The Nick of Time

by Francis King

  Unaccountably, Jacek all at once felt sorry for the Indian. Selim had so often exasperated him beyond endurance, attaching himself to him unasked and then vomiting out the molten lava of his fury against the whole world. But now, without knowing why, Jacek had started to miss him. They seemed to be closer in Selim’s absence than they had ever been when Selim was a constant, importunate, irritating presence.

  Eventually Mehmet looked at his watch and said: ‘Well, we return? Yes?’ He got to his feet, picking up the copy of the Sun that he had been carrying around with him. At one point he had opened it and looked at the horses, prompting Jacek to ask: ‘Do you – do you …?’, a forefinger indicating the page, since he did not know the word ‘bet’. Mehmet had nodded. ‘Sometimes. And often lucky. Last week, I place ten pounds – thirty-two to one. I win!’

  Jacek had only half understood. He had known that something good had befallen Mehmet but he could not have said precisely what.

  When they entered the hangar-like garage, it was eerily silent and empty. Outside it, Roberto was smoking a cigarette, leaning against the wall in a patch of fragile sunlight. He did not greet them or even smile at them when they passed him; his usual cheerful face was pensive, even glum, as he sucked on the Gauloise pinched between grimy finger and thumb. Two men, both English, were working together on a taxi at the far end. They looked up when Mehmet and Jacek entered and then at once looked down. Jacek sensed something dark and treacherous, like a plague about to erupt.

  Suddenly Mr Klingsman emerged from his office, his plump, round face pale and puckered. He drew a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and held it to his lips, as he might have done if someone had punched him in the mouth and it was bleeding. When he was near them, he lowered the handkerchief. His bottom lip was twitching. ‘You two had better beat it as quick as you can.’ The urgency with which he spoke at once communicated itself to Jacek, he knew at once that something bad had happened. But Mehmet was totally unaffected. ‘What up, Fritz?’ he asked in the sort of voice in which he might have asked what needed to be done to a vehicle just brought in.

  ‘It must be that little shit Selim. You heard him threaten me when I gave him the shove. They were here, the police and immigration people. Half an hour ago. Took everyone – except those with permits. I’ve lost the whole bloody lot. You’d better scarper before they return. If they return.’

  ‘What going to happen to them?’ Mehmet asked, in the same calm, relaxed tone.

  ‘To who?’

  ‘To others.’

  ‘How do I know?’ The tone was peevish. ‘Deportation most likely. That’s what usually happens. Except for those fly buggers who manage to claim asylum. Then – who knows? There’s such a state of bloody chaos at that place in Croydon that they can often spin it out for years and years. As often as not the papers just get lost. The other day in the Sun there was something about the rats having been at work on some of them.’

  Jacek was now desperate to get away as quickly as possible. He had not understood all that Mr Klingsman had said but he had grasped the reason for the men’s disappearance and had guessed that he, too, might suffer the same disaster. ‘We go,’ he whispered urgently to Mehmet. ‘ Quick!’

  But Mehmet paid no attention. ‘What about our money, Fritz?’

  ‘Your money?’’

  ‘Five days.’

  ‘All right, all right! Yes. I’ll get it for you. But after that you’d better make yourselves scarce.’

  Mr Klingsman rushed into the office. Mehmet pointed to the shed in which the staff left their belongings and, during their breaks, could perch uncomfortably on one or other of two long wooden benches. ‘You have things in there?’

  Jacek nodded.

  ‘Me too. We better fetch them.’

  Mehmet took his time collecting his belongings, while Jacek waited on the threshold of the hut in mounting dread. Finally Mehmet was ready. He smiled cheerfully. ‘Let’s go.’

  Mr Klingsman padded over. He pushed across the notes to Mehmet. ‘ There you are! You can split that. Fifty-fifty. I’ve added something for the tips. Mehmet – I’m sorry about this. You were a bloody good worker. And you’re a bloody good chap. All these fucking regulations!’ He was genuinely upset to see Mehmet go. He paid no attention to Jacek.

  Mehmet threw his arms around Mr Klingsman and kissed him ceremonially first on one flushed cheek and then the other. ‘This how we say goodbye in my country,’ he said. Once Mehmet released him, Mr Klingsman edged away, more embarrassed than pleased.

