by Tim Jeal
The bus was passing Parsons Green when he moved. He would have to pass me. I felt his jacket brush against my right cheek. He was the only person in the bus not wearing an overcoat. As he passed I saw his forehead beaded with sweat. I felt no pity, only curiosity. When had it happened to him?
I rose when he had reached the platform. To my horror nobody else was getting out at the same stop. The conductor was upstairs collecting fares. If I followed Mark too closely I would have to help him off. I remained sitting until he had managed to descend, then just as the bus moved off I scrambled to my feet and managed to jump before the speed became too great.
There were fewer people about here. I followed at a distance of seventy-five yards or so. We walked slowly across the Green towards the side-streets behind it. Identical dirty terraced houses were interspersed with the occasional shop. He turned another corner. When I turned it Simpson was nowhere to be seen. To my left was a large shop window.
The front of this window stretched the length of two of the terraced houses. I calculated that Simpson could not have gone further than this shop before he had gone inside. Only having satisfied myself of this did I look at the contents on display. On the extreme right-hand side was a large placard photograph of a man sitting on a rough wooden bench at the side of a long whitewashed corridor. The man’s face was hidden by his hands, his body was slumped forwards. Underneath this photograph was a caption in plain block letters: ‘I was alone and He comforted me.’ A series of mirrors reflected the picture, giving a real impression of depth to the corridor. Next to this was a pile of bibles. Above them a notice: ‘Think now. God is not merely a last resort.’ A series of photographs made up a contradictory montage sequence. Beside violently gyrating teenagers was placed a picture of a village after an earthquake, then a ceremonial military march past, then corpses on a battlefield, a nude woman, a flock of birds. Over the top the repeated injunction ‘Think now’. Underneath were various passages from the Bible, some of them contradictory. ‘They that take the sword shall perish with the sword.’ ‘In death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?’ ‘True and righteous are his judgements.’ ‘Because there is wrath, beware lest he take thee away with his stroke.’ ‘Surely God will not do wickedly.’ ‘I was a stranger and he took me in.’ ‘Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, the Son of man shall be ashamed of him.’ ‘He shall guide you into all Truth.’
As I stood looking in at these exhortations I tried to ‘think now’. The results were not immediately satisfying. I deeply regretted never having asked Dinah about Simpson. I cast my mind back. I knew surprisingly little about somebody I had once thought of as a friend, little more than what I have already written. His atheistic reaction to his sister’s sudden death did not seem to be unlikely for somebody who now appeared to be working in a religious bookshop. I did not for a moment suspect that Simpson was merely a chance customer. His short cut across the Green ruled this out. The pensive solitude of the slumped figure in the corridor suggested my next action. I remembered passing a small public library on the way.
I selected one of the day’s papers and sat down. An advertisement for an undetectable men’s hairpiece momentarily gained my attention. ‘You can even swim in it.’ I thought of Simpson’s thinning hair. Byron was only really happy in the water. Simpson had been a strong swimmer at school. I decided to stay in the library till lunch. I might at least see where he ate. This might give me a hint about his financial position. Nothing much more, if that. It could just be that he only worked at the place part-time. I had known his father to be a rich man and judging by the furnishings of their house in Tewkesbury, he had also been a careful man. Simpson ought not to have to think about a needy old age. Opposite me a venerable tramp was sleeping, next to him an African student was reading a textbook. Economics probably. The reading room was pleasantly warm. I half-read a story about a schoolgirl from Bolton who had been disqualified from a Beauty Queen competition on account of her age. Then I closed my eyes and from the black-red world behind my lids thought about Dinah. What would she be doing now in that dismal block of flats? What had she done with my blue padded dressing gown I had given her? Perhaps she was talking to Andrew. I imagined them sitting in a small kitchen eating their breakfast. They were talking about me, only I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Then Simpson came in. He was ten years younger. No limp, thick hair, a well-pressed suit. He smiled and they both smiled. Dinah got up and kissed him. He lifted Andrew up out of his seat and held him up at arms’ length. Andrew happily gurgled: ‘Don’t, Daddy, don’t.’ Dinah looked on with love at the happy family scene that she was a part of. No further mention of me was made. I heard nothing; saw only their conventionally happy faces. The same ghastly happiness you see on the faces of the family who. have just insured their house in the advertisements. I woke up suddenly. I had no knowledge of the time I had gone to sleep. I felt very tired. The tramp had gone. The African was thoughtfully biting his ballpoint. The jealousy I felt in my dream disappeared almost at once. My sense of purpose, though, never underwent any sudden fluctuations.
