I went downstairs. On the first-floor landing outside the caretaker’s flat there were two men.
‘Pardon me, sir,’ said one of the men. I thought at first they were waiting for the caretaker, but as I tried to pass one of them stood in the way. The other spoke again. ‘There have been a lot of break-ins here lately, sir.’
‘So?’
‘We’re from the security company who look after this block.’ It was the taller of the two men who’d spoken. He was wearing a short suede overcoat with a sheepskin lining. The sort of coat a man needed if he spent a lot of time in doorways. ‘Are you a tenant here, sir?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I said.
The taller man buttoned the collar of his coat. It seemed like an excuse to keep his hands near my throat. ‘Would you mind producing some identification, sir?’
I counted ten, but before I was past five the shorter of the men had pressed the caretaker’s buzzer. ‘What is it now?’
‘This one of your tenants?’ said the tall man.
‘I’m from number eighteen,’ I prompted.
‘Never seen him before,’ said the man.
‘You’re not the caretaker,’ I said. ‘Charlie Short is the caretaker.’
‘Charlie Short used to come over here now and again to give me a break for a couple of hours …’
‘Don’t give me that,’ I said. ‘Charlie is the caretaker. I’ve never seen you before.’
‘A bloody con man,’ said the man from the caretaker’s flat.
‘I’ve lived here for five years,’ I protested.
‘Get on,’ said the man. ‘Never seen him before.’ He smiled as if amused at my gall. ‘The gentleman in number eighteen has lived here for five years but he’s much older than this bloke – bigger, taller – this one would pass for him in a crowd, but not in this light.’
‘I don’t know what you’re up to …’ I said. ‘I can prove …’ Unreasonably my anger centred on the man who said he was the caretaker. One of the security men took my arm. ‘Now then, sir, we don’t want any rough stuff, do we?’
‘I’m going back to “War and Peace”,’ said the man. He closed the door forcefully enough to discourage further interruption.
‘I never had that Albert figured for a reader,’ said the taller man.
‘On the telly, he means,’ said the other one. ‘So –’ he turned to me, ‘you’d better come and identify yourself properly.’
‘That’s not the caretaker,’ I said.
‘I’m afraid you’re wrong, sir.’
‘I’m not wrong.’
‘It won’t take more than ten minutes, sir.’
I walked down the flight of stairs that led to the street. Outside there was my taxi. Screw them all. I opened the cab door and had one foot on the ledge when I saw the third man. He was sitting well back in the far corner of the rear seat. I froze. ‘Do get in, sir,’ he said. It should have been a mini-cab, this was a taxi. I didn’t like it at all.
One of my hands was in my pocket. I stood upright and pointed a finger through my coat. ‘Come out,’ I said with a suitable hint of menace. ‘Come out very slowly.’ He didn’t move.
‘Don’t be silly, sir. We know you are not armed.’
I extended my free hand and flipped the fingers up to beckon him. The seated man sighed. ‘There are three of us, sir. Either we all get in as we are, or we all get in bruised, but either way we all get in.’
I glanced to one side. There was another man standing beside the doorway. The driver hadn’t moved.
‘We won’t delay you long, sir,’ said the seated man.
I got into the cab. ‘What is this?’ I asked.
‘You know that flat is no longer yours, sir.’ He shook his head. The driver checked that the door was closed and drove off with us, along Cromwell Road. The man said, ‘Whatever made you trespass there, at this time of night? It’s brought all three of us out of a bridge game.’ The taller man was sitting on the jump seat. He unbuttoned his sheepskin coat.
‘That really reassures me,’ I told them. ‘Cops playing poker might frame you. Cops playing pontoon might beat you to death. But who could get worried about cops who play bridge?’
‘You should know better,’ said the tall man mildly. ‘You know how security has tightened since last year.’
‘You people talk to me like we are all related. I’ve never seen you before. You don’t work with me. Who the hell are you, dial-a-cop?’
‘You can’t be that naïve, sir.’
‘You mean the phone has always been tapped?’
‘Monitored.’
‘Every call?’
‘That’s an empty flat, sir.’
‘You mean – “Anyone do a Gloucester Road to Fulham with fifty pence on the clock” was your people?’
‘Barry was so near to winning the rubber,’ said the second man.
‘I just went in to use the phone.’
‘And I believe you,’ said the cop.
The cab stopped. It was dark. We had driven across Hammersmith Bridge and were in some godforsaken hole in Barnes. On the left there was a large piece of open common, and the wind howled through the trees and buffeted the cab so that it rocked gently. There was very little traffic, but in the distance lights, and sometimes a double-decker bus, moved through the trees. I guessed that that might be Upper Richmond Road.
‘What are we waiting for?’
‘We won’t delay you long, sir. Cigarette?’
‘No, thanks,’ I said.
A black Ford Executive came past, drew in and parked ahead of us. Two men got out and walked back. The man with the sheepskin coat wound down the window. A man from the other car put a flashlight beam on my face. ‘Yes, that’s him.’
‘Is that you, Mason?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Mason was the one who did the weather print-outs and got himself photographed with strangers wearing my clothes.
‘Are you in on this, then?’ I said.
‘In on what?’ said Mason.
‘Don’t bullshit me, you little creep,’ I said.
‘Yes, that’s him,’ said Mason. He switched off the light.
‘Well, we knew it was,’ said the first cop.
‘Oh, sure,’ I said. ‘Or else I would have got you with only twenty-five pence on the clock.’ How could I have been so stupid. On that phone if you dialled TIM you’d hear the tick of the Chief Commissioner’s watch.
