Somewhere Beyond Reproach (5 page)

‘I must be getting along.’

I slapped my thighs heartily and got up. My good spirits
were not infectious. Mrs Lisle picked up her plate and cup and saucer without giving me a look. I made my own way over to the door.

‘Andrew will see you out.’

In the hall I winked at him and pressed the Cambodian envelope into his hand. I had left before he could thank me.

In the driving seat of the car I looked back at the house. Andrew was watching me from the front ground-floor
window
. I was glad I had brought my large car.

I wish that I could say that this second quest for Dinah was made for her greater happiness. That I knew that I should give much and take little, that I started to seek her out because even if I could not meet my own needs, I would be able to meet hers. I only knew that love by definition meant the enjoyment of the object. I would find out all I could and if I found that she was happy with her husband, I should still go on until my love had gained its end, whatever that might be. I was to become fascinated by the
circumstances
, the symptoms, the events, forgetting the person who had lived through and moulded these. My role had been cast and she would have to fit in. Yet I wanted to give, wanted desperately, aggressively. I had thought so carefully, I was entirely conscious, entirely in control. If only I could have been unguarded, vulnerable or foolish.

There were still four days till my trip to the cinema with Andrew. Even though I knew that Andrew was the best way to reach Dinah I had not written off the possibility of
re-meeting
Mark Simpson. It was, after all, almost a moral duty to see what sort of a man I might be depriving, what sort of a marriage I might be destroying. Put like that it all sounds so mean, small and dirty. In comparison with any great achievement how pathetically small mine would be if I achieved it. Yet I was not indulging an emotional luxury. I was doing what I had to. For all of us there is always something that half eludes, tells us in some perfect
landscape
, in some work of art, some long-forgotten taste or smell, that it is still there: the echo that never quite
becomes a sound. But I had heard, touched, tasted, knew.

Perhaps I did not think of finding out all I knew about my former friend just so as to know his weaknesses. Perhaps if I had liked him, respected his way of life, thought him capable of making Dinah happy, I should have gone my lonely separate way. When is a mind made up? When does the body of a snake become its tail?

I took the morning off from work, decided to see where he went from home. As I waited in a doorway opposite I wondered if I would still recognise him after so many years. I felt no nervousness. If I missed him today, I could find him tomorrow. I had arrived at nine; he might have left already. A woman in a yellow dress, a child in school uniform, an old man pushing a pram. I watched the glass door swing open again and again. I looked at the flats and wondered how any man could have designed such monsters on purpose, drawn each fluted balustrade, each decorated pediment, chosen the deep red stone. The doors opened again. A man with a stick hesitated momentarily as he emerged. He started across the road and seemed to be coming straight towards me. From a distance I could not have told. He was almost bald. The stick was no affectation; he leant heavily on it with each step. The eyes, the nose, the mouth. I looked more carefully and as I did moved further back into the shade of the doorway. Mark. Yet like a schoolboy made up to play the part of an older man. I remembered his agility on the tennis court. He turned to the right and limped towards the bus-stop. For a moment I was sure that he had looked straight at me. How close could I dare stand behind him at the bus-stop? If I sat behind him he might see me as he got out. I dashed into a newsagent’s and bought a paper to use in the best spy tradition. Several buses came before Simpson moved. There were five people between the two of us. Almost the whole queue seemed to be waiting for the same bus. If it should be full? If the conductor barred my way? When the right bus came it was almost full. Both of us had to stand on the bottom deck. Simpson was very near the front and I was further back. A man got up and
gave him his seat. I watched carefully to see if I could gauge any embarrassment on Mark’s part. He merely nodded and sat down. How long had he been like that? Was he humiliated to be given a seat? A man in his early thirties. I was in no danger of being seen now he was sitting. The danger would be when he got out. At the next stop several people left. I lunged towards a seat, brushing several women out of the way. One of them clucked her disapproval, the other
muttered
, ‘Disgraceful.’ Safely seated, I was able to erect my defensive newspaper. From where I sat I could see the
balding
back of his skull.

