‘What’s wrong?’
‘The clutch. Something’s happened to the clutch.’
‘Let me have a look.’
Moses flicked the interior light on, then reached down with his left hand, his head resting sideways on Mary’s thigh.
‘Shit,’ he said. ‘The cable’s snapped.’
‘Can you mend it?’
‘No.’
They stared at each other.
‘Now what?’ she said.
He consulted the map. ‘We’re miles from anywhere.’
‘You’re joking.’
‘No joke, I’m afraid.’
‘Fuck.’
‘Well, don’t blame me,’ he said, ‘I wasn’t the one who wanted to do the scenic route.’
She glared at him.
He looked down at the map again. ‘And you know what? One of the nearest places is still New Egypt.’ He allowed himself a soft sardonic laugh. ‘There’s only one place that’s nearer and that’s Bagwash. What I suggest we do is ditch the car and walk to Bagwash. It’s about five miles.’
‘What’s this Bagwash? Sounds like a launderette.’
‘It’s a village. It’s got a church, a pond, a Roman remains – an obelisk – ’
‘Sod the obelisk. What about a garage?’
He gave her a withering look. ‘You can’t tell that by looking at a map. Come on, Mary. You ought to know that.’ He knew she hated the word ought – she thought it ought to be removed from the English language – but he wanted to provoke her.
‘Why?’ she said. ‘Why ought I to know that?’
‘Because you’ve been driving longer than me. Much longer. Because you’re older.’
‘You bastard.’ She twisted in her seat and swiped him with her driving-glove.
He poked her in the ear with his finger. ‘Much older,’ he said.
She began to beat him about the head with her handbag. It was a deceptive handbag. It looked ladylike, but it could hold a litre of vodka, no problem. It hurt.
In retaliation he seized her nose between finger and thumb. Her mouth opened. He stuffed it with a tissue. ‘Bless you,’ he said.
Their frustration slowly distilled, first into laughter, then into sex.
Afterwards Moses said, ‘The light was on the whole time.’
‘I always fuck with the light on,’ Mary said. ‘I like to see what I’m doing.’
‘But anyone could’ve seen.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘What if Peach – ’ Moses didn’t finish his sentence.
Mary leaned back against the door and looked at him. ‘What is it now, Moses?’
‘Nothing,’ he said.
*
After walking for twenty minutes they reached a junction. BAG WASH ], the signpost said.
‘Four and a half miles,’ Mary groaned. She sat down on the grass mound at the foot of the signpost and began to take off her shoes.
‘What are you doing?’ Moses said.
‘My feet hurt.’
‘Oh, Christ.’ He moved out into the middle of the road. He looked first in one direction, then in the other. No cars. Not the remotest suggestion of a car. Not even the feeling that a car might once have passed this way. They were going to have to walk.
‘Come on, Mary.’ He took her by both hands and pulled her to her feet. ‘It’s only about an hour.’
‘My legs are half the length of yours,’ she said. ‘Two hours.’
He studied her as closely as was possible in the extreme darkness. ‘They can’t be half the length,’ he grinned, ‘can they?’
They stood face to face and measured legs.
‘All right,’ Moses conceded five minutes later (during which time comparison had also been made between their mouths, and between one of Mary’s breasts and one of Moses’s hands), ‘one and a half hours.’
They began to walk.
High hedges hemmed the road in on both sides. Sometimes the wind blew and trees became haunting instruments. Otherwise silence. When they talked, the night sounded like an empty room. When they didn’t, Moses heard noises. The blood in your ears, Mary reassured him. But Moses was thinking of Peach, the stealthy Peach, he was imagining the Chief Inspector following in their tracks, rubbing his plump hands together, he was hearing the sinister whisper of skin on skin, so when Mary stopped and said, for the fifth time, ‘What’s that?’ he walked on, snapped, ‘Nothing.’
‘It is,’ she cried. ‘Look. Headlights.’
He swung round and saw two yellow trumpets playing over the dark landscape. He stepped back into the ditch. Shielding his eyes, he could just make out the shape of a truck. One wheeze of its brakes and it had obeyed Mary’s waving arms and stood, shuddering, asthmatic, on the road. He moved sideways out of the glare. A man with a square face leaned out of the cab, a shiny leather cap pushed to the back of his head.
