The Walking Stick (37 page)

‘Yes . . .’

‘See anything of the police?’

‘They were still about.’

‘I reckon we’re on a good pitch. They haven’t a clue.’

He sucked the half-melted sugar out of his spoon. His eyes were clear and untroubled.

‘They’ve asked me to go in in the morning,’ I said.

‘What, Whittington’s? That’s a bit thick.’

‘Well, it only makes up for the half day we lost.’

‘Ted wants me to go and watch Charlton tomorrow afternoon. I may. Should be a good match.’

I said: ‘It was funny how we met, wasn’t it? In the first place, I mean.’

‘Who? Us? Why?’

‘I say it was funny how we met. You and I. If you hadn’t come to Sarah’s – to that party – none of this would have happened.’

‘I know.’ He stirred uneasily. ‘Do you regret it?’

‘Oh, that’s not really the point. Sometimes I think these things are designed.’

‘Designed? What d’you mean?’

‘. . . Don’t you ever read your stars? I’m sure I’ve seen you.’

He laughed, but not absolutely happy about it. ‘Lovey, we met, and it was the best day of
my
life, I promise you. So why ask impossible questions? This is the moment to look ahead
– not back.’

‘Leigh, I met someone – quite by chance. Someone who knew you as a boy.’

‘What? Who?’ His eyes were suddenly wary.

‘It doesn’t matter. But this person – this man – this man says you haven’t got two brothers, that you’re an only child. And he also says your mother is still
alive.’

A siren hooted on the river and Leigh put down his coffee cup. His face had closed up.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s true?’

‘Yes.’

‘But why tell me this?’

He rose. ‘I’m awfully
sorry
, love.’

‘But why? If you’ve lied to me before, there’s always been a purpose.’

‘These weren’t meant to be lies.’

‘Then what were they?’

‘I can’t
explain
. I . . . I go on. I lead myself on. I have a way of talking. Sometimes it’s easier to make a thing up than to tell the truth.’

‘Even when it helps nothing?’

‘Even then.’

‘How many lies have you told me about Lorne?’

He turned. ‘None! I swear. Honest. Not one. It all happened as I said.’

‘But how many other lies are there between us? What else is true?’

‘Everything! . . . Oh, lovey, it’s just this bloody silly habit I’ve got sometimes of – of making a drama of something. Sometimes I make up a story like I make up a
painting. It’s a composition. If – if the river’s green maybe I paint it blue. It looks better to me that way, that day. Well, that doesn’t matter because next day I can do
another picture with another colour if I want. But when it comes to stories, once I’ve told them to somebody else, then I’m stuck with them for good. Once I’ve told you –
because it sounds dramatic – that my mother died young, I’ve got to go on with that for ever. It – just comes out, and I curse myself afterward.’

‘Did you curse yourself afterwards for making up the story of having to wear your brother’s outgrown clothes?’

He flushed, and for a moment I saw the likeness with his mother. ‘Well, no, it wasn’t true in detail but it was true in general. I
have
been put to counting my pennies and
making do – all my life. That’s
true
. It’s just what I’ve been saying – I can’t hold my tongue sometimes because I want to make it seem more dramatic. But
the real essence is still true.’

‘And did you ever live in Swindon?’

‘No.’

‘Why Swindon? What’s wrong with Clapham?’

‘God knows. I keep – trying to build up a life, a separate life. I keep trying to cut away from the old.’

‘So one of these days you’ll be telling some nice new girl that you never knew anyone called Deborah Dainton.’

‘That’s not true! You know it’s not true.’ He came across and kissed me but I turned my face away. ‘Oh, look . . .’ He rubbed his nose against my ear.
‘You know different. This is basic.’

‘Do I?’

‘Debby, Debby, use your loaf.’ This very gently. ‘When I met you I wanted to leave
everything
behind – all my past. I still do. But I
never
want to go on
from here. This is where I belong . . .’

We stood for a moment, and then moved apart. He hadn’t noticed that I’d been drinking brandy; or, at least, he didn’t mention it. I began to put the coffee cups under the tap
but he stopped me. ‘Leave them, love. Let’s just go to bed. Let’s curl up together quietly, like, and leave everything for the morning. If you want to, I’ll try to explain
more then. But everything will seem different in the morning.’

