The thin man blinked and lifted his head to stare at him and then slowly his face changed and the settled sullen look came back.
‘If you like,’ he said. ‘Much I care.’ And bent his head to the raffia again. Abner took a deep breath, grateful to hear the voice return to its usual level.
‘I’ll be back soon. Is there anything I can get you?’
Lippner looked at him and then laughed, a flat dull little sound that emerged from lips curled back over surprisingly white teeth. ‘Go to that Body Shop I’m always reading about in the magazines, tell ’em I’ll have another one like this only new and working properly, with a decent trade-in price, all right?’ And he reached down to the wheels of his chair and twisted on them and the chair turned and he rolled away towards the lilies in the corner. ‘If you can do that, I’ll be happy to see you. If you can’t, don’t waste my time.’
‘I’ll be back,’ Abner said. ‘And thank you.’ And he went quietly out of the garden room and along the corridor, which had now added the smell of frying to its other odours, looking for the man in the white coat.
He found him hovering in the hallway, ostensibly arranging some flowers on a window sill, but Abner felt he’d been more than interested in trying to hear what was going on in the garden room. For all he knew, he may have been listening outside the door and had only come scuttling back here when Abner had shown signs of leaving. Certainly he seemed a little flushed as he peered up at Abner now.
‘He’s all right then?’ he said brightly. ‘Didn’t start one of his turns? I thought perhaps he might.’
‘No,’ Abner said firmly. ‘He’s fine. Er — one thing though. I want the full name and address of his other visitor.’
‘Other visitor?’
‘Well, he doesn’t come here, I gather, but tries to send things. But Mr Lippner sends them back, he tells me. I think perhaps I might be able to — uh’ — he was improvising wildly now, and wasn’t at all ashamed of his own deviousness; sometimes lies were so necessary they were moral and this was one of the times — ‘uh — persuade David to see him. So, I need to get in touch with him, but I lost his address a while ago. You know how it is, time passes.’
‘But no one ever visits Mr Lippner,’ the man said and his round face creased worriedly. ‘Not since his mother, rest her soul, passed on.’
Abner bit his lip and then said carefully, ‘This man sends him gifts sometimes, and David insists you send them back. You must have his name and address so that you can send them, surely?’
The man in the white coat went a sudden and very fierce pink. ‘Listen, I can’t help it if people send things and residents don’t choose to accept them,’ he said, his manner full of bluster but with a whine in his voice. ‘It’s not my fault if people are so …’
Light dawned on Abner and he put out one hand to touch the other’s shoulder and said winningly, ‘Oh, it’s all right. Of course it was right to keep the things here for the other residents to enjoy! The man meant the stuff as a gift, so why send it back and insult him? I quite understand and he would too, if he knew. Not that I intend to say anything to him about that, of course. I just want to get in touch to see if I can heal the rift between him and Mr Lippner, you know how it is.’
Slowly the red flush subsided and the little round man stared at him uncertainly for a while and then nodded and turned and went bustling away to a door at the far side of the hall.
‘You’d better come into the office,’ he muttered. ‘As long as it’s understood that whatever comes here is used for all the residents, no favouritism.’
‘Of course not,’ Abner said soothingly. ‘It’s a matter of no importance at all — just the name and address is all I need.’
He was leafing through a folder and then stopped, and at last, still a little unwillingly, picked out a card and handed it over to Abner.
‘Harry Brazel,’ he read. ‘Financial consultant.’ And there was an address in Swiss Cottage, and a phone number.
‘I’ll copy this down,’ he said and reached for a pencil and a scrap of paper from the cluttered desk. ‘Then I’ll give it back to you. That way no one knows I got it from you, or anything else, right? I just want to get in touch — a blast from the past — you know how it is.’
And he scribbled the note and then escaped gratefully into the rawness of the February evening and took a deep breath of it. The air tasted of woodsmoke and horses and winter. It was marvellous. He made for the car, patting the scrap of paper in his pocket as though it were a piece of treasure, which in a sense perhaps it was.
