David Lodge - Small World (30 page)

“Excuse me, sir.” The hotel manager was back. “Will you be requiring dinner? The train to Istanbul does not leave for several hours.”

“Oh, no thank you,” said Philip. “I’m going out.” The manager bowed and withdrew.

Custer, the British Council’s cultural affairs officer, had invited Philip to a buffet supper at his apartment. “I won’t pretend it’s in your honour,” he had explained. “We’ve got a string quartet from Leeds arriving in the afternoon. Got to lay on something for them, so you might as well come along. Nothing elaborate, you know, quite informal. There’ll be a few other people there. Tell you what,” he added, as if struck by a brilliant idea, “I’ll invite Borak.”

“I think he may have seen enough of me in the last few days…” Philip suggested.

“Oh no, he’d be offended if I didn’t invite him. His wife, too. Hassim will collect you from the hotel about seven. Bring your luggage with you, and I’ll run you down to the station at about ten to catch your train.”

Recognizing the tall figure and melancholy moustache of Hassim, the Council driver, negotiating the revolving door, Philip stood up and carried his bags across the foyer. Hassim, who spoke no English, relieved him of his suitcase and led the way to the Landrover.

Of course, Philip reflected, as he climbed into the seat beside Hassim, and they jolted away, he might have felt quite differently about this trip if it hadn’t been for that surprising spasm of desire for Hilary at the very moment of his departure from home. The warm promise of that glimpsed swaying breast had imprinted itself upon his mind, taunting and tormenting him as he lay awake in his narrow hotel bed, reinforcing the question, Why am I here? Sex with Hilary wasn’t the greatest erotic sensation in the world, but at least it was something. A temporary release from tension. A little pleasant oblivion. Here in Turkey there wasn’t a hope of erotic adventure. The friendly women he met were all married, with husbands in genial but watchful attendance. The dimpled, sloe-eyed girl students never seemed to be allowed closer than lecturing distance to him, unless they appeared in the role of daughters to one of the academic couples, and Philip had the feeling that to make a pass at one of them might provoke a diplomatic incident. Turkey was, on the surface anyway, a country of old-fashioned moral propriety.

The Landrover crawled forward amid congested traffic. There seemed to be a permanent traffic jam in the centre of Ankara—if this was the centre. Philip had acquired no sense of the geography of the city because it all looked the same to him—untreated concrete, cracked pavements, pitted roads, everything the colour of ash, scarcely a tree or blade of grass to be seen, in spite of its being spring. It was getting dark, now, and under their sparse and inadequate street lighting the streets grew deep and sinister shadows, except where kerosene lamps flared amid an improvised street market, with shawled women haggling over vegetables and kitchenware, or where bleak fluorescent light bounced through plateglass windows from the Formica tabletops of a smoke-filled working-men’s café. Philip had the feeling that if Hassim were suddenly to stop the Landrover and pitch him out into the street, he would never be seen again—he would be dragged into the shadows, stripped and robbed of everything he possessed, murdered and flung into one of the blocked drains. He felt a long way from home. Why was he here? Was it, perhaps, time to call a halt to his travels, abandon the quest for intensity of experience he had burbled on about to Morris Zapp, hang up his lecture notes and cash in his traveller’s cheques, settle for routine and domesticity, for safe sex with Hilary and the familiar round of the Rummidge academic year, from Freshers’ Conference to Finals Examiners’ Meeting, until it was time to retire, retire from both sex and work? Followed in due course by retirement from life. Was that it?

The Landrover stopped: they had arrived at a modern apartment block on one of the hills that ringed the city. Hassim gestured Philip into the lift and pressed the button for the sixth floor. Custer came to the front door of the apartment, flushed, in shirtsleeves, a glass in his hand. “Ah, there you are, come in, come in! Let me take your case. Go into the drawing-room and I’ll bring you a drink. Gin and tonic? Borak’s in there. By the way, it isn’t a string quartet after all, it’s a jazz quartet. London cocked up again.”

Custer led him down a hall, opened a door and ushered Philip into the drawing-room, moderately full of people standing in groups with glasses in their hands. The first face that Philip focused on was Joy Simpson’s.

Akbil Borak never ceased to be surprised by Philip Swallow’s behaviour. On the day of his arrival the Englishman had twice abruptly measured his length upon the ground, and now, on the evening of his departure, he looked as if he was going to do it again, in Mr and Mrs Custer’s drawing-room, for he stumbled on the threshold, and only saved himself from falling by grabbing at a chair-back for support. Heads turned all across the room, and there was a moment’s embarrassed hush; then, seeing that there was nothing seriously amiss, the groups resumed their convivial chatter.

