The Needle's Eye (44 page)

When he had read all the relevant documents, Mr Justice Ward made no objection to signing the order. So that was that. They all sat back for a moment, not quite liking to think what to do next, because it was obvious, since nobody knew where Christopher was, that it was impossible to serve the injunction on him. Francis Morris requested leave to announce the making of the injunction in the press: the judge smiled gently and said that leave was not necessary, as technically the hearing of an application for such an injunction would be in open court. Ah yes, of course, said Francis Morris, annoyed with himself for the slip. I’d better get moving, then, said
Jeremy Alford, I’d better ring up the evenings, and see if I can catch the late edition.

‘No, don’t do that,’ said Rose, suddenly. She had been sitting very quietly, watching the little motes turn in the sunny air. ‘Don’t do that, I couldn’t bear it, not all over the papers again.’

‘Now come, Mrs Vassiliou,’ said the judge, gently. ‘Surely you’d better do all you can, at this stage, rather than regret it later? It’s unfortunate, I agree, but it’s the lesser of two evils.’

‘But we’ve no proof,’ said Rose, ‘that he ever meant to do anything. Perhaps he was just threatening me. Perhaps he’s been at my father’s for hours.’

‘That’s an interesting point,’ said the judge. ‘Did anyone think to ring your parents to see if they were there?’

Nobody had thought, it appeared. So Jeremy Alford rang the number of the house in Norfolk, and enquired of a servant whether or not Mr Vassiliou and the children had arrived. Not yet, he was told, though they were expected.

‘So we’re none the wiser,’ said the judge, sighing gently, and looking at his watch. It was by now after one, and the judge was doubtless thinking of his lunch.

‘Well, we mustn’t impose on you any longer,’ said Jeremy Alford, ‘I must go and ring the Press Association and the Home Office.’

‘Do use my telephone,’ said the judge, but without marked enthusiasm: so they all rose to their feet, and began to take their leave. As Rose was shaking his hand she quite suddenly burst into tears again, and stood there, holding his hand and weeping. There, there, said the judge, patting her on the shoulder, don’t you worry, it’ll all be all right, you wait and see, you go off and get yourself some lunch and forget about it for an hour or two, it’s all safely in hand now, there’s nothing more you can do.

‘Perhaps she’d like a sandwich?’ said Lady Ward, who had appeared quietly in the background, no doubt to remind her husband that it was time for his lunch.

‘No, no, not at all,’ Rose managed to say, through her tears: and Simon led her off. His last view of the Wards was of their worried, concerned faces, as they stood at the window together watching
them go, before going into the kitchen, to eat their meal off the kitchen table, amongst the half-cleaned silver.

In the car, they discussed what to do next. Jeremy Alford was torn between a desire to stop at the nearest Xerox machine, take a copy of the injunction, track down Christopher and serve it on him in person, probably as he was about to board a plane for Cyprus at Heathrow airport, and a desire to go home quick, placate his wife, and eat his lunch. Francis Morris wanted to get back to his tennis club: his role was over. He said this so clearly that Simon heartlessly dropped him, with effusive thanks, at a taxi rank. He then took Jeremy Alford home. Mrs Alford dutifully offered Simon and Rose something to eat, but was highly relieved when they declined. She did not feel up to entertaining.

‘We might as well leave it to you,’ said Simon. ‘We’re better out of the way, really.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that,’ said Jeremy. ‘You’ve been most helpful. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.’

And he pulled a face at Simon, signifying, Rose is impossible, and Simon pulled one back, signifying, yes, I agree. Rose intercepted these looks, and managed to convey, humbly, that she quite agreed with both.

‘Well, I’ll take her home,’ said Simon.

And so he took her home, having promised to communicate if anything happened at Rose’s end, and to await communications from Alford himself. They got back to Rose’s house in Middle Road at just after two. The whole process had taken nearly three hours. Time enough to arrive in the Middle East, more or less.

And in Rose’s house, they sat down and continued to wait. Simon was hungry, but felt it would be indelicate to make too much fuss about it: Rose said she did not feel up to eating.

‘I feel like a drink,’ he said, after a while, ‘have you got anything in the house?’

He did not think that a drink would be considered heartless: on the contrary, it would offer proof of suffering.

‘Not a drop,’ said Rose, bleakly.

