WELCOME STRANGER

by MARY HOCKING

  ‘Do you know of a nice tea place at Portloe?’

  ‘No, but I shall soon find one. Man is the hunter. You can count yourself lucky you’re not walking behind me, bowed down with kindling.’

  ‘I’ve done some kindling in my time.’ She remembered walking along the Corniche at Alexandria with her first love, Gordon, and when Ben turned on her angrily, protesting, ‘You’re not very fair,’ it was Gordon whom she echoed in her reply, ‘There’s nothing fair about it.’

  He turned away, angrier than ever. She loved him for his impatience, as she would learn to love him for his eagerness, for taking the changes and chances of life hard and yet continuing to expose himself to them. While he, whom she imagined so unwilling to risk imaginative journeys, would find in her a wife as indispensable to his daily well-being as food and drink, and equally to be taken for granted; but also a symbol of that undiscovered country to which he would always be moving and yet would always be beyond him.

  They walked down into the narrow sea-wracked streets of Portloe. When they were safe in a neat little tea parlour overlooking the harbour, tingling with excitement, lungs full of good strong sea air, Alice sighed, ‘Oh, the sea, that wild sea!’

  At night, when she was lying awake, thinking of Ellen in the next room, the sea roared in her ears. You could throw it a few hostages, but the next tide would bring more demands. This was a hunger which would never be satisfied.

  She could see a pale light under her door, and knew that Ben was sitting with Ellen. In an hour, she would take his place. But Ben came to her door before the hour.

  ‘Her breathing has changed.’

  Alice put on her dressing-gown.

  ‘Should I go down to Charlie and Prue?’ she asked.

  ‘There won’t be time.’

  They sat one on either side of the bed, Alice holding Ellen’s hand. The breaths came at irregular intervals now, but there was no stress in the face; in fact, it grew calmer with each exhalation. Ben said hoarsely, ‘She was very good to me.’

  The breaths came more and more sporadically. The rhythm of life had already ceased. There was nothing for several seconds, then one final sigh. The face was composed beyond amendment. Ben got up and fetched the hand mirror, holding it to the slightly parted lips. There was no vapour. Alice cupped the dear face in her hands and kissed the lips which were still slightly warm. Then she found a napkin and, folding it under the jaw, tied it on top of the head. Ben had turned away and was standing with his back to her looking out of the window. The night was dark and there was no glimmer of light on the distant Carrick Roads.

  She said, ‘I’ll go down to Grace now. She will want to lay her out.’

  He did not answer and she did not disturb him further. He remained at the window, thinking of all that had been given him in this house, and the little he had rendered in return. Now, he was making a bad business of grief. Long after Alice had recovered, he would be unable to speak freely of Ellen.

  He opened the window and listened. He heard Alice’s footsteps hurrying down the street. Then there was silence. There were no rocks here for the sea to dash against, and at this distance he could not hear the waves lapping the harbour wall.

  Chapter Seventeen

  On Christmas Eve, when Jacov got back to his flat, the two policemen were waiting for him on the landing. This time they made no apology for the inconvenience; and he accepted them without surprise as characters long waiting in the wings.

  ‘This is your flat?’ one of them asked casually, glancing round when Jacov opened the door.

  ‘No. It belongs to a friend who has been in America for several years.’ He was not interested in the places which housed him; but he saw now that it was visually quite pleasing, spacious and comfortably furnished. He had never had any bad feelings on entering it. All that would be changed.

  He put down parcels on the couch and, excusing himself, went into the kitchen. One of the policemen followed him – perhaps to ensure that he did not wash vital evidence down the sink, or slash his wrists? He poured water into a bucket and dunked Claire’s carnations without unwrapping the tape from the stalks. His hands were not trembling, but he didn’t trust his fingers to do anything intricate.

