Undercurrent Page 5

  Francesca Chisholm was patently alive and not in the graveyard, as a few of his contemporaries already were as the result of rash experiments with drugs, ambition and fast cars. He could not see Francesca as self-destructive, but he could see her crashing a car with the greatest of ease. She would be impulsive with her enthusiasms; she would never be scientific enough to know how an engine worked. She would press the pedals and tell it to go.

  How do you know that? he asked himself. You don't know anything. You didn't really know her; it was she who seemed to know you. What pleased him most about the lawyer with the dead fish in his office was what he had revealed about Francesca, rather than what he had withheld. The woman was not only alive, but she had made the news, done something that made her attorney bridle so defensively. She might be a notoriety of some kind, raising Cain, running protest movements, leading a wild life, behaving scandalously, or at least oddly, shocking the natives one way or another, and he was distinctly proud of her for that.

  The sense of vicarious achievement grew with each step. You are known, Francesca; people know who you are; they talk about you. You're a somebody; you didn't become a nonentity with a dry career like me; you stayed that bright light you were. So bright, she could shine in the darkness, it had seemed to him, twenty years ago. Had her beauty been so spectacular, or was it another kind of singularity which made her so haunting, even against the dramatic scenery of the Indian subcontinent?

  Brilliant blue skies, the almost surreal colours of vegetation and the peacock shades of clothing against the dull browns of dried palm fronds which cooled the village houses. . . the vivid cerise of split watermelon; the yellow of the daily pineapple. . . He could struggle to remember the debilitating intoxication of the constant, visual feast it had been, and yet remember her, dressed in dull khaki trousers and her long hair in a twist. He could recall, with difficulty, the impact of the Indian women, the poor in the country, the rich in the hotels, universally exquisite but achingly untouchable.

  They were removed by their eyes, dress, language, decorum and, surely, indifference to a large, hulking young man who went pink in the sun and could not digest their food. The one who watched them covertly, aware of his clumsiness and their fragility. He should have remembered them; he should have remembered the magnificence of the scenery, captured painstakingly on his camera, but all he remembered was her, the one he was never allowed to photograph.

  Henry walked slowly through the streets, seeing nothing. He had been fragile when they had met, his stomach recovered to the extent that he could eat selectively and drink litres of bottled water a day. The water supplies weighed down his rucksack more than anything else and he was-too weak to sling it over his shoulder. And he was starved for conversation, too, after the deliberate isolation of his travels.

  He had been determined to avoid the wandering tribes of travellers with their incessant boasts of cheaper accommodation, cheaper dope, better bargains. He had wanted to climb hills and see unknown views, and had almost done it; he was sick of it, and sicker of his own indolence.

  Wherever he went, everyone else was working. They worked with incessant, labour-intensive industry while all he had done for three months was to follow an elaborate, carefully prepared itinerary and watch them about the business of their sweated labour.

  He was humbled by generosity, infuriated by incurable poverty; he was lonely and nervous and sick of responding to Hallo, how are you? with the single response possible, I'm good, thank you, in the hourly recitation of a daily lie. Coming into the sanctuary of a shaded guest house to find her sitting on the veranda, telling stories to children, her instant appeal to him was not unique, but simply inevitable.

  Perhaps because she liked poetry and thought it entirely natural to carry around a volume of verse when a packet of nuts would have been more useful. It was a cool evening; she wore a cheap shawl to cover her thin shoulders. He had thought, from behind, that she was an elderly woman.

  Henry had reached the view of the pier without noticing any building he had passed, lost in memory of another time and place, and he swore under his breath. This was the most regular habit of his lifetime, making journeys to foreign destinations, covering every inch on foot and then somehow not seeing a thing, walking around with his eyes on the ground, privately occupying another space. That was why, years since, thinking of Francesca even then, he had stopped carrying a camera, because when he looked at the pictures when he got home he recognized nothing, as if he had turned a blind eye to the lens, like Nelson to his telescope. He did not feel he had ever been there, and here he was now, just the same.

