The Company of Strangers

by Robert Wilson

‘No, I didn’t. It’s Anne. Anne Ashworth.’

  ‘You working out here?’

  ‘I work for Shell. I’m a secretary. My boss is a friend of Patrick Wilshere…which is why he offered me a room.’

  ‘Who’s your boss?’

  ‘Cardew. Meredith Cardew,’ said Anne, her insides congealing as Mary turned the talk around.

  ‘Merry,’ she said, ‘that’s what Hal calls him, which I suppose is fair. He’s always smiling. Saying nothing, but smiling.’

  ‘Yes, well, he’s my boss.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have thought those two would have much in common,’ said Mary. ‘Merry and Pat. The oil executive and the…maverick.’

  ‘What’s he being a maverick at?’

  ‘That, Anne, is the nature of the maverick,’ she said, drawing a large heart in the sand with her finger. ‘Who knows?’

  They smoked. Anne wanted to be out in the ocean, away from the American woman and her brass accent, away from the information exchange, away from what could be a knowledge debt.

  ‘If I was you,’ said Mary, scrubbing out the heart she’d drawn, ‘I wouldn’t get involved. Stick to the surface…the palm trees and the casino. It’s nicer that way.’

  ‘Hey!’ roared Hal, jerking awake, flinging the cigar off into the sand.

  ‘Hal gets his fingers burned,’ said Mary, to herself. ‘Over here, Hal!’

  Hal got to his feet, blew on his hand. Anne recognized him as the American who’d hugged her to his chest at the roulette table, the one with Wallis’s songbird under his other arm. Mary introduced them. Hal acknowledged her, looked at his watch, told her they had to go. Anne watched them leave, knowing that Mary was filling Hal in on everything because Hal was looking back at her, either nervous, or as if he wished he’d done more than wave his burnt fingers at her.

  Anne threw off her robe and walked down to the sea. She scanned the surface, which was empty. She tied her hair back, stuffed it into a cap. She waded in and threw herself on to the water and swam with quick strokes, hands knifing into the slow sea. She swam unconsciously, letting the complications slide off her body into her roiling wake, listening to the air and water ruckling in the hollows of her clavicles, feeling the brilliant coolness on her forehead. She hit a rhythm, her body rolled smooth as a sculling shell as she sucked in air from under her shoulder.

  Her head came up just before impact. An intuitive radar. Bone hit bone. Her face slipped over his shoulder which caught her across the throat. Her arms flailed in a morass of sea and sunlight. She rolled off a man’s hard shoulder, bubbles shooting out of her mouth. The light dimmed as she receded into the blue, his legs kicked in the frothing chaos above.

  The peace was surprising, a slow noiseless calm, a place where panic couldn’t reach. Even when her mother’s face slipped through the gate of her memory, the burning house, and Rawlinson’s leg, the nuns and and the wheel turning and the ivory ball jumping, and Mary…

  The hands in her armpits were an intrusion, the light coming down to meet her unwelcome, the air and water slashing into her lungs, brutal. She heaved and coughed out a ghastly hot acid liquor. She struggled and struggled as if it was all too new and real. She felt the lips on the back of her neck, heard quiet words against her skin, moving over her scalp. Her head rocked back and they were moving, the steady kick of his legs underneath her, his arm across her chest, the blue sky passing overhead and the notion of lying in a pram in the garden in Clapham.

  He lifted her out of the water and lay her face-down on the sand. Sea water streamed out of her head in clear rivulets. She put a sand-coated hand to her head and pressed the fleshy protuberance on her temple. She puked without raising her head. The sand darkened into a continental archipelago.

  Dead…and twice in one day, came the bizarre thought. Is this what happened when you left home? Was the world beyond parental guidance really this dangerous?

  The man was talking to her distantly, the sound hollow, faint and echoing as if her head was under a bell jar. It was the same voice as last night. A face with prominent bones, bones so close to the surface they looked painful, the skin covering them too thin. Blue eyes. Blond hair. The cleft chin. An ambiguous face – strong and vulnerable, naïve and shrewd. There was a tightness round her throat again.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked, scared now, eyes blinking, dropping from his neck to his small shrivelled nipples.

