Undercurrent

by Frances Fyfield

  'Clothes, dear boy. Can always tell by the clothes. Also by the way people shake their heads.

  Your first visit?'

  'Why, yes. Always meant to, never did. . .'

  His head had been nodding, Henry realized and steadied it, immediately. His jaw had dropped, too. He was trying to pull himself together. Mr Burns, with the white skin, appalling haircut and ill-fitting clothes, was the man he had seen hurrying by in his ungainly way earlier in the morning. His hair still stood up in tufts and his shirt, on closer glance, was frayed at the collar.

  The cuffs were invisible since the sleeves of his jacket were long enough to cover his knuckles, giving the impression of long, thin fingers attempting to escape over the desk. The desk itself, partner sized, had once been magnificent, not an epithet Henry could have applied to the man, but the leather top was worn from red to dusty pink and looked as if Burns, or a pet of his, devoted some of each day to chewing it.

  There were two coasters, strategically positioned for the placing of cups, a precaution against further wear and tear which was redundant since the surface was already pitted with circular scars and the evidence of spills.

  Henry made sure his mouth was shut and tried to look Burns in the eye, man to man, but his gaze was distracted to above his head, where a large, stuffed fish was posed inside a glass tank, petrified against a background of alarmingly green weed. Burns caught Henry's eye.

  'I didn't catch it, oh dear me, no. The original Mr Chisholm probably did. One of my predecessors anyway, probably about 1910. It's lasted fairly well. They existed for that kind of sport, the lawyers, just as many of my contemporaries seem to exist for golf. Very good golf round here. I suppose you've come to work at Fergusons?'

  'Why, yes. That was another good guess, Mr Burns.'

  'Simple deduction, dear boy. You see an American in Warbling, and he's either working for Fergusons or being a tourist, and we don't get too many of those in winter, unless they're insane. I suppose you're looking for a house.'

  Henry's chair wobbled dangerously. He remembered to lean forward rather than back.

  There was something delightfully disingenuous about Mr Burns. There would have to be, for him to let himself out into the world, looking like that.

  'No, sir. I'm not looking for a house, not yet anyway. 1 don't have to start at Fergusons for a week or two yet and I don't know how long I'll be staying, but-'

  'Pioneering another drug, are you? New, improved Viagra?'

  Burns laughed. People always sniggered at the mention of the most famous drug Fergusons distributed, Henry thought with irritation; it was like kids discovering rude words. He waited for a few seconds, anticipating the next question so frequently asked - Have you got any spare? - but then decided Mr Burns was not vulgar enough for that. Henry was struggling to equate this gargoyle with attorneys of his own strata, beautifully suited, booted and spurred with power hair. He leaned further forward. The chair creaked again. The room reeked of cigarette smoke.

  'Mr Burns, I'm not buying anything. Truth is, I'm looking for someone. A woman. She was born and raised in this area and I knew her, what. . .' he coughed, embarrassed, '. . . oh, about twenty years ago. We were both kids, met backpacking in India. We were pretty good friends for a couple months, lost contact, you know how it goes. But I know she came back here. She said she'd never live anywhere else.' He coughed again awkwardly and directed his gaze at the fish. 'I got the impression that her family were in the upper bracket, A-grade sort of people, called Chisholm, like your firm. Francesca Chisholm. Does that ring any bells with you? Or if it doesn't, could you find out for me? I just thought, being an attorney in a town this size, you're all set to know who lives where.'

  His voice trailed away. There was a sudden image of Francesca in her shawl, passing by him in that ramshackle bus, missing him by minutes. He had dithered, said his stiff goodbyes, made for the station and the train as planned because Henry could never change a plan, and then he found the courage to do just that, run back, intercept her before she got on that damn bus, and say to her, either you go with me or I go with you, right? Makes no difference, as long as we go together. You mustn't go by yourself, you're not fit; I love you. I'll take you home. Too late. He had been running up the hill like a madman in the heat as the bus stormed down. She had not seen him, but he had seen her face at the window, crying into the shawl round her neck. Abandoned by him, haunting him ever since.

