by Ann Bridge
“Only just” Julia said, smiling too. “But the thing is, he wants to see me, and hear all about it, and perhaps make some plan, before he sees Aglaia.”
“Naturally. After all, you’ve been working with him and his superiors for years—whereas I don’t think that dear child understands much about it” Mrs. Hathaway said frankly.
“No—though she’s sharper than one might think” Julia said loyally.
“So now you’re wondering how to meet him quietly” the old lady went on.
“No, I’ve arranged all that with kind, kind Terence Armitage, or rather he’s arranging it for me, and a place for Colin to spend tomorrow night—and he’s sending up a car for me to use. It’s how to explain my being away to Gerald and Pauline.”
“I don’t think you need worry much about Gerald” Mrs. Hathaway observed, with her usual candour. “Unless something is spread right out in front of him, with a magnifying glass, he leaves it alone! Pauline is rather different.”
“And how!” Julia said, with a fervour which made her old friend laugh. “When does he come?” she asked then.
“Tomorrow evening—I get the car at lunch-time, and I want to go down to Funchal in the afternoon, and see to one or two things; but I don’t know what to say to Pauline.”
“I think you’d better let me tell her” Mrs. Hathaway said; “then I can make sure that she doesn’t pester you with questions.”
“That would be marvellous—though I can’t think how” Julia said.
“I shall manage” the old lady said calmly. “Shall you be able to see the poor little boy?”
“I hope so—it’s one of the things I want to do.” She hesitated a moment. “You see, Mrs. H., I’m only guessing, and of course this is quite secret, but I think it’s just possible that Colin may have some idea of the kind of thing that made the child ill, which might help the doctor to treat him.” She paused again. “I don’t know. I only saw Colin once in London, and—and the whole thing made him so wretched that we hardly talked about it at all. But it could be that Colin knows much more than anyone else.”
“Of course, my dearest child.” The old lady reached out and pressed Julia’s hand. And later that afternoon, downstairs, she took her young hostess aside and told her that Julia was going down to Funchal next day to meet her cousin and spend the evening with him—“and of course they want to be alone. He was on that expedition when her husband was killed, and she has hardly seen him since. It will be very painful for her, and naturally she doesn’t want to talk about it.”
“No, of course. But how will she get down?—and get back? We’re dining with the Frasers at the Golf Club, too; we can’t very well lend the car. Oh dear—how awkward.”
“She has got a car, Pauline” Mrs. Hathaway said repressively. “Just give her a latch-key, and assume everything. There is no need to discuss it.”
When the car arrived next day Julia put the sealed envelope in her bag, unexamined; she yielded at once to Pauline’s suggestion that she should have “a bite to eat” before she set out—her driver of course was fed in the kitchen. She drove down herself, to get accustomed to the car, dropped the man off at the Shipping Office with a tip, and then drove on to Reid’s Hotel, which Pauline had pointed out to her on their way down to the quinta. To drive up to an hotel and order something to drink is one of the least noticeable of human actions; Julia left her car, sat down at a table on the terrace, and ordered an orange squash; over this she studied the plan of the town. She worked out the route to Terence’s faint circle with the initials “A. S.” pencilled discreetly beside it. Precious Terence!—she had been wondering how she would know which circle indicated the clinic and which Aunt Sally’s house.
This settled, she lit a cigarette and sat sipping her orange, and thinking about Colin. In a way this meeting, which she had so determinedly organised, was something she shrank from, now that it was close ahead of her, only two or three hours away. Their one or two encounters in London, on his return from Asia, had been torture to them both, brief and inexplicit; her own misery over the loss of her husband had combined with his distress to muffle their usual ease of communication. At the time she had even felt slightly resentful towards him. Surely he could have understood her overwhelming need to be told every possible detail, without her having to make the effort of asking questions?—and when she did ask them, to be met with stalling, with halting inadequate replies, and such evidence of his own unhappiness as practically to shut her up. Now, after that first painful talk with Aglaia, she understood at least partly what lay behind all that—not only the normal “security” caginess, which she had so much resented as between him and her, after their years of working together, but also his sense of failure; personal failure, however irrational the idea, towards her; official failure towards the Service, about which Aglaia had been so positive on her dash up to the Serra three days ago. Somehow, now, all this had got to be smoothed out and made easy for him—for them both.