  ‘Karl Voss.’

  Chapter 12

  Sunday, 16th July 1944, Estoril, near Lisbon.

  She woke up lying on top of the bed, the counterpane rough against her cheek, a burning disc on her temple and her knees almost up to her chin. The window was open and the air was no longer thick with heat. Her back felt cool. The walls of the room were tinted to rose-water by the evening light. She rolled over to see a vast pink funnel of cloud taking up a segment of the light blue dome of the sky.

  Her pillow was wet, an ear bunged with water and a low roar. She sat up, shook her head. Hot water trickled from her ear down her jaw. She stared between her splayed knees as snatches of dialogue emerged in the sloppy horizons of her mind.

  ‘You’re German, aren’t you?’ she’d asked, panting into the sand.

  ‘Yes, I’m the military attaché at the German Legation in Lapa.’

  Nobody’s here for a holiday.

  ‘Do I know you?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘You’re familiar.’

  ‘I don’t mean to be,’ he said. ‘I carried your friend up to the house last night.’

  ‘Were you following me?’

  ‘Your friend was drunk. I knew you were going to need some help.’

  ‘I saw you before…you were in the casino, watching the roulette.’

  ‘No, not watching the roulette.’

  The changing hut. Getting dressed in the hot wood smell, the sand rasping underfoot, the splintery planks furred at the edges. Him…Karl, sitting on the platform outside in khaki trousers and a white open-necked shirt, plimsolls, no socks. Walking back with him across the railway tracks and up through the gardens. No words. Nothing coming to her at all. His arm hanging next to hers, so close on a few occasions that the down on her forearm rose. At the garden gate behind the casino she could think of nothing else to do but hold out her hand.

  ‘I didn’t thank you.’

  He shook his head, not necessary.

  ‘And we had the whole Atlantic to swim in,’ he said.

  She walked back up the long steps to the house thinking ‘not watching the roulette’.

  She fell back on the bed, folded her hands over her stomach, the pink funnel in the sky reshaped itself into something like a Jewish candelabra. She thought about people not saying anything – the internal scream of silence inside Dona Mafalda, the black, empty lift-shaft behind Wilshere’s impeccable manners and the complicated calm of Karl Voss.

  Cars arrived outside the house, the drubbing of the tyres on cobbles as they rounded the fountain below. Doors slammed and opened the stopcock of gaiety. Hysterical, deadly vivacity sheared through the wistaria-clad walls below her window. The façade lights of the house came on, tearing the pink light out of the room and throwing yellow artificial bars and squares up on the ceiling.

  Over the chair at the end of the bed was an evening gown, not her own, and a suspender belt and stockings. Without thinking, she stepped into the dress, leaving the more intimate wear. It was a modern cut of midnight-blue satin with a neckline that plunged. It matched a pair of satin evening slippers. A long, narrow box on the table with a faded gold name on the back contained a string of pearls. She put them on automatically. They were luminous against her skin, which had darkened in the couple of hours she’d spent in the sun. More cars arrived, more glass laughter shattered around the fountain.

  ‘Henrique!’ cried a girl.

  ‘Françoise,’ came the reply, ‘la déesse de Lisbonne.’

  ‘Dieter, wo ist meine Handtasche?’

  ‘Ich weiss es nicht. Hast du i
m Wagen nachgeschaut?’

  And then an ironic voice over the top of the crowd.

  ‘Oi! Myrtle! Weren’t you who with me on the ships at Mylae!’

  ‘Pipe down, Julian…you’re drunk already.’

  ‘Has that corpse you planted in your garden sprouted yet?’

  ‘You’re not even saying it right.’

  ‘Bugger it.’

  Anne’s palms moistened as she looked down on the shining metal of the cars, the men in dark suits, the women in their jewels waiting for an arm. She brushed out her hair, pinned it up, smoothed her fingers over the collision point on her temple whose swelling had gone down. She applied lipstick, tried to look into herself beyond the black shining pupils. The dress made her feel confident, brought back that feeling of the actress in her as when she’d first arrived.