  'I didn't go back for her, Mr Burns,' he found himself saying. 'I didn't go back for her soon enough. I should have. She had to come back here because her father had died. I didn't understand.

  We had such plans. I tried to change my mind, but not soon enough. Should have turned back.'

  There was a silence, interrupted by the drumming of fingers on the ruined surface of the desk.

  'Twenty years ago, Mr Evans? Twenty years? It's a bloody lifetime.' Burns' peculiarly black, tufted eyebrows were arched to meet the mess of his hair. Henry's eyes wandered back to the fish in the glass case and he encouraged himself to wonder if beasts that size were swimming in the English Channel, like monsters of the deep. Your mind hops about like a frog, Henry, Francesca had told him once. It hops in a straight line more or less, via a series of sideways jumps. You can't sit on the fence, Henry; you'd never concentrate long enough. As well as thinking about the likely origins of the monster fish in order to distract himself from his own embarrassment, Henry was also wondering if everything Francesca had ever said to him was pertinent and observant, or whether it was the romantic deception of memory which made it seem so. They had laughed, much of the time; he had never since met a woman who made him laugh so much, but she had always seemed so much older than he. She seemed, in retrospect, to have emerged from her adolescence a fully formed woman, whereas he had been a boy.

  Burns lit a cigarette with all the furtive clumsiness of a boy; the smell of it brought Henry back to the present, made him aware he was in an old office space which was either entirely decrepit or deliberately eccentric, and a place where smoking was not only a health hazard but also a fire risk. Burns looked for an ashtray in the chaos of the desk top, failed after a desultory attempt and absentmindedly tapped the ash on the floor. Downstairs, the door banged; the building trembled and settled back to a kind of somnolence.

  'What a shame you aren't looking for a house, Mr Evans,' the lawyer resumed, chattily. 'Then I'd really be able to help. Wills, estates and the transfer of houses, that's basically what we exist to do, especially houses. There's one section of the better-off population do nothing but move house, move house, until finally they die and the fun really starts. Bit of crime, of course. We've got three dozen public houses in this town, plenty of stimulants and unemployment, bound to cause trouble from time to time. If only they'd all go home and take your Viagra, ha ha. Less bloody trouble all round. . .'

  'I don't want a house, and I don't want to make a will,' Henry said.

  The cigarette flew out of Burns' hand, and landed, smouldering on the carpet. A few dozen others must have gone the same way, judging from the marks on the wood to the side of the desk.

  Henry winced, watching as Burns retrieved the cigarette with surprising grace, swooping upon it like a bird of prey, taking a quick, desperate puff and throwing the remnant into the fireplace behind him. Henry craned to see where it had gone, calmer for the pantomime and privately delighted to see the man move. He seemed to consist of overlong legs and arms, with a narrow torso. Burns leaned back in his chair, something Henry did not dare to do, and laced his long fingers together. They disappeared inside the cuffs of the funereally black, suspiciously dusty jacket. The voice was suddenly precise and dry.

  'Of course I know of Francesca Chisholm. I wouldn't need to be a lawyer to know. I'd just have to read the newspapers. But because I am a lawyer, Mr Evans, and Miss Chisholm is a client, there's not a single thing I have to tell you, and I may add, I'm distinctly suspicious of your motives.

  If what you say is true which
if it is makes you just another menopausal man in search of an old romance - then I couldn't possibly take your money to tell you what you could find out for free in our excellent reference library. I'm not a detective and I'm not for hire. If what you say is true, the only advice I can offer you is to regard her as DEAD.' He was lighting another cigarette, shrugging his thin shoulders, either seriously cross or faking it. 'This place does not exist to make money, Mr Evans. It exists to keep the confidences of others, as far as possible. Come back if you need that house or that will.'

  Henry felt obscurely ashamed and furious at the same time. 'I didn't mean to bother you,'

  was all he could say. 'I'm not asking much, Mr Burns.'

  He was rewarded with a radiant smile. 'In which case, you have nothing in common with the rest of my clients. Do you know the way out?'

  Downstairs, where the temperature dropped with each step. A sudden panic when he could not open the door and thought he would have to ask, braced himself as he pulled on the handle, slammed it shut. Out on the busy street, remembering nothing else than the fact that all the roads led to the sea. And Francesca Chisholm might as well be dead.