  You don't really look, Henry, do you? You take an inventory and pass it on.

  Francesca had not been critical when she said that. She had simply been curious, as she was about everything. It was an essential part of her charm.

  He had seen the pier from the window of the House of Enchantment that morning, made himself notice what a strange and ugly structure it was, made of colourless concrete with stiff, spindly, jointless legs which seemed to bow as they met the water. The pier's legs have no ankles and no knees, the words of her description coming back to haunt, as if they had been as important at the time as the quality of laughter in her voice.

  There were four shelters on the pier, built into the concrete for the benefit of fishermen, and a series of utilitarian street lamps leading towards the low-slung building at the end, which housed a caff and lavatories, flanked by semicircular platforms at a lower level nearer the sea. The caff looked like some miniature manufacturing plant, squatting on its own industry, while the whole of the pier looked like a benign mistake, simply a road which was intended to go further across the sea, ending where it did, the half-hearted beginning to a pedestrian bridge, because someone, somewhere, has simply decided to stop. Henry walked towards it, determined to keep his eyes off the ground and not to think about the cold around his ears.

  There was no need to seek information: it was all there, written on two blackboards carefully placed to waylay the unwary at the porticoed entrance. Selective information_ Henry guessed, since the blackboards allowed the pier's caretaker to deliver different facts every day, changing them with a swipe of cloth and new, laborious lettering, according to whim. This pier is exactly 882 feet, nine inches, long and was opened in 1957. It replaces another pier which got hit by a ship in World war Two. Entrance is free, unless you wish to fish, in which case, 20p. The wind force today is 1-2 and the sea temperature is nil centigrade.

  Low. Henry huddled into his jacket, reminded himself of the errand to buy a hat, and then reminded himself not to keep on thinking of what he was going to do next, but think of what he was doing now. Walking the concrete deck of a crazy structure unadorned with anything except the black umbrellas of fishermen, wooden benches fixed to the side walls, other walkers. It was relatively quiet; no loud music, no obvious sounds of fun, but the sound of human chatter against the sea.

  He loved the openness of it and he was hungry; memories of India made him so; memories of never being ravenous, but never feeling fed, causing his stomach to growl ferociously. He blamed the sea air. From a ventilation shaft next to the door of the structure at the end, there wafted the forbidden, mouthwatering smell of frying bacon.

  Henry forgot the view. The warmth inside was fuggy and humid and he found himself passing a hand over his stomach beneath his jacket, comforting it with a circular stroke, then measuring the extra flesh. He had been very fat, he had been gross for five years, and in those seven years since, he had craved the unnatural thinness which had been his in the rucksack-carrying year.

  Without that weight, he might have tried to find her sooner. He had carried his luggage of vitamins, minerals, trace elements, supplements over several continents, leaving this until last. They weighed more than his baggage of water, twenty years ago. He scanned the menu for the vegetarian meal.

  There had been a sign affixed to the entry door, announcing opening and closing times. Sometime
s early and sometimes late, it said.

  'Can I have the vegetarian option?'

  'No call for it, squire, not really.'

  There was no contempt, only patience. The tea was the colour of rust. Henry closed his eyes, drank it with sugar and went back to the counter and asked for more. Then he ate bacon and egg with soft, white toast, agonizing over each mouthful His father would have liked this. There was never a day when he did not think about his father.

  Henry watched the calm skyline and thought about his father. Dead these last three months and, along with Francesca Chisholm, occupying at least one half of his waking thoughts as well as many of his dreams. It was only when he thought of his father, and what he might have inherited by way of personal worth, that Henry Evans allowed himself to think he might be a decent enough man himself. He looked down at the fishing platform and noticed missing planks, the water churning beneath. The sense of fatigue came back.