  Outside, as they began to walk towards the Underground station, Mehmet said: ‘Well, c’est fini. Too bad.’

  ‘Difficult to find job.’

  ‘It get more and more difficult as more and more refugee come.’

  Jacek tried to quicken their progress, for fear of being caught if the immigration people and the police were to return. But Mehmet refused to respond.

  ‘Maybe I must go back to Poland,’ Jacek said bleakly.

  ‘No, don’t do that. Something good come. Sure.’

  Jacek was far from certain of that. ‘ So you are also illegal.’ It was something about which he had never been sure. Now he was.

  Mehmet did not answer. He merely smiled, more to himself than to Jacek.

  At the Underground station, Mehmet said that he had some things to do, he would not be taking his train yet.

  Jacek, who was desperate for them to get even farther away from the car wash, pleaded with him: ‘No, no! No here, no more here! Come, come.’ But Mehmet repeated: ‘I have some things to do. Someone to see. Sorry.’

  ‘Then …?’ There was a note of both pleading and interrogation in Jacek’s voice.

  ‘Then – we say goodbye!’ Mehmet’s laugh rang out.

  Jacek pointed at Mehmet’s chest. ‘You.’ He pointed at his own chest. ‘Me. See again?’

  ‘Maybe. Yes. Why not?’ Again Mehmet laughed.

  ‘But …’ Jacek frowned, like a child brought close to tears by something he cannot grasp despite all his efforts. At last he said, again pointing at Mehmet’s chest: ‘Address? You – address?’

  Mehmet pulled out a pack of cigarettes and held it out to Jacek. Had he not remembered that Jacek had given up smoking in order not to spend money on a habit so expensive? When Jacek shook his head, Mehmet drew out a cigarette for himself, in slow motion as it seemed to the Pole in his increasing agitation to be off, and carefully lit it. He puffed, once, twice, three times. Then screwing up his eyes as a gust of sulphur-laden wind blew smoke into them, he said: ‘Soon I move. So – ’ he shrugged – ‘no use give you my address now. But’ – he put out a hand, placed it on Jacek’s shoulder and then squeezed it, as he had so often done in the past – ‘I have your address. And telephone number. So – we keep touch.’ Jacek was looking up at him with a distracted, frightened expression. It was almost as if those palest of blue eyes would all at once fill with tears. ‘So – we – keep – touch.’ Mehmet isolated each of the words as he repeated them more loudly. He might have been talking to someone deaf.

  Jacek nodded gratefully. ‘Please. Telephone. Please!’ The voice became desperate. He stared up at Mehmet, he choked as he struggled for words. Then again he pointed. ‘You. You my. Only. Friend.’ He nodded. ‘Friend. Brother. I dream of such a brother. Then you come. Dream become true.’

  Mehmet smiled at him, head on one side. There was indulgence in the smile, also a vague fondness. ‘So, Jacek.’ Now he put both hands on Jacek’s shoulder, he drew him to him. ‘So. We say goodbye. And in my country …’ He kissed Jacek first on one cheek and then on the other, as he had kissed Mr Klingsman. There was little emotion in the kiss and Jacek was cruelly aware of that.

  A moment later Mehmet was gone. He swung round on a heel and then, even as Jacek was looking after him, he disappeared into a crowd of people who, a train having just arrived, were pouring up out of the station.

  For a few moments Jacek’s gaze fluttered hither and thither. Then he knew that it was
no good. He began his descent.

  ‘Jacek! What’s the matter?’

  Polly, who had not gone to work because of one of her bad periods, knew at once that something was wrong.

  ‘Oh, Polly, Polly!’ Like a child seeking his mother’s arms, Jacek rushed at her, as she stood staring at him from beside the sink. Water dripped off her hands and then they were moist through his grubby shirt, as she enfolded him to her, squeezed him.

  ‘Something terrible happen. Terrible. Terrible.’

  ‘What is it?’ He did not answer, his cheek now laid against her left breast and his hand on her right. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Terrible. I no see. No see. Mehmet again.’

  It was only later that he told her about the loss of his job, and even later of his decision to go back to Poland.

