Tremor (33 page)

Jones was too clever for that and stayed in Rotherhithe with his common-law family, but he had been nobbled a few years later and was still serving a long stretch. Bad luck, Jonesy, Smith had said to himself, sitting in the sun of Fuengirola. This might be a bit boring, but it was better than working for a living.

‘Excuse me,' said Madge, addressing a tall bearded man who was passing by in European clothes. ‘ Do you speak English?'

The tall man looked from one to the other of the strange couple and stopped.

‘Spika da English?' said Smith, making his point.

‘Oh, yes, I do.'

‘We was wondering,' Madge said, ‘we was wondering what time the next bus back was.'

‘Afraid I don't know,' said Matthew. Then he addressed in French a stout young Arab in a long black jellaba. Conversation took place, the Arab bowed and walked on.

‘He says there is one at noon.'

‘Stone me,' said Smith. ‘ That's – that's an hour and a half …'

‘Come on, Big,' Madge said. ‘We can walk. Isn't far, is it, mister?'

Matthew smiled. ‘Mile. Mile and a half. It's all downhill.'

Smith said: ‘Going down hurts my bleedin' hip more than going up.'

They started off. It had been on the tip of Madge's tongue to ask: ‘Are you English, then?' and maybe get into conversation, but the man did not look very friendly, so what the hell.

Matthew took a deep breath and looked about him for the last time. Perhaps he should have gone to Taroudant, where all his greatest happiness had been. But he could not face it. He could not face going to stay in a hotel which he had known as a private residence and where he had loved with such fervour so long ago.

Although yet only fifty-three this visit had made him feel old. His youth was gone. He might, he supposed, now call himself middle middle-aged. Time for another, a final change? Return to England at last? Seeking a youth that couldn't come back. Did he seek anything else? Not long ago he had met a man on Bondi Beach who came from Hampstead and knew the general area pretty well. Coincidentally this man had met a Mrs Patterson, one-time widow of this writer chap whose novels had been all the rage a few years ago. Patterson, her husband, was in law, he thought, quite a bit older than her, looking to become a QC. They had three children: one was autistic. Had he ever known the author? Matthew enquired. No, before my time. I was at school in the sixties.

From another source Matthew learned that his mother had died in 1975. His two half-sisters were married with families of their own.

So what to go back to? His third novel, published in London and Melbourne, and later in New York, had not done much. Of course it was not by Matthew Sorensen. Only a literary unknown called Henry Delaware.

Matthew began to walk down the hill following behind the odd couple who had spoken to him. Loud, unsuitable clothes, Bermondsey accents, what had brought them here? They didn't look like people who would sit on the beach all day and bathe.

As he went down he began to catch up this pair. Some sense of not wanting to get involved – and for God's sake he had got involved far more than he had ever expected last night, what with the little Frenchwoman, now all respectable, recognizing him, and the young American recognizing his name and knowing his recordings – that was more than enough. This afternoon he would be on his way to Paris. So Big Smith and Matthew Morris walked down the hill almost

together. They did not know each other and they had never known

each other. They would never speak again.
They walked in tandem all the way back to the town.

First published in 1995 by Macmillan

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