The German Numbers Woman (27 page)

‘Oh, to Cornwall mostly.'

‘We'll go there next.'

Her uncle had stayed at the same hotel. ‘Cornwall's a better Riviera than the French one.' He held out both hands. ‘Time for a walk along the cliffs,' glittery blue-grey eyes fixed on her, a beam of love and a command making for nothing but obedience, the relinquishing of her will that stunned her like a rabbit before a reptile. But she ran to take his hand, all innocent and loving in white socks, buttoned shoes and blue frock. And now in Boston – though why here? – she wanted to scream, but locked it in, thanking God Howard couldn't see her twisted features.

‘What's wrong?'

‘Nothing.'

‘Funny, I felt it.'

A denial might warp his intuition, do him no good. His peace of mind depended on knowing when he was and wasn't right. He looked as if he had eyes to see, and the longer the pause the more he would know his guess to be accurate. Then she could say less guiltily what was not the truth at all. ‘I didn't like Cornwall, so won't want to go there again.'

‘Fair enough, my love.' There was something she couldn't talk about, but he was neither concerned nor curious, since he was unwilling to say what was in his own mind.

‘There are so many places to see,' she said, ‘especially abroad.'

‘Like Turkey,' he said, not sure he wasn't in a dream. ‘Or Greece.'

Anywhere, except Cornwall. Or here, though she did not entirely dislike the place, which wasn't after all to blame. The first few days on their trips were always difficult. They needed time to adjust after the too-settled life at home. ‘Yes, maybe we should go abroad again.'

‘All the same, I'm enjoying this more than I can tell you, especially that visit to the pub on my own. I love you to be with me, you know that, but it's such a treat for me when I go somewhere alone. I know you don't mind. Probably gives you a rest, too. It satisfies a deep instinct in me to wander, to get out on my own two feet. In normal life we'd have gone on exploring holidays, to Africa or the Himalayas, but since that's not feasible the closest I can get to it is to be on my own now and again.'

‘That's all right. You know I understand.'

‘And I understand you, sweetheart.'

‘We have a bond between us.'

‘So I'll want to go out on my own tomorrow.'

‘Oh.'

‘A stroll, no more. I get an authentic feeling for the place when I'm alone. It brings things back.'

She stood up. ‘I have a headache. I must go to bed.'

‘It's probably from driving.' Some of the exquisite pain of searching for Judy had passed onto her, yet he felt remorse at not keeping the evidence of his obsession more to himself. ‘Yes, that must be it.'

He was like a man who had met another woman and made up his mind to run away. Or he was in the coils of wondering whether to do so, as my uncle had pleaded with me after he had raped me. ‘Come with me to the ends of the earth,' he said. ‘I'm game. I'll cut myself off from everything. We'll go away together. We'll even be happy. It's our destiny.'

What harsh, stupid, unruly words they sounded. She had wanted to say: ‘Yes, take me then. I'm yours till either or both of us dies. We must be made for each other after this. I'll stay with you till I've poisoned you, or driven you mad, which I'll have the strength to do in the years to come.'

He didn't mean it, wasn't serious, was testing her, taunting her, tricking her into silence, and into going on with him so that he could do with her what he still craved to do. He played with her out of weakness, and the injustice cut her off from the world so that she wailed half mad in her dark corner, hearing her never ending rhythmical cries that she didn't know were hers till the flesh plank of his hand struck her to make her quiet in case the neighbours heard. Her screams frightened her back to sanity and remorse, and from that time her true mind had hardly spoken. Nun-like, she had taken on the healing burden of guarding Howard for life.

They had booked a room with single beds, but got a double, and between the sheets held each other as if some cosmic force might try to wrench them apart. When she took off her night dress he turned to face her. ‘What colour?'

‘White,' she said, though it was blue.

‘Thought so,' her tears an unmistakable signal that she wanted him in the old and most effective way. ‘If only you could see.' Cruel to say, but he would imagine even better what was there, and feel her soon enough.

‘Love you,' he murmured. ‘Love you.'