‘Our car’s broken down,’ Moses said. ‘Any chance of a lift?’
The man told them to hop in.
Like drunkenness the relief then. Moses sat between Mary and the man in the cap and talked non-stop, raising his voice above the wail of the engine.
‘We just spent the day in New Egypt. About ten miles down the road. Do you know it?’
The man shook his head. He drove with his arms draped round the wheel, his hands almost meeting at midnight.
‘My dad lives there. I hadn’t seen him for ages. Not since I was a baby actually. Then we met a couple of policemen. Got a tour of the station and everything. One of them even offered me a job. Then the clutch went on the way back.’
The man nodded.
‘Best thing, we reckoned, was to try and get to Bagwash. Think it would’ve taken us all night if you hadn’t come along.’
The man lifted one stubby hand off the wheel and scratched his jaw. ‘You from London?’
‘That’s right.’
‘What were you doing on that lane then?’
Moses rolled his eyes towards the roof. ‘We were taking the scenic route back.’
‘Not quite so scenic when you break down, is it?’
It was a joke and both Moses and Mary laughed and their laughter carried them through the village of Bag wash and dropped them at the gates of a modest country hotel.
‘It’s the only hotel round here,’ the man told them. ‘If I was you, I’d stay the night here, fix the car in the morning. There’s a man in the village, name of Fowler. Phone him up. He might do it.’
They thanked him for the lift and the advice, and watched as a curve in the road snuffed his tail-lights out.
In the hotel lobby, Mary asked for a telephone. ‘I want to call Alan,’ she told Moses.
‘What are you going to tell him?’
‘I’m going to tell him that we’ve broken down in the middle of nowhere and that we can’t get back tonight.’
‘It sounds awful. It sounds like you made it up.’
Mary smiled and spread her hands. ‘It happens to be true.’
While Mary went to telephone, Moses registered as Mr and Mrs Shirley. The charade he had invented for Peach seemed to have taken on a life of its own.
‘That’s odd,’ Mary said, appearing at his elbow a moment later. ‘There’s no answer.’
‘Maybe he’s gone out or something.’
She pushed her lips forward, shook her head. ‘No, he said he was staying in this evening. He had some work to do.’
‘Maybe he changed his mind.’
Mary didn’t look convinced.
‘Look, you’ll be home by tomorrow lunch-time,’ Moses told her. ‘And, anyway, you’ve been away for longer than this before without calling.’
‘I know,’ she said, ‘but something doesn’t smell right.’
*
What a day it had been. There seemed nothing for it but to get terribly drunk. After all, as Mary reminded him, it was their first night alone together.
They began with cocktails in the hotel bar, then switched to gin and tonics and car
ried their gin and tonics, ice ringing in their glasses like chimes, into the dining-room. Mary chose a table in the darkest corner and ordered a bottle of wine.
Moses leaned back in his chair. It felt like weeks since Mary had appeared at the top of the stairs in her black wool coat and her jewels and announced that she was going to change his life. He had been living on his nerves all day and they were beginning to fray and buckle, they were beginning to say, Go and live somewhere else for a while. Hopefully, though, there would be no more surprises. Please, he begged. No more villages. No more fathers I didn’t know I had. No more Peach.
He finished his gin and tonic and, seeking distraction, looked into the room. There was a sudden fluttering of napkins over by the window, as if two white birds had spread their wings only to discover that they couldn’t fly. Another couple had sat down to dinner. The man wore a blue blazer. Crest on the breast pocket. Anchors on the buttons, no doubt. The woman, younger by at least ten years, wore a garish red blouse. Ruffles spilled fussily over her bust. They talked so intimately, these two, that the candle on their table scarcely flickered. Their hands clasped across the condiments. Their eyes locked as if they found each other captivating. But something failed to convince. Each time the waitress came by they flinched, withdrew their hands, turned their faces up to hers with stupid eagerness. They were like two bad actors. Ham love.
The wine arrived and Moses turned his attention back to Mary.
