The part of rich and innocent traveller had got me through, but I felt less relaxed now that it had, shattered in every fibre as I drove carefully out and into freedom. On pulling up beyond the dock gates Bill gave the autostop sign with his thumb, so I took him back on board before Rachel’s father came along in his Vauxhall.
He lifted his suitcase, a prominent GB sticker plainly showing, and from what car he had unpeeled it during his short absence I was too bemused to wonder. He was nothing if not resourceful. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”
“Michael, I can’t see that it’s needed. You’re here, aren’t you? You’re unscathed. And you know why? Because there was nobody in the car except you. If there had been two, and one of them was me, who has criminal written all over his face—the Italians aren’t daft—they would have searched the car and found everything. Also, the unusual fact of you being on the wrong side of the car to the customs window preoccupied the man quite a bit, as I’d known it would. I realised you were upset and distrustful, not to say horrified, when I jumped ship, but that frame of mind helped to throw you back into your usual state of confident equilibrium. All that was going around my brainbox at a rate of knots, and I knew it was the only thing I could do to save the day for both of us. If instead of being a soldier of fortune I’d grown up to be an accountant I could say once again that you owe me.”
“You’re a bastard,” I said, “but I love you all the same.”
“I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you that I’ve been called that word a number of times in my life, but shall I tell you something? My mother and father were married when they had me, though they had a right miserable time of it till I was old enough to join the army. Then all I had to think about was how not to get killed, which was dead easy, and a step up in life compared to the hard times before.”
Rain sluiced down as if we were under water. “Don’t tell me you were turning your mother’s mangle when you were five, and she took in colliers’ washing. And she was pregnant for the tenth time.”
He flashed a smile in the mirror. “I was only three, if you want to know, which reminds me, breakfast on the boat was a bit skimpy, and it’s twelve o’clock now because we’ve changed our watches. To say my guts are rumbling would do them an injustice. There’s a banging down there like drums along the Congo.”
I’d had nothing since eating spuds and octopus in Greece, so pulled into a service station beyond Bari for petrol and something to put in our mouths. Opening Alice Whipplegate’s envelope of lira I made the mistake of asking Bill to go in and order while I filled the tank at the pumps.
I bought a detailed map of the area around Sophie’s house, then went into the café part of the building and saw six bottles of beer, three coffees, a plate of fancy cakes, a brace of enormous sandwiches, and several packets of cigarettes on the table. “Are you expecting company?”
His crocodile chops were ably managing a long crispy loaf with sheets of salami hanging out. I had to take mine to pieces, otherwise my jaws would come adrift. “You know I always eat on the assumption that you can never be sure where your next meal is coming from.”
“I suppose that’s why you stay so thin. But I have bad news for you, I’m afraid.” Problems kept you young, or so I had heard, and the next one coming up was how to get rid of Bill before turning off the motorway near Ancona to call on Sophie. I had memorised her address and pencilled the location in on the map. I pleasantly reflected that adventures with women had happened reasonably often in the last few weeks, with Frances my everloving wife first of all, then Claudine Forks the bereft Nottingham widow, followed by Sophie on the train, Marie in Greece, and Rachel on the ship. Now it was to be Sophie again. After checking through the list to make sure I’d left no one out I realised I’d almost forgotten what Sophie looked like, but supposed that when she opened the door with a welcoming smile I would know her well enough.
Bill swigged off the second cup of coffee, and on me picking up the third turned to a bottle of beer. “There’s no such thing as bad news for me,” he said.
“South of Ancona,” I told him, hoping he’d weep at the news, “I’m going off into the hills on my own. I’ve got a woman to see.”
He looked as if this was the best news for months. “That bint on the train you told me about? We can both see her.”
I didn’t swear, so that he would know I was serious. “No we won’t.”
“I promise to behave, and leave the field clear for you.”
