Becoming Strangers Page 22

  'It was like running a knocking shop,' this was what he'd say to the lads back home, over a beer. Running a real knocking shop would be fun, good clean fun, and he could make some money. And do some good, unburden a few sad souls. Now that was worth thinking about. He could do some research on line, starting with Miss Joanna Hotlips. He put one hand on his lap and the other on the mouse. Oddly, from nowhere, came to him the sudden and firm conviction that he should complete his commission for Mrs Davis. Joanna and the thousands like her, suspended in a sort of eternal limbo of apparent sexual surprise, all pursed lips and pink parts, well, they would wait.

  66

  THEY WENT THROUGH THE DARKNESS of the Caribbean night to the European daytime, the plane urging itself on through the night, hurrying home.

  Annemieke was by the window, on her side, turned away from Jan. She considered the economy of her tears; emerging with the timing of hiccoughs, each tear made its way from her left eye, which was above the other, over her nose and fell into her right eye, gathering more mass and momentum before dropping out on to the armrest and beneath the seat. She lay like that for a few hours. No one could see her or hear her. Jan would have thought she was asleep.

  They arrived in the morning in Brussels. The weather was typically Northern European, she saw, raising the shade on her window and looking at the miniature world below moving about its business. Landed on the tarmac, she saw the fine drizzle at the window. They went down the stairs to waiting buses. Sunshine can be ignored, forgotten, but rain penetrates. The baggage handlers had their collars up, they went about their business frowning, warding off the weather with efficiency.

  Their eldest son, Marcus, was there to meet them and Jan took the front seat while Annemieke sat in the back. After they had answered his questions they turned each of them to their windows, examining the rain, watching fields shake hands with hedges and homes. Two or three times her son looked in the mirror to find her face. She gave him half an answer, no more.

  When they were home, and her son had gone to pick up some milk and bread, she excused herself and made a phone call. Then she went back into the kitchen where Jan sat with a cup of lemon tea and told him what arrangements she proposed.

  'You were busy those days, locked away in our hotel room,' he said. 'You have managed to create a new life.' They sat opposite each other at the small kitchen table at which they'd taken all their smaller meals for many years, breakfasts, teas, coffees, late-night drinks. 'I suppose there is nothing I can say now in any case.' He rose and went to lie down in the spare room, the one that had been Ben's, while she packed a bag in their bedroom.

  'I don't want you to go,' he said, alone in the dark, next door.

  When she heard her son in the kitchen she went to him and motioned that he should step outside. She held the door handle all the while she spoke, facing him, with her back to the home, the cold drizzle on her face. She explained that they were going to live apart, that she was going to be with André De Vries. He offered her whatever help she needed and gave her a solemn embrace. His face was drawn and dour, just like his father's.

  'This is not a fairy-tale ending, but we must be sensible, I suppose,' he said as they stepped back inside out of the cold. 'We must do as you both wish. It has been hard for you, Mum. Personally I might wish you could have waited to the end.' Then, reading her face, he added, 'but the end, it is true, has been a long time coming. Don't worry, we will all help you through this, both of you.' He looked up at the small ledge in their kitchen where she arranged the knick-knacks the family had accumulated in its lifetime. There were the children's handmade clay pots, a stray egg cup, framed photos of the grandparents, a Delft tile from her grandmother's kitchen, a vase the boys had bought her one birthday; the worthless bric-a-brac of any family. Then he ducked his head—he was over six foot—and stepped through the doorway into the rest of the house, calling softly, 'Father?' although his habit had been to call his father by his first name in recent years.

  She heard the low tones of an exchange between them and Jan emerged with his hand on his son's back, ushering the young man out of the house, shaking his head and protesting that he would be fine.

  'What did Marcus say to you?' she asked him.

  'He said we ought to be happy here and now, we ought to forget about the past. He said nothing else mattered now.'

  He turned his back on her with the pretext of going to get a book. In fact his son had embraced him and spoken apologetically. He'd said, 'I am so sorry for all of this. I feel terrible about it. We have all made mistakes, Dad. All of us. No parent is all wrong, no child all right. I hope you know that Ben and I, we love you.'

