Undercurrent (20 page)

She was a single-handed explanation of why the place could not be sold. He followed her downstairs.

'She should have let me look after him instead of them poofters,' she said over her shoulder.

'But I didn't really have the strength. I can't manage that dog, either. It keeps getting out. Harry was strong, you see, and wilful. But I tell you one thing. He wouldn't have gone all the way downstairs and out on the pier by himself on a morning like that. If there was anything Harry hated, he hated the cold. Are you going to come in?'

An hour later, walking home with the sea on his right, Henry swung his arms and let his fingers grow nicely numb with the cold. The chill was almost pleasant; Granny’s double-glazed flat was hotter than Florida, with a breathless, hermetically sealed, humid heat.

She was mortally afraid of the cold. The jungle temperature of her premises made him relish it now. Her phrase echoed, He hated the cold, that boy. Henry knew why Harry hated the cold.

Henry was walking home with the lining of his good jacket still torn, but his shoes clean.

Thinking of facts and why a person would abandon their books. Thinking of all the thumbnail sketches Maggie had given him and what little he had learned.

There it was again, that damn black dog, coming out of a turning, wagging a tail at him and running off. It fitted his mood, as elusive as fact.

Saw the chaplain today. Distracted me from the facts I was on the brink of writing.

I always had a belief that Creation could not be random and merely the forces of nature,
although if you looked long enough at the sea, you would doubt there was a human logic to it. The sea
might feed us, but is alien, because its primary purpose is to feed itself and all the creatures who live in
it. A brutal regime is imposed from time to time; there are mandatory culls of the predators and
passengers. Man is endured, allowed to harvest as well as to cross, but if it all gets too much, the ocean
shrugs him off and eats him. As dictated by a committee of Neptune’s.

I tend to believe there are several gods; it is quite impossible to believe in one. There's a sort of
parliament of Gods with ministries, definitely not democratically elected and all undermining one
another. There's too much for one God to do; he had to delegate after the first failures, break the whole
thing down into dukedoms and fiefdoms and they all formed rivalries
. I can see it. Somebody shouts I WANT TO BE MINISTER FOR THE SEA,
but he can't. His job this session is to be Minister for Weather.

The thunder God went for a ride (I told the chaplain),

Upon his favourite filly,

I'm THOR! he cried.

The horse replied,

You forgot your thaddle, thilly.

That was one of Maggie's. Yes, a cabinet ministry of gooses and their delegates with thor
thaddles
.

I digress. I
MUST
digress.

I had to say that the door was open and he took himself off. It was what I said first and I had to
stick with it No one else in the world knew the extent of his condition as well as I did, or his
temperament. They might have done if they had read all the books and the papers I read searching for
a prognosis. That was why I got rid of the books. I told them I went to find him, already cross with him,
and when I saw him, naughty as ever, I decided, enough was enough. I told them I had thought of it
often. When I saw his limbs swell, when I read what he might become and knew he was not one of the
mild cases. When I saw that even at his most engaging, he was friendless.

But he did have friends, they said, and so did you. Ah yes, but not the ones I needed and he
craved. He adored Uncle Joe, who were at best indifferent. He adored Uncle Joe, who, harmless as he
was by then, only had eyes for little girls. So much for family. So much for knowing anyone. It takes
such a long time and the choice is such a gamble. I befriended Uncle Joe when he was old because it
seemed to me that to be isolated from your tribe, and in particular from children, is a fate worse than any death.

To be old, without visitors; to have lost your reputation, what kind of suffering is that? How prophetic. I wanted him to avoid the fate I have made myself.

The chaplain finds me frivolous. He says I must face facts.

FMC.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

Crunch, crunch, crunch
. Their footsteps along the gravel of the beach echoed loud enough to waken the dead. She seemed sure-footed; he slithered and she took his arm.

'Steps up that way. Henry.'

'Thank you.'

Maggie liked the way he consented to be led. No macho nonsense. The sea was unnaturally calm and kind, kissing the stones like a flirt at a party, he said.

