Becoming Strangers Read online

  62

  'I WANTED TO SAY GOODBYE, before I went,' said Bill.

  Jan wiped his mouth and did not turn around. They were at breakfast. Opposite him, George put down his knife and fork. George's eyeballs, covered by the opalescent veneer of age, seemed even more fogged that morning. His expression was one of anticipation though; you could read his face like a book. Seeing hope at work behind every muscle in his friend's face, Jan considered what he should do. He had seen Bill coming out of Burns's office. There was no mistaking the man's guilty glance. He had intended to cut Bill. He had prepared for this very moment. But now he got up from the table, nodded and went to shake hands with Bill, to offer a parting.

  'Can we speak?' Bill asked, holding the hand still. Jan nodded again and walked outside the breakfast room and across the corridor on to the terrace. 'I should have come to you before now,' said Bill, 'there's something I need to tell you.'

  'No,' said Jan, extending his top lip a little and shaking his head. He looked down towards the hibiscus bushes and out towards the sea. The sky was riven with little clouds, like an old page torn at the sides. 'I know what you would like to say to me and I know why you would like to say it, to get things off your chest, but it's uncomfortable for me to listen to that.'

  'Shall we have a coffee?' said Bill, shifting from one foot to the other at the side of Jan, his eyes on Jan's face.

  'I have already had one.'

  Bill let out a small sigh. 'You're right,' he said, 'it's for my sake. I feel just shocking, man. You see, it's as though I've acted against you, not once but twice, and I never meant to do so.'

  Jan raised his eyebrows.

  'I couldn't see the man go to jail, that's why I spoke to Burns.'

  'It would not have come to that.'

  'You can't be sure! And we don't know what the police force or the court system is like in this country. But more than that, Jan, I thought I should do what was right, in all conscience. I believe the man to be innocent.'

  'Based on what?' Jan said, turning towards Bill. Bill looked away.

  'Based on my knowledge of your wife.'

  'You know my wife?'

  'In a sense.' Bill was scarlet-faced, he was wet at his armpits, wet at the centre of his back.

  'Enough to know she is a liar?'

  'No, not exactly, but enough to know that she has a certain attitude to...'

  'Sex. You had sex with my wife.'

  'Yes.'

  Jan looked away. 'What kind of Christianity is it that you practise?'

  Bill looked down and shook his head. 'I didn't know she was married. I didn't know you.'

  'You should not have tried to become my friend after doing something like that.'

  'But why not? It was done with, it was meaningless. It was over, it would have been forgotten. But Jan, you and I, we became friends. Of course if I'd known you before I would never have done it.'

  'Look, I have always known how my wife is.' He gave a short laugh and ran a hand over his face. 'As it happens it is not a complete disappointment, just more bad news. I am disappointed in you, Bill. Everything seems so false to me. There's more to it than you, though, there's what you stood for.'

  'I know,' Bill said, meeting Jan's eyes.

  Jan nodded slowly. 'I'm old and tired, because of the cancer I suppose. It's not about you, really, it's more to do with her, and with me,' he said. He looked up and saw George through the restaurant window watching them from the table. 'I'm not making sense. We're all wrong as far as I can see.'

  'I'm sorry, Jan,' said Bill, 'truly I'm sorry, I wish it had never happened.'

  Jan thought of Laurie briefly. Nothing had ever landed on his plate, and even if it had, he would have refused it, for having done so. He looked down at Bill's patent leather shoes.

  'I didn't think you were an opportunist,' he said.

  Bill looked miserable, he was chewing on the insides of his mouth and blinking. He extended his hand, 'Goodbye, Jan.'

  63

  IT WAS ONE OF THE MOST RELIGIOUS COUNTRIES to which Bill had ever traveled, and on his way to the airport he took every spire, every triangular shelter, every cross, every graveyard as a reproach. He clenched his eyes shut and when he opened them, the car turned up on to an ascent through sugar cane plantations towards the centre of the island and the sun reached out a finger and touched the interior of the car, the back seat. Tears rolled down Bill's cheeks, and he took a tissue from an ornate holder between the front seats and blew his nose.