  He hoped the men would not ask for whom the flowers were intended. He was afraid of bringing disaster on other people. This business of the ownership of the flat, for example: did his occupancy constitute a sub-let, and was his friend legally entitled to do this? Jacov paid the rent regularly and no questions were asked. Had the police already been to the landlord? This was the kind of thing one might expect to happen, of course. Once they were suspicious they would find ways of making life uncomfortable.

  ‘Some of this furniture is yours, I expect?’ the second policeman said when Jacov returned to the sitting-room.

  ‘No. None of it.’

  He was steeling himself to ask if they had a search warrant, when the first man said, ‘We would like a few words with you, sir, arising from your statement about Mr Drummond’s visit to the theatre.’

  Jacov sat down and the two men also sat, so arranging themselves that they were positioned one on either side of him. This did not disturb him unduly, except that he did not like so many empty spaces in the audience. He had read that it is the hands which most frequently betray unease. Years on stage had taught him how to use – or not use – his hands. The simplest method of all, of course, was to find legitimate business for them. He offered cigarettes, which were refused rather primly, and then lit one for himself.

  He had told the truth about that scene in the dressing-room – with a few elaborations, perhaps, but they would hardly have come to query his acting method. He must not elaborate this time. If he repeated what he had said before (and he hoped to God he could remember), he had Terence’s assurance that there was nothing they could do about it. Eventually, they would have their way, but at least he might win himself a reprieve. His life had been a series of reprieves, some lasting rather longer than others. Looked at that way, he had been quite lucky.

  The first policeman said, ‘You stated that it was a long time since you had seen Mr Drummond.’

  Jacov said, ‘Yes.’ He inspected the tip of his cigarette thoughtfully, which was one of his ploys when waiting for the prompt.

  ‘What would be your definition of a long time, sir?’

  The prompt wasn’t coming through. He had the disorientated feeling that overcame him on such occasions of being in the wrong play, or even the wrong theatre. He flicked ash into a little silver dish and watched the smoke curl upwards.

  ‘You don’t recall meeting Mr Drummond early one morning at the Lyons near Westminster Bridge? About five months ago, that would be.’

  God, it had happened! He was in the wrong play. He scrambled up a few lines to give himself time. ‘I didn’t meet him – at least, not intentionally.’

  ‘But you do remember the occasion?’

  Only too well he remembered that there had been a number of other people present – worthy little secretaries, men who were possibly journalists, or worse still. Members of Parliament, all no doubt eager for one reason or another to play their part in a cause célèbre. The police might lack proof of what passed in the dressing-room, but they had ample opportunity to find – or fabricate – what evidence they required in connection with the meeting at Lyons.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us about this, sir?’

  ‘It didn’t seem important.’

  ‘It would be better to let us be the judge of that.’

  ‘We had breakfast, that’s all. I don’t remember much about it. I’m not at my best at that time in the morning.’ To save them the trouble of asking why, in that case, he went to Lyons, he said, ‘I had been to an all-night party. You know the kind of thing.’ It was apparent the poor, dour creatures did not. ‘A lot to drink and not enough food. So I went to Lyons.’

  ‘You couldn’t have had breakfast here?’

  ‘I had some sort of disagreement with the
lady in the next flat. I woke her up by playing music. So I went out.’ At least that could be checked.

  ‘So you had breakfast with Mr Drummond, who just happened to have gone to that particular Lyons.’

  It was not such an extraordinary coincidence. He had first met Angus Drummond over fifteen years ago, and it was likely that at some time they would have a chance encounter. There did not seem any point in saying this since these men were not interested in chance encounters.

  ‘Did anything happen to disturb you during this meeting?’

  A clever question. If they had said they had evidence that he had been disturbed, he could challenge it – always supposing he had the nerve and thought it worth his while to antagonise them. Instead, they offered him the chance to make his own admission, or to lie. He tried to recall the scene in the cafe. Plenty of witnesses, but how many were near enough to hear what had passed? He could never be sure of himself; even when he was speaking quietly he had a tendency to match his voice to the size of the auditorium. He was, however, quite sure that Angus had spoken so quietly as to be inaudible to all save himself.

