Sidney Chambers and the Perils of the Night (36 page)
‘I don’t suppose you have any whisky?’ Sidney asked.
‘I do indeed,’ said Tulis. ‘I can’t stand sherry.’
‘Then we have much in common.’
Although it wasn’t one of their usual Thursday nights, Sidney asked Keating if they could meet the following evening so that they could talk through everything that had happened. The inspector described it as a ‘post-mortem without the dead body’.
‘What I’m wondering,’ he began, ‘is if the wife knew as little as she says she did and how she managed to stay so calm? Perhaps they were planning to bump Amanda off. Fortunately it didn’t get that far. You did well, Sidney. How did you guess?’
‘I don’t know,’ he answered sadly, still guilty about the public nature of Amanda’s humiliation. ‘Instinct is a funny thing.’
‘I’m not sure the sixth sense exists.’
‘Neither am I, but we have to hope.’
‘Do you think it’s the same as knowing God?’ Keating asked. ‘Some people have it and some don’t?’
‘That would put believers at an unfair advantage.’
‘But they have that. The opportunity of an afterlife, for a start.’
‘That is open to everyone, Geordie. The Church of England does not blackball potential members.’
‘Not even Cartwright?’
‘If he is penitent, then no. Do you suppose he’ll get away with it?’
‘There’s not much he can be charged with,’ Keating replied. ‘Intention is not the same as action. Despite the rehearsal we can’t prove he was actually going to do it; and besides, what good would it do his marriage? They need to sort a few things out. But it’s Amanda I’m worried about. Have you spoken to her?’
‘Jennifer will tell me when she’s ready.’
‘I imagine she’d want to give men the go-by for a few years. There’s little chance of her rushing into anything else.’
‘I very much doubt it.’
‘Which leaves us with you, Sidney. When are you going to Germany again?’
‘Next month.’
‘I wish you’d get on with it, man. It’s been going on for far too long.’
‘I know, Geordie.’
Sidney looked up and noticed Neville Meldrum at the bar offering replenishments through gesture alone. ‘I don’t know why I feel so uncertain about these things. But I see we are to be joined by our friend, the eminent physicist. He doesn’t enjoy these kinds of discussion. He is a great believer in privacy.’
‘But he must wonder what has happened?’
‘ “Wonder” is a strange word, isn’t it, Geordie?’ Sidney asked, moving the conversation sharply away from the subject of Hildegard. ‘We mainly use the idea of “wondering” to mean “thinking” when, in fact, it is supposed to be so much more than that. The “wonder” felt by the shepherds at the Nativity, or the disciples at Pentecost; that sense of amazement when we experience something that is so far beyond our comprehension and yet it is still revealed to us in all its glory as a gift from the infinite. I think we’ve lost our awareness of what “wonder” really means: the more we content ourselves with the narrow confines of our existence, the less we wonder. It’s like the word “awful”. Now it’s something bad, but previously it was close to wonder. People were filled with awe.’
‘I was only wondering where my next pint was coming from, Sidney. I wasn’t expecting a free sermon.’
‘It’s on the house, Geordie,’ his friend smiled. ‘Unlike, unfortunately, our drinks.’
Sidney was tired by the time he returned home and was glad to have the vicarage to himself. Leonard was preaching in London, Mrs Maguire had left a little shepherd’s pie to heat up, and Dickens was waiting expectantly. Sidney was looking forward to putting his feet up, listening to a little jazz, and rereading the letter from Hildegard that had arrived that morning.
My Sidney
I hope you are keeping out of trouble. We are all looking forward to your visit and to discover how your German has improved! I will have all your favourite food and I will arrange trips into the country. You will discover that Berlin has changed very quickly. There are builders on every corner.
I imagine your life every day. How is Amanda? I sometimes worry if she will be happy. You are so good to her, as you are to all your friends, but remember there is one who likes to think that she is special, as you are to her, and she longs for your visit. She is
Your Hildegard.
