Swimming to Ithaca (9 page)

The cabin trembled with the drumming of the engines, a submarine stirring that filled the whole vessel. Her forefinger was there, among the rough hair and the soft, slick folds of what Charteris had called her purse. Paula stirred in the other bunk.
Dee tensed the muscles of her thighs and thought of Damien and Edward and Charteris, her finger moving gently with the motion of the ship, waves of guilt and delight filling the basin of her body like a great swell of fluid that finally, rapturously burst.

Damien had barely glanced at her during breakfast, and throughout that last morning he scrupulously avoided her, so much so that she felt constrained to send him a note:
I hope that goodbye yesterday evening was not goodbye for ever. I am fond of you, Damien. D.
And immediately regretted it.

‘Where’s Daddy?’ Paula asked.

‘You’ve already asked that. And I’ve already told you.’

‘When are we going to see him? I want to see him.’

‘So do I.’

An announcement came over the Tannoy, a metallic voice – ‘Is it a frog?’ Paula asked – inviting families with children to make their way down to the disembarkation deck. There was a crowd on the stairs, people wishing each other goodbye and making plans to meet again – all the people she had met, had dined with, talked to, played deck quoits with and all the silly things you did at sea, rather like those games you played at the seaside yet never played again during the remainder of the year.

‘Darling, how wonderful it’s been.’

‘Oh, Binty, we must keep in touch.’

‘Of course, my dear.’

It was when they were near the entry port that Damien appeared. He looked absurdly handsome in his uniform, and so young. She blushed as he approached through the crowd.

‘I got your note.’

‘I shouldn’t have sent it.’

‘But you did.’

‘It was a gesture. A stupid one.’

They edged towards the companionway. It was like an emergency, women and children first. She felt his hand hold her arm, invisible in the crush. ‘I’ll see you again?’

‘Won’t you be chasing EOKA?’

‘Not all the time.’

‘We’ll see.’

They were at the entry port, looking out of the shadows into the blinding sunlight. It was like being on the edge of a diving board, the great open space below. ‘Hold my hand tight,’ she said to Paula, and stepped out on to the platform. A sailor took her arm and turned her towards the gangway that went down the side of the ship to where the lighter was moored. ‘Easy now, ma’am,’ he said, as though she had been making things difficult. And then to Paula, ‘Goodbye, miss. Have a safe journey.’

‘I’m going to see my daddy.’

‘Lucky him,’ the sailor said. They descended the iron steps cautiously, the sea visible below through the gratings, and the upturned faces of the sailors at the side of the lighter. Dee hoped they couldn’t see up her skirt. And then, guiltily, she hoped they could. You can tell a lot by the shape of a woman’s legs. What could they tell from hers? ‘All aboard the Skylark!’ a sailor shouted, handing her across the gunwales. The engine puttered and the lighter cut a smooth curve through the septic water. Behind them the
Empire Bude
fell back while ahead the quayside came nearer, the crowd of people waiting at the barriers, the soldiers, the godowns behind.

Shock. That was the word. The shock of sensation: of noise, of smells, of sights, the uneasy sensation of tripping across the gangway, clasping Paula’s hand. The shock of sunlight on hot stone. Dust, fine and yellow. And Edward there, looking good in his khaki uniform, suntanned and somehow exotic, waving across the barricades as they went forward into the shadows of
the customs house to find their bags; and then he was hugging her to him, holding her waist against him so that she felt very fragile for a moment. ‘God, I’ve missed you,’ he was saying into her ear, and it was true enough that she had missed him, familiarity being a strong emotion and denial of familiarity a stronger one still. He let her go and crouched to pick up Paula, who was hiding her face in Dee’s skirt. She screamed and laughed together as he hoisted her up into the hot and dusty air. And above all this there was the noise of the quayside and the stevedores, dark with sweat and oil.

They cleared customs and recovered the trunks that had not been wanted on voyage, loaded all this into the boot of the car and set off to what Edward called ‘home’. How could it be home? As yet she had only seen it in a photo he had mailed to her in England. The road led away from the harbour buildings, past low houses with tiled roofs and a dried streambed where eucalyptus trees grew. There was a mosque over on the right, and another one just ahead, their minarets pointed at the hot sky. There were oleander and carob trees along the road, and that smell coming through the open windows of the car, the smell that was undeniably exotic and strange: the smell of the Levant. It was a word that had meant little until now – Levantine, Levant. And the other one: Byzantine. She had sailed to Byzantium. She was here.