Twenty-two
The air at Minster Lovell smelled of woodsmoke, too, and though he was a little late, since he’d had trouble finding the place, hidden away as it was in the valley of the River Windrush, he lingered after he’d parked the car outside the Old Swan.
The front of the building had been carefully lit and there was a wealth of old Cotswold stone, naked roses and creepers (which must look superb in the summer and autumn, he decided) and well-tended grass. Ahead of him, up the dark village street, he could see a receding avenue of lamps that showed thatched cottages as pretty as any chocolate box cover, and somewhere a dog was barking mournfully. The lighted windows of the hotel spilled warm squares on to the ground and there was a drifting smell of good food and beer added to the woodsmoke as someone came out of the low front door, shouting cheerfully behind him, and Abner grinned with delight. Baling comedy, here I come! he thought, and went plunging across the dark grass to the front door.
Inside it was even more picture-book. A vast log fire burning sumptuously in an ingle-nook, polished stone-flagged floors, shabby comfortable chintzy furniture and pleasant people sitting about, who gave him a casually curious look as he bent his head to get under the low lintel and then returned to their conversations; he looked around and almost laughed aloud at it all.
‘I told you it was like Brigadoon.’ Her voice came from behind him, and he turned swiftly and smiled at her. She was wearing a dark green dress, high in the neck, and again fitting her long body smoothly; she had pinned her hair up on her head in that elegant fashion that so suited her, had even, he suspected, applied a little mascara, and that warmed him even more. Had she gone to that sort of trouble, just for him? An exciting thought.
‘It always feels like a special event when I come here,’ she said, providing instant deflation. ‘Geoff thought of it as a place to celebrate, so we did and I always made a special effort to look right.’ She looked him up and down a little censoriously. ‘I suppose you’ll do.’
He looked down at his jeans and sweater and reddened. ‘Hell, I didn’t even think about it — it’s not a thing I ever do worry about much, the way I look and — ’
‘I said you’ll do. It’s just a country pub, really. And I was being sentimental to fuss at all.’ She gave him a sudden grin, wide and appealing. ‘I’ve only just got here myself. Shall we have a drink?’
‘Sure.’ And he followed her round a big, square stone pillar to where a long and cheerful bar winked against the far wall.
‘What’ll you have?’ she said.
‘No,’ he protested. ‘I’ll do this and — ’
‘I told you — I’ll pay my way.’ She gave him a look over her shoulder that was so severe that he blinked and closed his mouth, unable to protest further; and then was amused at himself. After the years he’d spent working with and knowing American women, he should fuss about who paid for what? He must be crazy.
‘Is there a local beer? I’m getting to like this stuff,’ he said, and she laughed and lifted her brows at the barman, who nodded and reached for the handle of a beer pump.
‘Me too,’ she said. ‘And find us some bacon rinds, Peter, if you can. I can’t stand these greasy nuts.’
There was another log fire tucked around the corner with chairs set in front of it, and no one else there, so they took their drinks and the dish of crisp bacon bits the barman found for her and settled down to read the menus that had
been handed over. Abner drank his beer and watched the way the firelight picked out the shape of her face as she concentrated on what she would order for dinner as though there were nothing more important in the world.
‘Right,’ she said at length and looked up at him. ‘I’ve decided. What about you?’
‘Tell me what you’ve chosen,’ he said. ‘Let me be lazy.’
‘Mushroom soup — they get wild ones from the fields around here — and a grilled trout with almonds. The fish comes from a farm just a few miles away. All very local. And they grow their own vegetables too. Or used to. I shan’t ask them if they still do. I couldn’t bear it if they didn’t.’ She smiled again, a little shyly this time. ‘As I said, I’m being sentimental. It was always special, here.’
‘Is that why you chose it? For old times’ sake? Or because I was coming with you?’ He knew he was being daring and didn’t mind. The beer was a strong one and in the heat of the fire had reached his brain rather quickly, making him reckless.
She shook her head. ‘I can’t remember why.’ And she looked at the fire. ‘It just seemed like a good idea at the time, I suppose. And — ’ She looked back at him then. ‘And I need to celebrate. I got some money this week.’