Oh well—now to find her way to both places, so as to lose no time later on. She went first to the Quinta dos Arvores. Julia had already been startled by the steepness of Funchal’s roads when Pauline first drove her up from the steamer, and Aunt Sally’s house stood in a particularly steep one, with a most awkward entrance if approached from below; Julia did not drive in, but went on up the hill, and made a note of the name of the road above—good, with Colin she would drive down from the top. On a level space, when at last she found one, she pulled up, looked at the plan again, and then drove on to Dr. de Carvalho’s clinic. This was in a lower part of the town, and the entrance presented no obstacles; moreover there was plenty of room to park. Julia left the car and went in. It was like any other clinic, bare and functional; she gave her name to a secretary at a desk, and asked if it would be possible to make an appointment with the doctor? The girl began to turn the pages of a diary for a fortnight ahead—“Não não” Julia said, slowly but firmly—“Por favor, por esta tarda.” There ensued a good deal of argument, and some consultation with a man, evidently a senior secretary: Julia mentioned that she was a friend of the Senhor Armitage, and at last she was given an appointment for twenty minutes past seven. This didn’t allow much time—she must only hope that Colin’s plane would be punctual.
Her appointment secured, she asked if it would be possible to see the little boy whom the doctor had brought back with him on Monday from the quinta of the Senhor Armitage? After some telephoning she was led upstairs, where a grey-haired nurse with a kind, intelligent face met her on the landing. No, no one was allowed to see the child; he was being kept in strict isolation. Was the pain any better, and the cough?—Julia asked earnestly. No, there was no improvement, the woman said; she looked worried and distressed. Was it the Senhora Armitage who was enquiring? No, only a friend, Julia said; but she had seen the child herself, down at the quinta, and was anxious on his account. “It seems strange that there is no remedy for the pain,” she added.
“Ah, Minha Senhora, this whole malady is exceedingly strange,” the nurse said, sad and puzzled. “But the Senhor Doutor has sent specimens to France and hopes to learn something from the results.”
This brief interview somehow served to reinforce Julia’s nascent determination to force Colin out of his normal caution and urge that if he had any knowledge, or even theory, that might help the doctor to cure Marcusinho, he must mention it at once. The Russians had got to be foiled, of course, whatever mischief they were up to, and the sheep relieved if possible, God help them; but here was a child, ill and in pain—there must be no stalling on Colin’s part. Downstairs, she asked the secretary if she might telephone to the Senhor Armitage, and got Terence at the office.
“Oh good—I was afraid you might have left. Could you give Porfirio a message? You didn’t give me that number. It’s just to say that we may not get there till rather late—perhaps not till eight, or even later; I don’t know for certain. Will that be all right?”
“I’m sure it will. I’l
l tell him. All going well?”
“So far. Thank you very much.” She rang off.
Early as it still was, she drove out at once to the airport— along the road to Sao Gongalo, over rising ground, and down to the coast again at Porto Novo; a few kilometres further on, beyond Santa Cruz, lay the new airport, built practically into the sea. Julia wanted to park in a position where she could not be boxed in by other cars, and in this, after some cajoling and a large tip to the attendant, she was successful. Then she sat and drank coffee in the lounge, and waited, and went on thinking about Colin. To spare his feelings she had given a lot of thought to what dress she should put on, at this first meeting on more or less neutral ground. At Gralheira, out of deference to Portuguese susceptibilities, she had of course had to wear mourning, but since it was summer she had supplied herself with a few half-mourning dresses: either white, or grey voiles with a black hairline check; and, in particular, a sleeveless frock of dark charcoal-grey linen, which with a white belt and shoes hardly looked like mourning at all. This she had put on that morning, as the least likely to arouse his sensitive feelings on her account.
