by Simon Mawer
‘You must think me a cad.’
And she had laughed. She couldn’t help it. The word ‘cad’. She’d never heard it outside the cinema. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude.’ But the laughter was still there, bubbling up inside her breast.
‘Don’t you have cads in Sheffield? I’ll bet there are lots. Yorkshire cads.’
‘It’s not that.’ She had looked away into the night, at the phosphorescent wake streaming out behind the ship, at the faint brush-strokes of silver cloud lit by the moon. It was almost impossibly beautiful, more beautiful than the moonlight on Ladybower Reservoir, more beautiful than anything she had known. She had so few reference points. The bloody Pennines. She’d never say that, ‘bloody’. Instead she said, ‘I’m thirty-three years old; I’ve got a daughter asleep in our cabin, a son away at boarding school and a husband waiting for me in Cyprus. It’s all that. And you’ve got a wife and children as well.’
‘You mean if it weren’t for all that—’
‘It is rather a lot.’
He laughed. She watched the glow of his cigarette as he inhaled. ‘But still, I’d have had a chance. I think I’m falling in love with you, you see.’
Her laughter was sympathetic now, under control. ‘You don’t know me. You don’t know what you’d be letting yourself in for. It’s just a silly shipboard infatuation.’
‘That’s the literal Yorkshirewoman speaking, is it?’
‘Don’t keep going on about that.’
‘But it’s there in your voice. I love it.’
‘Don’t be daft.’
‘There you are. “Daft”, not “darft”.’
‘Well, I wish it weren’t.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it labels me.’
‘There are other things that label you.’
‘What are those?’
‘Your beauty.’
‘Flattery.’
‘Your Yorkshire prudery.’
‘There you go again.’
‘Your legs.’
‘You can’t tell much by the shape of a woman’s legs.’
‘Oh yes, you can.’
She was not quite sure on what terms they had parted. He’d bent to kiss her chastely on the cheek, and squeeze her hand, and whisper ‘Good-night,’ and then they’d gone to their separate cabins – Paula was still fast asleep, Marjorie was nodding over her book – and that had been that. Dee had undressed and lain in her narrow bunk for a long time awake, thinking. Of Edward, of Damien, but of other things, too. The excitement of the coming morning. The heat. The plain fact of her body, damp with sweat; her daughter in the bunk across the tiny box of a cabin; and her son, all those miles away in some anonymous prep-school dormitory. And Charteris. Before Edward there had only been Charteris. Charteris had gone away to the war, on the Russian convoys, and had not returned. She had only been eighteen years old at the time but his memory lingered, and shamed her: often, when her husband lay on top of her, it was not his penis but that of her dead sailor that slid inside her.
The cabin trembled with the drumming of the engines, a submarine stirring that filled the whole vessel. Her forefinger was there, among the rough hair and the soft, slick folds of what Charteris had called her purse. Paula stirred in the other bunk. Dee tensed the muscles of her thighs and thought of Damien and Edward and Charteris, her finger moving gently with the motion of the ship, waves of guilt and delight filling the basin of her body like a great swell of fluid that finally, rapturously burst.
Damien had barely glanced at her during breakfast, and throughout that last morning he scrupulously avoided her, so much so that she felt constrained to send him a note: I hope that goodbye yesterday evening was not goodbye for ever. I am fond of you, Damien. D. And immediately regretted it.
‘Where’s Daddy?’ Paula asked.
‘You’ve already asked that. And I’ve already told you.’
‘When are we going to see him? I want to see him.’
‘So do I.’
An announcement came over the Tannoy, a metallic voice – ‘Is it a frog?’ Paula asked – inviting families with children to make their way down to the disembarkation deck. There was a crowd on the stairs, people wishing each other goodbye and making plans to meet again – all the people she had met, had dined with, talked to, played deck quoits with and all the silly things you did at sea, rather like those games you played at the seaside yet never played again during the remainder of the year.
‘Darling, how wonderful it’s been.’
‘Oh, Binty, we must keep in touch.’
‘Of course, my dear.’
It was when they were near the entry port that Damien appeared. He looked absurdly handsome in his uniform, and so young. She blushed as he approached through the crowd.