  A crucifix of dried palm leaves swung from the driving mirror. The driver looked in his mirror, his head jolting from side to side, to the beat of the evenly spaced potholes.

  'Hard to leave,' he said.

  Bill acknowledged him by lifting his head.

  'You going back home? England?'

  Bill shook his head, 'Ireland. Close.'

  'Then you don't need to be sad. You look like a good man with a good life. Smile. No need for sadness.'

  Bill told himself he was a fraud. Sitting there with money in his pocket, a passport too, as if he knew where he was going and had the means to get there. He could feel the suitcase in the trunk of the car as if it was hanging on his back. He felt too big for the car, too small for the world outside. Too stupid. Too wrong.

  'I make my own sadness,' he said.

  'What's that?' asked the driver.

  Bill gave a slight shake of his head and looked out of the window. There was a small fishing boat down on the beach, above the shoreline, and it had been graffi-tied with the words, 'Jesus is beautiful.'

  64

  SHE SLEPT WITH HER HEAD BACK and her mouth wide open, God bless her. She'd never had a lot of what you call feminine grace. Nor had she had what they call feminine wiles, to be fair. George watched her half emerge from her sleep, wipe the corner of her mouth on the paper cover on the headrest and snuffle back into what comfort she had. He shook his head and grinned. When the hostess came by he gave her a nudge and tapped the rim of his beer glass.

  'I say, I'm parched, duck,' he said. 'It's the altitude, I expect. I get thirsty.'

  'Would you like some water?' she asked, wide-eyed and kindly. He was used to being looked at like that. He could narrow the gap, even at his age, between that look of hers and the look she'd give a young man. He gave her his best smile, as if he were spruced up and aftershaved.

  'No, dear, can't bear the stuff. A beer would be just right. And a whisky chaser if you can spare it.' He gave her a heavy wink.

  'You sure you ought to?'

  'I'm not as old as I look, love. I've had a hard life.'

  'Oh yeah?' She poured the beer.

  'There's that and I like to travel incognito. I've got a bit of a cosmetic disguise, you see. Underneath the skin's smooth as a baby's.'

  'Fancy that.' She handed the beer glass along with the can and started putting ice into a plastic cup when George stopped her.

  'No need for that, dear, takes up space, don't it?'

  She gave a sigh. 'I suppose I'd better make it a double then.' She handed him a very large Scotch. 'Go on with you then, let's just say my hand slipped.'

  'Now there's a thought!' George said, raising both eyebrows at the same time. She gave him one of those closed-mouthed sexy smiles, all secrets and twinkling eyes she was, and with the taste of the beer in his mouth and his hand on the glass of Scotch, he was a happy man.

  He had their travel bag on his lap, with all the brochures, vouchers and ticket folios. He started to go through it, wondered if the young lady could use the vouchers. There was a free upgrade with any weekend car rental, a free dessert with any main course and children were included in the adult fares for the boat trips. They'd barely used anything, just the flight tickets. The travel agent itinerary had been unfolded and folded many times, almost daily. There was a plastic wallet for the traveller's cheques. He would be able to put them back in the bank. They'd not needed them. He'd paid for their extras with their bank card. One hundred and forty four
pounds. He'd been careful; things were shocking expensive in a place like that. The first time they'd gone abroad on a trip they'd taken a lot of their own refreshments. Kept them on the window ledge of the hotel room as it had been nice and chilly in Ostend. Bought milk and cereal for their breakfasts, brought their own teabags, brought their own spoons. She'd gone and taken their own pillowcases, to make it feel more like home. He hadn't been fussed himself. Food and drink was one thing. He didn't need to take a bleeding teddy bear to cuddle, he told her. He'd explained it to her slowly, 'When you go away, it's a holiday ain't it, you do things different. We needn't do things the same way, at the same time,' but of course they'd ended up taking their lunch every day at one, their tea at four-thirty—sandwich and a bit of cake—a cuppa and a snack at seven and were in bed by nine-thirty. He'd looked out of the window when she was asleep and seen people strolling about round the square, beneath the window he could hear the soles of their shoes tapping upon the medieval cobbles. He'd watched how lightly a man or a woman would take the brass rail of a bar door in their hand and disappear from his view.