  The policeman made his first mistake. He assumed that Jacov’s silence was a refusal to answer. He said, ‘If Mr Drummond tried to persuade you to become involved in – shall we say some enterprise of which you had doubts – you would be well-advised to tell us.’ Now, of course, would be the time to say, with a suitably wry, throw-away indifference, ‘Well, if you consider giving a birthday present to his girl friend an “enterprise” – then the answer is yes.’ But that would mean naming Irene. It did not even occur to him that it could do her little harm at this stage. Nor did he think of himself as shielding her. He only knew that the eleventh commandment was that you should not name names to the inquisitor.

  The policeman said quietly, not without sympathy, ‘Did he perhaps have a hold over you ?’

  ‘What hold could he have over me?’

  ‘This is what we are trying to establish.’

  ‘But I hadn’t seen him for years.’

  That would have gone down better if he had not concealed the meeting at Lyons. Why, oh why, when he had the opportunity had he not made something positive out of it – used it as his explanation for ordering Angus out of his dressing-room? ‘I met him once by accident in Lyons. He was acting so strangely then I had to walk out on him. In this situation, I couldn’t walk out. So I told him to go.’ They might not have believed him, but it would have had a consistency. Whereas now everything was falling apart.

  ‘What did you and Mr Drummond talk about?’

  He had heard those girls discussing their summer holiday plans. Perhaps they had heard something of his conversation with Angus. In which case, it would be as well to make the best of it. ‘There were two girls at a table near by talking about travel. So we got on to the subject. He asked me if I ever thought of going back to Russia.’

  ‘And you said?’

  ‘That I was only four when I left Russia.’

  ‘Did he go on to ask you questions about Russia?’

  ‘No, he didn’t. He seemed to be more interested in the fact that I have settled down here. And then I think we talked about acting.’

  ‘You seem to have remembered this conversation quite well. Did anything happen to make it stick in your mind?’

  Someone will have told them I left hurriedly, with uneaten food on my plate. He said, ‘He told me he was going abroad on a confidential matter. I got the impression he might not be coming back.’

  ‘I wonder what gave you that impression, sir?’

  ‘When we talked about my having settled down here, I had the feeling he was wondering if he could do the same – only somewhere else . . .’

  ‘He didn’t confide in you?’

  Jacov took his chance. ‘I think he wanted to. But I don’t like confidences. That’s why I left him.’

  ‘You do realise how important this matter is, sir?’

  Jacov looked at the man’s blunt face and wondered if he realised the nature of the age-old charade in which he was taking part.

  ‘We shall want to talk to you about this again. Will you be going away for Christmas?’

  ‘I am going to friends in Kew tomorrow. I shall be at the theatre on Boxing Day.’

  ‘May we have the address of your friends in Kew?’

  It was the worst moment of all, but he gave the address because a moment’s hesitation would have implicated them. When it was done he knew that there were now only a limited number of moves which he could make, all of which would lead to disaster not only for himself, but for the Strakers. He had already said too much to Terence. Now he was to spend Christmas Day with them. One day next week, policemen would call at their house in Kew. They would ask what had passed between them on Christmas Day. The police would have their own ideas of what had taken place and would no more be satisfied with an account of party games than they had been prepared to accept his preoccupation with making his entry when Angus came to his dressing-room. If he did not go to Kew tomorrow they would suspect that all three of them had a need to be careful.

  He heard the men going down the stairs, and walking to the window watched them come out on to the pavement. Big, solid men, patient, persistent. They would never forget. They might not get him for this; but they would watch and wait and one day he would make some simple mistake. The law is a weapon as well as a safeguard: someone is always looking into the barrel of the gun.