It had begun to rain but Dickens needed his late night constitutional. As he took him out for the briefest of jaunts across the meadows, Sidney thought of all that Hildegard meant to him. He really must not let the opportunity pass, he decided. August could not come soon enough.
When he returned he was surprised to see a car parked outside the front door to the vicarage with the engine still running. As he approached, a figure emerged to speak to him.
It was Amanda.
‘I won’t stay long,’ she began. ‘I’m going to see some friends in Norfolk. I need some time away from London. I came to apologise. I should not have been angry with you.’
‘I am sorry for what I did.’
‘How soon did you know?’ Amanda asked.
‘I had to do a bit of investigation.’
‘When we had those drinks at the Savoy you knew that something was wrong?’
‘I didn’t. But I suspected.’
She put her hand to her cheek, trying to stop the tears. ‘Why didn’t you come out with it then?’
‘I had no evidence.’
‘But you are
always
right.’
‘No, I’m not. I thought it was my own foolish jealousy. Please, won’t you come in?’
‘I’d rather not,’ Amanda replied. She could not look her friend in the eye. ‘I’m embarrassed and I’m not at my best. I should drive on.’
‘Did you want anything in particular?’
‘No, I just wanted to say sorry. That was all. My mother said I should, and I knew it too. I’ve been very stubborn.’
‘Well, I’m very sorry too. Are you sure you won’t have a nightcap?’
‘No. I can’t.’ Amanda hesitated. She did not appear to want to leave. ‘I was just wondering, though . . .’
‘What is it?’
‘No. It’s nothing. I can’t say it.’
‘We are friends. There is nothing we cannot say to each other.’
‘I’m not sure. I think there is. The things unspoken.’
‘Ah,’ Sidney replied. ‘Those things.’
Amanda looked up and spoke quickly, hoping the words would disappear as soon as she said them; or perhaps hoping that if the outcome was not to her liking she had never said the words she was going to say at all. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ she began, ‘and I know this is mad, and you probably think I am crazy, but would it be a disaster if you married me? Not in the religious sense, you understand, but in the romantic sense. As husband and wife . . .’
If she had suggested this ten years ago it would have been the most thrilling moment in Sidney’s life. But now, after so much had happened, it was too late.
‘Amanda, this isn’t really the time,’ he answered, as kindly as he could. ‘You’ve had a terrible shock.’
‘Perhaps I needed it. It’s made me come to my senses. You are the only person who understands me.’
‘I’m not so sure about that.’
‘I’ve been so hopeless at choosing. I always knew you were a good man, but I foolishly thought that you weren’t enough for me. It was all about silly things like money and status and I’ve been undone by both of them. Now I’ve missed my chance. You’re in love with Hildegard, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Sidney replied. ‘I am.’
It was the first time he had admitted it, either to himself or to anyone else. Now he had said it aloud, there was no going back.
Amanda looked straight back at him. ‘But you will always love me too, won’t you?’
‘Of course I will.’
‘Until death us do part?’
‘Yes, of course, Amanda, always, until death us do part.’
She gave him a little nervous wave. She was still wearing her driving gloves and her hand was a black silhouette against the night sky. ‘Goodbye then, Sidney.’ She opened the car door.
‘Goodbye, Amanda. God bless you.’
The door slammed. Sidney waited, and then watched the car drive away into the darkness. He looked up at the moon. It took him a long time to realise that he was crying.
Sidney had not been back to Berlin for three years and the restoration of the buildings in the British sector, particularly on the Ku’damm and around the Bahnhof Berlin Zoologischer Garten, had proceeded with such speed that parts of the city had taken on a futuristic air. He remembered talking to Hildegard’s brother Matthias, a journalist who had gathered the testimonies of Berliners in the aftermath of war, walking barefoot as they cleared rubble, gathered wood and searched basements for food, stealing buttons from the clothing of the dead. It had been a different, defeated world, but now the city was razing recent history and concrete, glass and steel rose from the wreckage.
