‘I beg your pardon?’ He moved forwards into the house, and she closed the door behind him. There was a smell of age; old paper, old books, old food, age. It was an unappetising sort of smell and it made his voice sharpen. ‘I understood from whoever it was I spoke with on the phone that I had an appointment.’
‘You have. It was me. I spoke to you. I told you to come.’
She led the way through the hall, in which he could just make out pieces of large heavy furniture to a door on the right and pushed that open, to lead him in.
‘So I can see Professor Hinchelsea?’
She sounded suddenly irritable. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! He’s dead!’
He stopped short on the threshold of the room. ‘But I was told I could come — ’
‘You said you wanted to see material. I told you it was a waste of time, but you said you wanted to come, so — ’ She thrust out one hand in an awkward little gesture. ‘So help yourself.’
He stared at the room into which she was pointing and saw the piles of boxes and the heaps of papers on the tables that were scattered around. There were a couple of chairs and no more furniture at all, though one bar of an elderly electric fire burned in the grate under a mantelshelf on which even more papers were piled.
‘There are three more rooms with more than this. I’ve started the best I can. This room is late nineteenth century and early twentieth century Germany. It goes up to 1945. The latest stuff I haven’t started on yet. The dining-room next door is mostly Italy and France and you’ll find the other European stuff upstairs — ’ She waved her hand vaguely towards the ceiling and he looked at her and thought — she’s exhausted. There were faint violet smudges on her temples and the skin beneath her eyes looked stretched and dull. ‘I can’t help you with any sort of catalogue, I’m afraid. I’ve got all I can do just to sort it into rough categories right now. He wasn’t the tidiest of men…’ Her voice trailed away, and she looked at him and he saw the hint of panic in her expression and said impulsively, ‘Hell, I’m sorry! If I’d have known I’d never have made any sort of nuisance of myself — ’
She shrugged. ‘You’re no nuisance. The stuff’s here. People came to use it when he was alive and he wanted it used now. So use it.’
She moved to the door. ‘If you tell me what your subject is I can maybe start you in the right place. You don’t have to, of course. I know how it is with you people working on theses. Though why any of you should think I’d do any harm if I knew is beyond me — I’m not likely to try to cut in.’
‘I’m not working on a thesis,’ Abner said after a moment. ‘It — it’s a movie.’
She stopped in the doorway and stared back over her shoulder at him. ‘A what?’
‘A movie. A film.’ Here it comes, he thought and braced himself. ‘A documentary in a sense, but not entirely. Real people most of the time, but I’ll need to use some actors, tell a story, so it’ll be a feature. About — it’s about what happened after the war. The second war.’ He looked down at the packing chest in front of him. The chalked information on the side was clear: ‘1914–1918’.
‘The people who were in the labour camps. I want to make a film about them. Not the ones who died. The ones who survived. And their families — ’
She was leaning against the door jamb, staring at him, her arms folded over her chest. He was suddenly aware that thin as she was, she was heavy breasted; he could see the swell above the taut muscles of her arms and an odd frisson slid across the small of his back. Not desire, no way desire. Just recognition.
‘Christ almighty,’ she said with great deliberation. ‘Christ all-bloody-mighty! Is that what I’m working myself stupid for? All those weeks of digging into this stuff, sorting it, dragging it around, piling it, choking on it, and all to make some cheapjack film? Christ almighty!’
He was stiff with fury. ‘Cheapjack is not what I am about, Miss — Miss whoever you are. Who is the — the executor? I’ll deal with him.’
She stared at him and then laughed, a high sound that had no humour in it at all. Just tired anger. ‘Who’s the executor? I’m the executor. I’m the cleaner and the porter and the fireman who burns the rubbish and the garbage collector who humps the bags and the boxes. I’m the only one you can talk to. And if I don’t choose to talk to you, you can go to hell. Now get out! Because I don’t choose to talk to you. I’ve got enough to do without wasting time on a film.’ And she almost spat the word.
