The Stars’ Tennis Balls (21 page)

‘Philippa Blackrow was Oliver Delft’s mother?’ Ned enunciated each word with extreme deliberation, as if afraid the meaning of what he said would totter and collapse. ‘He was her son. He was the son of the very person Paddy wanted me to give the letter to?’

‘No cross referencing,’ said Babe with a disapproving purse of the lips. ‘Her son applies to the service and they don’t connect Oliver Delft with the daughter of a condemned traitor. Well, how can we expect an intelligence service that can’t spot a full Colonel of the KGB in its ranks to notice a small thing like that? But no wonder Oliver had a touch of cramp when you mentioned her name out of the blue. Must have put the fear of God into him.’

‘So he was a traitor too?’

‘Perhaps, but not necessarily. He might have joined without knowing anything about his mother’s true allegiances.’

‘In either case,’ said Ned, ‘he couldn’t allow me to wander about the world knowing her name.

‘Precisely. If he was any good at his job he would have to find a way to get rid of you and cover all your tracks. We know how he got rid of you. But I wonder how he hid the trail …' Babe’s voice trailed off.

Ned grasped him by the sleeve. ‘What are you thinking?’

‘You have to think of it from Delft’s point of view,’ murmured Babe, more to himself than to Ned. ‘He’s on duty. A flash comes through that a youth has been picked up with a document that might interest the service. He interrogates you, all seems fine, you turn out to be nothing but an innocent. He discovers his own mother is implicated. What can he do? His section chief will ask all kinds of questions next day. “We see from the log, Oliver, that you were sent out to a police station. Who was this boy? What did he have on him?” What would I do if I were Delft?’

‘I don’t follow,’ said Ned. ‘What exactly…

‘Sh!’ Babe put a finger to his lips, ‘I would pretend to be
playing
you, that’s what I’d do. “I’ve turned him, Chief. He’s feeding me all kinds of gold. But hands off, he’s mine and I don’t want him compromised.” But he would need to give something in return. There’s the tape, of course, but that had his mother’s name on it – he’d need another. Did he, Ned, did he by any chance get you to say anything specific on the tape? After his attack of cramp, that is?’

‘I’m not sure …
yes!
Portia’s family! He wanted to know about her father. I told him what I knew and he asked for the full address. He even asked me to say it twice. But why? I still don’t understand.’

‘Mine was a grubby trade,’ said Babe. ‘Let me tell you what Oliver did.’

That night, as Ned lay awake, another name joined the others pounding inside his head. Now it was
Delft,
Fendeman, Garland and Cade.

Delft, Fendeman, Garland and Cade. Delft, Fendeman, Garland and Cade. He banged the names with his fist against his thigh. He scratched them with his nails into the palm of his hand. He burned the names into his brain. Delft, Fendeman, Garland and Cade. Delft, Fendeman, Garland and Cade.

Spring on the island was a time when, in the past, Ned had always felt at his most imprisoned. As the long winter melted away and the days lengthened, birds would begin to arrive bringing thoughts of a world outside. As they built their nests and started to sing, Ned would feel the limits of his own mind. No amount of literature, science or philosophy could counter the absolute beauty of the daffodils and the birdsong, nor palliate the terrible achings they awoke in him.

One day in mid-April, just a week after the sun-room had been opened up for the year, Ned sat at the chessboard waiting for Babe. They rarely played these days. It embarrassed Ned that he could beat the older man so easily and it annoyed him that Babe seemed so devoid of will as not to care who won.

Martin came out into the sunlight, blinking. He approached Ned with a smile.

‘You waiting for Babe, I suppose?’

‘Of course,’ replied Ned.

‘You wait long time then. Babe had some heart attack last night. Babe is in his bed dying right now.’

Ned sprang to his feet and grabbed Martin by the coat.

‘Hey, Thomas! You let go. You want to be strapped up in punishment cell?’

‘Take me to him!’ Ned yelled. ‘Take me to him right now.

‘I don’t take you to nobody,’ Martin sneered. ‘Who you think you are? You don’t tell me orders. I tell
you
orders.’

Ned let go of Martin’s collar and started to smoothe it down placatingly. ‘Please, Martin,’ he said. ‘Try to understand. Babe is everything to me. He is my father, my brother and my only friend. We are like … we are like you and Henrik.’ Ned gestured towards where a young newly-arrived Swede was sat trembling and hugging his knees in a basket-chair at the other end of the room. ‘You and Henrik, how close you are. How wonderful it is. It is the same with Babe and me. You understand don’t you? You do understand. I know Dr Mallo would understand. He would want me to be with Babe now, I am sure of it.’