It was a strange description for him to use.

'This won't be haute cuisine,' she warned.

'I'm into depravity. Carbohydrates and cigarettes are fine.'

Seven in the evening, blacker than a road. He did not care what he ate. They stumbled up steps from the darkness of the beach in a state of merciful quiet, walked down an alley he had never noticed, round several corners he had never noticed either and into the bowels of a building. He was not in an observant state this evening, and she was duly grateful. She could criticize Warbling's restaurant fare because she lived here; if he did it, she would be defensive.

'All there was, was medical books,' he said flatly as they sat. 'And the old lady confuses books with magazines, same thing to her. Books on paediatric illness, psychology, abuse, and two dozen pamphlets on cerebral palsy. No poetry. No letters. What happened to her soul?'

House wine arrived on a checked cloth. He raised his glass to her. She waited for him to wince at the taste, but he was entirely indifferent to the quality and she sighed with relief, annoyed at the same time that she should actually mind if he liked it or not.

'Children were her job. Henry, as well as her passion.

There's nothing odd about a collection of books like that, even without Harry. She was thorough. She would have known more about Harry's hemiplegia than anyone else.'

'More than the prosecutor. And the so-called defensse, it seems,' he said quietly.

'We spell it with a "c". Henry. As in fence. And an English lawyer. Henry, is not a writer of fiction. We do not create a defensse, any more than we can write a story. If we have a client who is responsible, intelligent and articulate, and that's a big if, our humble role is only that of translator.'

She rearranged her knife and fork, aligning them with the edge of the table. 'The point of the role is to clarify the facts and the mitigating circumstances, make all of them understandable and sympathetic to the most unresponsive of tribunals.

There is only one sentence for premeditated murder, Henry. Life imprisonment. As a translator of facts, one does not have a great deal of scope to influence the outcome. Especially with a client as stubborn as that. Someone who had decided that the sentence was necessary for her own redemption. The choice here, by the way, is pizza or pizza.'

'A truly universal dish.' His face creased with a smile and seen like that, it was an extremely pleasant face, made memorable by dimples and almost mischievous.

In repose, the same face was perfectly inscrutable. One did not know, Timothy had observed to her, whether it was content, curious, angry or on the verge of tears. One simply hoped for the best. The smile was infectious and she smiled back. For people who had spent hours in conversation, the formality of dinner alone at his suggestion was making them oddly stilted with one another.

'What's so funny. Henry?'

'You,' he said. 'You get so didactic. You give me lectures. I can see you laying down the law.

Only it doesn't go with anything else.'

'Such as?'

'The dress. The hair. The eyes.'

She crossed her eyes and pulled a face.

'You can leave the eyes out of it. They're simply genetic inheritance. The hair is tinted every six weeks. And colourful clothes are allowed, even for part-time lawyers. It's a nice red, isn't it? Like old bricks. I call this ensemble my battered English rose look.'

He eyed the dress. Modestly scooped neck, simple knitted thing with long sleeves. A row of pearls at the neck, cheeks pink from the walk and hair blown wilder. He looked beyond her to the door, always checking the exit, especially in basements, like a spy, and after that he felt relaxed, even though the day had been depressing. There was always tomorrow and he could not remember when he had last sat opposite a woman as oddly glamorous as this and it was fun, even if his attitude towards her was tempered with profound suspicion.

He really should know her better, well enough to tease her at any rate.

'Listen, Maggie. If we'd met through, oh, say a dating agency or a mutual friend . . .'

'We did.'

'Just say we were having our first evening alone ...'

'We are.'

'You just aren't cooperating, Maggie. I'm asking you to use your imagination. If we were on a prearranged, let's-get-to-know-each-other date, without the agenda we already have and all the encrypted information you dole out, what would you want me to know about you? I mean, what would you be telling me?'

'OK, I'll play if you'll play.'

He nodded. 'You go first.'

