‘Where’s the trip?’ she said.
‘Israel.’
She looked surprised. ‘Don’t go there often, do you?’
‘Not recently,’ he said.
‘Coming straight back?’
To reduce the curiosity that a special visit might have aroused, he had told Levy he was calling into Israel on his way to England. ‘I might go on to London,’ he said. If he did, then Ann would expect a commitment. She hadn’t given him an ultimatum the last time because she was too sensible a woman, but it hadn’t been difficult to gauge from her attitude that she expected a decision. And she deserved one: just like Hannah. Rome would be nearer, he thought, suddenly. But perhaps she would expect a decision in Rome as well.
‘Will you try to see Paul?’
‘Of course.’
‘He didn’t mention the holiday in his letter.’
Their food arrived and they began eating. ‘Bet I know something that you don’t,’ she said, between mouthfuls.
‘What?’
‘Daddy’s walking out.’
‘Walking out?’ frowned Collington, baffled by the expression.
‘Seeing a woman.’
Collington stared at her, allowing his surprise to show. Metzinger’s wife had died two years after Hannah had been born, so she had no memory at all of her mother. What Collington knew of Metzinger’s background had come from Walter Simpson, and because Metzinger was a private man, that wasn’t very much. According to Simpson, the marriage had been the nearest thing to an arranged affair between two established Afrikaner families, but as sometimes happens, a sincere and devoted love had developed between them. Metzinger had been devastated by her death, initially coming near to the point of a nervous breakdown and then immersing himself in the businesses, needing constant activity. And never once, since that time, had he shown the slightest interest in another woman.
‘Who?’ he asked.
‘Janet Simpson,’ announced Hannah.
Collington shook his head. ‘I don’t believe it!’ he said.
‘Neither did I, at first. I’ve always known they were friends. It was Daddy who introduced her to Walter. Apparently, since the funeral they’ve been together quite a lot. I was actually asked about it at the luncheon club last week.’
They leant back as a waiter removed the remains of their meal, and Collington said: ‘How do you feel about it?’
Hannah hesitated before replying. ‘I don’t think I feel anything in particular,’ she said.
‘Do you think they’ll get married?’
‘God knows,’ said Hannah. ‘Daddy hasn’t even talked about it to me. But I think he would, if it became as serious as that. He’s a very moral man, you know. That’s why he disapproves of what’s happened to us.’
‘Does he ever talk to you about that?’
The waiter returned and Collington ordered brandy, leading Hannah away from the table to a verandah overlooking the hill.
‘Not much,’ she replied, when they had sat down. ‘When I told him, he said he wasn’t surprised and that he’d known it wouldn’t work from the start.’
‘Does he know we’ve met since the separation?’
‘I haven’t said anything. Don’t you want him to know?’
‘It hardly matters, either way,’ said Collington.
He offered her more brandy but she refused and so he led the way out of the restaurant. There was no conversation between them on the way back to Parkstown. He halted the car in the driveway, without turning the engine off.
‘I didn’t mean to be difficult, back in the restaurant,’ she said.
‘You weren’t.’
‘Thanks for being gallant, but I know I tried to force the pace.’
Both were staring straight ahead as they talked.
‘We agreed six months,’ reminded Collington.
‘But it didn’t have to last that long.’
‘You’ve made your mind up then?’
‘I think so.’ She turned for the first time, waiting.
‘I’ve got to be away early tomorrow,’ he said.
‘Sure,’ she said, disappointed. ‘The trip.’
‘I’ll call you when I get back.’
‘All right.’
‘Perhaps you will have heard from Paul by then.’
‘I’ll write him tomorrow.’
Silence began to settle between them and Collington abruptly got out of the car, going round to the passenger door and opening it for her. She seemed uncertain about getting out and then swung her legs sideways.
‘Thanks for the evening,’ she said, offering her cheek. Collington kissed her, then walked into the porchway and opened the door for her. She closed the door softly behind her.
Collington waited for several moments and then went back to the car. It was a warm night and he lowered the hood going down the driveway, wanting the breeze.
He could go back if he wanted to, he knew.
The meetings at Metzinger’s farmhouse had begun casually, without regularity at first, and then it had gradually become an established practice for them to gather on the last Wednesday of every month. They had left the dining-room and were now grouped around the huge, unlighted fire of the living area, the brandy bottle and balloons on the table between them. Metzinger gestured to de Villiers and Wassenaar, inviting them to help themselves.
‘Damage is damned bad at the Sasol plants,’ said de Villiers. He had relations in Johannesburg and had just returned from a visit there.
‘How serious?’ said Metzinger.
‘Suggestions are that it will take a year to repair, with hardly any production at all during that time.’
Wassenaar made a whistling noise of surprise. ‘Bastards!’ he said vehemently. ‘Did they find out who did it?’
De Villiers shook his head. ‘Too many blacks there to guarantee the necessary security. It was obviously done with inside help.’
‘I think we should step up the raids into Mozambique and Rhodesia,’ said Wassenaar, pointedly refusing to use the word Zimbabwe. ‘That’s what the whites did, during the Rhodesian war. Hit the bastards in their camps.’