‘I got your note.’
‘I shouldn’t have sent it.’
‘But you did.’
‘It was a gesture. A stupid one.’
They edged towards the companionway. It was like an emergency, women and children first. She felt his hand hold her arm, invisible in the crush. ‘I’ll see you again?’
‘Won’t you be chasing EOKA?’
‘Not all the time.’
‘We’ll see.’
They were at the entry port, looking out of the shadows into the blinding sunlight. It was like being on the edge of a diving board, the great open space below. ‘Hold my hand tight,’ she said to Paula, and stepped out on to the platform. A sailor took her arm and turned her towards the gangway that went down the side of the ship to where the lighter was moored. ‘Easy now, ma’am,’ he said, as though she had been making things difficult. And then to Paula, ‘Goodbye, miss. Have a safe journey.’
‘I’m going to see my daddy.’
‘Lucky him,’ the sailor said. They descended the iron steps cautiously, the sea visible below through the gratings, and the upturned faces of the sailors at the side of the lighter. Dee hoped they couldn’t see up her skirt. And then, guiltily, she hoped they could. You can tell a lot by the shape of a woman’s legs. What could they tell from hers? ‘All aboard the Skylark!’ a sailor shouted, handing her across the gunwales. The engine puttered and the lighter cut a smooth curve through the septic water. Behind them the Empire Bude fell back while ahead the quayside came nearer, the crowd of people waiting at the barriers, the soldiers, the godowns behind.
Shock. That was the word. The shock of sensation: of noise, of smells, of sights, the uneasy sensation of tripping across the gangway, clasping Paula’s hand. The shock of sunlight on hot stone. Dust, fine and yellow. And Edward there, looking good in his khaki uniform, suntanned and somehow exotic, waving across the barricades as they went forward into the shadows of the customs house to find their bags; and then he was hugging her to him, holding her waist against him so that she felt very fragile for a moment. ‘God, I’ve missed you,’ he was saying into her ear, and it was true enough that she had missed him, familiarity being a strong emotion and denial of familiarity a stronger one still. He let her go and crouched to pick up Paula, who was hiding her face in Dee’s skirt. She screamed and laughed together as he hoisted her up into the hot and dusty air. And above all this there was the noise of the quayside and the stevedores, dark with sweat and oil.
They cleared customs and recovered the trunks that had not been wanted on voyage, loaded all this into the boot of the car and set off to what Edward called ‘home’. How could it be home? As yet she had only seen it in a photo he had mailed to her in England. The road led away from the harbour buildings, past low houses with tiled roofs and a dried streambed where eucalyptus trees grew. There was a mosque over on the right, and another one just ahead, their minarets pointed at the hot sky. There were oleander and carob trees along the road, and that smell coming through the open windows of the car, the smell that was undeniably exotic and strange: the smell of the Levant. It was a word that had meant little until now – Levantine, Levant. And the other one: Byzantine. She had sailed to Byz
antium. She was here.
‘That’s the Turkish Quarter,’ Edward said. The word ‘Turk’ carried semantic power. She knew nothing much about the Turks, but still the word meant something. It signified a darkness, a strangeness, a violence hidden behind silk and brass. The people by the roadside were draped in black: an old woman with a scarf over her head, a man with grey moustache and baggy black breeches, leading a donkey.
‘You know what they say?’ Edward asked, seeing her glance. ‘About those breeches, I mean. They say that the Muslims believe the next time the Prophet comes he will be born of man.’
‘Who says?’
‘And those trousers are to catch him if he should pop out.’
‘Who says that? That’s ridiculous. Who says that?’
‘Geoffrey.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘Geoffrey? Geoffrey Crozier. You’ll meet him.’
Beyond the Turkish Quarter was a modern suburb where, in a kind of geological convulsion, concrete was just beginning to establish itself over the scrub and stone of the Mediterranean landscape. Among bungalows and apartment blocks a flock of sheep grazed under the eye of an ancient shepherd. The house came into view, one of a long line of new, concrete buildings, each with its parched garden, each with its tilted, red-tiled roof, each approximately whitewashed. A mirage of English suburbia refracted through the prism of Mediterranean air. A sign said 16TH OF JUNE STREET.