She clasped her hands beneath her chin, hiding long fingers, fluttered her eyelashes theatrically.

'I'd give you a slightly self deprecating account of my life to date, the description carefully tailored to suit the occasion and leaving out the worst bits. I'd probably omit the childhood, because you wouldn't want to know.

I'd tell you I left the small town for the sake of a career, but I probably wouldn't tell you that I went to find a better class of husband, who abandoned me for a ... no.' She paused. 'No, I wouldn't say that. I'd say I was amicably divorced, in case you should think I was a contentious bitch who liked fighting. I'd mention somewhere along the line that I used to like designing rooms and cooking. Emphasis on home comforts. By the end of my little recitation you'd know that I was brave, modest, capable, bittersweet and available.
Definitely available
. I'd stress that as much as cooking.

And I wouldn't be wearing this dress.'

He was laughing. She teased her hair with her fingers and looked at him soulfully, fluttering her eyelashes again in a parody of shy hesitation.

'I wouldn't, on considering, tell you that on my second date with my husband, I tried to impress him with steak for dinner in my weeny garden flat, only the dog got it and was trying to bury it in a flowerbed.

I rescued it, quietly, dusted it down and served it up.

He ate it like a lamb and persuaded me to give away the dog. That should have told me everything I needed to know.'

The order for food was written down laboriously.

Henry had an idea it might take some time to arrive.

Three other diners between himself and the exit had the look of starved resignation. Maggie nibbled a breadstick.

'I'd lie quite a lot. Henry. The quotient of lies to truth would depend on how much I liked you. Your turn.' Her face had reverted to normal: that of an intelligent listener without an ounce of the coquette.

'Well. . .' He coughed and cleared his throat.

'No hesitations.'

'I guess I'd start with my full name and qualifications.

Tell you my status. Let you know I earned money, had no debts, travelled a lot. Was smart.

Didn't go round with my flies undone. No sexual problems, but not a womanizer, like them too much. Failed relationships not the result of infidelity or malice. And it would all be true. In a way.'

He played with the paper napkin, forming it deftly into the shape of a hat while she watched intently. 'I'd say I wasn't so good at talking about myself and I was kind of shy on account of always opening my mouth to say the wrong thing. Also true. I don't like to lie. Low on social skills. But I guess I might leave out the stuff about being afraid of the dark, scared to death of being locked in, running away from confrontations and commitments so fast I'm out of sight.

I'd probably pretend that I wasn't quite available, some little piece of unfinished business somewhere.

I'd confess to being complex.'

'And are you?'

'Nope. Not as far as I know. I'm just a fully paid up coward.'

There was an uncomplicated silence, punctuated by the sound of her teeth with the breadstick and the murmur of conversation from behind.

'I wonder if we'd want to see one another again.'

Henry shrugged and grinned as the pizza arrived, thumped on the table in a loud challenge to digestion.

'Probably not. Such a paragon of a woman would destroy my confidence. If she said she liked gardening, it might be a different matter.'

'And I,' she said, 'would be worried by your haircut and all that bloody mystique.'

They began to eat, slowly. Henry struggled with a blunt knife, looked at the problem logically and opted to cut the pizza into four slices, which was easier decided than done. A portion of Neapolitan cheese'n'.tomato scooted from his plate across the narrow table and on to her lap. She flicked it to the floor, delicately.

'Shit, I'm so sorry. Didn't I mention the clumsiness?'

'If this was a date. Henry, you'd have blown it.'

He struggled silently; elbows flexed, then picked up a slice and chewed it carefully. It was only another pizza, which would go on and on being a pizza, the way they did. He was deciding that if he was ever going to have any preference for food, it was going to be for a lot of different little things on a big plate, eaten to the tune of impersonal conversation.

'I think Francesca gave away her medical books for a reason,' he said. 'Such as not wanting anyone to know how bad Harry was. Or how relevant his condition was to the manner of his death.'

'There's a medical report on the file. Henry,' she said patiently, resigned to his resumption of the topic.