‘Rhodesia lost the war,’ reminded Metzinger.
‘They wouldn’t have done if we hadn’t bowed to world pressure and withdrawn our support.’
‘I had lunch with Knoetze today,’ disclosed Metzinger. ‘He said the government is worried: certainly they expect the guerrilla activity to get worse.’
‘Did you tell him about our meeting. And what Collington is going to do?’
Metzinger nodded. ‘He thought it was a clever idea. It’s not the sort of enquiry he could make as easily, so he was quite happy for Collington to become committed.’
‘Is that the word he used?’ enquired Wassenaar, curiously.
‘What?’
‘Committed?’
Metzinger frowned, in recollection. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It was.’
Wassenaar took his time, pouring some more brandy and swirling it around, enjoying the aroma. ‘How big a step is it from commitment to over-commitment?’ he said, smiling at the other two men. Ann determined that it would have to be tonight. On the telephone she had easily evaded Collington’s curiosity, saying that the distance over which they were speaking was the cause of any apparent strangeness in her voice, but she knew she would not be able to maintain the pretence when they met. And the circumstances were right. Peter had survived the directors’ meeting. There’d been a warning and he was properly worried, but at least they hadn’t demanded the resignation that he had expected. And sufficient time had passed for her not to be crowding him with one crisis on top of another. Ann decided that the delay had actually been to her advantage. She had thought more deeply about ending the affair and concluded that to do so in she flat they had occupied more or less permanently for six months would have been a mistake. A restaurant was the proper place: a neutral, crowded restaurant where the surroundings would inhibit any dramatics. She hoped Peter wouldn’t take it badly; she really
didn’t want to hurt him any more than was unavoidable.
She arrived first and sat quite confidently at the table to which she was shown. She was conscious of the looks from the men in the room and answered them openly, not provocative but challenging, staring each one down. Just as she was going to stare Metzinger down. She was going to get enormous pleasure, exposing Metzinger for the bastard that he was. How would Collington react when she told him? Ann considered the question curiously, recognising for the first time that she had never seen James show any indication of anger. There had been many occasions when it should have arisen, when some negotiation of which she had been part had gone wrong through someone’s incompetence or through a mistake, but never once had there been any outburst. She decided it must be a strain for him always to remain as cool as that. Perhaps Metzinger would occasion the first outburst: it would certainly be appropriate.
Peter flustered into the restaurant, giving his usual impression of having someone in pursuit. He approached smiling, sitting down with an exaggerated sigh. ‘I’m not late,’ he said, at once defensive.
‘I know,’ said Ann. ‘I was early.’
When the waiter came to take his drinks order, Ann suggested they choose the food as well, anxious now that she had made her decision not to prolong the meal.
‘Cheers,’ he said, raising his glass to her as soon as it was delivered.
Ann sipped her drink in response. He looked so vulnerable, she thought.
‘Good day?’ he asked.
She made a rocking motion with her hands. ‘Not bad. I’m going away.’
He looked up at her intently. ‘Where?’
‘Rome. It’s business.’
He smiled, relieved. ‘Won’t be for long, then?’
‘I think it might be.’
He grimaced, half smiling. ‘What’s that mean?’
The temptation to avoid the answer swept over her, but Ann forced herself to respond. ‘I don’t think it’s a very good idea for us to go on.’ It wasn’t what she had intended to say: she had produced a cliché and she had prepared herself much better than that. She had wanted them to come to it gradually, almost naturally, so that there would have been some warning to him. This was all too rushed and clumsy.
‘Go on?’
‘You know what I mean.’ She’d sounded irritated and she hadn’t meant that, either.
‘Why not?’ he said.
‘Because there isn’t any point!’ Too sharp again: Jesus, she was handling this badly.
Peter was about to reply, but the waiters arrived with their meal. They both pulled back, neither looking directly at the other. When the waiters left, Peter said, ‘As far as I’m concerned, there’s every point.’
‘We’ve become a convenience to each other,’ said Ann, trying to remember the phrases she’d rehearsed. ‘But that’s all it is, a convenience. We spend our evenings together because we’re lonely and we sleep together because we need that, too. But it’s only because it’s convenient: because it’s less trouble to go on than to be honest with each other. You don’t …’
‘… I love you,’ burst out Peter.
Ann sat staring across the tiny table, the untouched food in front of her. Hesitantly she shook her head. ‘No,’ she said doubtfully.
‘I love you,’ he said again. ‘I thought you loved me.’
‘Why now?’ she said. ‘Why now and not when I was having the baby?’
‘I agreed with you then.’
‘Agreed with me!’
‘I didn’t think you wanted it.’
‘Oh Christ!’
‘Don’t you love me, Ann?’
She made a vague gesture. ‘I don’t know.’
‘That can’t be so,’ he said, showing unusual positiveness. ‘You either do or you don’t.’
‘No,’ she said brutally. It wasn’t as definite as that, she knew. Truthfully she wasn’t sure how she felt, but she was tired of the aimlessness of their relationship. She wanted some definite decision, and weighed against the association with Collington and the pressure being imposed by Metzinger, she was right to do what she was doing now. Peter would understand. Not now, perhaps, any more than she did, completely. But when he thought about it, rationally, he’d understand. She stared across at him, trying to convince herself. He seemed to shrink before her, to become even more awkward in his formalised, waistcoated suit.