The plane was five minutes late. Julia had noted the time it took her to drive from the clinic to the airport—half an hour; if the Customs and Immigration people weren’t too slow, they would just do it nicely. In fact the Maderense officials are not usually excessively troublesome about passengers on planes from Metropolitan Portugal, and they were not on this occasion; by a quarter to seven Colin’s white face and black head appeared among the small crowd emerging from the Customs building; he was carrying a suitcase and a rather distended briefcase. He gave her a warm hug—“Got a car?”
“Yes, over here. Come on—we’re a little late.”
“Everything fixed up for this evening?”
“Yes—and tonight. You’re staying with Terence’s old Aunt Sally, and we’re dining there.”
“I say, I don’t think that’s a very good plan” Colin said, coming to a halt.
“Oh, I’m sure it’s all right” Julia said reassuringly, tucking her arm in his and leading him gently forward. “The old lady will be in bed by the time we get there, and Porfirio won’t let on. She’s nearly gaga anyhow” she added, sliding into the driving seat.
He threw the suitcase into the back. “Isn’t this Terence’s car?” he asked, as they drove off.
“Yes, he lent it to me.”
“I say, what have you told Terence?” he asked.
“Oh, dearest, only what he knows already. And Aglaia knows that you’re coming, so she won’t be fretting, only not when—I told Terence to tell her I’d said I didn’t know for sure.”
“You and Terence seem to be pretty thick already” he remarked, but now more cheerfully.
“Oh yes, we are! You see we’ve found out rather a lot together, that the others don’t know about, except Aglaia—I had to let her know. Shall I begin from the beginning?”
“Yes, do, darling. I’m completely in the dark, so far.”
Encouraged by his use of the word “darling”, Julia told him briefly about the discovery of the sheep and their strange symptoms, then of the unidentified tourists who smoked brown cigarettes, and how their nocturnal visit to the plateau coincided with time of the Russian trawler’s presence; then how the child had gone up, the onset of his illness, and how it had completely defeated Dr. de Carvalho—Colin listened intently.
“All that part about the sheep and the little boy, and the tourists, is common knowledge—to the Shergolds and Penelope, and the doctor and the vet” she went on, “so there’s no secret about any of that. But only Terence and I know about the cigarettes and the trawler—and Aglaia. And why I sent for you is because of something Aglaia overheard the doctor say”—and she repeated his words to Dr. Fonseca about the factory in France, and the workmen there who were so careless about wearing their respirators, and then had symptoms rather similar to those of the child. “Naturally when I heard that, I thought it probably tied in with—well, with what happened to Philip” she ended, in a low voice.
“Oh darling!” the young man said, in a tone of unutterable sadness. Back in the town, as she swung the car sharply to the right—“Here, you’re going wrong!” he exclaimed. “This isn’t the way to Aunt Sally’s.”
“No, we’re going somewhere else first.”
“Where on earth?”
“To Dr. de Carvalho’s clinic. That’s where the child is. Before we do anything else, I felt sure you’d want to see De Carvalho, in case you might be able to give him some clue that would save it’s life.”
“That’s a bit awkward” he said, uncomfortably. “Anyhow, if your guess is right, the child won’t die anyhow.”
“Won’t?”
“No.”
“How extraordinary! Well, anyhow he’s in shocking pain, that nothing seems to touch—if you could help over that it would be such a mercy.”
“It’s frightfully awkward” Colin repeated.
“Well, I’m sure you’ll manage somehow” she said with a cheerful certainty that she was not really feeling.
At the clinic they were shown into an obvious consulting-room; there was a couch, a desk with writing pads and huge books of reference, and a cabinet of instruments, one drawer of which was open. The elderly male secretary whom Julia had seen earlier explained that the Senhor Doutor was detained upstairs, but would they please be seated; he would be with them in a few minutes. For a moment or two Colin sat in silence, frowning a little; at last—
“Where are you staying tonight?” he asked.
