The Interpretations

  His room wasn’t yet available to him but at least they allowed him to leave his case there. He left his jacket there too, as the day was warming up. At half past nine he went in search of Old Compton Street.

  He was there in fifteen minutes. Within a further five he’d found the newsagent to which, every Saturday morning, Hessie sent out a copy of the Dalmore Weekend.

  A rack outside the shop held newspapers in French, German, Spanish, Turkish, Arabic, Italian and several other languages he could not identify. There were regional newspapers as well – The Kerryman, The Irish Times, The Glasgow Herald, The Scotsman. Jim went inside and asked for The Dalmore Herald.

  ‘The what?’ the assistant asked. He was about forty-five, white, and spoke with an accent Jim couldn’t place.

  ‘The Dalmore Herald,’ Jim repeated.

  ‘Dalmore Herald. No, I don’t think . . .’

  ‘The Dalmore Weekend?’ Jim offered.

  ‘Weekend . . . Ah, wait a minute, wait a minute.’ He began searching underneath the counter and then on shelves behind him. ‘Yes, we do get that one, but . . . but only for orders, I think. Yes, here we are.’

  He produced not one but two Dalmore Weekends and leafed through them. ‘No, they’re orders, I’m afraid. Well, one order, in fact. Guy hasn’t picked them up for a couple of weeks. Haven’t got any spares. Sorry.’

  ‘Your customer’s a bit behind, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He replaced the newspapers on the shelf. ‘Always turns up eventually, though.’ He smiled. ‘Always pays up front, too, so I can’t give you one.’

  ‘No problem. I’ll take this.’ Jim placed a copy of the Glasgow Herald on the counter and passed the assistant some change. ‘One Herald’s almost as good as another,’ he said.

  From the newsagents he walked slowly along Old Compton Street past cafés, restaurants and pubs. There were clothes shops, too, whose windows displayed styles he knew existed but had never seen. Lots of leather was involved. Studs, chains, torn tee shirts with unreadable legends scrawled across them, denim jackets that looked worn out, shoes with impossibly long pointed toes. He came to the corner with Frith Street and was attracted by the blue and black façade of Caffè Nero but then his attention was caught by a sign on the other side which said ‘Bar Italia’. He crossed the street and went in.

  At the far end of the long café there were two TV screens, one large and one larger. MTV was playing on both, a girl band singing loudly about truth and destiny. The wall to his left was mostly mirror. A narrow ledge, sloping slightly, allowed you to place your coffee and your ashtray there as you perched on a barstool. Jim decided to sit at one of the tiny tables outside. He ordered his third coffee of the day and watched how mid-morning was presented to him by Soho.

  There were fewer people than he’d seen marching along the Euston Road and the pace was more leisurely. They were doing what he was doing, gently moving into the day with a cup of tea or coffee and a newspaper.

  He took out his mobile phone and tapped in a number.

  ‘Hessie? It’s Jim Fisher . . . No, no . . . Well, not exactly on holiday, no. Sort of on holiday . . . London . . . Oh, yes, terrible place. Wonderful as well . . . No, I mean it . . . I was . . . remember I said I might ask a favour . . . Yes, yes . . . Well, It’s not that much, really . . . No . . . I want you to insert an extra page in the Weekend edition that you’ll be sending out to Old Compton Street in London tomorrow . . . No, nothing libellous or anything like that. I’d like you to put . . . That’s right . . . OK . . . Ready? OK. “Jim Fisher would like to buy Peter Clinghurst a coffee at 11am or 7pm any day next week (12th to 16th June) at the Bar Italia, Frith Street, Soho.” Got that? . . . Yes, make it big. Fill a page with it and stick it in behind the front page . . . No, I’ve no idea. It could be a complete waste of time . . . Yes, I’ll . . . I will, yes. OK, Hessie, thanks . . . Oh, Hessie, I’d rather you didn’t mention it to anyone, OK? . . . Thanks very much, really, thanks. OK. Bye.’

  He slipped the phone back into his pocket and finished his coffee. Then he picked up his copy of The Glasgow Herald and walked back to the hotel where he slept until mid-afternoon.