He was staying with Humphrey Turnbull, the vicar of St George’s in the British sector of West Berlin, and he was very much looking forward to two weeks in Hildegard’s company. The vicarage was located in Warnen Weg, in Charlottenburg, ten minutes’ walk from the British Officers’ Club and the NAAFI shop. Sidney knew that Humphrey would use his friend’s visit to take a few days off and delegate services in exchange for the free accommodation. There would also be the usual mix of tea parties, cocktails and social dinners. Rohan Delacombe, Commandant of the British Sector, and Tristram Havers, his aide-de-camp, would whizz him round the city in their Mercedes-Benz. As a result, Sidney was worried that he was not going to be able to spend as much time with Hildegard as he wanted.
The plan was that, after unpacking and settling in on his first night, Sidney would pick up Hildegard from her apartment block the following morning. They would have a look at the shops on the Ku’damm, have lunch at the KaDeWe and take a walk in the Tiergarten. Hildegard would then cook him one of her simple suppers with
Erbsensuppe
or
Brathering mit Bratkartoffeln
.
Sidney was therefore somewhat perplexed when he rang her doorbell and discovered that there was no one at home. He wondered if he had got the day wrong, but he was sure that they had agreed on 29 July. He remembered it easily because it was his mother’s birthday. He knocked on the door in case the bell was not working. An elderly lady passed on her way to the shops and an Alsatian ambled across his path. A young girl was playing tennis against the side of the building. Sidney interrupted her backhand practice to ask in rudimentary German if he knew either Hildegard or the Baumanns, her sister and brother-in law; she did not.
It was eleven in the morning and he had little choice but to wait. He crossed the street and found a table in a nearby café. It was, perhaps, the place Hildegard had intended to take him. He hoped for a moment that he had made a mistake and the arrangement was that they should meet there instead of at her flat. He could see her apartment from the café and kept watch as he stretched out the amount of time it took to drink a cup of coffee.
He allowed himself a brief moment of irritation. He felt foolish, coming all this way only to find himself facing a locked building and no one at home. What could Hildegard be doing that was more important than seeing him? Perhaps he was not the priority that he thought he was.
It was, however, out of character for her to have forgotten their meeting or to attend to more urgent business. He began to worry. Perhaps she had been taken ill? Sidney had never asked about her health and considered that a woman in her thirties should be perfectly fit but now he was anxious. Perhaps she had a heart condition that she had never told him about? Perhaps she had been hit by a car or been attacked? The streets of Berlin were so well policed that they seemed safe enough but that did not mean that either accident or murder was unknown.
As he sat in the café he began to worry what a life without her would be like. He couldn’t imagine it. He wanted to spend more time with her, not less, and for her to disappear like this only brought home how much he needed her. Perhaps there was a man she had not told him about? Perhaps she was already married to someone else, and was, like Anthony Cartwright, leading a double life?
How well did Sidney really know Hildegard? It was important, he knew, that a woman retained an air of mystery, and that a couple, if that is what they were, should still have things to discover about each other. He recognised that relationships needed time to change and deepen, but he continued to doubt. Perhaps what they had was still only friendship, and although that could be strong in its own way, they did not have the passion for love. Perhaps, Sidney thought to himself, he should have declared himself sooner and more openly.
He watched people through the café windows: businessmen in tight suits with thin lapels carrying American-style attaché cases; women with headscarves holding on to recalcitrant children on the way to the Tiergarten; a gang of road-workers dressed in identical boiler suits stopping for a cigarette and a morning break. A passing tank wiped out his view. He missed Hildegard and worried whether he had done anything wrong. He remembered the last time he had come to this very café. Her sister had sat with a sketchbook, drawing customers at the bar and in the distance. She wanted to be like Heinrich Zille, she told Sidney, the German Dickens, the artist who had tried to represent the soul of the city and its citizens,
Herz und Schnauze
, heart and gob.