  Jan had replied, 'You ‹ire the son; you are allowed to make mistakes. I hope you learn from mine.'

  He looked at his son in that room with his mouth opening and closing between thoughts and he saw his own face unlined—cleaner, fresher, more noble, more peaceful. It might have been possible to escape himself, after all, once. He could have moved away from himself the way a foot moves out of a shoe.

  67

  HALF AN HOUR LATER, Annemieke let herself out of the kitchen door without saying further goodbyes, took their small car, a Renault Clio, and left him with the Audi. It hadn't been hard to pack. She had not taken her good things away with her to the Caribbean, they were fresh and folded in her drawers. She only needed enough for a few days. She was to meet André in the lobby of the Hotel Boudewijn on De Markt, in the centre of Brugge. He was there when she arrived, looking aghast, excited. They asked each other in turn if everything was all right and then they went directly to the room he had arranged; it was one of the best, with a view over the market square and a four-poster bed. There were English toiletries in the bathroom, thick towels and silken sheets and bedspread; there was even a fireplace, and a fire had been lit. She took off her clothes and put on a bathrobe while he watched her from an armchair, sitting in his ironed raincoat, his eyes serious as a cat's. After a bath she put on a La Perla nightgown, light brown with soft cream-coloured lace around the neck of it. She dabbed a spot of Jean Patou's 'Joy' on either wrist. Then she brushed and dried her hair in the bathroom and when she came out she saw that he was in boxer shorts, sitting on the bed, with a glass of champagne in his hand.

  'A new life?' he asked, swallowing. She nodded and he took a filled glass from the bedside table and stretched across to hand it to her, holding his stomach in all the while, she saw. He looked her over as she drank. Then he took a deep breath through his nose. He saw that she wore diamonds in her ears, and a wine-coloured lipstick. He closed his eyes for a moment. As he undressed he'd looked at her Louis Vuitton carryall at the foot of the bed, he'd seen the stockings and fluffy slippers, some lingerie, and the soft fabrics of her folded outfits.

  All of these things—the hotel room, the toiletries, the champagne—were the tokens of a formal love affair. It was not wrong. These objects served to establish a distance between them that constituted perfection. When he took her into bed alongside him, they would be strangers, allied only by this moment, with no claims upon each other.

  'You want me, don't you,' she murmured into his ear as he moved over her. He silenced her by kissing her mouth with vigour.

  68

  WHEN JAN QUIT BELGIUM he went by train from Brugge to Brussels and then on the fast train to Paris. From the train window, Belgium looked like a misplaced section of Eastern Europe, suffering cement raindrops blown over from Polish skies. He saw the small grey huts, beside the train tracks, innocent of purpose as if a board game had been abandoned; beyond them lay a lachrymose landscape, flat, grey. Churches that were never cathedrals despite their size were decked with scaffolding. It was green enough, the countryside, when you got up close to it, there were plenty of leaves, plenty of nettles and brambles. The houses were neat and unobtrusive. The 1960s and 1970s buildings with their conformist aspirations for 'one society' were of geometrically simple shapes, hewn in shades of pastel blue and brown. A wrought-iron balcony
here and there hinted at Frenchness, but the windows were stained by acid-rain. Against this sobriety something silly would brush up occasionally. He noticed a rather risqué advertisement, with a double entendre tenuously linking the image of a woman's nipple to a car dealership, and a white delivery truck painted to depict a red-haired character, naked apart from a fig leaf promising that 'Willy Van Den Est' was holding a 'slaapfestival.'

  Aboard the train a group of four men barked and encouraged each other like billy goats, rearing up on their machismo. Their handlebar moustaches would have marked them as homosexual anywhere else in the world. Here, their well-kept women sat together across from them in another four, holding their words, their hands on their bags, practising to be widows.

