Swimming to Ithaca (28 page)

‘Mrs D!’

She stumbled over the rocks, her feet slipping. At one point she put her hand down to steady herself. There were thorn bushes and a few derelict carob trees, their dried husks hanging in the wind. Ahead was the edge of the escarpment, the edge of the whole world. She stopped at the brink. Before her the sea unravelled to the horizon, like a sheet of blue silk flung out into the distance by the pale arm of the Akrotiri peninsula over to the left. At her feet the land dropped away suddenly, dizzyingly, down hundreds of feet to the wide expanse of shingle beach far below.

She remembered Charteris. You are your memory, she thought: there is nothing else, just memory piled on memory, a fragile pyramid of record and remembrance that rises up to this summit that is you. She remembered walking with him across the Kinder Plateau, to the very edge of the Downfall where you could stand like this on the lip of the cliff. They had looked out over the waterfall and the valley below, and the wind had blown in their faces and carried with it a breath of water, and there had been just the same mingling of exhilaration and fear, with the
void mere inches from their feet, and Charteris saying, ‘I hope you’re not thinking of jumping.’

‘Flying,’ she had replied. ‘I’m thinking of flying.’

He had stood close behind her, his hands on her waist as though to hold her safe. ‘You’d only fall.’

She turned. ‘But you don’t feel that, do you? You feel that you could step off and just fly, like one of those dreams.’ She was serious. She didn’t smile, and neither did he. ‘Do you have flying dreams? I do. I step up and up and up and it’s obvious really, easy, just a matter of doing it. Walking on air, I mean.’

‘And then you wake up.’

‘Of course. You always wake up.’

There was a moment of hesitation. The wind battered against them, the sound of it in her ears like a voice arguing with her, insisting on its point of view, never giving her pause to think. Then he kissed her very softly, as though frightened that even now she might pull away. And she said his name. Just that – his name.

They picked their way back through the excavation site to the car. The doors slammed the wind out and hurled them back to the present, to the fact of a coffee morning, to the dull and the quotidian. He was about to turn the key in the ignition when she stopped him. ‘Wait.’

He looked round. ‘You’ll be late.’

‘It doesn’t matter. I’m already late, and anyway there’s something I’ve got to tell you.’

He was smiling. His smile did that thing to her, undermined her resolve, pulled away the supports of decency and rectitude. ‘Nick, this is serious.’ She frowned, to make it so. ‘What you said yesterday. What you said about EOKA.’

His expression shifted from amusement to caution, a subtle thing of changing light and dark. ‘What about it?’

‘People know about it. At least, they know that you’re involved in some way.’

‘What d’you mean people know about it? Who’s “people”?’ His voice had risen. ‘Did you tell someone? Christ, did you tell?’

‘I didn’t tell anyone. Believe me. It was someone I talked to. He works for them.’
Them
and
they
. It seemed ridiculous, a kind of child’s fantasy.

‘It’s that major, isn’t it? What’s his name? Brawdle, something like that.’ He reached over the seat and grabbed her hand. ‘You know they pulled me in for questioning, his soldiers—’

‘It’s not him. He told me about that, but it’s not him. Really, Nick.’

‘He’s always around you, isn’t he? He’s a bastard, a typical English bastard.’

‘I said it wasn’t him.’

His grip relaxed fractionally. ‘Then who was it?’

‘Someone more important than that. We meet lots of different people, people involved in all sorts of things. Police, security, that kind of thing. Look, I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I am, so listen to what I say.’ She paused, watching him, willing him to believe her. The wind pummelled the car, rocking it on its suspension. ‘I think they’ve been watching you. Us, even: watching
us
.’ The idea brought a sly thrill, that they had some kind of collective identity, the two of them together.

‘Watching us? Fucking hell! Who’s been watching us?’ He looked confused. It was as though someone had drawn a finger through his portrait, distorting the eyes, turning down the mouth, smudging the cheeks with white. ‘Why didn’t you tell me all this earlier? And why are you telling me now? Is this some kind of trap? Get him talking to you and then along come the soldiers and arrest him? Something like that?’ He looked round, as though there might be watchers hiding behind the thorn bushes, crouching behind the rocks. But there was no
one: just the bare hillside and the sky, and beyond the edge of land the smudged blue of the sea.