  He realised he had a lot of free time. The earliest that the Dalmore Weekend with his message in it could reach the newsagent was Monday morning. So, he had the rest of the weekend plus as many days as it took until Tom turned up, if he turned up. He managed to convince himself that Tom was out there and, as soon as he picked up his copies of the newspaper he would come round to the café. Then he decided he was fooling himself. The chances of Tom being the man who ordered the Herald from the Soho newsagent were negligible. Zero. It was daft to have even thought of such an idea. He might as well head on home right now. Then he decided that maybe there was a chance, just the tiniest of chances. So he stayed.

  To cope with time he decided to tire himself out. On Sunday he crossed the river and walked along the Thames Path to Greenwich. He visited the Cutty Sark and the Mari­time Museum and staggered up the hill to the Observatory.

  What he was to remember with greatest affection from that day was not the tea-clipper itself, moored in its tiny pocket-handkerchief of ocean, nor even the Meridian Line that split the planet in two; it was a little garden he saw from the train when he was coming back. Between London Bridge and Charing Cross there was an elevated section of track. The train advanced slowly in sharp curves between the upper floors of blackened brick buildings. At times he felt he could step out of the train and in through an office window or onto a veranda. Then the train whined to a halt. Only a few feet away from him and slightly below the level of the train, there was a flat roof, a tiny area perhaps ten feet by ten feet, surfaced in dark grey asphalt. But the edges were lined with window boxes in which grew pansies and poppies and trailing nasturtiums. In one corner there was a very large pot, glazed in blue, with two big sunflowers in it, their heads, heavy with seeds, turned to the floor. In the middle there was a table with a red and white umbrella in its centre and a single garden chair.

  The roof terrace was walled on two sides and, as Jim watched, a door in the wall opposite him opened and a woman stepped out. She had long, straight, black hair. She was wearing jeans and a white tee shirt. She might have been twenty-one or twenty-two. In one hand she was carrying a book; in the other, a mug of tea or coffee. She pushed the door shut behind her with her heel and then sat at the table. She placed the book in front of her, face down, and began to sip from the mug. Jim was close enough to make out the title on the spine of the book even though he had to read it upside down.

  ‘Microcosms’.

  It was a book he’d read himself. He wanted to pull down a window and call over to her – he wouldn’t even have to shout as she was only a few feet away. ‘It’s a good book, isn’t it,’ he wanted to say. But the carriage was brand new; it was air-conditioned; there were no windows that could be opened. And anyway, the woman seemed unaware of the train. She didn’t even glance at it as it began to move again. Within a few seconds Jim lost sight of her.

  On Sunday evening he rang Alltduie House and asked to speak to the Reverend McFarren.

  ‘I thought you were in London,’ the minister said.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Homesick already, is that it?’

  ‘I need a guide,’ Jim said. ‘I could do with you here to show me around.’

  ‘I dare say the place has changed since my last visit which was probably before you were born. How old are you again?’

  ‘Forty-seven.’

  ‘Well, there you are. As I suspected.’

  ‘I was thinking of Miss Comlyn, too.’

  There was a short pause before the minister said, ‘Miss Comlyn?’

  ‘She spent some time in London, I believe. I could do with her calming influence right now.’

  ‘She was a very good and kind person.’

  ‘I was very fond of her,’ Jim said.

  ‘And I was, too,’ the minister replied.

  ‘You were?’ Ji
m asked, fearing that this enquiry was on the very edge of territory he could reasonably explore.

  But the minister seemed happy to respond. ‘Oh, I was. Very fond, in fact. You see, Miss Comlyn was a very great help to me and to my wife, Millicent, to both of us, very much so, when Millicent was in her final illness. She would often cook for us. And when Millicent passed away, I was at such a loss I think I would not have survived had Miss Comlyn not . . . not assisted me greatly at that time. She even offered to become my housekeeper but I felt that would have been too great an imposition. But a wonderful lady, yes, wonderful.’

  ‘I agree,’ Jim said.

  ‘And your quest?’ the minister asked.

  ‘My quest?’

  ‘You’re not in London just to take in the sights.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I hope things are going well.’