‘Well,’ she said, pouring them both a glass, ‘now that we’ve dealt with the past, what about drinking to the future?’
‘The future,’ Moses said.
They both emptied their glasses.
As Mary poured again, Moses leaned forwards. He began to spin his knife round on the tablecloth.
‘Did I ever tell you about the policeman?’ he said.
‘What policeman?’
‘It happened about four months ago. While I was out. This policeman came looking for me, apparently. He knew my name. He asked Elliot if I was living at The Bunker. Elliot wouldn’t tell him. So he hit Elliot. Out of the blue. Knocked him right over. Then he disappeared.’
‘Who was he?’
‘That’s just it. Nobody knows. And Elliot had never seen him before.’ He swallowed a thoughtful mouthful of wine and went back to spinning his knife around. ‘I’ve got a hunch, though. About who it was, I mean.’
‘Who then?’
‘Peach.’
‘Moses,’ Mary laughed, ‘you heard what your father said. Nobody ever leaves that place.’
‘Well, how come he knows who I am then?’
‘I don’t believe he does.’
‘He used my name, Mary.’
‘I didn’t hear that.’
‘And the way he looked at me – ’
‘I’m sorry, Moses. I just didn’t get the impression that he knew who you were. I think you’re being – ’
‘Of course you didn’t,’ Moses hissed. ‘He’s an actor. Not a second-rate actor like those two over there,’ and he jerked a thumb in the direction of the two lovers, ‘a real actor. A professional.’
Mary held her elbow in the palm of her hand. Her cigarette pointed at his face. She watched him calmly through the rapid spiralling of smoke. ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to prove,’ she said.
‘I’m not trying to prove anything. I’m just saying, suppose he did leave the village. Suppose,’ and he paused for a moment, ‘he came after me.’
Mary shook her head. ‘That’s called paranoia, Moses.’
‘Is it?’ he said.
*
An hour later they were both laughing drunk.
‘And what about,’ Moses was almost weeping, ‘and what about when Marlpit said, “And how is your young ladyfriend?” and Peach said, “Marlpit, this is Mr Shirley’s wife.”’
Uncontrollable hysterics.
Then Moses suddenly said, ‘Oh, shit.’
‘What is it?’ Mary asked.
He groaned. ‘I just remembered. The young ladyfriend. I was supposed to be meeting her tonight. We had some things to sort out.’
Mary’s eyes mocked him for a moment. ‘So call her.’
‘I think I’d better.’
He clambered to his feet. The table rocked, the carpet tactfully absorbed the sound of falling cutlery. On his way to the lobby he meandered past the two lovers. They seemed drunker too. Less stilted, anyhow. Less tense. Red Blouse was ordering a trifle.
‘I shouldn’t really,’ she was saying, ‘but – ’ and her lips disappeared coyly into her mouth. What a naughty girl.
Blue Blazer came to the rescue, his chair a white charger now, his fork a lance. ‘Well, it isn’t every day, is it?’ His smiling teeth glistened beneath his RAF moustache. He could almost taste the sweet sponge and jelly of her thighs. ‘In fact,’ he said, ‘I think I’ll have one too.’ The wicked bugger.
Still shaking his head, Moses found the pay-phone in the corner of the lobby. He lit a cigarette. He dialled Gloria’s number with a finger that seemed too big for the holes. The number rang and rang. No reply from Gloria. He dialled Eddie’s number next. He was supposed to be going too. No reply from Eddie either. Now what?
The clock above the reception desk said ten to eleven. They would probably both be at the club by now. So phone the club. But what was the name of the club? The Blue something, he remembered. Yes, that was it. The Blue what, though? Elliot would know, he thought. He dialled Elliot’s number. No reply again. He slammed the receiver down. What the fuck was going on?
He put his cigarette out. Suddenly his mouth tasted of wine and ashes. He swallowed. The taste remained. There were two worlds. One here, one out there. Nobody at home out there. Nobody listening. And him standing here, marooned in this one. A shiver ran the length of his spine. This second world, the world where he had been born, the world where he had already died once, where he could die again, crept up his nostrils, crept into his lungs, like gas. He felt the greedy breath of policemen on his neck. He turned. Nobody there.