  Maybe he shouldn't have stared at the fish. Maybe he should have put money on the table, but he'd got the general idea that that wouldn't have made an ounce of difference.

  But I think I've seen her, Mr Burns. Of course she's alive. She left her shawl on the banisters.

  Maggie sidled into the room, carrying two mugs of coffee which she placed on the worn leather of the desk. She tutted under her breath and searched under a pile of paperwork to unearth the ashtray, which she placed closest to him, plucked the cigarette from his nerveless fingers, took a quick drag, and stubbed it out.

  'You could have charged him a walk-in fee, Edward, you could at least have done that.'

  'Why?'

  'I dunno. Silly suggestion, really. What was it all about?' 'Nothing.'

  'OK, I dare say you'll tell me in a minute. I just heard you sounding a bit, well, you know, clipped. Not like you, Edward, I mean not normally.'

  She picked up the newspaper which littered a corner, sat back in the chair recently occupied by the client and read it nonchalantly. The day before yesterday's news was good enough. Edward Burns gulped his coffee and scalded his tongue, patently upset.

  'Mrs Forbes says he looked a nice man,' she said. 'He's staying at the House of Enchantment, because the Nelson wasn't up to hospitality, I heard. Smith sent him there as his own little revenge on the world for the fact the bar was flooded again. "The man was wearing a silly hat and was an anally retentive little prick." I quote verbatim.'

  Edward nodded. 'I know. I was in there this morning, looking at the damage. He's quite unfit to manage that hotel, even with us you, rather - checking his books and the register twice a week.

  He simply cannot cope in a crisis and he takes instant, completely unfounded dislikes to strangers.

  Hardly a qualification.'

  'Is this American good looking?' Maggie asked, casually. She seemed more than usually restless, moving round in her seat like a cat making a nest, failing to catch his eye.

  'Frightfully well dressed. Otherwise unremarkable. You'd miss him in a crowd. I don't know. I never notice things like that.'

  'No, Ed, you don't.'

  'He seems nice enough. Going to work for Fergusons. But what could I say to him? He wants to find Francesca. Says he's a longlost friend. Met her in India. Before my time.'

  'Ah, yes. That was ages ago. Before life began or started to end, whichever way you look at it.

  He might be genuine. Nothing to suggest he's a journalist in disguise, was there? After all, Francesca's hardly news any more. We're all trying to forget her. As if we could. Although we should. I can't.'

  'You defended her,' he said flatly.

  'Yes. To be the best of my ability, darling, to coin a phrase. Don't frown so. Yes, you are entirely right in your estimation of me, Edward. I may have qualified as a lawyer but I am profoundly frivolous and likely to remain so, but it doesn't follow that I'm incompetent. I'm just absolutely determined to avoid responsibility. I've done the career bit and the married bit and I don't give a shit. No roof over my head: do I want responsibility? Like hell I do. Sixteen hours a week is what I do for you. . . Quite enough. The crime around here is so boring. Get drunk, get sick, hit each other, was it the left fist or the right. . .'

  'With the exception of Francesca Chisholm. Your cousin.

  Whose ancestor founded this firm.'

  She sipped at the coffee, decorously. Her normally pale face was pink from the cold.

  .

  'Francesca didn't care who defended her. Anyone would have done. And two hours a week was plenty enough to organize the defence of a woman who insisted she was guilty. No debate about it and none allowed. Are you sure, I'd say? Are you absolutely sure? and she'd say, Course I'm sure, I was there wasn't I, I should know. It cost twenty pence to fish on the pier, she'd say, as if that was the whole thing about it which surprised her. And it's the same length as the Titanic. Don't waste money, someone else needs it. Just get it over with for me and tell them I'm sorry. I mean, all I did was get a man to translate that to court as kindly as he might. I check up on her protégé and her friend, small thanks for it. I bring her reports from her own, lost world. She delegated rather a lot of tasks and I do them.'

  'Do you think you might have done a more thorough job if you hadn't been in the midst of divorce?'

