The Walking Stick (39 page)

Into the Strand. We seldom came this way because there are better ways of avoiding the congestion.

‘I can see how you must have felt last night. I don’t think you ever really have liked Jack or Ted, have you? Now you must feel . . . But it’s partly a question of adjustment,
isn’t it? It’s a question of seeing things in the round, if you know what I mean. Profit and loss account. In a ledger. You’ve lost something, been hellish hurt; but also
you’ve gained. And I reckon if you look at it calmly you’ll see you’ve moved out of the red, love. We’ve both moved out of the red.’

‘Literally,’ I said, ‘as well as other ways.’

He laughed. ‘That’s good. That’s very good.’

Charing Cross a complete blockage. Trafalgar Square.

‘Drop me in Waterloo Place.’

‘Why? I can go on into Jermyn Street and round.’

‘I think I’d like a short walk.’

‘You’ll be late.’

‘It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters today.’

He glanced at me. ‘I hope you mean that in the way I want you to mean it.’

‘I hope I do.’

We stopped opposite one of the big airline windows. There was a mirror in the back of the window and you could see our little red car, with the endless buses thundering past.

‘Sure you wouldn’t like me to meet you for lunch?’

‘No, thanks.’

‘I’d
rather
. I
want
to see you for lunch.’

‘No, thanks.’

‘It’d be better, Deb.’

‘No.’

‘. . . Then I’ll pick you up at Sarah’s at six-thirty?’

‘All right.’

He put his hand on my hand. ‘You’ve forgiven me for this awful thing I did? Or part forgiven? Or just begun to forgive?’

‘Oh,’ I said, ‘it’s that balance sheet I have to think of. All the recreational therapy you’ve seen me through.’

He looked at me earnestly. ‘You know it wasn’t that, or even anything remotely like that. D’you think I didn’t
enjoy
it? You must be crackers if you think
that.’

‘It’s just an idea one has.’

‘But there’s nothing that’s happened, nothing at all, was as
designed
as you think. Nobody’s motives were clear-cut. Honestly. Motives never are. You’re
cleverer than I am, so you ought to know that.’

‘What about love?’ I said.

‘What about it?’

‘Is that ever clear-cut either? Isn’t it all a jumble of sex, hate, passion, self-love . . . ambition . . . calculation . . .?’

‘Is it?’

‘I don’t know. I’m asking you.’

After a minute: ‘Stop thinking. I’ve said it to you before, love. Stop wondering and trying to work everything out and – and trying to see into other people’s minds.
We’re all – groping. The only way is to make the best of things – to – to strike a balance and to let life lead you along. It’s the only way to make anything of it at
all.’

‘Supposing it leads you wrong.’

‘It won’t. Not with me here. You’ll go on enjoying things, you bet your sweet life. We’ll make big time when this money comes in.’

I moved to leave, but he said: ‘Wait, I’ll help,’ and got out first and came to hold my door. It was the first time he’d done this for months. He stood there as I got
out, and for a second or so I could see the whole scene plainly reflected in the mirror window. A small red car with a sturdy, ruffle-haired, polo-sweatered young man opening the door for a pale,
pretty cripple. She had a delicacy of face that really belied the strength of her body and showed nothing at all of what was going on in her mind. And her thin leg stuck out like a stick,
unhidable, unavoidable, incurable, ridiculous. Solicitously he bent to help her, and although her face told nothing, his seemed to be smiling with a partly hidden – but only partly hidden
– pity.

Being helped made it more difficult, made the movement seem infirm. She straightened up, brushed her skirt down so that the thin knee was hidden.

He kissed her. ‘I love you, Debbie. You bet your bottom dollar on that. In a way – in a way I’m
glad
you found out. Because now you know the worst about me. This thing
– although you might not believe it – has stuck in my crop for a long time. Now we can start afresh. When you’ve
really
forgiven me, that is. We’re on the level from
now on. And we’re going places from now on – you must believe that.’

‘I love you, Leigh,’ she said smiling.

The mirror reflected their brief kiss. Then she stood there while he got back into the car, slammed the door, started the engine, waved a hand, moved out with the traffic. The mirror reflected
her standing there with raised hand after he had gone.

She turned and looked in the mirror. Perhaps something in its angle made her look even more lop-sided than she really was.

Walk up to the corner of Piccadilly. The red car was only just disappearing round the corner into Regent Street. She opened her mouth to call, but no sound came. Turn left along Piccadilly.
Other shops, other windows, all reflecting girl in green coat with headscarf and black kid gloves, dark stockings, green shoes. Stretch, click, walk on your toe, stretch, click, walk on your toe.
No built-up shoe; just a bad limp that you were pretending you were disguising. But who believed in the pretence except yourself? Not anybody. Certainly not Leigh.

Past Simpson’s, past St James’s and the Garden of Remembrance, past Hatchard’s, time to cross.

Cars flooding. How simple to be knocked down now. But they’d not kill you if you wanted to be killed. Another broken leg would solve nothing.