‘Oh? What sort of money? Legal, illegal? Prize or earned?’
She laughed. ‘Oh, strictly legal and very much earned, though not by me. It was a book of Geoff’s. Believe it or not, some Hungarian publisher wants it, though he wrote it twenty years ago. They sent me a cheque for masses of forints. It works out to about two thousand pounds!’
‘Wow! That’s big bucks!’
‘Isn’t it just. Have some bacon rind.’
He reached for the dish, and as he put one of the frizzled scraps in his mouth laughed. ‘I wonder if that’s what he meant by bacon crisps?’
‘What?’
‘The guy I saw this afternoon. Lives in a special Home run by Jewish charities and sends the gardener to buy him bacon crisps. He does it to annoy the people there, though I suspect they don’t know, so how can they be annoyed? But it pleases him.’
She considered for a while. ‘Sounds like my sort of chap. Bloody minded. Was he useful?’
‘Oh yes, he was useful. So once again I’m eaten with guilt. What right have I to go upsetting people, reminding them of what they need to forget, just to provide film fodder? It doesn’t stop me, mind you. No way. If I’ll need it I’ll go for it. But I still feel guilty.’
‘That’s an occupational hazard for Jews,’ she said with an air of lightness. ‘There’s always something to have to feel bad about.’
‘If it’s only the fact that someone else has a better recipe for chicken soup?’
‘Very funny,’ she said. ‘And anyway, maybe. In case you don’t know, it’s called displacement activity. The thing you feel really bad about is so unspeakable it’s easier to feel bad about chicken soup. So you do. It helps a lot.’
‘What do you feel bad about tonight then?’
‘Hunger.’ She got to her feet. ‘Let’s go and sit in the restaurant and make them hurry up.’ And she led the way, the big menu tucked under her arm, towards a door beyond the bar.
‘Oh, this is ridiculous!’ he said, as he ducked in under the doorway and looked round. The roof of the restaurant was a network of vast wooden beams set against white plaster and another ingle-nook at the far end of the long table-filled room had been stacked with dusty bottles of wine. The windows were small and pretty, the place was lit by candles, and even the waiters looked venerable. ‘This is Disneyland, surely.’
‘It’s authentic,’ she said and laughed. ‘That’s the trouble with it. It’s so old and so real, it looks phoney, doesn’t it? But it’s been here, this great room, since sixteen hundred and something. Hello, Sam.’
The most grizzled of the waiters had been peering at her and now his round face split into a smile so wide that his skin looked as though it were made of creased parchment.
‘Well, if it isn’t Miss Hinchelsea! I haven’t seen you since, well, I don’t know when — how’s the Professor?’ And he peered shortsightedly at Abner as though he might just possibly be a transmogrified Professor.
‘He died a few weeks ago, Sam,’ she said, and he looked up at her with milky blue eyes and twisted his mouth into a gentle grimace and said comfortably, ‘Well, I’m sorry to hear that. A good kind gentleman, the Professor. But he did good work, and had a good life. Will you have your usual table?’
‘Please,’ she said and Abner followed her, marvelling a little at the old man’s equanimity. Was that the compensation you were given when you reached old age, the ability to be nonchalant about death? That was a comfortable thought; that the fear receded as the reality came closer. Had it been like that for Hyman? He hadn’t thought about that before, and he looked at the fragile old waiter now holding a chair for Miriam in a courtly fashion and wished he hadn’t thought about it now.
‘Don’t have the kipper pâté,’ Sam was saying to Miriam. ‘I saw the kippers he used. Nasty dyed things, not the Loch Fyne we usually get. A stubborn man, the second chef. But the mushroom soup’s well up to the mark and the trout are as plump and pink as you could wish.’
‘I’d already decided on that, Sam,’ she said and leaned back so that he could arrange the napkin on her lap. ‘And a bottle of that Chablis Geoffrey always liked — ’
‘ — And our own sesame bread. I know,’ Sam said, and nodded at Abner as he sat down opposite Miriam. ‘The same for you, sir, I’ve no doubt.’ And went creaking away without waiting for an answer.