The bus was passing Parsons Green when he moved. He would have to pass me. I felt his jacket brush against my right cheek. He was the only person in the bus not wearing an overcoat. As he passed I saw his forehead beaded with sweat. I felt no pity, only curiosity. When had it happened to him?

I rose when he had reached the platform. To my horror nobody else was getting out at the same stop. The conductor was upstairs collecting fares. If I followed Mark too closely I would have to help him off. I remained sitting until he had managed to descend, then just as the bus moved off I scrambled to my feet and managed to jump before the speed became too great.

There were fewer people about here. I followed at a distance of seventy-five yards or so. We walked slowly across the Green towards the side-streets behind it. Identical dirty terraced houses were interspersed with the occasional shop. He turned another corner. When I turned it Simpson was nowhere to be seen. To my left was a large shop window.

The front of this window stretched the length of two of the terraced houses. I calculated that Simpson could not have gone further than this shop before he had gone inside. Only having satisfied myself of this did I look at the contents on display. On the extreme right-hand side was a large placard photograph of a man sitting on a rough wooden bench at the side of a long whitewashed corridor. The man’s face was hidden by his hands, his body was slumped
forwards. Underneath this photograph was a caption in plain block letters: ‘I was alone and He comforted me.’ A series of mirrors reflected the picture, giving a real impression of depth to the corridor. Next to this was a pile of bibles. Above them a notice: ‘Think now. God is not merely a last resort.’ A series of photographs made up a contradictory montage sequence. Beside violently gyrating teenagers was placed a picture of a village after an earthquake, then a ceremonial military march past, then corpses on a battlefield, a nude woman, a flock of birds. Over the top the repeated
injunction
‘Think now’. Underneath were various passages from the Bible, some of them contradictory. ‘They that take the sword shall perish with the sword.’ ‘In death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?’ ‘True and righteous are his judgements.’ ‘Because there is wrath, beware lest he take thee away with his stroke.’ ‘Surely God will not do wickedly.’ ‘I was a stranger and he took me in.’ ‘Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, the Son of man shall be ashamed of him.’ ‘He shall guide you into all Truth.’

As I stood looking in at these exhortations I tried to ‘think now’. The results were not immediately satisfying. I deeply regretted never having asked Dinah about Simpson. I cast my mind back. I knew surprisingly little about
somebody
I had once thought of as a friend, little more than what I have already written. His atheistic reaction to his sister’s sudden death did not seem to be unlikely for somebody who now appeared to be working in a religious bookshop. I did not for a moment suspect that Simpson was merely a chance customer. His short cut across the Green ruled this out. The pensive solitude of the slumped figure in the corridor suggested my next action. I remembered passing a small public library on the way.

I selected one of the day’s papers and sat down. An
advertisement
for an undetectable men’s hairpiece momentarily gained my attention. ‘You can even swim in it.’ I thought of Simpson’s thinning hair. Byron was only really happy in the water. Simpson had been a strong swimmer at school.
I decided to stay in the library till lunch. I might at least see where he ate. This might give me a hint about his
financial
position. Nothing much more, if that. It could just be that he only worked at the place part-time. I had known his father to be a rich man and judging by the furnishings of their house in Tewkesbury, he had also been a careful man. Simpson ought not to have to think about a needy old age. Opposite me a venerable tramp was sleeping, next to him an African student was reading a textbook. Economics
probably
. The reading room was pleasantly warm. I half-read a story about a schoolgirl from Bolton who had been
disqualified
from a Beauty Queen competition on account of her age. Then I closed my eyes and from the black-red world behind my lids thought about Dinah. What would she be doing now in that dismal block of flats? What had she done with my blue padded dressing gown I had given her? Perhaps she was talking to Andrew. I imagined them sitting in a small kitchen eating their breakfast. They were talking about me, only I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Then Simpson came in. He was ten years younger. No limp, thick hair, a well-pressed suit. He smiled and they both smiled. Dinah got up and kissed him. He lifted Andrew up out of his seat and held him up at arms’ length. Andrew happily gurgled: ‘Don’t, Daddy, don’t.’ Dinah looked on with love at the happy family scene that she was a part of. No further mention of me was made. I heard nothing; saw only their conventionally happy faces. The same ghastly happiness you see on the faces of the family who. have just insured their house in the advertisements. I woke up suddenly. I had no knowledge of the time I had gone to sleep. I felt very tired. The tramp had gone. The African was thoughtfully biting his ballpoint. The jealousy I felt in my dream disappeared almost at once. My sense of purpose, though, never underwent any sudden fluctuations.