Without much more said we got undressed and into bed. He took me in his arms, but passively, with no intent. We lay there for a time. He seemed once or twice to doze off – his breathing
got heavier, then lighter again. Over his shoulder I looked up at the packed suitcase on top of the wardrobe. The light was out but the curtains were partly drawn back, and light from the river
reflected on the ceiling like crinkly leaves turning. This bed thy centre is, these walls thy sphere.

It must have been half an hour or more before my utter silence woke him. ‘Can’t you sleep?’

‘Not really. You try on your own.’

‘You’re still mad at me for telling you those half-truths?’

‘I was wondering what will happen to the swans when we’re gone.’

‘When we’re gone?’

‘Well, if we take this shop.’

‘Oh, someone will feed them. Anyway . . .’

‘What?’

‘I suppose someone will take the place before they pull it down. They’re sure to want it soon for more warehouse space. I’ll be a bit jealous of the people who take
it.’

‘Perhaps you’d rather stay on here. Ten thousand is a lot of money.’

He was silent, almost listening to my thoughts. ‘What’s wrong? I suppose I’ve upset you with these silly lies, but I thought you knew me well enough . . .’

‘I thought I did.’

‘What is it, then?’

A siren hooted again. ‘I had a terrible dream.’

‘When? What about?’

‘Oh, I can’t tell you. Other people’s dreams are so boring.’

‘Tell me if it’ll help to kill it.’

‘That I don’t know.’

‘Well, tell me.’

Long silence. He nudged me.

‘I had a dream. About a man. Fat and middle-aged. An antique dealer.’

Silence. ‘Any connection with Jack Foil?’

‘Oh . . . I don’t know. This was . . . a bad one . . . He – he went to all the sales. Sotheby’s, Christie’s, Whittington’s. He had all sorts of interests but
he was always greedy for more. He saw all the beautiful things in these places. Often he’d buy things, but that wasn’t enough. He wanted the bigger things. And he wanted to steal them.
He’d stolen before but not perhaps in quite this way.’

I could feel a difference in the muscle tension of the arm that was around me. ‘So?’

‘So he longed to break in. But it was hard to do. Then one day a girl came into his antique shop looking for a present for her sister. She said it had to be good, as her sister was an
expert on porcelain and held a position of responsibility at Whittington’s.’

‘Christ, Deborah, what are you talking about?’

I lay quiet in his arms. ‘Want me to go on?’

‘Yes . . .’

‘This antique dealer asked some more questions then, found out that the sister wasn’t married or engaged – and wasn’t likely to be because she had a deformed leg . . .
Now he – the antique dealer – had a lot of friends that he helped or patronized one way or another – and among them was a young man. He was genuinely fond of this young man
– paid him enough money to live on in return for being at his beck and call. Maybe the young man helped other ways, I don’t know. So he suggested to the young man that he should
contrive to meet the sister who worked at Whittington’s, and see what she was like. If it seemed a promising territory he could try and make her – as the saying is. He
thought—’

Leigh roughly shifted his arm from round me, sat up, switched on the bedside light.

‘He thought,’ I said, ‘that if the young man went the right way about it and the girl wasn’t too bad-looking he might be able to get her obsessed with him. He would
obviously stand a better chance because she was so lame and not likely to have appealed to other men. Then of course if he could – if that happened – breaking into Whittington’s
would be easy.’

Screwing up his eyes against the light, Leigh reached for a cigarette packet, pulled one out with fumbling fingers, tapped it on his thumb nail. ‘Who in God’s name told you
this?’

‘It was just a nasty dream.’

‘Cock . . .’

‘All right. I worked it out for myself.’

‘How long have you known?’

‘You don’t deny it?’

He swallowed. ‘It’s hard to deny, God help me, because it’s partly true. But it’s only half the truth!’

‘What’s the other half?’

He stopped tapping the cigarette but didn’t light it. ‘Oh, Deborah, what a thing for you to find out! Christ, I – I don’t know what to say. Who
told
you?’

‘Who knows? Ted? Jack? Anyone else?’

‘No. No, of course not. But they wouldn’t – couldn’t . . . Oh, Deb, what a flaming mess! But if you guessed as much as this, you must surely have worked out the rest
too!’