She wouldn’t have anything to do with a scumbag like him, but I knew that if I dropped him on the motorway he would display his GB sign, which he’d stuck on the lapel of his jacket, and wait for Rachel’s father who, being a decent bloke, wouldn’t leave a smart-looking Englishman by the roadside. I wished I had never met him begging at Liverpool Street. “All right, we’ll stay together, but no hanky-panky, or I’ll cut you off without a crust.”
He tapped my hand. “It’s not that I’m after your woman. Why should I want to run you off? They’re all over the place. My only purpose in life is to see you safe to the White Cliffs of Dover and beyond, and make sure Moggerhanger’s powders don’t come to harm. If you tell him what a help I’ve been he might give me a job. I could do with a spot of work. I won’t have to do anymore begging then.”
You couldn’t discourage someone who needed employment, especially a friend from too long ago. We motored through one monsoon after another, water belting down like flak against a bomber. I was as anxious as a helmsman at his wheel, but kept the old ship ploughing on. When clouds moved aside near Pescara we saw the spectacular coast, and rivers with lushly wooded banks coming from the mountains, crossed by long viaducts. Tunnels under the connecting spurs were dim and narrow from the steering of a Roller, though I soon enjoyed whatever peril there was, Bill meanwhile telling stories of accidents he’d been in. “Some were so serious the cars were write-offs, but none of it was my fault.”
“After a night or two with Sophie we’ll drive fast to Switzerland, and get over the Alps.”
“No, Michael,” he said. “We won’t go that way, not with all that there is in the back. The Swiss will be sure to find it. Every cuckoo in the land will burst with laughter as it pops out of its clock and sees us being led away. We’ll make our way home through France, then there’ll be only one frontier to cross before the Channel. I’m doing another good turn telling you this. I know Moggerhanger said you should go home through Jugoslavia, but we don’t know what his motives were, do we? Maybe he doesn’t have any. He isn’t all that clued up nowadays, if you ask me. He’s getting old.”
I had wondered about that myself, but would age make him more cunning, or less? I turned off the autoroute and drove through a village. “By the way, I told Sophie I was Lord Blaskin, and that my chauffeur had gone down with appendicitis. I’ll have to say you recovered, and met me in Athens.”
He settled himself more comfortably, and with binoculars spied out the landscape of vines and mulberries on low hills like a cavalry colonel from his scout car. “I’ll back you up. Rely on me. If that’s the case, though, you’d better let me take over the car, or she won’t believe you.”
I didn’t want that, because though he could drive anything from a soapbox on wheels to a hundred-ton motorhome I couldn’t bear the thought of the gaffer’s pride and joy getting into someone else’s hands, not even Bill’s. “I’ve broken nearly all Moggerhanger’s rules on this trip, but the one I’ll stick to is not to let anybody else get at the wheel. If Sophie remarks on me driving I’ll tell her you’ve had eight bottles of beer since leaving the ship, and can’t be trusted.”
His reply came soon enough. “Michael,” he scoffed, “nearly all accidents are caused by people who haven’t touched a drop. And watch out for that little old man crossing the road, by the way. You know I can drive better when I’ve had a couple or two. I say, that looks a comfortable café up on the cor
ner.” He belched. “I could do with another sandwich.”
I passed it. “There’s nowhere to park. Tell me what the map says.” “You’re a cruel bloody taskmaster, Michael.”
“So which way now?”
“Beyond the next little town we turn right and go up a hill. Another three kilometres, and the house should be on the left.”
Even after last night’s delectable bout with Rachel, and knowing I would be half dead on stepping out of the car, I was beginning to twitch for another cakewalk in Sophie’s velvet lining. “Stop by the roadside,” he said. “I want to check the map.”
I used the binoculars for a closer look: a typical Italian farmhouse on a low hill, almost surrounded by trees. Exactly as she had described it. A BMW, a Rover, and an old Fiat were parked outside, but I didn’t like the fact that every shutter was closed except one, which had a white towel hanging from the sill. Maybe she wasn’t there. She could be shopping in the nearest town. Or squatters had got in. Things didn’t seem right.