He stared at her and then very deliberately unbuttoned his jacket and sat down on one of the chairs. ‘I’m not going anywhere. There must be someone else who can give me permission. A relation, maybe, a — ’
‘Me,’ she said again. ‘He was my father. So now what are you going to do?’
He looked back at her, nonplussed, and then couldn’t help it. He began to laugh, genuine amused laughter, and she watched him, quite unresponding, until at last he stopped and took a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose.
‘Hell, this is funny — you have to admit it, it is funny! I come schlepping all the way here from London — all the way from New York, for God’s sake — and what do I get? Some stonewalling piece who thinks “movie” is a dirty word! I come to the world expert on modern European history and what do I get? A sourpuss who’s too tired to give a damn about anyone or anything but herself. You have to laugh!’
‘I’m not laughing,’ she said, still leaning against the door jamb. ‘Are you going?’
‘No,’ he said, and grinned at her. ‘Now, what are you going to do?’
She shrugged. ‘Not a thing. I’ve no time to waste on stupidity. Do what you like.’ And she walked out of the room and closed the door behind her. He heard her footsteps go slapping away across bare floor boards, and a door slam somewhere.
He waited a while to see if she’d come back and then shrugged in his turn, took off his jacket and set it over the back of the chair. He’d come this far so he might as well see what there was to see. And he began to prowl among the packing chests, peering at the labels on their sides, seeking what he could find.
He struck lucky quickly. The fourth chest he looked at proclaimed, ‘Rise and Fall of National Socialism, 1919–45’ and he sat down on the floor beside it, heaved it effortfully on to its side — it was very large — and began to pull out the contents.
There were great piles of them, mostly tied with string, yellow dusty paper interspersed with bound notebooks, and there were also envelopes filled with faded newspaper cuttings, and he pulled a notebook and a pen from his jacket pocket and set to work.
Within fifteen minutes he was totally absorbed. Much of what he was reading about he knew of, since he’d read it in other historians’ books, but this was different. This was first source material: private letters from individuals who had been involved in the Germany of the period; letters from people who had been directly affected by the Nuremberg Laws of 1935; records of people who had been in the camps, many of them in Dachau; and that, for the first time, made him feel sick as he read it. His father had spoken to him of Dachau — that had been where he had been sent in 1936, a Pole though he had been. He had been studying in Germany and that had been enough. He mustn’t think of Hyman now, he mustn’t; and he reached down into the chest and pulled out more paper and more still.
It was a long time before he remembered how hungry he was. His belly grumbled loudly and he stretched his back and glanced at his watch and was amazed. Gone two, and he was still here.
He lifted his head and listened. There was no other sound from anywhere in the house and after a moment he got to his feet and started to brush off the dust that covered him. The floor was dusty, the papers were dusty and his mouth and throat, he suddenly realised, were dustier than any of them. He needed something to eat and drink; and he pushed his notebook into his pocket and then shrugged on his jacket. He’d have to get something and then come back and go on; there had to be material here somewhere that he could use.
He stopped sudden
ly then and stared blankly at the window. If he left now, she’d never let him come back. Did he have to stay here starving to get what he wanted? Nonsense! Of course, she must let him come back. He thought for a while. Then, moving firmly and with no attempt at being quiet, he went out of the room and along the dark hallway, deeper into the house.
He knocked on each of the three doors he found and was greeted with silence; so, boldly, he opened them one after the other, and found her in the last, a surprisingly large kitchen at the very back of the house. And for the first time felt he was in a home rather than in a dilapidated and half-abandoned warehouse.
It had a red-tiled floor, which reflected flames from an old-fashioned fireplace that was set in a gleaming black range of the sort he had seen in carefully and very self-consciously restored Connecticut farm houses inhabited by over-moneyed Manhattanites on their weekend and summer vacations. There was a brightly coloured rug on the floor in front of the fire, and on that a large rocking chair in which the girl was sitting, curled up, a pile of books on her lap. She looked up at him and her glasses, low on her nose, reflected the light from the window on the far side of the big room and made them glint blankly. He thought — Little Orphan Annie. For she did look for a moment so very like the cartoon character of his childhood.