And thinking of drink, and suffering, brought suddenly for the first time into Simon’s head the memory of his visit to Christopher the night before, and it occurred to him for the first time that the whole thing might be his own fault, or at least as much his fault as Mr Calvacoressi’s. For had he not put the notion of the hopelessness of Christopher’s case firmly into his head? And had it not been that, precisely, which the telegram had deplored?

In the end he had to get up and make himself a meal. Rose followed him and watched him, listlessly, as he fried a couple of eggs. Suddenly she said, ‘I should never have set the police on him. What will they do, if they get him at the airport?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Simon, and at that moment the phone rang. It was Jeremy Alford, saying that the police wanted to know if Rose knew her husband’s passport number. Simon asked her, but she shook her head dumbly. He had a suspicion that she would not have said, even if she had known. When Alford had rung off, Rose returned to her point. She should not, she repeated, have set the police on him.

‘Nonsense,’ said Simon sharply. He had seen this coming. ‘Nonsense. The decision was nothing to do with you, it was simply a consequence of his own illegal action. He shouldn’t have taken those children out of the jurisdiction without leave from the court anyway. He hadn’t the right.’

‘Yes,’ said Rose, ‘but whose fault is that? If I hadn’t divorced him he’d have had a right to take them anywhere. So it is my fault, isn’t it?’

‘No, it’s not. At the time, you did what you had to do.’

He turned his eggs, neatly, and fried them on the other side.

‘Yes, I suppose I did. But I sometimes feel that I ought to have gone on taking it.’ She paused, then went on, hesitantly. ‘You, for instance, you don’t give up, do you? I think about that a lot.’

It was the first time she had ever said anything of that nature to him. He did not pretend not to know what she meant.

‘It’s not so bad for me,’ he said.

‘It’s not so bad for you because you’re a nicer person than I am.’

‘You don’t know anything about me.’

‘Oh yes I do. And I’ll tell you why you’re so nice. It’s because you never give anything away.’

By anything, she meant anyone. She was delicate.

‘I haven’t got much to give away,’ he said, as he sat down at the table to eat his eggs.

‘That’s what I mean,’ she said, and smiled, sharply, sadly.

They both smiled.

‘It’s a pity,’ he said, finally.

‘No,’ she said, ‘not really. It’s a good thing, to be like you. There need to be people like you.’

‘I’ve told you before,’ he said, ‘I only act out of a sense of obligation.’

‘That’s good enough.’

‘Not for me, quite,’ he said.

‘Ah yes,’ she said, triumphantly, clinching it. ‘But then
you
are not what you are thinking of.’

When he had finished his eggs, she started again.

‘There was a letter in
The Times,’
she said, ‘the other day. Pointing out that charity is for the sake of the giver, to save the soul of the giver, not the receiver. I couldn’t tell if the letter was serious or not. It’s the classic view, you know. I read it again and again, and I couldn’t tell. It’s interesting, isn’t it? Do you think one could save one’s soul by giving away one’s children? Or would the crime of parting with them be greater than the virtue of the gift?’

‘I don’t always follow you,’ he said.

She laughed.

‘I don’t always follow myself,’ she said. ‘You should see what it’s like, inside my head.’

And the telephone rang. They both started, nervously. Rose got up to answer it, but as she listened, she reached her hand out to Simon, and he went and listened with her: there were pips, then a child’s voice, Konstantin’s voice, calling from a call box.

‘Hello, Mummy,’ he said.

‘Hello, darling. How are you?’ She spoke neutrally, calmly, as though to a child on a cliff’s edge or lodged in a high tree.

‘I’m fine, Mum, I just wanted to ring to see how you were.’

‘I’m fine, love, I’ve just had my lunch …’ she hesitated, then spoke again. ‘Where are you? Are you having a nice time?’

‘We’re having a great time, we’ve just been down Grime’s Graves, we haven’t got to Grandpa’s yet,’ said Konstantin, his voice tremulous with responsibility, offering circumstantial evidence – ‘we just went down these great holes to see the flint mines, and it was all little corridors, and Maria didn’t like the ladder and cried, and Daddy had got this torch, and then we came up again and had lunch in this café, and I thought I’d give you a ring to …’ his voice faltered, ‘I thought I’d give you a ring to see how you are, and to tell you we’ll be at Grandpa’s soon. Are you all right, Mummy?’

‘Of course I’m all right, it was nice of you to ring …’ Her fingers tightened on Simon’s hand, leaving marks. She spoke again, carefully.

‘Where are you, then? Are you in a call box?’