‘That’s the Turkish Quarter,’ Edward said. The word ‘Turk’ carried semantic power. She knew nothing much about the Turks, but still the word meant something. It signified a darkness, a strangeness, a violence hidden behind silk and brass. The people by the roadside were draped in black: an old woman with a scarf over her head, a man with grey moustache and baggy black breeches, leading a donkey.

‘You know what they say?’ Edward asked, seeing her glance. ‘About those breeches, I mean. They say that the Muslims
believe the next time the Prophet comes he will be born of man.’

‘Who says?’

‘And those trousers are to catch him if he should pop out.’

‘Who says that? That’s ridiculous. Who says that?’

‘Geoffrey.’

‘Who’s he?’

‘Geoffrey? Geoffrey Crozier. You’ll meet him.’

Beyond the Turkish Quarter was a modern suburb where, in a kind of geological convulsion, concrete was just beginning to establish itself over the scrub and stone of the Mediterranean landscape. Among bungalows and apartment blocks a flock of sheep grazed under the eye of an ancient shepherd. The house came into view, one of a long line of new, concrete buildings, each with its parched garden, each with its tilted, red-tiled roof, each approximately whitewashed. A mirage of English suburbia refracted through the prism of Mediterranean air. A sign said
16TH OF JUNE STREET
.

How can you name a street for a date? Dee wondered. The house had a pair of palm trees on either side of the front door and a veranda across the front. Edward seemed eager that it should be all right. ‘Not exactly Broomhill,’ he said as he parked the car, ‘but home sweet home.’

Paula ran up the steps on to the veranda, calling excitedly. She wanted to see her room, she wanted to see her room. Edward held Dee’s hand as they followed her. They went inside, out of the glare of the sun – that presence that dominated the day in a manner that she had never imagined. The rooms were bare and shadowy, their green shutters barricaded against the heat. Ceiling fans rotated in the stillness like dark bats circling overhead. While Paula ran from one room to the other in excitement Edward took Dee into his arms. ‘How do you like it?’

‘It’s fine,’ she said. The hot air hammered on her skin. She thought she might not be able to breathe. ‘It’s lovely.’ She longed for cool and rain, for the mist draped over the rim of the Pennines, and the city below, cool and damp. ‘It’s lovely.’

That evening, once Paula had been persuaded to sleep, they made love in the heat, beneath the circling ceiling fan, their bodies slick with shared sweat.

They meet outside the tube station. Kale is dressed up – black velvet trousers and jacket beneath her overcoat. And she’s done her lips in a dark, venous red. Venous or vinous? Either will do. Or Venus, come to that. Her eyelids are the colour of wet slate. It’s rather touching that she has gone to this trouble; makes him wish that he had done something better than jeans and a jacket. Her daughter is a sharp, half-shy, half-bold little girl, with blond hair and her mother’s suspicious glance. ‘Emma, this is Dr Denham. He’s one of Mum’s teachers.’

‘You can call me Thomas if you like,’ he says.

Emma thinks about this offer. ‘You’re a
man
,’ she says.

‘Good guess.’

This amuses her. ‘I guessed, I guessed,’ she cries, jumping up and down. ‘He’s a man. I guessed!’

They walk round to the theatre, almost like a family, the little girl skipping along between the two adults, pulling at
Kale’s hand and grabbing at Thomas’ to try and swing between them. ‘Stop it, Emms,’ Kale snaps. ‘Otherwise we’ll go home.’

Yellow cat’s eyes watch them as they approach the theatre. ‘Is it about Fritz?’ asks Emma, whose own cat, Kale explains, is called Fritz.

‘Sort of,’ Thomas tells her. ‘Lots of different cats. Mystery cats and Jellicle cats and all sorts.’

Emma loves cats, and she loves
Cats
. Small and golden and animated, she sits between the two of them in the centre of the stalls, and sighs and gasps and squeals and giggles and finally, at the death of Grizabella, has to be consoled. ‘She didn’t
really
die,’ Kale explains. ‘She’s got to be there for all the boys and girls tomorrow.’

They leave the theatre into a surprising real world that has turned dark and wet in the meantime, lit by shop windows and headlights and streetlamps. Traffic wades down Long Acre. ‘Let’s go back to the flat and make some tea,’ Thomas suggests.