‘Of course it’s not a trap. I’ve been trying to find the right moment to tell you, and now I realize there is no right moment.’

He was examining her face, as though something there might betray the truth, some evasion in her eyes, some flicker of amusement in the mouth.

‘You must believe me, Nick. For your own good.’

He looked round. There was the sound of a vehicle on the road below and as he turned an army ten-tonner ground up the hill into view, the canvas sides tied up and a row of pallid English faces looking down on them. She heard his sharp intake of breath, saw the movement of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed. Then the vehicle passed by and headed on up the road and Nicos breathed out slowly. He gave a fleeting smile, as though merely seeing them go past was some kind of triumph. ‘So what do you expect me to do?’ he asked. ‘Run away from them? You must be joking.’

There was that absurd bravado about him. Like Charteris. ‘I’ll swim to you,’ he had boasted to her. ‘If they sink the ship under me, I’ll swim all the way back to you.’

‘I just want you to be safe.’

‘Safely out of the way, more like.’

‘Don’t be daft.’

He smiled. ‘I love the way you say “daft”. Northern, like.’

They drove back to Limassol. It was too late for the coffee morning now, too late for many things. ‘I’ll have to ring,’ she said, thinking of the flock of wives gathered in a sitting room in one of the married quarters in the midst of a housing estate called Kensington or Gibraltar Village or something. She could hear the noise of gossip and the percussion of cups and saucers,
and imagine the shock that would go through them if they knew – the flutter, the scattering of feathers, the shrill alarm calls.

Nicos turned in his seat to look at her. ‘What do we do now?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Nick, I just don’t know.’

Marjorie is a memory. She is a torso and a memory. There seem to be few other functions. The torso is crab-like and immobile, seated in a special chair beside the window of her room in Peace Haven, the Home for Distressed Gentlefolk in which she lives. The window looks out from the front of the house, so that she can see the main road. It’s not a busy road but it’s better than nothing.

‘They offered me a garden view at the back. They said, “Ooh, you’re a lucky one: a Back Room has just become available.” But I told them to stuff it. Well, I didn’t quite say that. Distressed Gentlefolk don’t say that kind of thing. But I told them I was quite happy with a Front Room.’ You can hear the capital letters in her discourse. Her large, moon face lights up and her mouth grabs hold of the words with gusto. ‘That way I can see what’s going on. Watch the milkman rather than just watching sparrows and blackbirds. Sparrows and blackbirds are
all very well, but they aren’t Life, are they? They’re alive, but they aren’t Life.’

‘Is the milkman?’

‘I’ll bet the women on his milk round think he is.’ She laughs uproariously, as though at a joke of universal dimensions. She has to be levered out of bed in the morning and placed in her chair so that she can see out. Her legs don’t work, that’s the problem. Neither do her hands, although she does retain some control over a few fingers. ‘I’ve got a kind of electric buggy, and I do get out a bit. But I’m very happy here.’

Shame crawls through Thomas’ mind as he watches her: he is repelled by her condition, yet fascinated. Like looking at a road accident, or someone with a hideous physical deformity. ‘What is it?’ he asks. ‘Your problem, I mean.’

‘My neurones. That’s what they tell me. Of course they haven’t really got the foggiest idea what it is. They’ve got a name for it, but no idea how to treat it. It gets steadily worse. Six months ago I could walk around perfectly well. Stumbled a bit, but only what you do with too much gin in you. And now look at me.’

‘You’re doing very well, as far as I can see.’

‘Very well, my foot. Or my hand, come to that. They’re neither of them any good.’ She hoots with laughter, or perhaps with despite; or perhaps with both. Her limbs don’t work, but her memory does. She remembers. She plays with her memory as a child might play with a toy, twisting it this way and that, opening it up, pulling it to pieces, examining the component parts and then finding that it can no longer be reassembled. ‘Paula was the little monkey, wasn’t she? Dear little monkey. But you were a rather solemn little boy. He’s going to be a Policeman or a Lawyer, that’s what I thought. She’ll be a Dancer, but he’ll be a Lawyer. Was I right?’

‘Not quite.’

She dimples and laughs. ‘I rarely am, Tom, I rarely am. So what did the two of you become?’

‘Journalist and historian.’

‘Which is which?’

‘She’s the journalist.’