‘Love you, too.' Her anguish dissolved. ‘It's the only thing.'

He lit a cigarette, put on his cap, and set off to find the public library. Laura had read a street plan to him in the lounge, and indicated which way to turn from the door to reach the middle of town. ‘Ask,' she said, ‘if you lose track.'

‘I'll show you,' a woman said when he did. ‘It's not far. I go past it to get home. Take my arm, if you like.' She was young, no doubt personable, her accent like Judy's. But she wasn't Judy, nothing so miraculous. ‘I was in Turkey last year for my holidays,' he said. ‘Have you ever been?'

‘No, but I went to Majorca once.'

‘I met a woman from Boston called Judy.'

‘Lucky devil! Here we are. Mind the steps. I'll get you to the door.'

A youngish woman inside helped all she could, but Judy came nowhere on the electoral rolls. Another girl said she knew her, but she wasn't in town at the moment. A pressure at the heart caused him to sit down. ‘She's supposed to be.'

‘Well, I haven't seen her lately.'

‘What does she look like?'

‘Tall, and well built. Blonde hair coming halfway down her back in a ponytail. She always wears trousers, and a blouse. Sometimes a sweater folded around her neck, if it's going to be chilly. She wears small gold earrings, and walks quickly.'

‘It sounds like you know her well.'

‘She's a bit too stuck-up for that, but I always see her walking by the house, when she's around. You couldn't mistake her.'

‘She was nice enough when I met her in Turkey,' he said.

‘I suppose she would be, out there.'

‘What sort of work does she do?'

‘I couldn't say exactly. She goes away for a few months, then comes back for a week or two. Something to do with boats, I think. She's always got nice clothes. Must cost more than she could afford if she worked here at the library. Last time I saw her she was walking along the street eating an ice-cream. I must get back to my work now.'

He stood. ‘Can you tell me how to get to the street?'

She explained, but he caught the tone of disbelief that he would find it, or get much satisfaction if he did.

Success discouraged him, had taken the heart out of his search while making his slow way along. He was afraid. He didn't want to find the place. He felt embarrassed, almost ashamed at being so close in his tracking, wouldn't know what to say, felt an impulse to turn back, to leave the issue unresolved, in the air, so as to have something to regret for the rest of his life. If he met her he would have to confess to his clandestine listening, reveal himself as a snooper, a stalker, a dirty old flasher, a sneaking eavesdropper. He would invent a story. ‘You met me and my wife at a café in Antalya and told us to look you up.'

‘Did I?'

‘Yes. We'd had a few drinks.'

‘I don't remember. I meet so many people.'

‘Oh, well, sorry to have bothered you. Maybe I've made a mistake.'

‘No, it's all right. It could have been me. Come in for a moment. Now I think about it I do remember meeting someone like you.'

‘I wondered if you might.'

He smelled the mud of the river. A man took him to the gate saying: ‘That should be the house.' Disembodied voices sometimes brought tears. Or they hardened the steel in him. The range could be unimaginable.

He walked along a path between dead flowers, till his hand found the knocker. Anyone passing would think him a burglar, or a beggar – a bit of both. He let the knocker drop three times, holding onto the lintel to stay upright. A dog barked from the next house. He looked up, as if to see something, as if to sample the comfort of rain, his throat as if a cloud of wool surrounded his neck. Houses and traffic melted away, and he was alone in the middle of a plain, no human life for miles, only the ever renewing howl of the dog. Doing something alone made him feel more isolated, floating and unattached, his own island.

Another hammering echoed through the house. Inside were chairs she had sat on, a bed she had slept in, a mirror she had seen her unsettled melancholy face in. Nobody in. She had gone shopping. She had gone to meet Carla. She had gone for a walk to the sea. She wasn't there, and never would be. He knocked, called her name, couldn't believe she wasn't there. She was telling her aunt or whoever not to open the door, though why should anybody want to do that? Why should she be afraid of a knock at the door? She had turned the curtain aside and saw who it was. A man with a white stick and obviously blind couldn't be dangerous, unless she thought he wasn't blind at all, afraid it was the police come to talk about smuggling.