There is a moment’s hesitation while Kale hitches up her coat tails and crouches to explain yet again to Emma that Grizabella is not really dead. ‘Really, Emms. Mum promises.’

He wants to see Kale in the context of his flat. He wants to be with her. The feeling, growing within him over the last few days, has metamorphosed from mere thought to something physical inside his chest. He wants to be able to touch her, to have her touch him just as she is now touching Emma, stroking her cheek and tapping her on the nose and laughing to get her laughing as well. ‘Come on, Emms. It’s just a
play
?’ The upward lilt, hopeful and anxious.

‘Does that mean it’s a game?’

‘Sort of. A complicated game that you watch other people playing?’

‘I want to play it. With Fritz.’

‘You can. We’ll soon be home and then you can play with
Fritz.’ Kale looks up with an apologetic smile. ‘I think we’d better be going.’

He repeats his invitation: the flat, the cups of tea, domestic bliss, but she shakes her head. ‘You’re very kind. Isn’t Thomas kind, Emms? But I think we’d better be getting back to Fritz, don’t you?’ It is the first time she has ever used his first name. As a prelude to departure.

‘Are you sure?’

She’s sure. The tube station is just there, shoppers and office workers disappearing into its maw like water sluiced down a drain. ‘Thanks ever so for taking us,’ she says, and gives him a quick, neutral smile and a quick, neutral kiss – her cheek is cool and damp – and turns away. As the two of them disappear into the station entrance he calls, ‘I’ll give you a ring,’ but whether she has heard, or cares, he isn’t sure. Persephone returning to the underworld, he thinks, and feels an absurd sense of bereavement.

Next day Kale isn’t there in the class. All the others are, but not Kale.

‘Anyone any idea?’

Eric shakes his head. ‘Probably ’ooked it. She did tell me she wasn’t sure about doing this course. It’s a free world, isn’ it?’

The class gets under way and Thomas pretends not to care that next to the Pakistani girl – Sharaya, Shanaya? – there is an empty chair. They consider various interpretations of history, and argue about whether you can ever be truly objective. ‘Of course you can,’ Eric insists. ‘I mean, it’s just what happened, isn’ it? There are just the facts. All the rest is bullshit. Isn’t that what someone once said? History is bullshit.’

‘Henry Ford. It was “bunk”. History is bunk.’

‘Same difference.’

At the end of the class Thomas goes to his office and looks up
Kale’s number. There is no reply when he calls. He imagines a terraced house divided into single-bedroom flats, the communal telephone ringing in the communal hallway – lino floor, a pram under the stairs, some litter, the smell of damp and drains – and no one there to lift the phone. Back home later that evening he tries the number again and this time there is an answer, a man’s voice that says, ‘Yeah?’

Is this the faceless Steve? ‘Kale?’ Thomas asks. ‘Kale Macintosh? Is she there?’

‘Dunno. I en’t seen ’er.’

‘Could you find out?’

‘S’pose.’

There is a pause, a scuffling of the receiver and a voice shouting somewhere far away, then footsteps and, thankfully, her voice right in his ear. ‘Who is it?’

‘It’s Thomas.’

‘Oh.’

‘We missed you in the class today.’

‘I had things to do.’

He adds, in a burst of honesty: ‘
I
missed you.’

A silence.

‘I’ve got a present for Emma, you see. And I wanted to give it to you.’ He hasn’t any present. This is a complete fabrication, the ad-libbing of the practised philanderer. But already he knows what the present will be.

‘Look,’ Kale’s voice says, ‘what’s all this about?’

‘What?’

‘You going on like this?’

‘It’s not
about
anything. I just want to see you. And give you a present for Emma.’

There is a silence, as though she is reckoning this answer, turning it over, considering it in various lights. Like examining a banknote under one of those ultraviolet scanners to see if it’s
counterfeit. ‘I’ll be in college tomorrow,’ she says finally, and puts the phone down.

Before arriving at work next morning, he goes into the bookshop just round the corner. It used to call itself The College Bookshop and stocked a wide variety of obscure academic texts, but that was before profit became an issue. Now it is Books ’n’ Stuff and only stocks big sellers, but will happily order anything that you may want and blame any delay on the distributors. That morning there is no problem, however: Thomas doesn’t want an academic text, he wants
Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats
, which is a book they do have, stacked high and selling fast in a new edition, along with CDs and tapes and the book of the musical, and posters.