When I got back to The Bible Bookshop, I noticed with irritation that there was nowhere that I could observe
without
being observed. I judged that he would head back
towards
the main road, instead of into the entirely residential
back-streets. I chose a pub just on the edge of the Green. I could watch for his reappearance from the window. He might of course eat at his work. I drank and waited. At five past one I saw him come round the corner. I followed him across the Green. He seemed to be moving more slowly than he had done in the morning. At the main road he hailed a taxi. I was too far away to hear where he was going. There was a woman who had been almost level with him. I asked her. She would not say. Hadn’t heard. The little girl who was with her had. ‘Princess Beatrice Hospital.’ I heard her mother scolding her as they walked away. I also hailed a taxi. So it wouldn’t be lunch after all.

At the hospital I went up to the girl at the desk.

‘I was meant to be meeting Mr Simpson. You don’t know which wing …?’

She looked down at her list. I noticed that her hair as well as her cap had a starched appearance. The clatter of plates sounded from the end of a corridor. Her voice was clipped and nasal:

‘He’s in Out-Patients physiotherapy. There’s not much point your trying to see him till he’s finished.’

‘Quite, quite,’ I quickly agreed. Then I leant forward on the desk and asked in what I hoped was a warm and
sympathetic
voice:

‘You know, I’m sure it sounds stupid, but I’ve never liked to ask Mr Simpson what’s wrong with his leg.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know.’

I frowned sadly, a tragically perplexed look. It worked. She leant forward and said softly, not without a touch of the dramatic:

‘Polio. One of the few adult cases in the 1959 outbreak.’

Neither of us had heard footsteps, uneven footsteps.

‘1958 actually.’

I turned slowly, a terrible panic in my guts. Quite
unprepared
for this meeting. I was pleased at the evenness of my voice:

‘How lucky. I was told you were going to be half an hour.’

I nodded my thanks to the nurse and then said to Simpson:

‘I saw you go in. Extraordinary coincidence.’ I smiled. ‘I’m not often in this part of the world.’

I was afraid he wasn’t going to speak. We couldn’t go on standing there in that antiseptic hall like two long-dead exhibits at a museum of natural history.

‘How clever of you to have recognised me,’ he said in a tone completely without self-pity or malice. There was
nothing
for me to say. Any reference to a good memory would sound vindictive. No question of telling him he still looked the same.

‘I’m sure you don’t
feel
different.’ I looked away. To my surprise he laughed.

‘I don’t think I can remember how I felt when I saw you last. A decade is a long time.’ His amusement was still there.

‘I think we might go somewhere else.’

He nodded agreement. We walked out into the cold of the street. There was a Lyons opposite.

We queued up in silence. I selected a piece of Danish pastry and a cup of tea. Simpson decided on cod and chips. Seated at last, I hadn’t an idea of what I should say. I started to break up my pastry nervously with a fork.

‘You don’t mind eating here?’

‘Of course not,’ I replied a little too eagerly.

‘My fish is surprisingly fresh.’

I had not as yet lifted any of my food to my mouth so was unable to comment on my good or evil fortune. Simpson put down his knife and fork suddenly. He looked straight at me:

‘You know I don’t feel in the slightest embarrassed
bumping
into you like this.’ I felt myself trying to dislike him. Trying to find his openness false. ‘Are you embarrassed?’

The question made me smile stupidly. In spite of myself I replied:

‘Yes.’

He prodded his fish.

‘I thought you were.’ he said. Then went on: ‘I often thought about what I’d say to you if this should ever
happen. The funny thing is that I never found any answer.’

I felt my first dislike. Why should he be talking about embarrassment, what to say, unless she had told him about my exact previous standing with her. I could not understand why I had admitted to being put out myself. Nevertheless there was something mildly comic about the schemer being treated as the more surprised party. My amusement was short-lived.