Safely across and up Bond Street. Stretch, click, walk on your toe. It was ten minutes to ten. A feckle of rain in the February wind. The figure was keeping me company, limping from window to
window, disappearing and bobbing up again in a glass door. It was the
doppelganger
of German folklore, dancing attendance on me, imitating, mocking, showing me the other side of the coin.
Love, hate, truth, lies, pleasure, pain; stretch, click, walk on your toe; with swift, slow, sweet, sour, a-dazzle, dim . . .

I stopped at the corner of the street where no image could mock me. At the corner was a post-box. In my pocket I reached down and felt the letter crisp in my fingers.

The strength of decision. What had Leigh said? There’s nothing clear-cut ever. So there is no truth but only opinions? There is no self but only impulses? There is no absolute but only
qualifications? . . .

I took out the letter and looked at it. Address carefully written – no evidence of stress on the part of the writer. Queen’s head on the pale blue stamp. Where was Jack Foil’s
head? Hadn’t he had them printed yet?

Careful; not let spite, bitterness, revenge . . . Then what motive if it was not a motive of destruction? But if all was destroyed, what was left but destruction?

I lifted the letter to put it in.

‘’Scuse me,’ said a voice, and a middle-aged man reached past me and put four letters into the letter box. They dropped with a rattle.

He walked away. Tear up the letter. Tear it up and drop it in bits into some fire. Postpone.

Put it off. Put it off a day or so, just for second thoughts. But what were second thoughts? A belief that now one knew the whole truth and accepted it? Weren’t second thoughts the
greatest danger of all, the danger that no decision would be come to again? A degeneration of mind and will so that one fell into a mental paralysis more absolute than poliomyelitis? Was this the
next stage, the final stage?

Balance sheet. What was integrity? Four socks on a line. Can you feel and taste it as you can feel and taste love? But what was love if the taste was gone? How far would sex go alone? You were
sort of grown in when I first met you; in a groove. Who knows, we might plan a little holiday together, just the four of us; I know Doreen has quite a liking. It’s a different kind of fun,
different kind of fun.

I dropped the letter. It fell on the pavement face down, and I stared at it. A middle-aged woman glanced at my leg and bent to pick up the letter, handed it to me with a smile. With a smile I
thanked her and dropped the letter in the box.

Whittington’s almost back to normal this morning. Police gone. Showrooms closed but the full staff there as usual. Furniture being brought in through the back door in
Bruton Yard. Men in yellow overalls carrying a big Victorian wardrobe. On Monday a sale of coins and medals; they’d been on display yesterday. There was one Victoria Cross.

The Stockton china not yet finished. Maurice Mills was checking some of my attributions. All of them up to now he agreed with.

Death and hell, there was no farther to go. This was the end of the line. They are not long, the weeping and the laughter, love and desire and hate . . . I worked with him for half an hour, then
could go on no longer, excused myself, wandered upstairs through the empty showrooms. I saw John Hallows, who smiled at me.

‘Morning, Deborah. What’s this, I see you’re using your stick. I haven’t seen you with it for months.’

‘This?’ I looked down. ‘It was in the cupboard. I took it out when I came. No . . . I haven’t used it for quite a long time.’

Winston Graham is the author of more than thirty novels, which include
Cordelia
,
Night Without Stars
,
Marnie
and
Stephanie
as well as the highly
successful
Poldark
series. His novels have been translated into seventeen languages and six have been filmed. Two television series have been made of the
Poldark
novels and shown in
twenty-two countries.
The Stranger From the Sea
has now also been televised.
Tremor
, Winston Graham’s latest bestseller, is also available from Pan Books.

Winston Graham lives in Sussex. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and in 1983 was awarded the OBE.

By the same author

ROSS POLDARK

DEMELZA

JEREMY POLDARK

WARLEGGAN

THE BLACK MOON

THE FOUR SWANS

THE ANGRY TIDE

THE STRANGER FROM THE SEA

THE MILLER’S DANCE

THE LOVING CUP THE TWISTED SWORD

NIGHT JOURNEY

CORDELIA

THE FORGOTTEN STORY

THE MERCILESS LADIES

NIGHT WITHOUT STARS

TAKE MY LIFE FORTUNE IS A WOMAN

THE LITTLE WALLS

THE SLEEPING PARTNER

GREEK FIRE

THE TUMBLED HOUSE

MARNIE

THE GROVE OF EAGLES

AFTER THE ACT

ANGELL, PEARL AND LITTLE GOD

THE JAPANESE GIRL (short stories)

WOMAN IN THE MIRROR

THE GREEN FLASH

CAMEO

STEPHANIE

TREMOR

THE SPANISH ARMADAS POLDARK’S CORNWALL

First published 1966 by The Bodley Head Ltd

This edition published 1997 by Pan Books

This electronic edition published 2012 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com

ISBN 978-1-447-20727-6 EPUB

Copyright © Winston Graham 1966

The right of Winston Graham to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital,
optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be
liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Visit
www.panmacmillan.com
to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews
and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you’re always first to hear about our new releases.