Martin’s eyes narrowed and then dropped. ‘I let you see Babe, you don’t go talking bad things about me to Dr Mallo?’

‘Never, Martin. Never would I say bad things about you to Dr Mallo. You are my friend, Martin. My good friend.’

Ned allowed Martin to lead him to the hospital wing. It took him past Mallo’s office and into a corridor down which he had never been before.

Babe was the only patient in the small four-bed ward. Lying on his back with a tube up his nose, he seemed shrunken and old. Ned knelt by his bed and looked at the face he loved so deeply.

‘Babe,’ he whispered, ‘Babe, it’s Thomas.’

‘I come back half an hour,’ said Martin, closing and locking the door. ‘You go then. Not see Babe again.’

Ned could see the thick orbs of Babe’s eyeballs rolling under the loosened skin of his eyelids.

‘Ned?’ The name came out in a whispered breath.

Ned took a hand. ‘It’s me,’ he said, tears starting to roll down his face. ‘Babe, you can’t leave me. You mustn’t leave me. Please … please … I’ll go mad. I know I’ll go mad.’ His voice cracked and he gave a huge sob. ‘Babe! Oh Christ, Babe! I will kill myself if you go. I swear to Christ I will.’

Babe pushed out his blackened tongue and passed it over dry and flaking lips. ‘I am dying,’ he said. ‘They will pack me in a box in the room next to this. I heard them talking when I woke up an hour ago. They will seal me in a crate and take me to the mainland where I will be certified dead, nailed into a coffin and sent home. They will burn me in England.’

‘Please don’t talk like this,’ the tears were dropping from Ned’s face onto the bed sheets.

‘We have half an hour, no more,’ whispered Babe, ‘so you must listen to me. In sixty-nine I was preparing to leave England. They caught me before I could leave and they brought me here, but they never guessed what I had been up to.'

‘Babe, please! You’re working yourself up…’

‘If you don’t listen,’ Babe took Ned’s hand and gripped it hard, ‘I shall die here and now!’ he hissed. ‘Be silent for once and
listen.
They took me before I could escape. But I had taken money. I knew the account numbers, dozens of them. I remembered them all. I funnelled and finagled them, united them all into one grand account. Here, take it, take it!’

Babe opened the hand that had been grasping Ned’s. A small fold of paper was clipped between his fingers. ‘Take it. There is money there, perhaps after thirty years it is more than you can spend. The Cotter Bank, Geneva. When they found out that it was missing they came here to question me. I had hidden its trail and they were mad with rage. “Where is it? What have you done with it?” I had been here no more than a month, but Mallo had passed that month jolting my brain with electricity and filling me with drugs. The violence of my behaviour had given him no choice. I had known they would come you see, and I wanted to be ready. When they arrived, I dribbled, I giggled, I simpered, I slobbered and I wept. You would have been proud of me, Ned. I was the maddest of the mad. A ruin of a noble mind. They went away cursing, in the belief that they had destroyed the sanity of the only man that knew where all that money lay. I’d love to know how they explained it to their Minister. Now, read that piece of paper, learn it and destroy it. The Cotter Bank, Geneva. All the money will be yours when you leave here.’

‘Why do you think I want money?’ Ned’s tears still flowed in an endless stream. ‘I don’t want money, I want you! If you die, I will die. You know I will never leave this place.’

‘You
will
leave this place!’ cried Babe with terrible urgency. ‘You will leave in a coffin. Listen to me. There is a metal spoon by my bed, take it now. Take it!’

Ned, weeping at this inconsequential madness, took the spoon.

‘Hide it on you, no not there. Not in a damned pocket! Suppose Martin searches you?’

‘Where?’ Ned looked down at Babe in bewilderment.

‘Your anus, man! Push it deep in your anus. I don’t care if it bleeds.’

‘Oh Babe…’

‘Do it, do it now or I swear by almighty Christ that I’ll die cursing you. There! I don’t care if it makes you scream. I don’t care if you bleed like a pig, push it up, push it up! Now, can you stand? Can you sit? Good, good, you’ll do.’

Babe leant back down on the pillow and slowed his breath. ‘Now then,’ he said at last. ‘Now then, Ned. You’ve got the piece of paper. Look at it. The Cotter Bank, Geneva. I dared not write that down. See on the paper. There’s a number, a password phrase and a counter phrase.