  The child looked angelic in sleep. Looking at her in this state made Angela wince with sheer pleasure, amazed that she should be such a graceful and placid sleeper, no tossing and turning, no signs of distress in her unconsciousness. She lay flat on her stomach, her perfect hands pressed into the pillow above her head, face on one side, displaying on the white of the linen the dark, rich curls of her hair. A proper auburn, Angela admired; the colour of horse chestnuts startlingly combined not with the pale skin and blue eyes of the traditional redhead, but a sallower complexion which always looked kissed by the sun.

  And remarkable brown eyes, above a delicate nose which was sweeter than ever in profile like this, breathing in and out with the minimal sound of a contented baby animal. The lips were slightly parted; the fingertips were lightly curled; there were no nightmares and she was a piece of perfection who deserved to be the centre of the universe; she deserved any sacrifice which could be made and she would sleep for hours. Angela turned from her, feeling satisfied.

  The child slept the sleep of healthy exhaustion, fresh air, exercise, stimulation and plenty of food. She was a wiry little thing. Not so little, and incredibly strong. She might make an athlete; she shone at school sports and showed a capacity to excel if only she was not so bored with it all.

  Difficult to get the hang of the rules. Why not outrun everyone else and shove the ball in the net, using the quickest route, even if it did mean going out of the ground and pushing people over?

  Why obey the whistle if you were ahead? Why not use skull, feet and fists and anything else which was useful, even if you were only supposed to use your hands or a stick? She was learning, though; she learned fast. Angela smiled fondly, touched the pillow in benediction, then touched her own hair, hidden beneath a rustling shower cap. Time to rinse. Twenty minutes maximum, or her hair would look like a bonflre in full flame once it was dry. There would only be a slight resemblance to the rich auburn of her daughter.

  Tanya had said that a girl at school had said, why hasn't your mummy got hair like yours?

  The fond and logical explanation that only half the mothers who collected at the school gates had a colour of hair resembling that of their children, or even their own, had failed to reassure. There were gaps in Tanya's logic, as well as her sensitivities, and if she wanted Mummy to have the same hair colour as herself, well then, Mummy would fix it. Angela glanced in the mirror and wondered if Uncle Joe would notice the difference when she visited next; she'd take a bet on it.

  Henna was such messy stuff and the application was roughly the equivalent of shoving her head in a cow pat of warm dung, with a not dissimilar smell and texture. It stained where it touched the porcelain; she had spent half the waiting time scrubbing at it, and the towel round her neck would never be the same again. It would be relegated to towels to be used for swimming in summer. If they ever did that again. Of course they would. By the end of the summer before, Tanya could float like a cork and swim like an eel, although eels had better understanding of the tides.

  Angela set about the task of getting the muck out of her hair with the aid of the shower attachment, cricking her neck at an uncomfortable angle over the sink. All finished, and she felt a huge impatience to get it dry and see the result. Tanya might not like it and she might have to do it all over again, but if the little brute said she wanted a blonde mummy next time, that was what she would have.

  No. Not blonde. That was Francesca's colour. It might remind her.

  Coffee; too early for a drink as long as it was daylight. She looked into the refrigerator, anxiously, checking supplies. A piece of cold chicken, a bottle of cheap Bulgarian wine, a dozen kinds of the yoghurt that Tanya loved, enough for a meal, later. Gone were the days of finer foods, all ending, as they had begun, with Francesca. When the doorbell rang, she made a quick, furious check of the tea and coffee supply, and hoped to heaven it was no one she owed the politeness of hospitality.

  As if there was anyone to who she owed nothing, or any time when she could refuse to answer the door, or fail to explain why it was her daughter was asleep in the afternoon. Because we get up so early, see?

  On her way across the carpet (worn, but subject to rigorous cleaning; must not let anyone imagine standards were slipping) she flipped the switch to the radio, filling the flat with the calm music of Classic FM. Made her look as if she was in control; relaxed; in command, not someone waiting for inspection.

