The German Numbers Woman

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The German Numbers Woman

A Novel

Alan Sillitoe

To Ronald Schlachter

Contents

Part One

Observations from the Heaviside Layer

Part Two

Spinning the Web

Part Three

A Hero of the Code

A Biography of Alan Sillitoe by Ruth Fainlight

‘What then, if there were no Capacity existing in the Universe? – Impossible – But if these are all the Species of Physical Motion, it follows, that WITHOUT CAPACITY there can be no such Motions.'

James Harris
Philosophical Arrangements
, 1775.

Part One

Observations from the Heaviside Layer

ONE

Gulls skirmished the sloping roofs and chimney pots, squabbled and reconnoitred, a noise like nothing on earth, or in heaven either. They'd been fractiously squealing before his birth, and would do so for ever after, Howard grinning that even the rank breath of Chernobyl hadn't pulled the buggers down. Such sounds lifted the heart whenever he came out of doors, though sometimes they were heard inside as well.

He paused, envying their freedom – what luck! what style! – head back as if to find the cause of such worried belligerence. Disputing for air at the ends of their wing tips, they mistrusted each other with almost human cries, while performing exquisite aerobatics.

He closed the garden gate before going downhill, aware of how many paces were needed between each step, arcing the white stick before him. The news had said it was 15 August. They always told you the date, an item worth knowing because it meant that although there was one day less to live a new one had even so arrived, and as long as that process went on he would see no reason for complaint: To be halfway happy was to be among the happy of the world.

Someone coming up edged aside to let him freeway by. A woman, because of the perfume. She was youngish, but her breath was hard at the ascent, and two plastic bags of shopping rustled against her legs, someone who didn't know him, and too puffed on her short cut over the hill to say a word.

Pottering his slow way down, the tall greystoned houses made gaps to let the wind through. His cheeks were wind vanes, he a perambulating anomemeter – a long-remembered word which caused a smile. It always did. He used it every day on his way into town, carefully noting the serpentine route towards the beach.

No need to beware of traffic, since only pedestrians came up and down. The breeze touching his cheeks was southwesterly, to a degree or so, and more than welcome for its balm. Such days couldn't come too often, but they soon enough wouldn't until next year. He'd expected tonic weather but had cheated a bit on the wind, having taken all details yesterday on his typewriter, straight from Portishead, words tinkling through at top strength on the new radio Laura had bought when her National Savings Certificates fell due.

‘Morning, Howard.'

That's me, but no need to stop. ‘Morning, Arthur. Your bag's heavy today.'

A laugh. ‘Not for long. Nothing for you, though.'

‘I can live without it,' which, sounding harsh, called for another word or two: ‘It's welcome when it drops onto the mat, except for the bills.'

Arthur opened a gate, the latch stiff from corrosion. ‘They all say that.'

No mail was good mail, as far as Howard was concerned, and he could take whatever news he wanted from the wireless, though even that was a case of here today and stale tomorrow. A man went by, in a hurry to go down, giving a whiff of sweat. Off to cash his giro, so he would be slower on the way up, especially with a pint or two inside him. That's how a lot live these days, too many in a town like this, though there's work in summer when the holidays get going.

Good when the sky and your wife look kindly on you, allied to sunshine which gave zest. Laura liked to read his weather printouts, never ceasing to wonder at his ability. Magic, he told her, to keep the priceless spirit going. And magic it was that bound them after so many years, for what man would grumble against Fate when someone like Laura had taken over his existence, and he'd let her do so because there had been no option?

The massive presence of the church was felt to the left, a bulwark flanking his darkness, the picture accurately grey. A door opened, and someone passed in, as Laura now and again did for Evensong on Sunday. She needed such musical platitudes to reassure and warm her soul, a satisfying dimension beyond dull life in the house, and continually looking after him. Last time in such a place was on church parade the day before his crash landing, and he'd felt no pull to go into one since.

The small Peugeot was parked at the bottom of the steps, and he touched the wing mirror, stooped at the door hinge and imagined he caught a whiff of Laura's hair. Damned sure he did, on straightening his back and walking with more vigour.