Akbil had been standing next to Oya, talking to the drummer from the jazz quartet and to Mrs Simpson, the British Council librarian at Istanbul, a pleasant, if reserved lady, with shapely buttocks and beautiful blonde hair. Akbil was telling Mrs Simpson about the shops in Hull, and mentally wondering whether the fair women of the north had golden pubic hair to match their heads, when Philip Swallow made his noisy entrance, crashing into the furniture near the door. Akbil hurried forward to offer assistance, but Philip, rising from his knees, shook off his hand and took a few uncertain steps towards Mrs Simpson. His face was white. “You!” he whispered hoarsely, staring at Mrs Simpson. She, too, had turned slightly pale, as well she might at this strange greeting. “Hallo,” she said, holding her glass tightly with the fingers of both hands. “Alex Custer told me that you might drop in tonight. How are you enjoying Turkey?”

“You have met before, then?” said Akbil, glancing from one to the other.

“Briefly,” said Mrs Simpson. “Several years ago, in Genoa, wasn’t it, Professor Swallow?”

“I thought you were dead,” said Philip Swallow. He had not altered the direction of his gaze, or even blinked.

Oya clutched at Akbil’s sleeve with excitement. “Oh, how is that?” she cried.

Mrs Simpson frowned. “Oh dear, I suppose you read that list in the newspapers,” she said to Philip Swallow. “It was issued prematurely by the Indian authorities. It caused a great deal of confusion and distress, I’m afraid.”

“You mean you survived that crash?”

“I wasn’t on the plane. I was supposed to be—this was about three years ago,” she explained parenthetically to Akbil and Oya and the jazz drummer. “My husband was posted to India. I was going with him, but at the last moment my doctor said not to go, I was eight months pregnant and he thought it would be too risky, so John went alone, and I stayed behind with Gerard, our little boy, but somehow our names were left on the passenger list, or some passenger list. The plane crashed, landing in the middle of a storm.”

“And your husband…?” Oya quavered.

“There were very few survivors,” said Mrs Simpson simply “and he wasn’t one of them.”

Oya was weeping copiously. “I pity you,” she said, snuffling into a handkerchief.

“I thought you were dead,” said Philip Swallow again, as if he had not heard this explanation, or, having heard it, had failed to take it in.

“But you see, Professor Swallow, she is not dead after all! She lives!” Oya gave a little clap of her hands and rose on to the tips of her toes, smiling through her tears. Akbil had the sense that his wife was supplying all the emotion that the two English should be exhibiting. The jazz drummer had slipped away unnoticed at some point in Mrs Simpson’s recital. “You should be happy,” said Oya to Philip. “It is like a fairy story.”

“I am of course very pleased to see Mrs Simpson alive and well,’ he said. He seemed to have recovered his composure, though his face was still pale.

“And the art of pleasing consists in being pleased, as Bill Hazlitt says,” Akbil struck in, rather neatly, he thought.

“But what are you doing in Ankara?” Philip asked Mrs Simpson. “I’m just here for a few days, for some meetings. I run the Council library in Istanbul.”

“I’m going to Istanbul tonight,” said Philip Swallow, with some signs of excitement.

“Oh? How long will you be staying there?”

“Three or four days. I go home on Friday.”

“Unfortunately, I’m here till Friday.”

Philip Swallow looked as if he couldn’t believe this intelligence. He turned to Akbil. “Akbil, Alex Custer seems to have forgotten all about my drink, could you possibly…?”

“Of course,” said Akbil, “I will seek it.”

“I will help you,” said Oya. “Mrs Simpson also needs a refill.” She took Mrs Simpson’s glass and almost pushed Akbil towards the door.

“Why did you not stay with them?” Akbil muttered to Oya in Turkish. “They will think us rude.”

“I have a feeling they wish to be alone,” said Oya. “I think there is something between them.”

“Do you think so?” Akbil was astonished. He looked back over his shoulder. Philip Swallow was certainly deep in conversation with Mrs Simpson, who looked flustered for once. “That man never ceases to surprise me,” he said.