  Maggie, looking bloody brilliant, in the way she did. A ripe, well proportioned figure in just the right kind of warm, lightweight coat, slimline trousers, neat little boots which combined practicality with a touch of elegance, and a somewhat breathless Hello! Just wondered if everything was all right. . . Bitch. Hate her. Coming round for a sympathy fix, the sort which was given but never solicited, making Angela feel deficient.

  It was hard accepting solicitude from someone who never seemed to need it. Angela knew what she was going to say before she said it; the words were already assembled like something wrapped for the post. Hello! Maggie, nice to see you, come on in, won't you? the smile on the face ready glued like the stamp on the parcel, hoping she really was just passing.

  'I was just passing,' Maggie said: the way you did when you lodged in the other direction. The just passing stuff was nosy neighbour code and it was bad manners to be seen to doubt it. 'On my way out,' Maggie continued. 'And I'm late already. I just thought I'd bring you these. . .' Now this was better already; an immediate announcement of no intention to stay. Angela liked that kind of visitor and she smiled with extra special warmth as she accepted the flowers. Winter blooms, on closer inspection, snowdrops wrapped in brown paper, not long picked and artfully bound. Angela never knew what to do with flowers. These were tasteful, without being edible.

  'I was thinking of sending some to Francesca,' Maggie was saying. 'Only then I remembered they wouldn't let her have them. Don't know why. Infectious or something, some new rule.'

  'Bastards,' Angela said with real feeling. 'Bastards.' She squared her shoulders, put the proffered flowers on the chair by the door with a nod of thanks she did not feel. 'I've got to dry my hair. Why don't you go and look at Tanya? She's fast asleep, poor love.'

  It was important that she make this child accessible to anyone who wanted to see her. She must always answer the door and behave politely, make it clear there was absolutely nothing to hide.

  Maggie crossed the floor of the living room into the bedroom with long-legged speed. Angela heard the muted ahhh of appreciation as she stood by the bed, and almost liked her for that. No one could be all that bad if they loved the child. She liked Maggie all the more when she was back within the minute, adjusting her scarf, ready for the off without a single suggestion of lingering longer.

  She had a ski hat with darling little tassels bursting from the crown, poking out of her bag. It matched her brown boots, would look perfect over her voluminous, well dressed hair. There was a pale scarf at her neck, too; she would never get cold. Sheer, naked dislike returned. They stood by the door. Maggie had opened it, stood elegantly wit
h her hand on the jamb.

  'Has Neil been round recently?'

  'Yeah. Took her out, Saturday. It's great she likes the castle so much.' As if she didn't know.

  As if she didn't check on Neil, too.

  'Oh, by the way. There's this bloke in town, got here yesterday. He, hmm, says he knew Francesca years ago, wants to get in touch. I. . . hmm, well, any idea what I should say? I mean, I'm her cousin, but you were her closest friend and you, you sort of hmm, know her best. What do you think she would want me to say?'

  She spoke as if she were tossing away a careless and purposeless question, but she was hesitant and slightly flustered, the way she never was. It made Angela more suspicious than ever. She shrugged, thought of the sleeping child, and crossed her arms, defensively, careful not to let irritation show.

  'I dunno what you say. Truth's best, isn't it? Tell him where to write to her, I would. I expect she likes letters. She used to write enough of them. Always writing something.'

  Maggie nodded, smiled and was gone. Angela picked up the artfully wrapped snowdrops, and after three seconds' contemplation of stamping them underfoot, unwrapped them carefully and found a cup to put them in, with water, so that they should not die. They must be prominently displayed until they decayed.

  They had the fresh look of half-budded winter blooms which would last in a cool room for days.

  She would take them to Uncle Joe. The child began to stir in her sleep and cry. Sudden sounds like that made Angela anxious. When this child had come to her, she had newly mended bones and scars the healing of which she could never quite believe.

  It was nonsense for anyone to believe that a woman could not love an adopted child as much as if it were her own flesh and blood. Impossible to love anyone more than this. But real mothers, real, neglectful, selfish mothers, did not have to open the door to every knock. They could ruin their kids and no one would know.