I sat up, pushed myself up the bed to lean against the headboard. ‘What else should I know?’

‘
Well . . .
it began like that – or more or less like that. I can’t bear to think that you know – you were never, never meant to know – but I’ve got to
be honest with you: it did. But it was only an
idea
, just a general thought, no more. Meet her; see what happens. Nothing more than that. It began that way but it hasn’t ended that
way, has it.’

‘Hasn’t it? I thought it had ended exactly that way.’

He made an impatient gesture, got out of bed, pulled the curtains across, came and sat on my side of the bed. ‘What d’you think? D’you think I’ve been play-acting all
this time?’

‘When did you stop?’

‘For Christ’s sake! Pretty early on. I fell in love with you. You can’t have failed to notice that!’

‘But when did it stop, Leigh? When did it stop? When did the play-acting stop?’

The cigarette was still in his hand but he had bent it. He flung it on the floor. ‘There wasn’t an exact moment. Not exactly. But early on. You see . . .’

‘You’ll get cold sitting there. Put the fire on.’

He kicked the switch with his bare foot. ‘You see . . .’

I said: ‘You came to that first party with instructions. You’d got to find the girl and make a fuss of her – see how she took it. Isn’t that it?’

‘Not in so many words. There wasn’t any “got to” about it. It was a suggestion. See if it was worth following up.’

‘And it was.’

‘You bet it was! D’you think I’d have gone after someone I didn’t like, just to please those two?’

‘I don’t know. But you found “going after” me interesting?’

‘It got me right from the start.
You
got me right from the start. I didn’t
need
any pushing on from behind!’

The bars of the fire were reddening slowly, like a sore place.

‘But there must have been a point, somewhere, where there was a change, if there was a change. Was it before we went to Spain?’

‘Yes, yes, yes, long before. From the very beginning, I tell you. It pleased me – in a way – to be able to suit them and suit myself at the same time . . . But I suppose if
there was one time when I realized how serious it was for me, it was when you found I was married and cut me off. I found I couldn’t get on without you.’

‘Certainly the scheme couldn’t get on without me.’

He leaned over and put his hand on my arm. ‘Look, look look, I tell you it wasn’t
like
that! I swear it wasn’t like that. I’ve been crazy about you. How can I
prove it? Haven’t I proved it already?’

There was silence. ‘You say you love me?’

‘Christ, yes! You know I do.’

‘But when you fell in love with me, didn’t it ever occur to you to stop “using” me? Feeling as you did and doing as you did should contradict each other.’

‘No, they don’t because I needed money,
we
needed money, to be able to set up together. I swear I’ll never deceive you in anything important again! I
swear
it,
Deb.’

‘You even used the information I let slip to get your friends to steal the Vosper tiara. How did you feel about that? Didn’t it ever trouble you?’

‘It troubled me like hell. All of this has troubled me. I’ve felt so much of a heel so often. But I’ve had one excuse, and that seemed to me
just
to make things
excusable, and that was that I was doing it for
you
. If—’

‘You were doing it for me and for yourself and for Ted Sandymount and for Jack Foil. But chiefly for Jack Foil.’

He swallowed and pushed a hand through his hair. His face in the shadowed light looked strangely handsome; his pyjama jacket was unbuttoned and showed his white throat and strong young body.
‘All right, I’m a heel. I’m a rotten stinking gett. But I
love
you. Does that mean anything to you in any language any longer?’

I said: ‘It’s queer how Jack Foil planned it all. How he played the fish – through you – and the fish swallowed the bait just as he arranged it.’

‘Maybe it seems like that to you now, but it hasn’t
been
like that!’

‘There never was a man called “Baker” Evans, was there?’

‘Who? “Baker” Evans? Of the Safeguards, d’you mean?’

‘Yes. There never was such a man. Because—’

‘I didn’t know that! I swear Jack told me—’

‘Jack reasoned that if the whole plan could be prepared before I was asked to co-operate as a full partner and then this fictitious man fell ill, I’d give in and do his job. If
he’d asked me at the beginning to stay behind and open the door for you, I’d have turned it down with horror. It was all carefully phased – tailor-made to fit my fears and my
conscience.’

‘Now you’re making him out cleverer than he really is. He’s only played it as it came—’