‘No, Mum, I’m in the café, the others went out to the car, I just came back again, I said I wanted to go to the Gents, but I thought I’d just give you a ring. It’s that café just beyond Littlewell, Jim’s Diner, we had bacon and eggs and beans and sausages. I’d better go now, I’ll see you tomorrow, Mum.’

‘Yes. Yes. All right, darling. Be a good lad, look after the little ones for me.’

‘Bye, Mum.’ And he rang off.

Simon and Rose looked at each other. ‘Christ,’ said Rose.

‘Has he ever done that before?’ said Simon, urgently.

‘No, not really. He’s rung from Grandpa’s, once or twice, wanting to speak to me. But never like that.’

‘Christopher couldn’t have put him up to it, could he?’

‘I don’t think so. No, he sounded – oh God, he sounded as though he wanted to reassure me. What an amazing child he is. What a marvellous boy. Quick, let’s ring up Jim’s Diner and see if they were really there. What a child, he even gave me the name. Whatever do you think Christopher told him? Perhaps he didn’t tell him anything, perhaps he just picked it up, he’s so quick, that child, what a life we’ve led him –’

Simon meanwhile had got the number. They rang the café: the
man said that a man with three children in a Jaguar had just left that minute.

‘They’re there,’ said Rose. ‘It was them. What a foul bloody liar that bastard is.’ She spoke with affection and relief.

‘We’d better ring Jeremy Alford and get him to tell the Home Office,’ said Simon. And they tried to ring him, but the number was perpetually engaged. ‘Perhaps he’s taken the phone off, perhaps he’s had enough of us,’ said Rose, and they both laughed.

‘You’re sure it was really Konstantin?’ said Simon.

‘Of course it was. Didn’t you hear him?’

‘Christopher couldn’t have put him up to it, could he?’

‘No, of course not. Anyway, we know it was him, the café man said so. No, Konstantin’s far too sensible to be put up to anything. Try Jeremy again. Perhaps there’s time to stop all the papers.’

So they rang again, and this time he was in. Simon gave him the news: Jeremy Alford listened in silence.

‘Well?’ said Simon, as the silence continued.

‘Well
what
?’ said Jermey Alford, crossly. ‘Look, I’ve got rid of my own children, sent them off to my mother’s for the weekend, and Shirley and I were going to spend a quiet weekend asleep in our deck chairs. And instead I have to spend my time running round in circles after a lunatic.’

‘Sorry,’ said Simon.

‘I was just going to have a large brandy and go to sleep.’

‘Really. I am sorry. Is there anything I can do?’

‘No. Not really. Just keep Rose quiet, won’t you. Don’t let her do anything silly. No, you leave it to me.’ He sighed. ‘I’ll get moving. Again.’

‘All right,’ said Simon, and rang off.

‘What did he say?’ said Rose, anxiously.

‘He was relieved, of course,’ said Simon. ‘He said he’d look after it. There’s nothing we can do.’

And they looked at one another. The afternoon sun was falling, obliquely, into the semi-basement room: a children’s mobile, made of cork and straws, turned slowly, dangling between them, from the low ceiling.

‘You’ll get them back,’ he said, ‘by the end of the day.’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I think so.’

She touched the mobile with her hand: it circled.

‘We could go down there ourselves and get them,’ said Simon. The idea had only occurred to him, that instant, but once conceived, it seemed the only thing to do.

‘Could we?’ said Rose. ‘Could we really? Would you really take me?’

‘I would like to,’ he said. ‘It would be good for us, to get moving. We’ve sat around here too much, today. We need a bit of action.’

‘We ought to tell somebody where we’re going,’ she said, ‘just in case.’

‘I daren’t ring Jeremy again,’ he said. ‘Let’s ring Emily. We ought to ring her anyway, to tell her what’s happened. And she can ring Jeremy, later on. When we’ve gone.’

So they rang Emily, told her what had happened, asked her to ring Jeremy Alford in half an hour: tried to ring Jeremy themselves, after all, guiltily, then, and got no reply. Oh well, forget him, said Simon, he’s had enough of us today anyway. And so they set off, in the car, through North London, to the A10. Simon had completely forgotten to ring Julie: Rose reminded him, and made him stop at a call box, and he rang and told her a story, half of which was true, about Francis Morris and the police and an urgent job, and apologized profusely for not being back. She was quite nice about it, attracted as Morris had been by the note of urgency and priority. ‘I’ll tell you about it when I get back,’ he said, and they drove on.