‘I’ve always heard you get the best value at the restaurant you’re best known at,’ he said. ‘But this, really it’s a bit — ’
‘Yes, I know. Over the top and all that. Well, so what? I like it.’
‘So what, indeed.’
There was a little silence as they waited for Sam to bring the wine and go through the ritual with it; and it amused Abner that the old man made no attempt to defer to him, as he might have expected from so traditional a sort of person. He offered the bottle to Miriam, so that she could inspect the label, showed her the drawn cork and poured the regulation quarter inch of wine into her glass so that she could taste and pronounce it drinkable and then, to Abner’s total delight, bowed slightly and went away to fetch the food.
‘Too much,’ he murmured and buried his nose into the glass of icy wine, which tasted superb. ‘You called up in advance and arranged to pay them to blind poor ignorant visiting Americans with their All British Style, of course.’
‘Of course,’ she said equably, and drank too, taking a big mouthful, and he liked that. Her appetites, he decided, were strong and deep and — No. Not permitted thinking, that.
‘Tell me about your afternoon,’ she said then. ‘This man and his bacon crisps. What else did you discover?’
He told her, in all the detail he could, adding graphic description to an attempt at imitating the man’s voice, and she listened, drinking her wine and watching his face and saying nothing, and that helped a lot. It fastened all the memories of the afternoon into his head even more firmly, and he knew he wouldn’t forget a single word David Lippner had said, even though he’d made no notes at all.
‘This man you say told Lippner, or his mother, about the boy with the apples,’ she said at length. ‘What did you say his name was?’
The mushroom soup arrived then and he didn’t answer, letting Sam set the lidded silver bowl in front of him and proffer the garlicky croutons and then the sesame sprinkled bread, all done with an air of careful ceremony that would have amused him more had he not been eager to get back to Miriam; but he waited as patiently as he could, and at last the old man went away and he said, ‘I didn’t say.’
‘Mmm?’ She had started her soup and was clearly delighted with it, and she made a gesture at him with her spoon to tell him to start too, so he did, and she was right; it tasted superb, rich with the scent of wild mushrooms and with an undertaste of good chicken br
oth. Frieda would have approved, he thought then, and took another spoonful to drown the memory of her kitchen.
‘You asked me the name of the man who was David’s mother’s friend. The one who sends him presents he won’t accept. He’s — ’ He put down his spoon and reached into his pocket. ‘Here you are,’ and he set the scrap of paper in front of her. ‘I’ll try to see him as soon as I can. I’ve got to spend the next two days making a dog food commercial, heaven help me, but once that’s done I’ll try to see him.’
She peered at the piece of paper without stopping her attack of her soup, and then frowned and for the first time set down her spoon and picked up the paper.
‘Brazel,’ she said and narrowed her eyes slightly. ‘Brazel. I know that name from somewhere.’
He lifted his chin sharply. ‘You do?’
She sighed and pushed the piece of paper back over the table to him and started on her soup once more. ‘I thought so, but I can’t be sure. It rang a sort of bell somewhere, but I dare say I imagined it — why should I know, after all?’
He put the scrap of writing back into his pocket and returned to his own soup, thinking hard. ‘Maybe he came to see your father’s stuff sometime? Doing research?’
‘Hardly,’ she said dryly. ‘Not a financial consultant. Whatever else people talked to Geoffrey about, it surely wasn’t money. Poor Geoff, he was even more stupid than I am about it.’
‘I don’t entirely believe that,’ he said. ‘That you’re stupid about money, that is. I think you pretend not to care. That’s quite different.’
She stared at him with her brows down sharply and he grinned and said, ‘No, don’t look at me that way! It’ll get you no place — not the lady who sat out there cheering over her fistful of forints.’
She relaxed and made a little face. ‘Well, I suppose so, but I’d have to be mad not to be glad I’ve got it. You’ve no idea how close I am to the edge when it comes to cash.’
‘Tell me,’ he said and she looked at him sharply. And then shrugged.
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