“Oh, when we’ve talked all we want to I shall drive back to the Serra.”
Colin opened his briefcase, which he had brought in with him, and took out a small white cardboard box with a Lisbon chemist’s label, which he put on the corner of the desk.
“Well anyhow, you might as well have one of these now,” he said. “I got them put up in Lisbon as I came through, for you and Ag and anyone else who might be exposed to this stuff—if it really is the same sort of thing.” As he spoke he opened the box, slitting the paper round the lid with his thumb-nail; inside, each in a separate compartment, lay half a dozen syrettes, such as the R.A.F. were supplied with, containing morphia, in the last war —small disposable syringes, which can be used instantly and thrown away. Only each of these was labelled, not morphine, but atropine. Julia peered at them curiously.
“Atropine!” she said. “That’s stuff for one’s eyes, isn’t it?”
“Bonsoir! Je regrette de faire attendre Madame” Dr. de Carvalho exclaimed, hurrying in; he checked at the sight of Colin. Julia introduced him—“My cousin, Monsieur Monro —the husband of the cousine-germaine of Monsieur Armitage.”
Dr. de Carvalho was youngish, short and unusually thin for a Portuguese, with a sharp nose and chin, and an abrupt manner. He bowed rather perfunctorily to Colin, and turned to Julia. “Now, in what way can I be of service to Madame?” he asked, seating himself at his desk and waving his visitors to two chairs. Then he caught sight of the box of syrettes still lying open on the desk.
“What is this?” he exclaimed.
“Oh, pardon—it is just something I was about to give to Madame” Colin said, and made to retrieve the box. The doctor put his hand over it.
“Momentinho!” he said, in his excitement dropping into his native tongue; as he spoke he took up the box, examined it, and saw the label of the Lisbon chemist; peering intently at the small glass tubes he saw on each one a date in microscopic figures. “Hoje!” (Today) he exclaimed. “And now” he said, returning to French and speaking very gravely, “will Monsieur kindly explain why he had syrettes of atropine prepared today to bring to Madame, here, in Madeira?”
Colin looked desperately at Julia.
“Monsieur le Docteur, I think my cousin had them prepared as a precautionary measure” Julia said, in her slowest tones.
“Ah! And as a precaution against what, may one ask?” The little man flashed the question out.
“That, he has not had time as yet to explain to me” Julia replied, still slowly and calmly—though she was in fact stalling as desperately as Colin. It was clear that atropine had some particular significance for the doctor which was completely hidden from her; obviously this was also known to Colin, or he wouldn’t have brought it. “Monsieur has only just arrived on the plane” she added, rather idiotically.
“Then how can Monsieur know that this remedy might be useful here?” the doctor asked impatiently. Then suddenly he smiled broadly, with a flash of white and gold-crowned teeth.
“Since Monsieur has brought this here, into my clinic, will he and Madame allow me to borrow one syrette? I should like to try it on a patient.” He looked extraordinarily pleased with himself all of a sudden.
“If Monsieur le docteur wishes to use it for the little boy from the quinta of Monsieur Armitage, by all means” Julia said, smiling too.
“Ah, Madame knows more than she admits! Excusez-moi.” Taking a syrette from the box, he hurried out of the room.
“Well, that’s torn it!” Colin said.
“Oh no—rather the opposite, I should have thought. He’s just guessed for himself, and saved you the trouble of telling him anything. You’ve barely opened your mouth since you came into the room!” Julia said cheerfully. “Anyhow hadn’t you better tell me, now, exactly what the atropine is for? When he comes back he’s going to ask a whole lot of questions, and I might put my foot in it. What is behind all this? What were you looking for in Asia?”
“Well, we knew, more or less, that the Russians were developing a new type of nerve gas in Central Asia, and we were sent to try and get hold of some of the stuff; because if you know exactly what it is, you stand a better chance of developing an antidote.”
“Oh, I see” Julia said, on a long breath. Then, in a voice as normal as she could make it—“Why did they want a new one? I thought there were a lot already invented.”