  ‘They are. Well, I say that but in fact I don’t know. I might know tomorrow, maybe the day after.’

  ‘I wish you the best of luck.’

  On Monday Jim sat outside the Bar Italia from eleven to eleven thirty but no one came. In the afternoon he walked along the Strand, into Fleet Street and on to St Paul’s Cathedral. He went inside but didn’t stay long; he felt crushed by the immensity of the empty space it contained. So he explored the City, crossed the river and returned along the South Bank. In the evening, from seven to seven thirty he sat in the café again. Nobody came.

  On Tuesday he wandered round Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia trying, but failing, to imagine people walking there who had walked there many years before. Virginia Woolf, Karl Marx. It was quite impossible. Too much had changed. Too many people had been added to the place and too many vehicles. Again he was at the Bar Italia at the appointed times. Again, no sign of Tom.

  On Wednesday morning, at nine thirty, he went to the newsagent on Old Compton Street and bought a copy of The Scotsman. The same assistant was there.

  ‘Got rid of your Dalmore Weekends yet?’ Jim asked.

  ‘Dalmore Weekends? Oh, those. Yes, I think . . . let’s see . . .’ He checked the shelf behind him. ‘Yes, all gone. Guy came in Monday, I think.’

  ‘Did he get last weekend’s as well?’

  ‘They arrive pretty regular. Yeah, more than likely. It’s not here, anyway.’

  Jim said, ‘Good.’

  At eleven he took what was becoming his usual seat outside the Bar Italia. He had no need to order; they knew how he liked his coffee. The morning was warm again and he took off his jacket, enjoying the sun and the coffee and the paper in front of him. At ten past eleven he heard someone say, ‘Hello, Weet.’

  22

  The man who stood on the pavement by Jim’s table was tall and thin to the point of being gaunt. He had a heavy but neatly trimmed dark grey beard and thick grey hair. His clothes were old and worn out but clean. There was some fraying at the cuffs of his blue checked shirt and the light, pale brown linen jacket he was wearing lacked a couple of buttons at the front. His grey corduroy trousers were baggy and worn. Though highly polished, his brown shoes were down-at-heel and the uppers were cracked at each side.

  Jim stood up. He was trembling. ‘Tom?’ he said. ‘Tom?’ He looked into the man’s face but struggled to recognise him. He looked like a man who had learned a great deal about loss.

  ‘Nobody’s called me Tom for a while now,’ he said.

  ‘Is it really you?’ Jim put his hands on the man’s shoulders. His voice faltered. ‘Tom? Christ . . . Is it really you?’

  ‘A distant relation, maybe,’ was the reply and the man smiled very slightly as he said this. It wasn’t a big smile, just the suggestion of one, just enough to convince Jim that this was the man he’d been looking for.

  ‘Tom,’ he said again. ‘Tom.’ And he pulled him into a bear hug to which Tom responded quietly, patting him gently on the back.

  ‘My God,’ Jim said. ‘My God.’

  When they broke apart Jim found it difficult to say anything. ‘I didn’t think,’ he began, ‘I really didn’t think . . .’ Then he stopped. ‘It’s incredible, incredible . . .’

  ‘I watched you for a couple of days,’ Tom said.

  ‘You did?’

  ‘From over there.’ He pointed to the corner of the street, the café opposite, Caffè Nero. ‘I wasn’t sure, you see.’

  ‘You didn’t recognise me?’

  ‘Oh no, not that. I recognised you all right. It’s just that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to meet you or not.’

  ‘Well, I deliberately gave you the option,’ Jim said. ‘I mean, I could have staked out the newsagents, just hung around till you turned up . . .’

  ‘You might have had to wait a while.’

  ‘I know, I know. And anyway, I wouldn’t have recognised you. That beard . . .’

  ‘It’s a bit cheaper than shaving,’ Tom said.

  ‘Well, anyway, I wanted it to be your choice, you see, about whether we met or not. I wanted to leave it up to you.’

