It seemed, impossible that she wouldn’t begin to suspect we weren’t as close as she thought we were, but when we got into the bedroom and I was put to it at last to strip down to my feathers, she took my diffidence to heart in such a way that it appeared only to prove an undying love, a tribute to her that no one had ever paid before. So at last, as I felt all this, I began to rise, at the moment when I thought I’d never be able to, not that night at least, and not with her. I slid in like a dream, and kept at it with her under me till she blew the walls of herself on to me, then I changed her on to her back and packed in every inch so that she grasped the pillows to try and take even more, yet at the same time escape it. The more exquisite and ferocious it got, the plainer did I see Polly and know she was the one I wanted to be with, and when every part of me finally turned into a fountain it was only in an effort to put out these sprouting flames because I was crying out Polly’s name, seeing no one else, and knowing I was in nobody but her. I bit my lips, and my inside heart cried out. There was no stopping the tears, and my cheeks were wet. She noticed this, and kissed them, talking to me in a crazy mixture of Dutch and English, and I was forced to begin returning her words, and her kisses.
‘Michael,’ she cried, ‘take me away. Let’s go off together.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘all right, love’ – and kissed her madly so that I wouldn’t have to say any more. I began to wonder how I’d come to let myself in for this, and felt my moral fibres going rotten under the force of this tough reflection. Yet in a way I did love Bridgitte, though not all of me, not the nine-tenths in the teeth of Polly. I wondered whether Polly knew how much she was haunting me, how much the black side of her was curled up in my gut, how much I loved her, in fact. And I wondered why, if this was so, she’d put herself so far beyond my reach. I wanted to unstick myself from Bridgitte and run down to the phone, to call again in case she’d come home in the meantime. But I couldn’t move, because Bridgitte was lying across me, so I rolled over her, and we went on with our kissing match, a furore growing between us, anything but talk beyond the normal words of love, when all her thoughts in that direction went on a road I did not want to go.
I grew cold again, half ashamed of those distant kisses, because she deserved more than that. Try as I could I couldn’t get closer, and make our kisses properly meet. It seemed the work of only half a man, though I ploughed her up to scratch when the fire finally took hold and I could let go. It wasn’t a prolonged marvellous shooting into her from the depthless part of myself, but it went in from the surface like a shower of steel dust. In spite of this and never thinking about anyone except Polly, I had the strongest definite desire when Bridgitte did finally get a look in, to make her pregnant. I don’t know why, but I was detached enough to be able to think of this, and I wanted her to have a baby. It was this thought that, towards the end of the evening, more or less pushed Polly away from my mind, and though at the same time it didn’t get me much closer to Bridgitte, at least I didn’t feel I was being such a bastard to her.
Instead of staying all night in the haven of my love I went back to the flat, on foot, to see if there were any messages regarding the next trip. It was three in the morning, and there weren’t, so I looked forward to my next collision with Bridgitte, and went to sleep.
In the morning William didn’t even have time to phone his mother at her hotel, for both of us were snappily told to get over to the flat in Knightsbridge with our passports. After a quick breakfast I went off, hoping to get a taxi before reaching the bridge. William was to leave ten minutes later so that we wouldn’t be seen going into the place together.
The ten-o’clock rush hour was pouring in, though no jams were forming yet. A small souped-up car charged out of a side street and ground itself obliquely into a bus. There was a rending of glass, and a dull scraping crunch of expensive tin. People came off the bus, and the driver got down. Nobody was hurt, and I hurried on, but it was a bad omen just the same. I got into a taxi, and lit a cigarette, unnerved by the reverberation of that impact. You either believe in omens or you don’t, I thought. I don’t. If you don’t, I suppose you believe that your fate is decided by heaven, or whatever it is, and not yourself. Believing in omens is the same as hoping that you have some control over your fate. You don’t. The cigarette tasted like foul soil. Omens are there to frighten you, not to warn you. I tried to cheer myself up on this, but didn’t much succeed.