Three hours later, Philip paced anxiously up and down the broad platform of Ankara’s main railway station beside the tall coaches of the Ankara-Istanbul express. The train had a period air, vaguely reminiscent of thirties’ thrillers, as did the whole scene. Wisps of smoke and steam drifted out of deep shadows into the bright glare of arc lights. A family of peasants had camped out for the night on a bench, surrounded by their bundles and baskets. The mother, suckling her baby, gazed impassively at the women in chic velvet trouser-suits who led caravans of porters bearing their matched suitcases towards the first class coaches. Uniformed officials clasping millboards strutted up and down, giving orders to menials and kicking beggars out of the way. The second and third-class compartments were already full, exhaling odours of garlic, tobacco and perspiration from their ventilators; the passengers within, wedged tightly together, hip to hip, knee to knee, prepared themselves stoically for the night’s long journey. From time to time a figure would dart from one of these coaches across the platform to a small kiosk that sold tea, fizzy drinks, pretzel-shaped bread and poisonous-looking sweets.

In the first-class compartments, where Philip had a berth, the atmosphere was more relaxed. Bottles clinked against glasses, and card parties were being organized, though the lights were almost too dim to see the cards by. There was an atmosphere of gossip and intrigue, of assignations made and bribes passed. At the end of the corridor there was a red glow from the small solid-fuel furnace which the sleeping-car attendant was vigorously stoking, sweat pouring off his brow.

“It supplies heat and hot water to the sleepers,” Custer had explained, when seeing Philip off. “Looks rather primitive, but it’s effective. It can get quite cold out on the plains at night, even in spring.”

Philip managed to persuade Custer and Akbil Borak not to wait with him until the train departed. “There’s no point, really,” he assured them. “I’ll be quite all right.”

“One of the pleasantest things in the world is going on a journey,” said Akbil Borak with a smile, “but I prefer to go by myself.”

“Do you really?” said Custer. “I prefer company.”

“No, no!” Borak laughed. “I was quoting Bill Hazlitt. The essay `On going on a journey’.”

“Please don’t wait,” said Philip.

“Well,” said Custer, “Perhaps I should get back and see to the jazz quartet.”

“And I must collect my wife from your apartment, Mr Custer,” said Borak.

They shook Philip’s hand and after exchanging the pleasantries usual on such occasions, took themselves off. Philip watched them go with relief. If Joy decided in the end to join him, she would not want to be seen doing so by Custer and Borak.

But that had been half an hour ago, and still she had not come.

“I can’t possibly go back to Istanbul tonight,” she had said, when he got her alone for a few minutes at Custer’s party. “I’ve only just arrived in Ankara. My suitcase is still in the hall, unpacked.”

“That makes it all the simpler,” said Philip. “Just pick it up and leave with me.” He ate her with his eyes, wolfing the features he had thought he would never see again, the softly waved blonde hair, the wide generous mouth, the slightly heavy chin.

“I’ve come here on Council business.”

“You could make some excuse.”

“Why should I?”

“Because I love you.” The words came out without premeditation. She blushed and lowered her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’ve never forgotten that night,” he said.

“For heaven’s sake,” she murmured. “Not here. Not now.”

“When then? I must talk to you.”

“Ah, have you two introduced yourselves?” cried Mrs Custer, coming up to them with a plate of canapes.

“We’ve met before, actually. In Genoa,” said Joy.

“Really? Ah, well, that’s the way, isn’t it, when one is in the Council, one is always bumping into old acquaintances in the most unlikely places. And how are you, Joy? How are the children—Gerard, isn’t it, and—”

“Mrs Simpson was just telling me that Gerard is not at all well,” said Philip. Joy stared at him.

“Oh dear! Nothing serious I hope?” Mrs Custer said to Joy. Philip’s heart thumped as he waited for her reply.

“He had a bit of a temperature when I left,” she said at length. “I may phone my girl later to see how he is.”

Philip turned his head aside to conceal his triumph.

“Oh, yes, please do,” said Mrs Custer. “Use the phone in our bedroom, it’s more private.” She swept the room with a hostess’s regard. “Oh dear, the saxophonist is browsing at our bookshelves—I always think that’s a bad sign at a party, don’t you? Do come and talk to him, Joy—will you excuse us, Professor Swallow?”

“Of course,” said Philip.

He could not contrive to be alone with Joy for the rest of the evening. He watched her movements closely, but did not see her go into the Custers’ bedroom. When it was time for him to leave for the station, well before the party was due to end, he was obliged to shake her formally by the hand in the presence of the other guests.