Learn them. Repeat them to me… good, and again. Again … once more. Now swallow the paper. Chew it and swallow. Repeat the number … the passwords … the address again.’

‘Why are you doing this, Babe? You’re frightening me.’

‘I owe you the money. Backgammon. You’re a devil at the game. Not much more now, lad. Cast your mind back to last winter. The week before Christmas. The day we talked together about Philippa Blackrow. I had been drawing a circuit diagram for you, do you remember? You kept it, like I told you?’

‘It’s in my room, I suppose. With all my other papers. Why?’

‘It’s Thursday. Paul is on night duty. You get on all right with Paul. Hold him in conversation, ask him about football as he closes you in. You’ll need your wits to time it. Use the teaspoon to catch the lock. There’s so much for you to do. You’ll need all your strength. I’ll go on the morning boat to the mainland. Christ, what’s that I can hear?’

A key rattled in the lock and the door swung open. Martin beckoned to Ned.

‘You come with me now. Leave Babe, come with me.’

‘You said half an hour!’

‘The doctor, he comes to look at Babe. You come.

Ned threw himself down on the bed, his tear-sodden face soaking Babe’s beard.

‘Goodbye, my boy. You have already saved my life. My mind will live forever in yours. Build great things in my memory and to my memory. We have loved each other. For my sake now, stop your howling. Go quietly and pass this last day in remembering. Remember everything. You take my love and memory with you for ever.’

‘Come now!
Now!’
Martin strode to the bed and pulled Ned roughly away. ‘Against the wall. I search you. Many bad things in the hospital ward.’

From the doorway, Ned cast one last look back into the room as Martin pushed him against the wall.

Babe’s eyes were closed tight. All his concentration now was being spent on forcing his heart to beat faster and faster until it might burst in his chest.

An hour after lunch, Martin came to the sun-room with the news that Babe had died.

Ned, sitting alone at the chessboard, nodded. ‘Was he in pain?’

‘No pain,’ Martin’s voice was quiet and almost reverential. ‘Very peaceful. He has quick heart attack once more and was dead fast. Dr Mallo say there was nothing nobody could do,’ he added, with a hint of defensiveness. ‘Not in any hospital in the world.’

‘Would you mind,’ Ned asked quietly, ‘if I spent the rest of the day in my room? I would like to think and…, and to pray.

‘Okay, I take you there.’

They walked in silence to Ned’s room. Martin looked around at the piles of books and papers leaning up against the walls. ‘Babe, he teached you many things, yes?’

‘Yes, Martin. Many things.’

‘Some books in my language here, but you are not speaking.’

‘A little, I can read a little, but not speak very well,’ Ned replied, in halting Swedish.

‘Yes. Your accent is bad. Maybe, now Babe gone, we are better friends,’ said Martin. ‘You teach English, I teach Swedish. You teach music and the mathematics to me also.’

‘That would be nice,’ said Ned. ‘I would like that.’

‘I leave school early. I run from home where my father was beating me. The more you teach, the better friends.’

‘All right.’

‘It’s not necessary you have to be nice with me,’ Martin said, looking awkwardly at the floor. ‘I understand this. Sometimes, I am bad. I have bad feelings in my heart. You must have me in your prayers now.

‘Of course, Ned felt unwanted tears falling down his cheeks again.

‘Okay, Thomas,’ said Martin. ‘I leave now.’

It took almost half an hour for Ned to find the circuit diagram that Babe had drawn and two hours for him to be sure that he had memorised and understood it properly.

Paul came on duty at supper-time and Ned practised without the teaspoon by engaging Paul in brief conversation just as he was pulling the door closed.

‘Oh by the way,’ he said, holding the door by the handle on the inside and talking through the gap. ‘Before you lock up. You couldn’t do me a favour could you? In return for me teaching you the nicknames of all the British football clubs. Just a small thing.’

‘Favour?’ Paul looked worried.

‘You wouldn’t have a piece of chewing gum, would you?’

Paul grinned. ‘Maybe at supper time. I’ll see.’

‘Thanks. Are Trondheim playing today?’

‘Sure they are playing today.’

‘Good luck then,’ said Ned cheerfully, pushing the door closed himself. ‘See you later.’

At nine o’clock Paul came in once more with a mug of hot chocolate and some pills.

‘What’s this?’ Ned was alarmed. ‘I’m not on medication.’