  ‘Well, good of you. Yes. And I wasn’t sure myself, you know. Right up till this morning. It’s because you persevered, you see. I wasn’t even going to come over today but I pushed myself out the door and said yes, if he’s there this morning, then yes. But it wasn’t easy. You were going to stay the whole week?’

  ‘Yes. But I didn’t even know it was you. I mean, ordering the Herald and so on. Might’ve been someone completely different. You got the message inside?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But I was only guessing, you see. So I reckoned a week’d be enough. If it was you, you’d have time to decide and if it wasn’t, well . . . it made the whole thing pointless anyway.’

  ‘But here I am.’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ After a few moments Jim said, ‘But come on, sit down, sit down. Do you drink coffee?’

  ‘Only on special occasions.’

  ‘How special?’

  ‘Oh, I think this qualifies.’

  They sat at the tiny silver table in the strong sunlight, Jim with his back to the plate glass frontage of the café, Tom with his back to the street. There were three other tables pressed together along the uneven inner edge of the pavement; none of these was occupied. Jim’s feet rested on the dim light coming up from the café basement through the pavement skylight, a panel of thick, scuffed blocks of glass.

  A waitress cleared away Tom’s empty cup and took the order for two coffees.

  ‘Would you like something to eat?’ Jim asked.

  ‘Thanks, but I don’t usually eat much before midday.’

  ‘Not even on special occasions?’

  He smiled. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Just the coffees, then,’ Jim said to the waitress. To Tom he said, ‘Christ, I still can’t believe it, you know. I can’t. I mean, where do we begin? We all thought you were dead. Christ, I even went to your funeral!’

  ‘I couldn’t make it myself.’

  Jim smiled, shook his head. ‘No, no. Well . . . Oh, here, take a look at this.’ He took an envelope from his top pocket, opened it and drew out a photograph. He handed it to Tom. ‘If I did find you,’ he said, ‘in the unlikely event, that is, I thought this might amuse you.’

  It was a photograph of Tom’s gravestone.

  Tom looked at it carefully for half a minute and read the inscription three or four times. ‘What can I say?’ he said. ‘To have friends like yourself . . .’

  ‘And Mike,’ Jim prompted.

  ‘And Mike, of course. Is he . . . I mean, I read about his accident . . .’

  ‘He’s fine,’ Jim said and then quickly corrected himself. ‘Well, of course he isn’t, he’s a long way from being fine. But he’s on the mend. It’ll take a while but he should recover completely.’

  ‘Good, good.’ He looked at the photo again. ‘So, was there actually a coffin?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And anything inside it?’

  ‘A few things of yours that Mike found in the flat. I’m not sure I can remember . . . There was a
couple of photos, a hat and . . . oh, one of your books, I think.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Something about pheasants?’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘I can’t remember you being particularly interested in pheasants.’

  ‘No, but my father was. Had this daft scheme to raise lots of them. But then he died and that was the end of that. Got as far as getting the book, though. Well, I bought it for him. I think it was the last book he read. So . . .’

  He was interrupted by the arrival of the coffees. The waitress placed them on the table, two glasses of coffee, each in a white saucer.

  ‘So,’ Tom continued, ‘a couple of photos, a hat and a book.’

  ‘And one of your shoes.’

  ‘One? You couldn’t quite manage a pair?’

  ‘Well, it was the one that was found on the beach after you disappeared, the one that finally convinced everyone that you were dead.’

  ‘Yes, of course. A running shoe.’

  ‘One of the pair you were wearing when you ran the race.’

  ‘Yes, I remember. McCall kept them back for that purpose. I mean . . . to convince people. So he said, anyway. And I was a bit annoyed because I’d just bought them.’

  ‘So McCall really did organise everything, didn’t he?’ Jim asked.

  ‘Yes, certainly. I couldn’t possibly have done it all without his help. In fact . . .’ He reached into an inside pocket in his linen jacket. ‘. . . this was the most important bit.’ He placed a passport on the table between them.

  Jim picked it up and opened it. He found the photograph page. ‘Peter Clinghurst,’ he said. ‘Looks nothing like you.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Too young, for a start.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s amazing what you can achieve. I grew a beard, parted my hair in the middle . . . Anyway, people don’t really look that hard at the photos.’