  Chapter Seven

  In a mood of uncharacteristic gloom, Meg had leaned against the frame of the sitting-room window, her crutches resting beside her, and stared out into a street in which everyone seemed to be rushing to work. She would now never rush to anything, she had bitterly mused. It would be enough if she could crawl there. After several minutes, she had then turned back to Eric, who was sitting in an armchair behind her, checking a telephone bill received that morning. From time to time he had been addressing her back with some remark like: ‘ Who the hell telephoned Godalming for eleven minutes? I don’t know a soul in Godalming. Do you know anyone in Godalming?’ or ‘Here’s a call to Edinburgh, I don’t believe it, I just don’t believe it.’ Meg had made no answer, indeed had hardly heard him, so absorbed had she been in the reverie that was sweeping her along on its black, rushing, subterranean stream.

  Eventually she had swung herself round. ‘What the hell are these remissions that people keep talking about?’ she had demanded, the bitterness that had been fermenting in her suddenly exploding in anger. ‘That’s what I’d like to know. I’ve had no remissions, not a single one. I’m no more likely to have a remission than to fly in Concorde or win the lottery. They tell one these things to keep one’s spirits up. That’s all, that’s bloody all.’

  Eric had looked up from the bill. ‘It’ll come,’ he had said, making one of those efforts, which were becoming increasingly difficult for him, to be reasonable and calm when she raged against her condition. ‘You wait and see. It’ll come.’

  Now, so many years after Eric had upped and left her, the remission had indeed come, just as he and that Chinaman had predicted. Less and less did she need to summon Mehmet’s assistance, shouting out to him ‘Mehmet, could you come and lend a hand?’ or, more peremptory, ‘Mehmet, Mehmet, I need you. Yes, at once!’ She was able to take a few faltering steps without the crutches, and to hold a full kettle in one hand instead of needing both. ‘ It’s odd,’ she told Mehmet in a peevish, complaining voice that might have been expected if her condition had deteriorated instead of improved, ‘last night I never had a single one of those spasms and all day yesterday there were no pins and needles. What d’you make of that?’

  ‘You getting better.’

  She frowned at him: ‘That’ll be the day.’

  Soon, she no longer needed him to stand over her, ready to pass her soap, facecloth and scrubbing brush when she took one of her rare baths. He would merely help her into the tub and then leave her to soak on and on there, from time to time running in some more scalding water, until she called out to him to help her out. Once she was out of the bath, there was no longer any need for him to hand her the towel or even to rub her down.

  Then the day came when, having managed to get up from the armchair unaided, she suddenly appeared, hanging on to the jamb of the half-open door of his bedroom, to ask if he felt like a breath of air.

  ‘Oh, Meg, this marvellous!’, he cried, his pleasure an amplified echo of hers. ‘A miracle!’

  What tosh! A miracle was something that lasted. This was a remission. But nonetheless, as he helped her on with her overcoat and then firmly took her arm, she felt a sudden excitement. This excitement intensified when, for the first time for so long, she was seeing everything and everyone in the street from a totally different perspective from that provided by the chair. ‘Hold me tight!’ she told him. ‘Don’t let me fall!’

  ‘What an idea!’

  ‘Yes, you’re strong,’ she told him appreciatively. For so long she had been unable to grip anything. Now she could actually squeeze his arm. ‘Unlike my poor Eric. When I started to be ill, before they gave me the chair, it was always a problem for him to help me around. He was always frightened of his back, that was the thing. ‘‘I’m going to put out my back again,’’ he’d tell me. He’d always had this trouble with it. No, he was not strong like you. Always something wrong with him.’

  That first walk was a brief one, up slowly to the Methodist church at the end of the road, then a rest on the bench outside it, fortunately for once not occupied by what Meg called vagabonds, and then even more slowly back again. ‘Oh, I feel quite done in!’ she sighed, as she flopped back into her arm-chair on their return. But there was colour in her cheeks and her eyes shone. ‘Be an angel and make me a cuppa.’ She knew that Mehmet shared in her joy at her recovery of the powers that had for so long seemed to have been lost forever, and she was touched that he should do so. It made her feel even closer to him and even fonder of him.

  ‘You’re a good sort, Mehmet. Do you know that?’