  Still, they'd always had a bit of money saved up. They'd never been spendthrifts. She got a new wallet once every ten years or so. He'd only ever had three or so in his life. His indulgence was shoes. He bought a good pair every other year. His hands touched the sheets of paper he'd folded and inserted in the wallet, hotel paper upon which he'd started to write down his memoirs. He'd started from where they got married.

  When we got married the wedding reception was held at my parent's home in Enfield. We had about twenty friends and relatives. We had purchased a home via the Halifax building society with a down payment of £36 on the total price of £636. We had to pay £3.4.0 a month in repayments but our income was only £5 a week. I took a job with a refrigeration company in Turn pike Lane, mostly building cold rooms for butchers. The cold rooms were made of wood, one side covered with plywood or sheet metal already spray painted white. We turned the hollow side up and cut slabs of cork to fit it, then sent for the man to cover the inside with hot pitch and then we placed cork slabs on this about 2 inches thick, then we put pitch and cork again and placed ply or metal panels on the same and the top and bottom were constructed the same. We put it together on the joinery floor bolting it all with 6 inch coach screws through holes and blocks already placed inside the body of the cold room sides and top. The base was done the same way but had a cement floor with a drain hole towards the rear. These bases were placed on carpenters stools and cemented on them so that Dick the cementer did not have to bend down as he was a portly man. After about a year I asked if it was possible to go outside assembling cold rooms in butchers' shops and I was told it was. I usually received a joint or chops as a tip.

  The week after our wedding I was asked to go to Smethwick near Birmingham to refrigerate a moving belt on which baking tins were to be cooled down whilst passing through the freezer which I had to build while the belt was in motion and carrying hot tins. I did get some cakes given to me, mini chocolate rolls. I was there a week then back to my bride.

  We couldn't afford a honeymoon what with the purchase of the house. I went to work at a church near Cockfosters. They had run out of money to build the church so we made a false wooden end to go on it. At this time my father was in ill health. He was 66 years of age. He was fading fast with Arterio Sclerosis, hardening of the arteries. He was my mentor, the man who taught me how to behave, and he gave me his love of music and woodwork, it endured a lifetime. One day the wife came to the church. My mate and I were fixing a large wooden cross to the end we were working on. I looked up the hill and saw her waving. I was off that scaffold quick as lightning; you see I dearly loved my father. When he died, my mother insisted on having a horse drawn hearse and carriages as she did not want to be seen to rush him off

  Then followed the war. With not much happening in the building trade, I joined the Enfield Fire Brigade, jumping out of 90 foot towers and rescuing people trapped in bombed buildings, and I used to fit out air raid shelters too, with my building experience. In 1942 I was called up for service in the forces and became a despatch rider in the Royal Signals in Ireland, then in Yorkshire, then Africa, Algeria. After a couple of years there I went to Italy until the war finished and had a marvellous time with my comrades. It was the time of my life.

  After the war we decided we wanted an outside life. So we bought a nursery growing tomatoes, chrysanths and vegetables. We was pushed to make a living like that. Very few years at the nursery did we make any sort of profit but I was able to find work to help pay for it, driving mostly.

  It was something, not everything. It was a list. He would write it like this for the grandchildren, so they would know how he'd done his part; that was the main thing.