He fought loose, won a moment of clarity. Directory Enquiries, he thought. He dialled 192. A woman answered.
‘Please can you help me?’ he began.
The woman laughed. ‘I’ll try.’
‘I’m looking for the number of a club in Covent Garden,’ he said. ‘It’s called The Blue something.’
‘That’s a funny name.’
‘I mean – ’
‘It’s all right, love. I know what you mean. Now, let me see. The Blue something – ’
He could hear her humming.
‘I suppose people don’t usually talk to you,’ he said.
‘Oh, you get the odd one or two.’
It sounded snug on the other end of the phone. It was like talking to somebody who was in bed. Somebody who had just woken up and was still drowsy and smothered in blankets. Warm as warm skin. He could’ve listened to her talk for ages. He could’ve fallen asleep in her voice.
‘There’s one man,’ she was saying, ‘he rings me up and he asks me what I’m wearing – ’
‘What do you tell him?’
‘Sometimes I tell him the truth. You know, white blouse, black skirt, shoes that leak. Other times I make things up. Once I told him I was wearing a ballgown – ’
Moses laughed. ‘You don’t mind him asking?’
‘No, I don’t mind. If it keeps him happy. We laugh a bit. You know. You get on faster if you make people laugh.’
‘It’s funny, but I like listening to your voice.’
‘Thank you. You’re not going to ask me what I’m wearing, are you?’
‘Not tonight.’
A soft laugh. ‘Here you go, love. How does The Blue Diamond sound?’
‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘You are clever.’
‘Don’t. It’ll go to my head.’
She gave him the number and he scribbled it down.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I suppose I’d better ring off now.’
That made he
r laugh again.
‘It’s been very nice talking to you,’ he said. ‘It really has.’
‘The Blue Diamond,’ she said. ‘You take care now. Those nightclubs – ’
‘I will. Speak to you again sometime.’
‘Goodbye.’ She hung up.
He suddenly regretted not having asked for her number. There were millions of operators and he would probably never get her again. But imagine asking for the number of someone who works for Directory Enquiries!
He smiled as he dialled The Blue Diamond. The first four times he got the engagement ring or whatever it’s called. The fifth time he got through.
‘Blue Diamond.’ A male voice this time.
‘I want to speak to Gloria, please,’ Moses said. ‘She’s singing at your place tonight.’
‘She isn’t here yet.’
‘OK, can I leave a – ’ Bip bip bip. Moses felt his pockets for change. He fed another two lops into the slot. ‘Hello? I’d like to leave a message please.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘My name’s Moses. I’ve had a breakdown – ’
‘Is that nervous or mechanical?’
Moses smiled. ‘Mechanical. Listen, my car’s broken down in the middle of nowhere so I’m not going to be able to make it tonight, OK?’
‘Sounds a bit lame, Moses.’
‘Well, it’s true. Oh, and could you send her my – ’ Bip bip bip. He felt his pockets again. No more coins. He slowly replaced the receiver.
Love, he thought. Send her my love.
*
Placing his hands on the table, Moses lowered himself towards his chair, missed by six inches and sat down rather heavily on the floor. He peered at Mary through a blur of condiments. ‘Mary,’ he said, ‘I think I’m a bit drunk.’
‘You took for ever,’ she laughed. ‘What happened?’
‘Been in different worlds. Talked to,’ and he hauled himself up on to his chair, ‘very nice operator.’
‘Did you get through?’
‘Through?’
‘Your call, Moses. To your ladyfriend.’
‘No, not really. Nobody there.’
‘I’m going to try Alan one more time.’
While Mary was away, Moses tried to establish an upright position for himself, using, as reference points, the blue china cabbage on the mantelpiece, the distant figure of Red Blouse (a suggestive fleck of whipped cream just to one side of her lips – Blue Blazer gazing, sighing, fantasising), and a picture of a white horse cantering through peppermint surf, but every time he focused on something it multiplied, had twins, triplets, quadruplets, who began to run away as soon as they were born. He couldn’t keep up. He had lost this one. The entire room suddenly took off on a victory lap.
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