  ‘Am I? Am I really?’

  ‘Yes. You’re a good son. I’m telling you that.’

  Mehmet was late. He was often late, never giving her a reason. Perhaps he had a girlfriend? she pondered for the umpteenth time. Or perhaps he met up with other Albanians in some caff or bar? She never asked about his whereabouts, because she had learned that he did not like her to do so and would politely evade any answer if she did. Today, she was impatient for his return, because she wanted to tell him that, no longer with the crutches but merely with a stick, she had ventured out on her own and had even been able to make her way, unaided, to the tobacconist’s. As both a trophy and a proof to him that she had been there, she had even bought him a packet of the Superkings Light that she knew that he smoked – not when with her in the sitting room, unless she was smoking herself, but in his bedroom, the window wide open even on the coldest day, so that the smell should not bother her, even though she repeatedly told him that of course it never did, she was such a heavy smoker herself.

  At last she heard the sound of his key in the door.

  ‘Is that you, Mehmet pet?’

  ‘Yes, Mamma. Just one moment. I must go toilet.’

  His voice usually sounded so cheerful and vigorous when he returned from the car wash, it always gave her a lift after she had spent a long day on her own. But now it had a weary, discouraged sound to it. She knew that something had gone wrong.

  When he eventually appeared, she said: ‘Well, what sort of day did we have?’

  He shrugged, pulling down the comers of his mouth, and then picked up her copy of the Radio Times and flicked over the pages.

  ‘Busy?’

  ‘So-so.’ He threw down the magazine on to a worn leather pouffe, brought back by Eric from a Middle East cruise, and said: ‘Bad news.’

  ‘Bad news?’ She was meant to be the one who had bad news, he the one for whom the news was always good. She stared at him, a hand going up to a cheek and stroking at a coffee-coloured mole on it. ‘ What’s happened, dear?’

  ‘I have lost job.’

  ‘What? How?’

  He perched on an arm of the sofa opposite to hers and began to tell her the story of his departure from the car wash.

  At the end, she said: ‘You never told me. I never knew.’ It was more sorrowful than accusatory.

  ‘Never told what? Never knew what? What you talking about, Mamma?’

  She was now embarrassed. The secret was, she had decided, a shameful one, and to reveal it was like revealing that one had Aids or had been in the nick. She turned her head aside and, biting her lips, said
nothing.

  ‘What you mean?’

  ‘Well – I had no idea that – that you were – well – an illegal.’

  ‘I did not wish worry you, Mamma. You have too many worries already.’

  That touched her; he was always thinking about what was best for her. ‘Yes, and that was sweet of you, Mehmet. But your worries are my worries. Surely you know that by now.’

  About his illegal presence in the country he was clearly not prepared to tell her more. But, consumed by both anxiety and inquisitiveness, she persisted. ‘Why didn’t you come into the country regular like? Wasn’t that possible for you?’

  ‘Difficult,’ he said. He frowned, tugging viciously with one hand at the leather fringe of the moccasin that, legs crossed one over the other, was resting on his knee.

  ‘Don’t do that, dear,’ she chided him, as she might have chided a child for picking its nose or scratching at a scab. ‘You’ll pull it off.’ Then, when he had let go of the leather fringe, she said: ‘ How did you get in then? Were you one of those smuggled in a lorry or in one of those small boats?’

  He shook his head. Then reluctantly he said: ‘I come as tourist. From Paris by Eurotunnel. Easy. Then – I just stay. I like it here, I stay.’

  ‘And you found that job – that car wash job – easily, did you?’

  ‘Oh, I have other jobs before. You know that, Mamma.’ He laughed. ‘ Some good, some bad, some very bad. But car wash was good. Good pay, good tips. Regular. Better than when I work for my friend in Chelsea. You remember? One day work, two days nothing. I have trouble with rent then. Bad for me, bad for poor Mamma.’

  ‘Oh, it’s such a shame you’ve lost that car wash job.’

  He nodded ruefully. ‘Jobs now not easy for illegals. There is new law, did you know that, Mamma? Now not only illegal gets punished, employer also. So – employers are frightened.’

  ‘Do you think you’ll be able to find another job?’