He risked it. ‘You look very sad sitting there. Are you?’
‘Not particularly,’ she said and bent her head again. And now her glasses stopped glinting.
‘Look, I’m sorry if I — well, I’m sorry. Please, can we start again? I know I’m researching for a film and not for a thesis, but believe me, films can be serious too. They’re not all schlock.’
‘Schlock?’
‘Rubbish. Garbage. Call it what you like. Some of them have quality. I have quality.’
‘If you say so.’
‘I do.’
‘Well, so, you have quality. But that doesn’t mean I have to help you — ’
‘Of course it doesn’t,’ he said swiftly. ‘There’s no obligation ever to anyone, is there?’
‘Oh yes, there is,’ she said surprisingly. ‘For academics, for historians. I have to let them get at that stuff. Geoffrey told me that. It’s not mine. It wasn’t his. It’s for anyone who needs it. It’s history.’
‘That doesn’t include me?’ And he lifted his brows at her.
She looked back at him consideringly. ‘I’ve been thinking about that. I suppose it does. I’m sorry if I was rude. It’s been a bad week.’
He moved further into the room. ‘That’s OK. No problem. Forget it. Does that mean I can come back and do some more on that stuff?’
‘If you like.’
He looked at her consideringly. ‘When did your father die?’ There was no need to show this girl any sort of special concern over her bereavement, he thought. She’d be offended if I tried it. Be crisp. Be matter of fact. Be very, very British.
‘Two weeks ago,’ she said after a moment.
‘And there’s no one to help you? You’ve no other relations?’
‘If it’s any of your business, no. None at all. What’s it to do with you?’
‘Not a damn thing,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Just a bit of human feeling. Fellow feeling. I know what it’s like when fathers die.’
‘“All that lives must die”,’ she quoted, ‘“passing through nature to eternity. Why seems it so particular with thee?” Is that what you’re saying?’
He was sitting in the chair on the other side of the fireplace facing her now. The warmth of the flames was agreeable on his legs and face. ‘No. I’m no Hamlet. I just said I’d been there. Know what it’s like. My father died a couple of months ago.’
‘Really,’ she said chillingly and bent her head again. ‘I’ve told you that you can come back to do more work if you want to. What else do you want? Are you going now?’
‘I’m hungry,’ he said. ‘And thirsty. I need something to eat. Can I come back afterwards?’
‘I’ve told you. You can come when you like. If I’m not here, you can have the key. Though I usually am.’
He got to his feet and went to the door. ‘I hoped you’d offer me some lunch if you — well, how about me offering you? It’s the least I can do, after making such a pest of myself.’
She sat and looked at him, her eyes blank behind her glasses. ‘What on earth makes you think I’d come and eat lunch with you?’
‘Maybe you’re hungry,’ he said. ‘And maybe you’ve got a car. It’s a hell of a way back into the town and I passed no coffee shops on the way here. If you come with me, you act as my guide and you get lunch in exchange. Is it a deal?’
And to his amazement she suddenly laughed and said, ‘Why not? Why bloody not?’ And got to her feet.
Five
She was, he decided, the most bewildering person with whom he had ever had to deal. She shifted from one attitude to another so swiftly it was seamless. She did not, for example, make any effort to make herself street smart to go out. She just uncoiled herself from the chair, and set the room straight, poking the fire, refuelling it and closing the damper to keep it in, knuckling the cushion on her chair into tidiness and setting the books she had been working on neatly on a shelf. She did not give herself one glance in the mirror over the fireplace, but walked out through the door he held for her without a backward glance.