He walked slowly away – inanity to persist. Having tracked her to her den was more success than he had hoped for.

Waiting for their cod and chips, pot of tea and bread and butter, Laura said: ‘Howard, I want you to tell me what's going on.'

‘I don't understand you.'

‘It hurts me to put it like that, but you're up to something. I've never been so mystified in all my life. It's making me miserable.'

Understanding her plight – only too well – raised the level of his irritation, but he was adept at keeping it down. ‘I'm sorry you're not enjoying the holiday as much as I am.'

‘Well, so am I. Which is why you must explain what's going on. I feel I'm being driven mad since we came here. We only arrived yesterday, but it seems like years. I can't take feeling that something's wrong and not knowing what it is.'

‘Ah, here's our meal. I'm as hungry as if I hadn't eaten for days.' He separated fish from bone, making a mess of it, batter spilling from the plate. ‘I suppose you'll think it silly, if I tell you.'

‘Not as long as it makes sense. It won't be silly to put me at my ease.'

‘It's all to do with radio.'

She sniffed. ‘I guessed as much. What else?'

‘For the last few weeks I've been listening to a couple of boats in the Mediterranean talking to each other – by voice, not morse – and I'm sure they're up to their necks in smuggling. A woman talks to another woman, and one of them comes from this town. The other's Spanish, and I'm not sure what place she's from. Anyway, I thought I'd play detective, and look the Boston woman up. The last thing I heard she was supposed to be here on a fortnight's leave. I wanted to hear her voice, confirm that she existed, listen to what other people might say about her, see if I could dig up any clues, get another angle on the puzzle as to what she's up to.'

He used his hands more while talking, but as if to calm his excitement. ‘Why didn't you tell me this before?' she said. ‘We could have been in it together. I would have helped.'

‘I wanted to concentrate my own mind on it, accomplish something by myself.'

She thought there had been too much of that lately. ‘And did you?'

‘I found out where she stays, but when I went to the house, no one was in.'

Hilarious and pathetic. He was biting on the sky of nowhere. The right words wouldn't come, but she let what cared to, which could be the right ones after all, though none she would reveal. There was a vein of slyness in him, worst of all, but was she being repaid for that quality in herself? ‘That's quite a feat, to do so much. I wondered why you wanted to go to the library. Where do you intend to go from here?'

‘I don't know. Seems there's nowhere else. I might have to leave it, listen to the radio when I get back and see if any further light comes from that. It's my only hope. The whole thing may be a fantasy, about the smuggling especially, though I don't think so.'

She should have been glad of his independence, and in a way was, but secrets from each other had never been expected in their life together. The singularity of his quest led her to wonder whether he was telling the truth, that it wasn't a smokescreen hiding something else, but common sense told her that though he might be sly he was in no way subtle. The two never quite went together. In any case it was so bizarre a notion, to imagine he could ever catch anyone smuggling, though if it made him feel part of the world then she must admit and appreciate the good it might do. On the other hand he seemed a little too far in the land of obsession, which was most unhealthy, to do all he'd done unbeknown to her, unless she was going too far in the same direction by thinking so. ‘You must keep me up to date on your investigations.'

‘I'll have to now, won't I? I don't suppose I'll really learn anything up here. Enjoying your meal? I know I am.'

She poured tea for them both. ‘It's a pleasant change.'

‘It's just that my mind is rather taken up by trying to track her down.'

‘So it seems.'

‘Whether I like it or not is beside the point.' He enjoyed talking to someone else about Judy, though without giving anything vital away. ‘I'm just going where my inclination leads me.'

‘Do you have any feeling that you should resist it?'

‘Since there's no possible harm,' he said, ‘I don't. It's like a game, and I'm enjoying it.'

‘Well, of course, it's all right listening to the wireless out of interest, as a hobby, and even making up stories from what you hear, but trying to fit something into a reality you can only imagine strikes me as a little unhealthy.'