I hung about in the anteroom waiting for William, looking through hunting magazines. I thought he seemed a bit flustered when he did make it, but we were taken straight in by Stanley. I had the feeling that something was not right with the world, and heard the man in the iron lung shouting into a telephone, and when I saw him through the perspex bubble he was going at that mouthpiece as if intending to eat it. When he put it down he set to rubbing and wringing his hands to get the blood back into them. It seemed to me he wouldn’t be in this job much longer.
‘There’s an emergency on,’ he said, ‘a big consignment to be shifted, and I want you two to do it, a hundredweight between you, this afternoon.’
‘My mother’s in town,’ William said, with a smile. ‘I thought I’d get these few days off.’
Jack Leningrad (or whatever his name was) grimaced, his face pale white. ‘You’ll have ten years off if I see another wrinkle of complaint around the sides of your mouth, my boy.’ He straightened his tie. ‘I want you to go to Zurich, then Beirut, Mr Hay. You’ll go to Paris, Mr Cullen. Your planes leave within five minutes of each other, so Stanley will drive you to the airport. Got the shakes already, Mr Cullen?’
He was looking straight at me, and he was right, because I had, and put my arm out to a chairback to stop myself falling. ‘I’ll be solid enough when the weight’s on,’ I said. It was too sudden, though I’d expected it from the moment we were called over.
In the car we decided that William would go through the customs first, and that I would follow almost immediately, so that we could have a drink before our different planes left. He made me promise to phone his mother and take her out in the morning, and I said I’d be glad to do this if all went well.
‘Don’t be dispirited, old lad,’ he exclaimed, with that wide false-teeth smile of his. ‘You’ll go through with flying colours, I know you will. It’s on the cards – not to mention the tea-leaves.’
‘I read my horoscope this morning, and it said my business plans would go awry.’
‘Forget it,’ he said, wanting to thump me on the back, but finding the effort to lift his arm too great. The weight didn’t bother me so much, but I felt as fat as a Michelin man, there for the world with its X-ray eyes to see. I hung around the bookstall, then walked towards the customs hall.
I stopped, ice at the heels of my feet. William was being interviewed by two customs men, and as I turned and walked away they were one on either side and heading him into a room. This is the end of him and me as well, I thought, panic in every vein and toe. This is the black finish of our trip down the Great North Road. I felt hunted, didn’t know what to do nor even where to turn. The place wasn’t busy and not many people were about, but I thought they were all police and narks ready to surround and rend me. I was so paralysed that I didn’t even feel enough shame to tell me to pull myself together.
I went to the nearest lavatory, intending to stand there and piss while I thought out what to do. But there was no method in me, only fear and sweat that I’d never known before, and if I’d suspected such a thing lurked in me I wouldn’t have taken this job on. I locked a lavatory door behind me and opened my coat, lifting out bars of gold and with shivering rapid hands dropping them into the lavatory. I piled all forty in and covered them with half a roll of toilet paper, wishing I’d never come to London but stayed and done my duty by Claudine, worked for her like an honest man should.
I left the toilet and went back into the hall. My idea had been to dump the gold and flee, hide on a remote island off Scotland for two years and hope I wouldn’t get my
throat cut for cowardice, but for some crazy reason I went to the door of the departure lounge, and looked across at the customs men. There was William, talking to them, a smile across his face as if they were two old friends he’d been at school with. This sight mixed me up, but only for a moment, for I saw him wave gaily, and walk on into the departure hall, being safely through.