In the street outside — and he noticed she merely slammed the door shut and made no effort to lock it — she led him to a battered old Volkswagen that was parked on the far side. Its outside was grimy, clearly not having been washed for weeks, if ever, but inside it was neat to the point of fastidiousness, and faintly scented with lavender from a bunch of the dried flowers that were lying tucked into the open glove compartment. The car was unlocked too, and he said curiously as she manoeuvred it round to take them towards the town centre, ‘You must have very honest neighbours.’
‘Why?’
‘You didn’t lock your front door. The car was open too. Doesn’t anyone around here ever help themselves to other people’s property? You’re very fortunate.’
‘Oh, I dare say they do,’ she said, uninterested. ‘If they want to they’re welcome. It doesn’t really matter.’
‘Doesn’t matter? I wish I could be so easy! I couldn’t afford it.’ He was nettled by her coolness, and she grinned, without turning her head to look at him.
‘Neither can I,’ she said. ‘The difference is I couldn’t care less.’
He stared at her profile for a while as she pushed the little car through the traffic with casual skill, and then said, ‘Are you always like this?’
‘Like what?’
‘A bunch of thistles. About as approachable as a — well — ’
‘A bunch of thistles,’ she said. ‘That’s about right. Keep off. That’s the message.’
‘Why?’
‘Why not? Is there any reason I should be sweetness and light to every idiot who comes along and fancies a chat?’
‘Thank you,’ he said stiffly. ‘I’m sorry I bothered you. I can’t see why you agreed to come out to lunch, feeling that way about me — ’
‘Who said I felt that way about you?’ she said calmly and pushed the car expertly between a pair of buses and a massive van. ‘Don’t be so conceited. I said any idiot who comes along. You’re not any idiot.’
‘Oh, I see. What am I then?’
‘Someone who offered me lunch. And I’m hungry. And broke. I don’t get out to eat often. So, here I am. I wasn’t being prickly. If I were you’d know it. I just don’t talk to people at all unless I want to.’
Now she turned her head and threw a glance at him, and her eyes were wide and amused. Her glasses she had again pushed up to the top of her head and she looked softer as a consequence.
‘Look, let’s get something straight, shall we? I’m not one of your giggly girls who like to go around fluttering their lashes at every man they see. I can’t be bothered with that. But if someone seems interesting, then a conversation
might be agreeable. You seem tolerably interesting.’
‘How the hell can you know that?’ he said and refused to let any pleasure in her sudden loquacity show, though he was feeling it. ‘You’ve hardly given me the chance to say much — ’
‘Because you sat tight and got what you’d come for instead of scuttling off in a panic. That’s what most of them do.’ The sneer in her voice was very clear. ‘There’ve been three of ’em this week alone. Coming bleating about wanting to look at Geoff’s stuff, and what they really want is to talk to me — God knows why. And when I’m rude to them, they scuttle. You didn’t scuttle.’
I can’t think why they did, he thought, again staring at her profile, which was agreeably clean and sharp against the light of the far window. This girl’s interesting, very interesting. Well, more fool they.
‘Who were they, these three?’
‘Oh, people who’d worked with Geoff. Postgraduate students. Boring little twits — as if I’d waste time on them.’
‘You talk a lot about wasting time,’ he said. ‘What are you saving it for?’
She threw him a startled glance and then let her eyes slide away. ‘Look, there’s a pub where they do pretty good bar lunches. We should be just in time. Or you can go to a fancy restaurant if you’d rather and can afford it. You’re paying. I can’t.’
He laughed then at the baldness of it. ‘Yes, I’m paying. And I’m on a tight budget, so the pub it is.’
‘Go on in and find a place to sit then, and make sure they’ve got some food left. I’ll park and find you.’ And she leaned across and opened the door for him, and he smelled a hint of soap and clean hair and liked it.
‘I’ll come with you — ’ he began but she pushed him irritably so that he had to unfasten his seat belt and move over.
‘Don’t waste time. That lorry behind’s shoving — go on. I’ll be there in a minute or two.’
He watched the car disappear into a side street and then turned and went into the pub; an extraordinary woman, and an extraordinary day, he thought. Quite extraordinary.
Postscripts Page 5