He yearned to spring along with speed, swing his stick and cry them out of the way, but knew he couldn't, must not, too many excursionist bodies dogging the way. All the same, nothing gives a straighter back than misfortune. The one-way High Street was all obstacles and pitfalls, so concentrate on the map o' the mind and keep the dopplers going. Swing the direction-finding stick along the shop fronts, with smells of meat, bread, furniture, maggots and fishing tackle, hoping not to put his boots in any dogshit, such peril the shame and bane of his life, because Laura (forgive me, Lord, for I can't know what I do) had to make good. Rare was the day in this dog-loving town when he didn't feel that sinking and sliding sensation underfoot, and know she would have the job of wiping the mess away with newspaper, and scrubbing out the stink with Dettol. Sometimes on fine days he would sit in the garden and call for the cleaning kit to do it himself, before coming into the house.

Thinking on better things than churches and dogshit now that he was in traffic, he let the stick go in front, a left and right weave, rhythming a morse letter on the ground, tap-tap-tap-tapping at the kerb, a regular Gene Kelly but never, he hoped, an SOS. All the same, cars go too fast, often not stopping at [Hore] Belisha's beacons. A shade of warmth from the sun, he unbuttoned his jacket, brown she had said though he knew already by the pockets, and a neat diamond darn after catching it on a twig while digging in the garden.

He laughed inwardly at life's challenges. That lorry ought to get its carburettor seen to. The escarpment into the gutter was measured by his stick, a precipice out of
The Lost World
. Or he was a land surveyor in Lilliput, but it was there right enough, and he could only wait.

‘Come on, I'll see you across.' A stranger from the world of the seeing usually helped, but now and again he relished the life-and-death gamble of doing it alone, a trip as lethal as that last raid over Germany, should a rogue vehicle strike. He would count steps to the middle of the motor torrent and stand a few seconds testing his luck, or as if to get breath (hating people to think he was afraid, or didn't know where he was going) but really to taunt God or Fate, and find out whether his number was on a ferocious little ginger-pink hatchback given by a thirteen-year-old who had just stolen it – though by that time the colour wouldn't matter – swivelling like Ben Hur from the sea front and going mindlessly inland. In which case someone would pull the card from his inside pocket, find the home number inscribed by Laura, and phone for her to collect his remains in the biggest plastic bag she could sort out from under the stairs. Macabre, but tempting to think about in such a dull life. They had always brought their thoughts into the open, though this picture was a fantasy to be kept on the secret list.

‘That's kind of you.'

She held his arm. ‘You'll be safe with me.'

‘I'm sure I shall.' Mostly women did this sort of thing, and he wondered what he would do if – on reaching the side closer to the sea and, talking in her angel's voice, the small warm hand still firmly in his – she led him along meandering flower paths to a paradise only she knew about, to an utterly different life wherein he would be able to see.

No matter how well arranged a man's existence he still must dream, secret dreams and unexpressed thoughts forming the necessary backbone for survival in a sometimes meaningless world. Noise hit the senses like blades as cars came and went. ‘You're being very kind,' he said to her.

‘I like to help. I would want to be, if I was like you, wouldn't I?'

‘I hope you never are,' he smiled.

‘Yes, but you don't know, do you?'

‘I don't think you do. What's your name?'

‘Janet.'

He almost smelt the fact when people were embarrassed at doing a good deed, not seeing why they should be. Sensibility to another's needs had many reasons, one being guilt at knowing they were so much better off – as indeed they were. Or did they sense his extra power because he had adapted to living in darkness? Inner light at least was more vivid, though power beyond his understanding wasn't always what he wanted, and he would willingly have traded it for an occasional glimpse of street or seashore. Maybe people thought he had an ideal life in that his affliction would allow no other cares to gall him but, whatever mixture of guilt, fear or envy it might be, how could such deadly sins matter if a kindly action resulted?

She released her hand. ‘Will you be all right?'

‘You've been very kind.' To sit over a cup of coffee with her would make a memorable day. ‘Off to do your shopping are you, Janet?'

‘No, I'm going to meet my boyfriend. He works in the arcades, mending the machines.'