  Jan watched a handsome little girl who was sat alongside her heavyweight mother. The girl blue-eyed, heavy-lidded, solemn but fresh, the mother blown-out, dark-rooted and jaded. This woman sat with her eyes closed to preserve her energy; great ham shanks of arms were stacked atop her breasts. Her head slumped into her chest like a Big Top circus tent being let down.

  Something in the stupor of the girls eyes recalled a little German girl who used to play with his sons, her parents having moved from Hamburg into their suburb of Brugge. Even though she could only have been six or so when he knew her, the little girl unsettled him. She used to come round to their house and say in a frank way, 'I need something,' and her eyes were all of a reverie whilst her mouth proclaimed her need. Was it drink, food, a certain toy? A cookie surely? No, no, no. She would get herself into a state of agitation, with both boys quite lovestruck, and then, finally, she would take a lungful of air, and declare that that was it; she'd only needed air, after all.

  He thought of Laurie, who was like the little girl, both in her directness and also her air of being puzzled by the body she had been trapped in, unsure of how to use it. Perhaps that was what made her lovely. When her eyes alighted upon you, for a moment, you thought that it might after all be you that she needed.

  After Madrid, I will be at the Hotel Trois Etoiles in Paris, for two weeks, then I will go back,' Laurie had told him, 'unless ... well, unless I change my mind.' They had said their goodbyes in reception at the resort. When he saw her coming across the room to him, he had the sudden conviction that in a moment he could change everything, he had felt wild, as if he could choose life over death. When she came up close to him he felt his heart subside and submit, and he had to stand aside, to step around the pair of them, as if there were a tree falling.

  He took a second to gather himself and he put out his hands in a gesture of almost avuncular warmth and forced a smile. 'European-style goodbye,' he had said, kissing her firmly on either cheek, taking his time, pressing her arms against her body.

  'Goodbye?' she had queried, holding his arms still as he pulled back from her.

  The daughter leaned across the table and her eyes considered the landscape that they were leaving behind, then she buried her ponytailed head into the 'M' shape she'd made with her arms on the table, closing off the light from her eyes.

  His own children, two boys, adults now, pale and extreme as their mother, they were making respectable livings in this respectable country. That was something. Goodbye to all of them, he thought. Good luck to the girl.

  69

  THERE IS A SMALL FAMILY-RUN HOTEL on the Île St Louis in Paris that is less expensive than the big name hotels but nevertheless attempts its own ostentation. The lobby is crammed with delicate objects, vases with lids are placed on spindle-legged tables that shift as one passes, drawing attention to the precarious beauty of things made in the past. With his oversized suitcase, George was obliged to take the elevator to his room on the next floor. In his attempt to avoid the help of the young man from reception, and his anxiety regarding the claustrophobic space and iron gating, George lost his temper.

  'Just leave us alone, thank you, I can manage!' he instructed his helper.

  'But of course, whatever you like, Monsieur,' said the young man with a wry smile.

  'France is all right, but the bleeding French know it all, don't they?' said George, on the phone to Jeanette in his room. There was a tap at the door, followed by a few more taps, and George told his daughter to hold on while he went to it. It was the young man again.

  'I hope, Sir, you will pardon me for my further assistance but you have left your wallet on the reception desk.'

  George took the wallet from the man, nodded and closed the door.

  'That was him again. I don't know who he is, do I. Works here. Pain in the neck. Anyway, duck, I'm here safely. The train ride was a real treat. I shall never forget that. Nice English fellow doing the food. They leave you alone, the English. I like that. How's your mother? You're watching her then? Because she will take off, you know. Keep the door closed. She'll badger you about the keys and how she needs to get home now, but just be firm with her. Just you tell her, "You are at home." Keeping on about the bus to Tottenham. No, I'm not winding myself up; no, no, it's bloody hot in here. I'll have to open the windows. You and your sister went to see the residential home this morning, didn't you? Not bad, is it. Still if we all pull together we won't need it. Yes, of course we know it's there. That's a fact, ain't it? It ain't somewhere else, is it? 'Struth. I shan't stick her away while I'm fit and able, duck, let's not have an argument about it. Hold the line, just a moment, I can't take this perishing heat.'