When I got back to The Bible Bookshop, I noticed with irritation that there was nowhere that I could observe without being observed. I judged that he would head back towards the main road, instead of into the entirely residential back-streets. I chose a pub just on the edge of the Green. I could watch for his reappearance from the window. He might of course eat at his work. I drank and waited. At five past one I saw him come round the corner. I followed him across the Green. He seemed to be moving more slowly than he had done in the morning. At the main road he hailed a taxi. I was too far away to hear where he was going. There was a woman who had been almost level with him. I asked her. She would not say. Hadn’t heard. The little girl who was with her had. ‘Princess Beatrice Hospital.’ I heard her mother scolding her as they walked away. I also hailed a taxi. So it wouldn’t be lunch after all.
At the hospital I went up to the girl at the desk.
‘I was meant to be meeting Mr Simpson. You don’t know which wing …?’
She looked down at her list. I noticed that her hair as well as her cap had a starched appearance. The clatter of plates sounded from the end of a corridor. Her voice was clipped and nasal:
‘He’s in Out-Patients physiotherapy. There’s not much point your trying to see him till he’s finished.’
‘Quite, quite,’ I quickly agreed. Then I leant forward on the desk and asked in what I hoped was a warm and sympathetic voice:
‘You know, I’m sure it sounds stupid, but I’ve never liked to ask Mr Simpson what’s wrong with his leg.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t know.’
I frowned sadly, a tragically perplexed look. It worked. She leant forward and said softly, not without a touch of the dramatic:
‘Polio. One of the few adult cases in the 1959 outbreak.’
Neither of us had heard footsteps, uneven footsteps.
‘1958 actually.’
I turned slowly, a terrible panic in my guts. Quite unprepared for this meeting. I was pleased at the evenness of my voice:
‘How lucky. I was told you were going to be half an hour.’
I nodded my thanks to the nurse and then said to Simpson:
‘I saw you go in. Extraordinary coincidence.’ I smiled. ‘I’m not often in this part of the world.’
I was afraid he wasn’t going to speak. We couldn’t go on standing there in that antiseptic hall like two long-dead exhibits at a museum of natural history.
‘How clever of you to have recognised me,’ he said in a tone completely without self-pity or malice. There was nothing for me to say. Any reference to a good memory would sound vindictive. No question of telling him he still looked the same.
‘I’m sure you don’t feel different.’ I looked away. To my surprise he laughed.
‘I don’t think I can remember how I felt when I saw you last. A decade is a long time.’ His amusement was still
there.
‘I think we might go somewhere else.’
He nodded agreement. We walked out into the cold of the street. There was a Lyons opposite.
We queued up in silence. I selected a piece of Danish pastry and a cup of tea. Simpson decided on cod and chips. Seated at last, I hadn’t an idea of what I should say. I started to break up my pastry nervously with a fork.
‘You don’t mind eating here?’
‘Of course not,’ I replied a little too eagerly.
‘My fish is surprisingly fresh.’
I had not as yet lifted any of my food to my mouth so was unable to comment on my good or evil fortune. Simpson put down his knife and fork suddenly. He looked straight at me:
‘You know I don’t feel in the slightest embarrassed bumping into you like this.’ I felt myself trying to dislike him. Trying to find his openness false. ‘Are you embarrassed?’
The question made me smile stupidly. In spite of myself I replied:
‘Yes.’
He prodded his fish.
‘I thought you were.’ he said. Then went on: ‘I often thought about what I’d say to you if this should ever happen. The funny thing is that I never found any answer.’
I felt my first dislike. Why should he be talking about embarrassment, what to say, unless she had told him about my exact previous standing with her. I could not understand why I had admitted to being put out myself. Nevertheless there was something mildly comic about the schemer being treated as the more surprised party. My amusement was short-lived.
‘Did it puzzle you that I was such a short time at the hospital?’
‘I didn’t think about it.’
‘You followed me this morning.’ This was a statement, not a question.
‘I did.’ I felt slightly sick. ‘Did you have to tell me that you knew?’ I said sharply.
‘Yes. I wanted to know why.’ The flat way he said this shocked me; the way he went on stripping fish from the bone. He wanted to know why. Why. I screamed the word in my head.
‘Because you married Dinah.’ I watched him carefully. He did not seem in any way put out.
‘I don’t suppose I could have expected you to find my life interesting for its own sake.’ He smiled. The placing of this joke decided me. If he knew what those words meant to me. He said:
‘You still think about her.’
‘Following you wasn’t very stimulating. I don’t like walking in this weather.’
‘I’m afraid I’m a bit too slow to get anybody’s circulation going.’ His humorously self-deprecating tone maddened me. All this had gone when he said.
‘Isn’t it better to forget?’ Definitely a question. I fought my anger. He was looking straight at me: brown, sympathetic eyes. As he leant towards me he knocked his stick on the floor. I bent down and handed it back.
‘You wouldn’t easily forget that,’ I said as he took it.
‘I shouldn’t have said what I did. I’m sorry.’
I said nothing. It wasn’t all right. Why should I say so?
He waited for me to acknowledge his apology. When he realised I was not going to he said:
‘So you see what sort of a man Dinah lives with.’