Bill went to the gate, and signalled that the name on the postbox was the right one. He came back. “If I go up on my belly with the gun I’ll have the place on our side of the line in two minutes.”
“Any unnecessary violence,” I said, “and I’ll have you put down.”
“Oh you are a hard man. I’ll stay in the car, then, if that’s your express wish.”
I drove up the track and, in the space available, did a three-pointer till the car faced roadwards, a wise manoeuvre in an unknown place. Bill got into my seat, while I walked until a heavy lion-headed knocker stared me in the face. I let it bang a couple of times, thinking the hinges needed a squirt of WD-40, when the door squeaked open like one in Castle Dracula.
A tall thin bloke in khaki shorts and singlet, with a raddled face and a pot belly, asked what I wanted. He had a spur of short grey hair on an otherwise bald head, and wore an earring, not the person I cared to know. Sophie, angled behind, put a finger to her lips, so I assumed him to be her husband.
“I’m Lord Blaskin,” I drawled, “wandering the area. Heard in town there was a house for sale this way. Pretty landscape, don’t you know? Be nice to find a bolt hole here.”
His suspicions dissolved like milk in a cup of tea. “Do you know of any place?” he asked Sophie, in a halfway civilised voice his appearance denied.
“I heard the Thompsons had notions of selling up, but I think the place went.”
“No problem,” I said. “We’ll go on with our exploring. It’s a pleasant enough pastime. So sorry to have troubled you.” Hopes crushed in a rubbish wagon, is how it was. If he wasn’t her husband he was some toerag the trollop had picked up on the motorway, who’d spun better tales than I had.
“Lord Blaskin,” she said, “I’m Sophie, and this is my brother Lionel. He doesn’t like me being here on my own, so came from London to make sure I’d be all right. Didn’t you, Lionel, darling?”
Brother my arse. I couldn’t bear to look as if I cared.
“Would you like to join us for a cup of tea?” she said. “I’ve this minute made it.”
Halfway behind the man she made a hand movement for me to say no. “Thank you so much. Awfully kind, but I must get on. It’s rather late, and we ought to be in Ravenna by sundown.” I disliked the look of the house, and them. Even if I wangled a way into staying I didn’t fancy playing Box and Cox in and out of her bedroom all night. And it was plain from Lionel’s sour clock that he didn’t want me to have that cup of tea, either, being the real bloody Englishman abroad who thought I might run away with the sugar spoon. I turned to go. “Thank you for your kindness.”
“I must have a closer look at your marvellous car. We haven’t had one of those in the grounds before, have we, Lionel?” The surly bastard didn’t even grunt. “I’ll be back in a moment,” she called to him over her shoulder, and followed me outside.
“What’s going on?”
“I didn’t know how to get in touch with you and say not to call. Oh, Michael, I was so looking forward to us being in bed. I can’t tell you. Then damned Lionel had to come and look after me. Can you imagine, at my age? My family’s always treated me like a child. I suspect my mother had a hand in it. They probably had an emergency general meeting. Lionel didn’t even want to come. That’s why he was so short with you. But he had to do as he was told. If I put a foot wrong while he’s here he’ll tell my husband, just to upset him, because they hate each other.”
“What a family,” was the only thing to say.
“You don’t know one half. But please, Michael, phone me in England. I’m only staying here a week. Come and see me in Highgate. I gave you my address on the train, remember?” She made cooing noises over the car so that bloody Lionel could hear. “Must go now,” she said. “Have a good trip back. Love you!”
After I had watched her into the house Bill moved over to let me in. “I saw what was going on. My heart bleeds for you, but you can’t win ’em all.”
I was too dispirited to shut him up.
“Now let’s get back to the coast,” he said, “and find a nice cushy billet in one of them lovely seaside resorts we’ve been passing since leaving Brindisi. I’m looking forward to dinner and a few quarts of wine.”
