right? So it made absolute and utter sense to lie to me."
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He reminds him.
"And I know you're young, but- it's such a long time, and it was all of my adult life. I'd come back, when it would have been far easier to up and vanish. I'd sounded the alarm."
He clears his throat.
"I wonder if they'd- you know. Let me have a chance to make the choice to do the right thing, would I be an inmate right now?"
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"He mentioned that when I talked to him. Said it's pretty much impossible to tell what the right thing is, most of the time."
So either Smiley and Guillam had done wrong, or Ricki would've done right in different circumstances, or neither, or both. Eggsy wants to believe that inmates end up on the Barge because of the choices they've made, not the ones made for them, but sometimes the evidence doesn't always bear that out. Grey areas all over the shop, to say the very least.
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Even though it's tempting to keep turning it over and over.
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"Don't think so," Eggsy says, a bland sort of disagreement. "Think most people'd like to know what the fuck they're doin' where they are, no matter where that is."
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He explains, with a simple shrug.
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Which is an observation, not a criticism, because he had already encountered it - in Marines, in his own home life. 'Would like to' doesn't mean 'are entitled to'. He knows exactly how little a person is entitled to, in most parts of their lives.
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He realizes, and spares him a glance.
"You ever worry that in twenty years, you'll wake up back here, on my side of the bars?"
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"Yeah. Sometimes."
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He wonders, glancing up.
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"S'like you said. Don't think any of us got the right to know, do we."
Though in some instances - this one, for example - he doesn't think anyone does.
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Is all he can caution.
"Always."