  She walked down the corridor, but held back from the explosive laughter shooting up from the stairwell. Voices came from a room to her left whose door was ajar. The room was empty, not even a bed. The voices came from the fireplace. She counted off the rooms. She was above what must be Wilshere’s study. She’d caught a glimpse of the book-lined walls, the desk and safe earlier in the day. She knelt by the mantelpiece, listened.

  There were three men in the room below. Wilshere, Beecham Lazard and one other who spoke English with a heavy, guttural accent. Occasionally this voice and Wilshere’s would lapse into German to clarify a point and Beecham’s would cut in hard and fast: ‘What was that? What did you say?’

  It was clear, though, from what followed, that Lazard, far from being excluded from the conversation, was in fact joining with the German to apply pressure on Wilshere, who felt he had no need to step down from his position of strength.

  ‘Say what you like,’ said Wilshere, ‘but I’m not going to release the goods until the Swiss have notified me that the funds have arrived.’

  ‘Have we ever failed you, my friend?’ said the German.

  ‘No, but you know that’s not the point.’

  ‘Maybe you think that because of the Allied invasion of France we might be diverting funds away from this kind of activity.’

  ‘That’s your business. My business is to make sure that the goods are paid for. And as you know, they are not only my goods. I am representing a number of vendors…this is not a regular piece of business…not a parcel of this size and quality.’

  ‘All I know is that there’s a flight leaving for Dakar on Tuesday evening, which will connect perfectly with the Rio flight on Wednesday morning,’ said Lazard, ‘and I want the stones on board.’

  ‘Why so urgent?’

  ‘We have a buyer lined up in New York.’

  ‘And he’s going to go away?’

  ‘What’s being sold might go to others.’

  Silence for some time. Party murmurs. More cars arrived.

  ‘The Russians?’ asked Wilshere.

  No response.

  ‘When can the funds be in Zurich?’

  ‘Friday.’

  ‘Well, I can see that this is very different from the other business we’ve done,’ said Wilshere. ‘Is there anything you can give me that would help the people I’m representing to understand the unusual circumstances?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked the German brutally.

  ‘Are you talking about a bonus?’ Lazard nudged, the percentage man.

  ‘Perhaps we could agree a bonus,’ said the German, ‘if we could see the goods.’

  ‘Now it’s my turn,’ said Wilshere, gathering himself. ‘Have I ever failed you?’

  ‘Come on, Paddy,’ said Lazard.

  ‘Have I?’ he asked. ‘No. I haven’t. I’ve followed your instructions to the letter. There’s nothing under thirty carats in the parcel.’

  ‘It’s the value per carat that concerns us,’ said the German. ‘These are not the usual industrial quality. And whilst the last parcel we bought from the Congo was not entirely satisfactory, and we have confidence in your Angolan product, it does not mean that we’re afraid to go back to Léopoldville.’

  ‘But my goods are here…now,’ said Wilshere. ‘Ready to go to Dakar as soon as…’

  ‘How much?’ asked the German, the two words coming down with guillotine weight.

  ‘What can you give me…in advance? To show your good intentions.’

  ‘Escudos,’ said Lazard.

  ‘I don’t want escudos, but…perhaps that commodity you use to buy your escudos?’

  ‘Gold? That’s all accounted for at the Bank of Portugal, it would be impossible…’

  ‘Is it?’ Wilshere cut in. ‘I’ve heard there have been some interesting diversions since June the sixth.’

  Silence. Brittle, frost hard, silence. Anne stared into the grate where a single dry fir cone lay on its side, its scales open, brown and black seeds showing. A floorboard creaked in the corridor. Her head turned slowly, her heart fighting between the two sacs of her lungs. A patch of nightdress flitted past the crack in the door.

  She slipped out of her shoes, went to the door. Some strange wiring in her head reminded her of the luminous pearls against her skin and she covered them with her hand.

  Mafalda stood on the threshold of Anne’s room, looking back down towards the unlit stairwell. More neurotic night strolling?

  ‘What are you talking about, Paddy?’ asked Lazard, from down below.

  Anne clenched her fists as Mafalda went into her room.

  ‘A coincidence. The Allies invade Normandy. Salazar puts an embargo on wolfram exports.’

  ‘Well, he’s done that before.’