Shaking off my bewilderment I went quickly back to the lavatory. A man was standing at the urinal having a piss, and another was drying his hands. I went back to the toilet, but the door was locked, the engaged sign showing. I dashed into the next one, thinking I’d jump over the top or crawl underneath and strangle the bastard who was having a crap in there so that I could get my gold, but the one I was in turned out to be the one I’d used, and when I ripped off the coils of toilet paper, the gold was underneath, every bar of it still there. It was the good luck of my life, and at its sight I calmed down, and slotted every piece back into my coat. After two minutes silence I went to a mirror and combed my hair, straightened my hat, picked up my briefcase, not caring whether my fate was being decided, feeling that the excitement was over at last, come what may. I was no longer a fat man to the world, because to myself it seemed that I had sweated all the flesh of my bones away.
I walked through, and no one even looked at me, beyond a formal glimpse at my passport. William was already by the bar with a light ale in front of him: ‘What kept you, old smoke?’
‘I thought your number was up,’ I said, feeling a tremor of the shakes coming back, ‘when they started questioning you.’
He laughed, and ordered me a beer: ‘Just routine.’
‘The lousy poke-faced jack-snouts.’
‘They’re all right. Good lads, most of ’em. Got their job to do. No use hating them. That’s the road to bad breath!’
‘They searched you, didn’t they?’
‘Just to look in my wallet. It’s the travel allowance they’re worried about. I thought it was getting close but they didn’t get anywhere near. Still, next time I’ll use Gatwick. I’m a bit known here.’ His plane was called, and off he went.
In Paris I took a taxi to an address on the Île de la Cité. I was blind to Paris, except for its rain, being disappointed at not having seen Polly on the way there. The longer it got since a glimpse of her, the worse it felt. I delivered my goods, and then, as instructed, took a taxi back to the airport, and waited till seven o’clock for a leg-up to London. I sat in the airport lounge and drank black coffee, passing a bit of the time angling for a sweet look from the waitress but not getting anywhere near.
By nine I was back at the Knightsbridge flat, where Stanley put an envelope in my hand with the usual amount inside. I was then let out again, no word sparking between us. I met a taxi by the door, and got home to find William’s mother waiting for me. ‘He said you’d look after me,’ she said, as I took off my coat.
‘Had dinner then, Mrs Straw?’
‘No, my duck, but don’t bother about me.’
‘Well, I’m hungry. Let’s go and have a chop or two.’
‘That sounds lovely. Can I have green peas with it?’
‘You can have strawberries and cream if you like.’ I hadn’t expected her to be dumped on me so soon, and had meant to crash fifty thousand feet into sleep now that I was home. But after my promise I couldn’t just bundle her back to her hotel. She sat in an easy chair, with a good length of brandy on the arm. ‘I met some people the other day, and they want me to go to their hotel for a drink tonight, love. I wrote their address down, so I’d be glad if you’ll take me there.’ She fumbled in her big white handbag and passed me the back of an envelope.
‘We’ll do that, then,’ I said, glad there was a place to go to without having to decide. When I read the name it was the hotel I’d stayed at when I arrived in London, now written in a quick and keggy hand that depressed me, I don’t know why. Mrs Straw put on her glasses, while I stared at the paper, as if to help me decipher it. I had nothing to fear. In my new guise they wouldn’t even know me as the one who’d left without paying his bill.
‘Come on then, Mother,’ I said, jumping away from my sins of the past when they started to bite at my toecaps like hungry crabs. ‘It’ll be too late to eat at this hotel of yours, so we’ll go to a restaurant.’
‘Lovely,’ she said, standing up. ‘We can go there afterwards. Only for half an hour. They’re ever such jolly people. A man and his wife, come from Chesterfield. They’ll be ever so glad to see me.’
I hoped to stupefy her with food and wine before it came to that, so helped her into a new fur coat that William had bought for her. She talked about him through the dinner. ‘He’s always been as good as gold to me’ – that sort of thing, till I thought I’d go screwy if she said another word in this tone but then I found myself listening, and actually enjoying the way she went on. ‘He was always the same, even before his dad died, and that’s going back a bit, I can tell you. I know he’s been in prison and all that, but he’s one of the best lads any woman could want.’ She looked hard at me, as if wondering what effect her talk was having. It made me uneasy, because I hadn’t seen such an honest look for a long time. It was a hungry look, that threatened to black me out. ‘Tell me, my duck,’ she said, ‘what sort of work does he do?’