  Outside on the pavement, one of the men said to the other, ‘Something wrong there! A man in his position isn’t frightened by a visit from policemen making a routine check without good reason.’

  ‘Not all that routine.’

  ‘Whatever the other lot may get up to, we’re never going to be able to pin anything on him, are we? He may be a naughty boy, not eating up his beans on toast, but it isn’t a crime.’

  They strode off purposefully in the direction of The Two Chairmen.

  Jacov sat in the darkening room thinking about the Fairleys. When in 1929 they moved into the house next door in Pratts Farm Road, he had been curious about this different life which went on over the garden wall. He had made his first and only effort to penetrate the mystery of the English family. Slowly, cautiously, he had ingratiated himself into their lives. He had started by exchanging gardening tools with Mr Fairley. Then, after he and his sister and brothers had been invited to one of the Fairley parties, he had persuaded his mother to return the invitation. The Fairley children had come to that party, trusting and eager, and Louise had met Guy. Six years later, she and Guy had first made love in the basement. He had neither condoned nor prevented it. He had betrayed Mr Fairley’s trust and helped to bring dishonour on the family. Yet still Mr Fairley had befriended them at the time of Katia’s disappearance. And, one spring evening during the war, he had been killed, probably while answering some trivial call of Mrs Vaseyelin’s. I should have withdrawn after that, Jacov thought. But he had persisted. He had become Louise’s lover. And now he was in a position to destroy the Fairleys. So convinced was he of his propensity to harm, that he hardly gave a thought to the role that Angus Drummond had played in this affair.

  The Fairleys, who thought of themselves as active as opposed to Jacov who was passive, would have challenged this version of events. And although they did not like visits from the police; because this was not the kind of thing which happened to the Fairleys, they would not have regarded themselves as marked for the rest of their lives. They did not believe in guilt by association. The Fairleys were not, and had no intention of becoming, victims.

  Only one person of their immediate circle might have had some understanding of Jacov’s feelings at this time.

  Irene Kimberley had learnt that innocence is not a defence. She had been relieved of her work in the Cabinet Office and had now been promised a post in the Ministry of Education. The senior civil servant who had handled her case had been very civilised. In fact, in a possibly well-meaning effort to spare her feelings,
he had adopted an air which at times suggested a private amusement at the antics of the security agents which she was supposed to share. But she was far too shocked to be amused. One does not welcome the thought that the event which has blasted one’s love life and jeopardised one’s career is of little consequence. And it is no comfort to be assured that three years hence the matter will have dropped into oblivion. She would not so soon forget.

  There was that which would remind her when thoughts of Angus himself had ceased to trouble her. On this Christmas Eve she hurried through Trafalgar Square in the direction of the Embankment. In a bright cherry red coat which had seen her through better times, she seemed to fit well enough into that group of last-minute shoppers bent on extracting the utmost cheer from the Christmas season. She was naturally lively in her movements and the need to thread her way quickly through the crowds gave her a semblance of sprightliness; while her face had a lightness of countenance which not even grief could dull. Her face had always been a true mirror of her intelligence but a less reliable guide to the state of her emotions. There was nothing to suggest as she bobbed in and out of the throng that she was on her way to visit her father in hospital. Even when she was standing in the rather dreary hall by the lifts, it seemed only impatience which made her turn away on sight of the waiting crowd and make for the stairs.

  Her father’s ward was on the third floor, the hospital having apparently decided that visitors to heart patients must put their own hearts at risk. For Irene, still sound of heart, the ascent of the stairs provided time to prepare herself. She had always imagined hospital visiting to have a routine sameness, an unvarying order imposed by the aspect and garb of the starched matron and her staff. Only now did she realise that every visit to the seriously ill is a different situation, requiring responses for which one is never adequately prepared. One day her father would seem better, alert and glad to see her and her mother; the next, they would go light¬hearted in the expectation of further improvement only to find him absent among the white sheets, their presence a diversion to which he should not have been subjected.