How can you name a street for a date? Dee wondered. The house had a pair of palm trees on either side of the front door and a veranda across the front. Edward seemed eager that it should be all right. ‘Not exactly Broomhill,’ he said as he parked the car, ‘but home sweet home.’
Paula ran up the steps on to the veranda, calling excitedly. She wanted to see her room, she wanted to see her room. Edward held Dee’s hand as they followed her. They went inside, out of the glare of the sun – that presence that dominated the day in a manner that she had never imagined. The rooms were bare and shadowy, their green shutters barricaded against the heat. Ceiling fans rotated in the stillness like dark bats circling overhead. While Paula ran from one room to the other in excitement Edward took Dee into his arms. ‘How do you like it?’
‘It’s fine,’ she said. The hot air hammered on her skin. She thought she might not be able to breathe. ‘It’s lovely.’ She longed for cool and rain, for the mist draped over the rim of the Pennines, and the city below, cool and damp. ‘It’s lovely.’
That evening, once Paula had been persuaded to sleep, they made love in the heat, beneath the circling ceiling fan, their bodies slick with shared sweat.
Seven
They meet outside the tube station. Kale is dressed up – black velvet trousers and jacket beneath her overcoat. And she’s done her lips in a dark, venous red. Venous or vinous? Either will do. Or Venus, come to that. Her eyelids are the colour of wet slate. It’s rather touching that she has gone to this trouble; makes him wish that he had done something better than jeans and a jacket. Her daughter is a sharp, half-shy, half-bold little girl, with blond hair and her mother’s suspicious glance. ‘Emma, this is Dr Denham. He’s one of Mum’s teachers.’
‘You can call me Thomas if you like,’ he says.
Emma thinks about this offer. ‘You’re a man,’ she says.
‘Good guess.’
This amuses her. ‘I guessed, I guessed,’ she cries, jumping up and down. ‘He’s a man. I guessed!’
They walk round to the theatre, almost like a family, the little girl skipping along between the two adults, pulling at Kale’s hand and grabbing at Thomas’ to try and swing between them. ‘Stop it, Emms,’ Kale snaps. ‘Otherwise we’ll go home.’
Yellow cat’s eyes watch them as they approach the theatre. ‘Is it about Fritz?’ asks Emma, whose own cat, Kale explains, is called Fritz.
‘Sort of,’ Thomas tells her. ‘Lots of different cats. Mystery cats and Jellicle cats and all sorts.’
Emma loves cats, and she loves Cats. Small and golden and animated, she sits between the two of them in the centre of the stalls, and sighs and gasps and squeals and giggles and finally, at the death of Grizabella, has to be consoled. ‘She didn’t really die,’ Kale explains. ‘She’s got to be there for all the boys and girls tomorrow.’
They leave the theatre into a surprising real world that has turned dark and wet in the meantime, lit by shop windows and headlights and streetlamps. Traffic wades down Long Acre. ‘Let’s go back to the flat and make some tea,’ Thomas suggests.
There is a moment’s hesitation while Kale hitches up her coat tails and crouches to explain yet again to Emma that Grizabella is not really dead. ‘Really, Emms. Mum promises.’
He wants to see Kale in the context of his flat. He wants to be with her. The feeling, growing within him over the last few days, has metamorphosed from mere thought to something physical inside his chest. He wants to be able to touch her, to have her touch him just as she is now touching Emma, stroking her cheek and tapping her on the nose and laughing to get her laughing as well. ‘Come on, Emms. It’s just a play?’ The upward lilt, hopeful and anxious.
‘Does that mean it’s a game?’
‘Sort of. A complicated game that you watch other people playing?’
‘I want to play it. With Fritz.’
‘You can. We’ll soon be home and then you can play with Fritz.’ Kale looks up with an apologetic smile. ‘I think we’d better be going.’
He repeats his invitation: the flat, the cups of tea, domestic bliss, but she shakes her head. ‘You’re very kind. Isn’t Thomas kind, Emms? But I think we’d better be getting back to Fritz, don’t you?’ It is the first time she has ever used his first name. As a prelude to departure.
‘Are you sure?’