  He got up and took his jacket and tie off, then went to the window and threw it open. It was a grey, overcast day. A pigeon presented him with its profile and bobbed its head at him. 'Go on, dirty little bleeder, go on with you,' said George, waving an arm at the bird. He went back to the phone.

  'No, it was a bird this time. A pigeon. Look, as I was saying, we can manage. Nobody knows how long for. I'm all right. This break will do me the world of good. You're a good girl to do me the favour. Just watch her for me, will you? I do worry.'

  When they had finished speaking, he hung up the phone and lay back on the bed, looking at the mirrored door to the big dark wardrobe in front of him. He could see his two large feet, the shoes newly soled with good leather, and when he hoisted himself up on his elbows he saw the old mans face that occasionally took him by surprise. He looked at his watch. It was five in the afternoon. Jan was going to meet him there around seven and they would go out for supper. He could have a nap. But he didn't suppose he'd be in Paris again, so he raised himself, sluiced some water over his face at the hand basin and pocketed the room keys and his wallet, saying to himself, 'Silly old bugger, all we need is for me to start losing me marbles and all.' He let himself out of the door and went down the thickly carpeted stairs with his body at an angle on account of the narrowness of the stairwell.

  He did his best to evade the young man on reception and was nearly out of the front door when the fellow hailed him, 'Monsieur! Monsieur!'

  George turned heavily.

  'Shall we keep the key here for you? It is normal.'

  George went up to the desk and thanked him with gritted teeth.

  'Monsieur?'

  'What is it now?'

  'It is raining. An umbrella?'

  'No. I've got a hat, thank you. A hat's good enough,' and George took to the narrow pavement feeling in his pocket for his usual peaked cap and retrieving it with pride. He put it on his head and turned back to the door, pointing it out to the young man, through the glass.

  He took a turn along the street upon which the hotel stood. The fine drizzle pleased him. He could see the bateaux-mouches through the gaps in the houses, making their way along the Seine with people pressed together inside. Popping his head into a few of the restaurants and bars, he noted one or two open fires, and low lamps, and discovered he had an appetite. He'd have a nice bit of steak for supper. 'Pas de cheval, merci.' Jeanette had told him was how you said 'no horse-meat.' 'Pas de cheval,' he said now, dodging a middle-aged woman. There was room on the pavements for only one pedestrian.

  From a brightly lit
toyshop a young woman emerged with a stroller and tackled the step down on to the pavement with difficulty. George attempted to help her and she shone a smile on him that had him blush. Her child had a hat over his or her curls and sat with Wellington boots crossed at the heel in comfort and security, holding a wooden giraffe. He walked after them and when they stopped at a small park with a swing and a slide and a single bench, he stopped also and sat watching the mother push the child on the swing. When the child laughed, he laughed out loud himself and so he passed a happy fifteen minutes. The mother took the child out of the swing, coaxing it with a few words; the child made some tentative steps and broke into a short run straight towards George. He put his hands out, as if to catch the child, but it turned back the other way and ran off again. Still he sat with his hands out, his whole focus upon the child, concentrating on it not falling. His head was forward, his tongue on his lower lip, his calves tense. When they went, he got up and retraced his steps to the hotel.

  Jan had checked in and was in his room. At his request, the young man placed a call to Mr De Groot's room and George took the receiver from him.

  'Hallo, mate, thought you'd never get here. Yes, lovely trip, thanks. Ravenous now. I say, mate, I could eat a horse!' The young man sighed pointedly, George noticed. 'Have a wash up, yes, and we'll see each other down here, say, in half an hour. Splendid!'

  He returned the receiver to the man with a terse, 'Thank you,' and made for the stairs. He was on the second or third step when the young man called him again.

  'Your key, Monsieur.'

  George would have put money on the beggar having waited until he was on the stairs. He took the keys with a snatch.

  'Perhaps you can remember them when I'm still at the desk, next time. I'm an old fellow, you see, it would help me out.'