  It was about fifteen years after the war, when the elderly relatives that they'd looked after had one by one carked it, that he said to her, come on, let's get us two single beds. He'd been seeing the widow then. There wasn't any point in going on as they were. Might as well have his own space. And her mouth straight and grim as death she didn't raise an eyebrow, just said, As you please.' Meaning, you're the boss; which was her way of saying, I'm a slave to you, aren't I? He'd used to try to bring a smile, used to tease her, she had Irish ancestry see, so that was a joke between them for a time, in the early years. Once or twice he'd pinch her bum, come on a bit fresh when they were in the gardens together, he liked to watch her bend down to smell the tomatoes. There's a symmetry to that,' he'd say. Home-grown tomatoes. That's a smell you don't forget. Green smelling, with a sort of lovely straw to it, a bit like piddle. Never taste like that from the supermarket. She'd say 'Geddoff' in the years after the war and crack a smile. Then take the smile indoors with her and stick it in her pinny. She never encouraged anything to do with touching. She had her invalid mum to look after who was a right cow and just picked up where she'd left off before they met, making Dorothy's life a bloody misery. He never got mixed up in it. Perhaps he should have.

  He looked at Dorothy, her mouth closed now, her head slumped on to her ample bosom. She'd been a smashing cook, from nothing much she could make a spread show up on the table. She was a wonderful mother too, she'd made all their clothes, knitted new sweaters for them every winter. She wasn't like that Dutch woman. She was a good 'un. A pal. He patted her hand, took it in his and smelt it for a minute. Bleach, even after two weeks away. He laughed.

  He felt for the traveller's cheques wallet. Inside, there were a very thin couple of notes. He pulled them out. Two hundred quid. He could see that a few cheques had been detached. They'd only spent one hundred by traveller's cheque at the resort—the rest he'd done with their bank card. They'd started off with five. Two missing.

  He went to nudge Dorothy, but stopped himself. What had she done with them? Perhaps they'd been nicked. He thought of the woman who'd looked after their room. No, he couldn't see it. Perhaps there'd been a break-in? Dorothy murmured something and when her lips settled they were out of place and ajar. He let her be.

  65

  'RYDER (JUNIOR) IS AN INVESTOR OF SORTS. He has an income, privately, and he uses it to play the markets mostly. Obvious stuff. I know his father better. Former Chairman of Nabisco. Big gun. Bad guy with a heart of gold. He's kind of somebody. His son isn't. How are your financials shaping up?' Burns filed the email message in his folder titled 'head honcho.' The information we need always seems to come after we need it, he reflected. He perused the financials on the Excel program, considered how the deduction of certain salaries might improve the bottom line, considered—with a quick spin of his chair, feet against the wall—how much work it might add to his lot and on a whim, went back to his email program to check incoming mail. There was a cosy-looking message from [email protected] entitled 'young girls crazy for you' which he deleted, there was a circular joke purporting to offer twenty differences between the sexes from a friend of his working in Birmingham; that was all. When he deleted every one of his mail folders, the
keyboard chimed like a fruit machine. He could reverse the procedure. But it felt good to go naked, and he decided to make the entire desktop look as anonymous and enticing as if the machine were new. He dragged up his resignation letter, revised the formal gentlemanly tones of its statements (using much qualification he had explained how he was unsuited to the job) in favour of a more blunt version, and with a final 'hereby' omitted he looked at the two words that remained, 'I resign.' After that, he tidied away his real desktop, putting all the papers stacked in piles into drawers. He went through his in-tray and found a large hotel envelope with his name on it in old person's handwriting, complete with an 'Esq.'.

  Opening it he found two smaller envelopes and a note to him. One of the envelopes was addressed to Adam Watts Esq. and the other to Charlotte, on Sugartown Road. (Adam knows the location.)

  Dear Mr. Burns,

  I should be very grateful if you would see that each of these envelopes gets delivered as soon as possible. With cordial thanks,

  Mrs. Dorothy Davis.

  As neither envelope was sealed, Burns was able to lift the flap and take a quick look at the contents. Inside each one was a traveller's cheque for a hundred pounds. He sat back in his chair and put his bare feet on his desk, crossing them at the ankles. He flexed his toes and smiled. The old girl's savings. Why Watts? he wondered. Perhaps she too owed him for services rendered. He grinned.