She’s sure. The tube station is just there, shoppers and office workers disappearing into its maw like water sluiced down a drain. ‘Thanks ever so for taking us,’ she says, and gives him a quick, neutral smile and a quick, neutral kiss – her cheek is cool and damp – and turns away. As the two of them disappear into the station entrance he calls, ‘I’ll give you a ring,’ but whether she has heard, or cares, he isn’t sure. Persephone returning to the underworld, he thinks, and feels an absurd sense of bereavement.
Next day Kale isn’t there in the class. All the others are, but not Kale.
‘Anyone any idea?’
Eric shakes his head. ‘Probably ’ooked it. She did tell me she wasn’t sure about doing this course. It’s a free world, isn’ it?’
The class gets under way and Thomas pretends not to care that next to the Pakistani girl – Sharaya, Shanaya? – there is an empty chair. They consider various interpretations of history, and argue about whether you can ever be truly objective. ‘Of course you can,’ Eric insists. ‘I mean, it’s just what happened, isn’ it? There are just the facts. All the rest is bullshit. Isn’t that what someone once said? History is bullshit.’
‘Henry Ford. It was “bunk”. History is bunk.’
‘Same difference.’
At the end of the class Thomas goes to his office and looks up Kale’s number. There is no reply when he calls. He imagines a terraced house divided into single-bedroom flats, the communal telephone ringing in the communal hallway – lino floor, a pram under the stairs, some litter, the smell of damp and drains – and no one there to lift the phone. Back home later that evening he tries the number again and this time there is an answer, a man’s voice that says, ‘Yeah?’
Is this the faceless Steve? ‘Kale?’ Thomas asks. ‘Kale Macintosh? Is she there?’
‘Dunno. I en’t seen ’er.’
‘Could you find out?’
‘S’pose.’
There is a pause, a scuffling of the receiver and a voice shouting somewhere far away, then footsteps and, thankfully, her voice right in his ear. ‘Who is it?’
‘It’s Thomas.’
‘Oh.’
‘We missed you in the class today.’
‘I had things to d
o.’
He adds, in a burst of honesty: ‘I missed you.’
A silence.
‘I’ve got a present for Emma, you see. And I wanted to give it to you.’ He hasn’t any present. This is a complete fabrication, the ad-libbing of the practised philanderer. But already he knows what the present will be.
‘Look,’ Kale’s voice says, ‘what’s all this about?’
‘What?’
‘You going on like this?’
‘It’s not about anything. I just want to see you. And give you a present for Emma.’
There is a silence, as though she is reckoning this answer, turning it over, considering it in various lights. Like examining a banknote under one of those ultraviolet scanners to see if it’s counterfeit. ‘I’ll be in college tomorrow,’ she says finally, and puts the phone down.
Before arriving at work next morning, he goes into the bookshop just round the corner. It used to call itself The College Bookshop and stocked a wide variety of obscure academic texts, but that was before profit became an issue. Now it is Books ’n’ Stuff and only stocks big sellers, but will happily order anything that you may want and blame any delay on the distributors. That morning there is no problem, however: Thomas doesn’t want an academic text, he wants Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, which is a book they do have, stacked high and selling fast in a new edition, along with CDs and tapes and the book of the musical, and posters.
He counts out the money, and there and then, on the cash desk, writes a dedication on the flyleaf: To Emma – Grizabella lives! – love Thomas.
‘Seen the musical, have you?’ asks the girl at the till.
‘As a matter of fact, I have.’
‘I love “Memory”, don’t you?’
He does. He admits as much. ‘Memory’s all we’ve got, isn’t it?’
‘We’ve got T-shirts as well,’ she reassures him.
Grabbing his purchase, he hurries across to the college, where he is late for a meeting of the ad hoc committee appointed to draw up guidelines for a departmental policy on gender and ethnicity in the study of history – known as COGESH – where he sits for an hour at a table with five other colleagues, arguing about whether all departmental literature should be edited to remove gender-specific pronouns, and if so what should be substituted. It is a matter of ‘s/he’ or ‘he or she’ or that weasel compromise ‘they’. The argument goes round and round in circles, like Thomas’ bowels.