‘Aren’t you being rather unfair to yourself? I would have thought you were worth more than a few stilted words in a cheap restaurant.’
‘I don’t expect you think so,’ he said, making as if to get up.
‘So I’m meant to be thinking: poor Dinah married to a bloody-minded cripple or something like that?’
‘We seem to have gone off the rails somewhere.’ His voice trembled, but with the effort of getting up. I watched him brace one arm on the edge of the table, the other on the back of his chair.
Just before he turned to go he said:
‘I enjoyed the fish anyway.’ His smile was one of wistfully good-natured regret about the way everything else had gone. I could have said: ‘Good for you.’ In fact I didn’t say anything.
I watched him painfully thread his way past the tables between us and the door. Two people pulled their chairs in as he limped by. They were trying to shorten the distance he had to walk I supposed. He moved more painfully than I had yet seen him move. Then I saw why. He had left his stick behind. I picked it up and ran out after him. He was leaning against a wall further up the street. I could see the rapidity of his breathing as each breath became vapour in the cold raw air.
‘Wasn’t that rather a futile gesture?’ I asked.
I thought of his question again: ‘Isn’t it better to forget?’ I also remembered the callousness of my reply.
Simpson said:
‘I thought it might make a point.’
I walked away in the opposite direction. I doubted whether Simpson would relay this meeting to Dinah. I rearranged my silk scarf and reflected that I had learned more in one day than I could reasonably have hoped.
Eight
Just before two o’clock that Saturday I was standing outside Mrs Lisle’s varnished door.
‘You’re early. I suppose you thought I might take him out myself if he arrived before you.’
She led me into the sitting room. We both sat down. In the daylight I saw the room better. The photograph of Dinah was still there. The furniture was functional rather than beautiful. I also remembered the nineteenth-century landscapes. They would be fashionable now.
‘What would you have done if I’d asked Mark or Dinah to bring him?’
‘That wouldn’t have been very wise. They might have asked why you’ve agreed to let me take him out.’
‘I could have pointed out that you forced me by talking about the past in front of Andrew.’
‘Not altogether convincing.’
‘Have you any idea why I did say yes?’
‘Because you were curious to know what I was up to.’
She looked at me with interest. Behind her glasses her eyes fixed mine. When she spoke it was with slight unease, as though she was hiding something from me — something I ought to know.
‘Why are you trying to find out after all those years?’
‘Don’t you mean what am I trying to find out?’
‘Both. And you won’t answer. I don’t see why you should. Nevertheless I know perfectly well that you’re not just magnanimously showing that you forgive us for what happened.’ She clapped her hands together and leant forward smiling: ‘Well, that’s enough of that. You must tell me about yourself. What are you doing these days?’
I began to wonder whether I had in fact forced her to let me take the child out. No, she had chosen to let me. I ought to be asking her questions. What could she think about Simpson?
‘Unashamedly pursuing the delights of mammon,’ I replied to her last question; then added: ‘Unlike your son-in-law.’
I saw her purse her lips with irritation. What had her financial ambitions for Dinah been? She decided to ignore my last words.
‘I gather from what you said to Andrew that you’re in the transport business.’
‘Not solely.’
‘Let me guess what else.’ She must have known how false this playfulness sounded. Anyway she seemed to know the answer. ‘Property,’ she announced with hopeful certainty.
‘I let out a number of premises for shops.’
‘While maintaining an interest in the shops, I trust.’ She gave me a look intended to make us brother and sister in the corrupt business of money-making.
‘Naturally,’ I replied flatly.
‘It must be awfully hard to know what to do with so much money.’
How many times have the poor said this to the rich and generally been wrong. I wish Mrs Lisle had been then.
‘It demands imagination,’ I said, assuming her playfulness of tone.
‘A quality which so few businessmen seem to have.’ She laughed at so sad a paradox.
‘What a wretched lot we are. With every penny I earn I’m heaping up fodder for a damned afterlife. “It is easier for a camel to pass through …”
and all that.’ I smiled disarmingly at her. Again the pursed lips. I wonder what her emotions had been when she gazed at Simpson’s window. The thought made me feel quite friendly towards her.
‘Well I ought to slip through nice and easily,’ she managed to say, while maintaining the appearance of her former mood.
I could have said that there were other qualifications besides poverty. In spite of my dislike I realised that the odious woman would be a useful ally.
At that moment the bell rang. Mrs Lisle got up to let Andrew in.
*
Andrew leant forward from the deep front passenger seat of the Mercedes. I looked at his face with satisfaction. He was impressed. If he knew how little the thing meant to me. News of my new opulence might well find its way back to Dinah.
‘My father’s sold his car,’ Andrew said with undisguised regret.
Just when he needed it most. Quite a man for gestures. Dinah couldn’t have liked that. If the news of my wealth did get to Dinah I should have to try and see it was properly presented.