  ‘But this time the embargo’s effective. He’s not worried about being invaded now. He’s playing with the winners. My three mines up in the Beira have been closed down…officially. Boarded up. There’s an Englishman roaming the countryside making sure of it. And yet…and yet…’

  ‘Spit it out, Paddy.’

  ‘The gold keeps coming in. Two consignments last month. If the price of tinned sardines had gone up that much, I think I would have heard about it and been in there.’

  Silence again as the German digested Wilshere’s perfect intelligence. Anne’s neck shook with the tension. She padded down to her room, which was light and bursting with noise coming up through the open windows. Mafalda had the sheets peeled back. She was sniffing them like a dog over ground recently stained by a bitch.

  Anne switched on the light. Mafalda stood between the bed and the window, blinking and bewildered. Anne stepped back in mock surprise.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ asked Mafalda.

  ‘Isn’t this my room?’

  ‘Why have you come back?’

  ‘Do you know who I am, Dona Mafalda?’

  The older woman moved into the middle of the room, her breasts and the flesh of her thighs quivering against the cotton nightdress.

  ‘If you young girls had any sense of honour, you’d know when to stay away.’

  ‘My name is Anne Ashworth. I am English. I am not Judy Laverne.’

  Mafalda winced at the name and her hands came up as if to cover her ears, except she’d already heard the offending name. She made for the door, brushed past Anne and fluttered down the corridor like a moth looking for another light source to baffle against.

  Anne checked the corridors and went back to the empty room. Someone was resuming their seat in the room below. Wilshere and Lazard were alone.

  ‘How did you know about those consignments going into the Banco de Oceano e Rocha?’

  ‘Why? Didn’t you?’

  ‘Sure I did,’ bluffed Lazard.

  ‘Probably the same source then,’ said Wilshere. ‘The question is, do you know what the diamonds are going to buy in New York?’

  ‘Dollars,’ said Lazard, happy to oblige.

  ‘And with the dollars…?’ said Wilshere.

  ‘You’re not feeling guilty are you, Paddy?’

  ‘I know you like “Paddy”, but I prefer “Patrick”, is that all right, Beecham?’


  ‘Sure, Patrick.’

  ‘And what do I have to feel guilty about?’ said Wilshere, to the sound of a striking match. ‘I’m merely curious as to the raised tension, the established urgency to this particular deal. And, of course, the very specific requirements as to the quality of the goods, which are clearly designed to produce a market value of around one million dollars.’

  ‘The answer is, I don’t know,’ said Lazard.

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘Then nobody knows,’ said Wilshere, ‘not even your old friends at American IG.’

  ‘Maybe…have you thought about this, Patrick? Maybe it’s information we shouldn’t know about.’

  ‘The age of innocence, Beecham, is long gone.’

  Anne went downstairs into the dark hall and along the unlit corridor to the back terrace where the cocktail party hummed in the yellow light coming up from the lawn. Cardew waved from some way off. She stepped into the crush of dinner-jacketed bodies, swiped a saucer of champagne from a passing tray and found her elbow cupped from the side. She turned into the white shirt and loose dark jacket of Hal Couples.

  ‘You were talking to my wife on the beach,’ he said, more friendly now.

  ‘I’ve been even closer than that, Mr Couples.’

  ‘Hal,’ he said, mystified. ‘Call me Hal.’

  ‘Is your wife here?’

  ‘She’s in there somewhere,’ he said, dismissing her, and produced a packet of Lucky Strike.

  They smoked, sipped their drinks, sizing each other. ‘You work for Shell. Mary told me.’

  ‘That’s right…she didn’t say what you did, apart from having to be nice to Beecham Lazard.’

  ‘I work for a company called Ozalid. We sell machines that reproduce blueprints, you know, architectural drawings, that kinda thing. Lisbon’s going through a construction boom so we figure we should be here selling our equipment…a-a-a-nd waiting until they finish fighting in the rest of Europe and then moving in there…making a lot of money on the way.’

  ‘Interesting.’

  ‘I’ll be honest with you, Anne, and tell you…it’s not. But it is a living and when Ike gets to Berlin…even more of a living. The state of that place…’ he said, shaking his head at the possibilities.