‘I see,’ he said. His words came out unevenly.
‘You will,’ she said hopefully.
‘Of course.’
‘I didn’t mean to hurt you.’
‘You haven’t.’
‘We haven’t got to act for each other, Peter. I know I’ve hurt you and I know I’ve hurt myself.’
‘Why then?’ he demanded, desperately.
‘Because it’s right.’
‘For whom?’
Me, thought Ann. Because it’s selfishly right for me. And selfish or not, she had to do it. There had been enough wrong starts: she might not have the chance again. Was Collington a chance? He was apart from his wife, certainly. And said he loved her. But she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure about anything.
‘I want to finish,’ she said, sounding more positive than she felt.
‘I don’t know what to say.’
And she had thought she would know, but hadn’t got it right.
‘We could stay friends,’ she said, thinking of her relationship with Richard Jenkins.
‘No.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘So am I,’ he said bitterly.
‘It’s best,’ she said. ‘You’ll come to see it’s best.’
‘I won’t. Never.’
Chapter Ten
Collington travelled alone, without the usual entourage of aides and secretaries. And found himself enjoying it. The customs queues at Tel Aviv airport were more unruly than most, but he stood quite contentedly in the son of line he usually bypassed, standing back unprotesting when people twice pushed in ahead of him. Levy had offered a car and Collington had refused that, too: he would have even hired a smaller vehicle if his size hadn’t made the driving uncomfortable.
Like Berlin again, he thought. And certainly like the early days in England, having to think for himself and rely on nobody else. It gave him a strange feeling – an impression of freedom.
He took the car through the clotted, anger-fuelled traffic of the city, calm among the hooting and the hand-shaking, and picked up the Jerusalem road without any difficulty. He could be away the following day, he calculated; certainly the day after that, even if anything unexpected came up. Ann had sounded excited on the telephone at the suggestion they should meet in Rome, and he was looking forward to it, too. But the accusation pricked at him irritatingly. He was trying to avoid a decision by not going to London. Worse, it meant that he wouldn’t be going to see Paul, as he had promised Hannah. But in London he would have had to make the commitment. And he wasn’t ready yet. Would he ever be? he wondered.
The road ribboned away through the orange and ochre hills, their outlines blurred by the heat shimmer. It was difficult to imagine the history in every twist and turn of the highway. Far ahead the road lifted towards the rise upon which Jerusalem was built, and as he got closer Collington could make out the enclosing walls. Perhaps he would have time for sightseeing, he thought, as he entered: he’d never been to the old city of the Dome of the Rock or seen the Dead Sea scrolls.
He made one wrong turning, became aware of it almost immediately and was quickly re-directed towards the King David Hotel. Levy’s call came as he was unpacking and they agreed upon an hour.
Collington was already in the ground-floor bar when the Israeli flustered through the door, halting momentarily and staring around. Collington rose, hand extended, and Levy started forward again, bellowing the greeting when he was still yards away. He was a small, fleshy man who advertised his profession with the diamond rings on each of his little fingers. He was an immigrant from New York and favoured American s
ilk suits and plump cigars, which he smoked through a stunted holder.
Collington stood, letting his hand be pumped and his shoulder slapped, aware of the attention throughout the bar and conscious that because of their differing physiques they must look an odd couple.
Levy ordered whisky, touched glasses and said: ‘It’s good to see you again.’
‘And you,’ said Collington.
The Israeli looked around, apparently aware for the first time that Collington was alone.
‘No staff?’ he asked curiously.
‘No.’
At once Levy’s exuberance diminished. ‘No problems, I hope.’
Collington smiled at the immediate concern that business might be bad. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No problems.’
Levy gestured for more drinks, looking unconvinced. ‘You don’t normally stop by,’ he said. ‘You haven’t for a few years now, anyhow.’
‘And you don’t normally increase your diamond purchases by as much as twenty per cent,’ parried Collington.
Levy’s face opened into a strangely boyish grin. ‘For me, business is good,’ he said contentedly.
‘Twenty per cent is more than good,’ encouraged Collington. He didn’t think it would be difficult, getting Levy to boast.
Collington had made a table reservation and they stopped talking when the head waiter approached. Remembering Levy’s remark about enjoying food after the sabbath fast, Collington spent some time over the order.
‘Twenty per cent is fantastic,’ agreed Levy. ‘Bad times for some mean good times for others.’
Collington frowned, pretending not to understand.
‘People don’t trust money,’ said Levy. ‘But they trust things ….’ He grinned again, preparing Collington for the rehearsed joke. ‘Diamonds are more than a girl’s best friend,’ he said.
Collington laughed politely: there had rarely been a meeting when Levy hadn’t said that. It was his favourite song.
Collington stood, leading the way into the dining-room. Once they were seated, he said: ‘It must be difficult for you to meet such demand.’
Levy nodded seriously. ‘It would have been,’ he conceded, ‘but everyone needs a little luck and I got it. There’s no difficulty getting cutters and polishers.’
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