  'Get stuffed, Edward. You were supervising. We took instructions; we obeyed them to the letter. That's all we could do. And I suppose you refused to tell that American anything about it?

  Sent him away without a word? Client confidentiality? She needs friends, even if she hasn't got them, and he might just be one. So what if he's a fool?'

  'She doesn't deserve friends.'

  'Deserve them? What's that got to do with anything? She always says, I can't talk now, as if she ever will. Do you know, she's been there almost a year? I hate anniversaries. So will she.

  Where's he gone, that man?'

  Edward considered carefully. 'He's gone for a walk on the pier.

  Listen Maggie, officially we shouldn't tell him anything.'

  'Officially,' she said, picking up the coffee mugs and looking out of the window. Edward sighed again, and fumbled for the cigarettes.

  'He isn't good looking, you know, Maggie. There's no real reason to bother.'

  'He's just another man who fell for Francesca,' Maggie said. 'And left her. Like they all did.

  Like they all do. You're a bunch of shits, really.'

  'Not all of us,' Edward said.

  I treasure the shawl because it was a gift, not for itself, however useful it is. But I suppose I disapprove of sentiment, or sentimental gestures. They get in the way of genuine emotion and disguise it thoroughly. I was trying to make an inventory yesterday, of all the people I've LIKED in my life. I don't mean loved, or adored mean LIKED. There was a man a long time ago whom I adored because he had no idea of how singular he was. I should have kept in touch with him, but I didn't.

  Those were the days when people were expendable. One always assumed there would be someone else of equal calibre. Wrong. Would you shoot tigers with him? My father would have asked.

  Yes, but I went on to prefer the deliberately extrovert and sociable type of male. Then there are the people I adopted because it was so unfair that no one else would. I cannot bear to see loneliness when I can do something about it, but empathy with people who need you is not quite the same thing as liking. I think that LIKING is a cousin to respect, but respect is more important. Angela was often difficult to like, but she deserved enormous respect. I like Maggie she does not know how generous she is and I must not take advantage of her. I have a phonecard. I could speak to her but I don't, it isn't fair.

  I shall dribble on to paper instead, avoiding facts and dates.

  Father once took us to the house of a military friend of his, very old
school. He had stuffed animal heads on the walls. Maggie and I must have been about two feet each, gazing at them in horror. It was Maggie who said that the rest of the tiger was behind the wall, ready to come crashing through as soon as we left.

  And I believed her.

  FMC

  CHAPTER THREE

  HENRY walked down the length of the High Street, took the next left and made for the sea. A stiff breeze raised the hair on his head and made him vow to buy a new hat on the way back. He had noticed a shop that seemed to specialize in what other men seemed to wear, a strange species of cap which did not seem to protect the ears, but he also noticed that the men who wore hats seemed to spend most of their time bareheaded. Into a shop they would go, and off came the hat; if they met a woman, off came the hat, a constant doffing of the thing, as if it was an embarrassment.

  There was something else he noticed too, in the bustle of the narrow pavements, and that was the way that whenever they bumped into each other, both parties said 'sorry', regardless of fault. The word was a kind of password, a prefix to whatever came next, 'Sorry, could you hold the door for me . . . Sorry, I haven't got change today. . . Sorry you bumped into me.' It seemed mandatory to apologize for taking up space.

  All in all, his encounter with the lawyer was one Henry decided he had found oddly exhilarating, despite the accompanying humiliation, and he was trying to work out why as he walked up towards the sea through a series of narrow streets, remembering to say 'sorry' to whoever crossed his path.

  He felt he had got something off his chest by at least admitting to someone, even someone as alien as Edward Burns, that what he really wanted to do, above all else, was find Francesca Chisholm.

  And he had done it; he had actually made the admission to a complete stranger; he had taken a spontaneous risk and he had not felt quite such a fool as he'd thought he might feel. That was number one reflection. The next was a sense of release that the lawyer had not said Francesca who?

  Or murmured, my dear man, of course Francesca Chisholm is alive and well, but how on earth could you imagine she would want to renew an acquaintance with a lousy little bore like you? And thirdly, a sense of mild triumph which was the most difficult to explain.