‘Ain’t he told you?’
‘Ay, he has. But you tell me.’
‘He does the same as me.’
‘What do you do, then?’
‘I’m a travelling salesman. A group of engineering firms got together and pooled their stuff, so some of us take samples of their production to various places abroad. It pays well, but it wears you out at times, so much running about.’
She wasn’t eating much of her chops, not even touching the tinned fresh peas: ‘That’s right. He told me all about it. But I wouldn’t like owt to ’appen to him. I’d die if it did.’
‘Aeroplanes don’t crash nowadays. You shouldn’t worry about that.’
She looked hard at me, not having believed a word of what I’d said: ‘No, it’s not that at all, and you know it. Don’t you?’
I laughed: ‘What, Ma?’
‘I’ve lived longer than you think I have. Admitted, most of my life it’s been under water from one sort of misery or another, but I’ve got eyes and ears and a mother’s heart, and when I look at Bill I know he’s living under a wicked strain, and there’s summat he’s keeping from me. I’ve got all my senses right enough. Knowing what I know and feeling what I feel, it pains me to come up against somebody like yo’ who won’t tell me the honest simple truth that wain’t do a bit of harm to me after all I’ve lived through.’
Her face looked pale and made of paper. Bits of powder and rouge turned her head into a lantern, with two eyes for candles. My heart was tight at the sight of her. ‘It’s secret work,’ I said. ‘I can’t tell you any more, so please don’t ask me. But he’s in no danger, not Bill. He’s doing very well with his life at the moment, so you shouldn’t worry about him at all. I’m telling you.’ For God’s sake believe me, I added under my breath. My words made her smile with relief, because I excelled in fervour. When I remembered it afterwards I wept that I hadn’t told the simple but elusive truth.
‘I’d better take you back to your hotel,’ I said when the meal was finished.
‘I must just nip to the other place first. It can’t be far and we can take a taxi. Bill gen me ten pounds last night. He’s been so generous to me.’ I knew that in her fur coat she felt more cared for than she’d ever done in her life, and I hadn’t the heart to make a fuss about not going where she wanted, so in ten minutes we were at the door of the hotel.
The manager behind the desk still had the same sharp ulcerous look on his face. ‘Hello,’ he said to me, ‘back again? Thought we’d seen the last of you.’
‘I decided to come and settle up.’
‘Better late than never,’ he said.
‘I didn’t know you had pals here as well,’ said Bill’s bright mother, her
hand crooked in my arm.
‘We’ll be in the lounge,’ I told the manager, ‘so bring the bill into me, with a double brandy, and a shandy. One for yourself, as well.’
‘When you came through that door just now I hardly knew you,’ he smiled. ‘You’ve prospered a bit since you pulled out so suddenly.’
I moved on, too exhausted to make much of a night of it in the lounge with Mr and Mrs Binns from Chesterfield, but they were happy and nice enough in their middle-aged way. They weren’t as pleased to see Mrs Straw as much as Mrs Straw would have liked, but it ended better than it started, for I plugged them all to capacity before we left, and paid my bill of nearly twenty pounds into the bargain. The manager had tears of gratitude on the pouches of his eyes. I’d got him to take a couple more brandies: ‘Nearly got thrown out because of you,’ he confessed, ‘because I’d had a few bad cases only a month before. You’re the first one that ever came back to pay in all my experience. It’s gladdened my faith in human nature a bit.’ On that slimy note, with the five of us fit to break into Auld Lang Syne, I pulled Mrs Straw into a taxi and back to her hotel. The same cab got me home. I was too done in to take a bath, and fell flat on to my bed like a board of lead, sleeping till midday with neither faces nor white horses to disturb my blackout.
A Start in Life Page 31