‘Ah, so you’re a historian.’ She looks triumphant. ‘Not far off, was I? Historian is a rather Solemn Undertaking, isn’t it? Just like a lawyer. All those dusty Facts sifted through your fingers, and then the final, grim Judgement. I don’t like History, I like Memories. Quite a different thing, you know. No judgement and precious few facts. And is the historian married with a nice, cosy family?’

‘A fifteen-year-old son. The marriage didn’t last. She’s with someone else now.’

‘Oh dear. And what about you? Is Tom with someone else? Quite an opportunity, I’d have thought, finding out about someone else when you might have expected boredom and familiarity for the remainder of your life.’

He wonders whether to tell her about Kale, and decides not. ‘There have been some girlfriends. Nothing serious.’

‘At least you’ve got your son. I never found anyone who would put up with me and now all I’ve got left are memories. Apart from the road outside the front door, that is, and the milkman. The wonderful thing about memory is that it dies with you. I remember your mother telling me that. Ephemeral. I like that word. Ephemeral. You know in spring I found mayflies in the room. Where do you think they came from? The park? They’re beautiful. Little delicate things. Anyway, they are Ephemera, did you know that? Do you know what Ephemera means?’

‘Something that doesn’t last long?’

‘Worse than that. Something that only lasts One Day. And
we
only last one day, don’t we, in the Great Scheme of Things? A
mere blink of God’s Eye.’ The capital letters are laid down with the pleasure of a wine buff laying down bottles. The Great Scheme of Things. God’s Eye. ‘Don’t you feel like God himself when you remember the past? You hold it in your Mind. It’s yours alone. History you share with others, but Memory is yours alone. Gosh, how philosophical.’

‘Will you share yours with me?’ Thomas asks.

‘Maybe.’ She watches him thoughtfully. ‘It all depends on what you want me to remember.’

There’s a knock on the door and a woman puts her head into the room. ‘Oh, you’ve got a visitor. How nice. Do you need anything?’

‘We’re fine, thank you. This is Tom who was once rather solemn and is now rather curious.’

The woman smiles at him. ‘Hello, Tom. Just ring if you want anything, won’t you?’ The head vanishes and the door closes softly. Suddenly, and for no particular reason, he thinks of Kale, and wishes she were here. She’d be better able to deal with Marjorie. She’d just be herself. Being himself is something that Thomas has never been good at. ‘I want you to remember
her
.’

‘Who? Your mother? Oh, but I do, Tom, I do. Often. I was so sorry not to have been able to make the funeral, but you can see why. Darling, darling Dee. You know she came to visit me here? Hadn’t changed. Still a Breath of Fresh Air just as she was when I first knew her. And we didn’t always get fresh air down by the harbour, I can tell you.’ The laugh again, too jolly by far. ‘I can see her now, sleeves rolled up to the elbows – well, maybe not sleeves; you didn’t actually wear long sleeves very much out there, but you know what I mean – and her hands in the soap suds and just mucking in. And the laughs we had. And the teasing with the soldiers – lovely boys they were, quite bewildered a lot of the time. Never been out of England, mostly. It wasn’t like it is nowadays, what with all these package tours and
everything. Nowadays they’re all off to the Seychelles or Mauritius, and they think they’ve travelled. But in those days …’

Her voice fades. She turns her head towards the window and seems to be looking out, but presumably she is actually looking through her memories, as though flicking rapidly through a series of files and extracting details as needed. Thomas seizes the moment. He reaches into his jacket pocket and takes out an envelope. ‘I’ve got some photos. Maybe you can help me identify them? I found them in her papers.’

She turns her head. ‘It’s no use
handing
it to me, darling.’

‘Of course. I’m sorry – I wasn’t thinking.’ He holds the photo up, like a conjuror showing a card to someone he is about to bamboozle with sleight of hand. The name
Nick
looks back at him from the obverse.

‘Ah!’ she says.

‘You know him?’

‘Of course I know him. That’s the boy who used to drive her. He was quite a charmer. A Rough Diamond. Used to come into the canteen quite a bit and sit and talk to her. They claimed he was teaching her Greek.’

‘And what
were
they doing?’

A faint stir of the fingers. ‘Oh, chatting. This and that. I think your father didn’t listen to her enough, that was the problem, and Nicos was a sympathetic ear. Nicos, that’s what we used to call him.’