Hope had never been more completely dashed, and all I needed was silence in which to brood on my loss. I went up the motorway as fast as the Roller would roll. I was not unfamiliar with disappointment, knowing that whenever I went too far out of my way for love or gain the results were negative more often than not. I should have known better than to make the detour, though hope could never be denied or resisted. My blood had run on hope from as far back as I could remember, hardly a minute going when hope for something or other wasn’t making hundred-watt fantasies lighting every dark place of my mind to such an extent that I wouldn’t stop and question the purpose of life, which we are all supposed to do so as to get to know oneself.
But why should I want to know myself? Whatever I found out about my nature wouldn’t alter the way I wanted to go on living. I found the world interesting enough without knowing myself. In any case hadn’t I known myself from birth? And if you didn’t you might as well kill yourself as know yourself. Imagine somebody sitting on the sofa with fingers in the armholes of his waistcoat and saying with stupid pride: “Ah, that’s that, then. At last! I know myself. That’s one thing out of the way. Now I can start to live. Can’t I, mother?” How fucking ridiculous, or hopeless, could anyone get?
Such reflections brought me back to as much contented mental health as I was capable of putting up with. Mountains dimmed beyond Ancona, the sea turning to a lake of wax. Hope thwarted could only lead back to happiness while waiting for the next hopeful situation to turn up, was all I cared to know.
Bill slept like a grown up baby, only waking now and again to wonder when we were going to get where we were going and ask were we there yet?
In the middle of Ravenna I went in ever decreasing circles trying to get out, till a smart young policeman waved me down. God knows what I’ve done, I was so knackered it could have been anything. He must have seen me coming ten times along the same street, so I got the window down and told him we were looking for a hotel.
He pointed his baton to a sign indicating the Marina di Ravenna. We’d find one on the coast a couple of miles away. “Good car, sir,” he said in English, his smile reinforced by such a salute that even Bill was impressed.
“Aren’t policemen nice in Italy?” I said to him, on getting out of town with no trouble at all.
“Michael, the police are pleasant everywhere, except when they think you’ve done something wrong. In some countries they’re very stonefaced and unhelpful.”
The land to either side of the straight road was flat, with what looked rice fields to either side. I soon pulled up under a palm tree in the courtyard of the best hotel, and a lovely dark-haired girl at the desk
showed us into an opulent old-fashioned room with two solid beds.
Bill fell on the one nearest the bathroom. “I’ll have half an hour’s shut-eye before dinner.”
I craved the same, but a sense of duty forced me to find a phone and get in touch with Moggerhanger. I didn’t particularly feel like talking to him, and hoped he wasn’t at home, but it was dead easy to get through.
“Michael, is that really you? I had put you down as missing presumed killed in action, and was wondering what sort of headstone I’d ask the undertakers to make when your body was brought back in a refrigerated train. Then again I thought I might have to fit up an expedition to find out what exactly had happened to you. The kindest thing I can say is that you haven’t reported back for nearly a week. I was about to pull all the pins out of the map and cut my losses.”
The sound of them tinkling into his metal waste bin chilled my bones. “There aren’t any losses,” I said. “Everything’s safe in the back of the Roller. It’s just that I had a bit of bother in Greece.”
“Of what kind? You know I like to be kept in the picture.”
I began to sound like Bill, on saying: “Do you mind if I tell it all at the debriefing?”
“Since I can’t get at your throat I suppose I shall have to. But would you mind telling me the locations of your recent nightstops?”
I did. “And now I’m in Ravenna.”
“I’m working overtime with the pins, but at least your route is beginning to come clear. Damn! I’ve pricked myself. You’ve made me bleed. That’s a serious misdemeanour. But weren’t you supposed to come back through Jugoslavia, the way you went? Correct me if I’m wrong.”
Moggerhanger Page 24