‘We’d better get you home,’ said the cop. ‘And thank you, Mr Mason.’
Mason let the driver open the door of the Executive for him as if to the manner born. That little bastard would wind up running the Centre, that much was clear.
They took me all the way home. ‘Next time,’ said the cop, ‘get car-pool transport. You’re entitled to it after a trip, you know that.’
‘You couldn’t get one of your people to collect my Mini Clubman – between games of bridge, I mean.’
‘I’ll report it stolen. The local bobbies will pick it up.’
‘I bet sometimes you wish you weren’t so honest,’ I said.
‘Goodnight, sir.’ It was still pouring with rain. I got out of the cab. They’d left me on the wrong side of the street. U-turns were forbidden.
3
All time is game time …
RULES. ALL GAMES. STUDIES CENTRE. LONDON
I let myself into the flat as quietly as possible. Marjorie turned up the heating whenever I was away, and now the stale air, heavy with fresh paint and unseasoned timber smells, hit me like a secondhand hangover. It would be a long time before I’d get used to living here.
‘Is that you, darling?’
‘Yes, love.’ I prodded at the pile of mail, pushing the unsealed buff envelopes aside until there remained only a postcard from a ski resort, Cross and Cockade magazine and a secondhand book about the Battle of Moscow. On the silver-plated toast rack – a place kept for urgent messages – there was a torn piece of hospital notepaper with ‘Please go to Colonel Schlegel’s hom
e on Sunday. He’ll meet the ten o’clock train’ written on it in Marjorie’s neat handwriting. I’d have gone Monday except that Sunday was underlined three times, in the red pencil she used for diagrams.
‘Darling!’
‘I’m coming.’ I went into the sitting-room. When I was away she seldom went in there: a quick bout with the frying pan and a briefcase full of post-graduate medical studies on the bedside table was her routine. But now she’d got it all tidied and ready for my return: matches near the ashtray and slippers by the fireplace. There was even a big bunch of mixed flowers, arranged with fern and placed in a jug amid her copies of House and Garden on the side table.
‘I missed you, Marj.’
‘Hello, sailor.’
We embraced. The lingering smell of bacon I’d encountered in the hall was now a taste on her lips. She ran a hand through my hair to ruffle it. ‘It won’t come loose,’ I said. ‘They knit them into the scalp.’
‘Silly.’
‘Sorry I’m late.’
She turned her head and smiled shyly. She was like a little girl: her large green eyes and small white face, lost somewhere under that dishevelled black hair.
‘I made a stew but it’s a bit dried up.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘You haven’t noticed the flowers.’
‘Are you working in the mortuary again?’
‘Bastard,’ she said, but she kissed me softly.
In the corner, the box was keeping up its bombardment of superficial hysteria: British Equity outwits fat German extras shouting Schweinhund.
‘The flowers were from my mother. To wish me many happy returns.’
‘You’re not rerunning that twenty-ninth birthday again this year?’
She hit me in the ribs with the side of the hand and knew enough anatomy to make it hurt.
‘Take it easy,’ I gasped. ‘I’m only joking.’
‘Well, you save your lousy jokes for the boys on the submarine.’
But she put her arms round me and grabbed me tight. And she kissed me and stroked my face, trying to read her fortune in my eyes.
I kissed her again. It was more like the real thing this time.
‘I was beginning to wonder,’ she said, but the words were lost in my mouth.
There was a pot of coffee clipped into an electric contraption that kept it warm for hours. I poured some into Marjorie’s cup and sipped it. It tasted like iron filings with a dash of quinine. I pulled a face.
‘I’ll make more.’
‘No.’ I grabbed her arm. She made me neurotic with all this tender loving care. ‘Sit down, for God’s sake sit down.’ I reached over and took a piece of the chocolate bar she’d been eating. ‘I don’t want anything to eat or drink.’
The heroes on the box got the keys to a secret new aeroplane from this piggy-eyed Gestapo man, and this fat short-sighted sentry kept stamping and giving the Heil Hitler salute. The two English cats Heil Hitlered back, but they exchanged knowing smiles as they got in the plane.
‘I don’t know why I’m watching it,’ said Marjorie.
‘Seeing these films makes you wonder why we took six years to win that damned war,’ I said.
‘Take off your overcoat.’
‘I’m OK.’
‘Have you been drinking, darling?’ She smiled. She’d never seen me drunk but she was always suspecting I might be.
‘No.’
‘You’re shivering.’
I wanted to tell her about the flat and the photographs of the man who wasn’t me, but I knew she’d be sceptical. She was a doctor: they’re all like that. ‘Did the car give you trouble?’ she asked finally. She wanted only to be quite certain I wasn’t going to confess to another woman.
‘The plugs. Same as last time.’
‘Perhaps you should get the new one now, instead of waiting.’
‘Sure. And a sixty-foot ocean racer. Did you see Jack while I was away?’
‘He took me to lunch.’
‘Good old Jack.’
‘At the Savoy Grill.’
I nodded. Her estranged husband was a fashionable young paediatrician. The Savoy Grill was his works canteen. ‘Did you talk about the divorce?’
‘I told him I wanted no money.’
‘That pleased him, I’ll bet.’
‘Jack’s not like that.’
‘What is he like, Marjorie?’
She didn’t answer. We’d got as close as this to fighting about him before, but she was sensible enough to recognize male insecurity for what it was. She leaned forward and kissed my cheek. ‘You’re tired,’ she said.
‘I missed you, Marj.’
‘Did you really, darling?’
I nodded. On the table alongside her there was a pile of books: Pregnancy and Anaemia, Puerperal Anaemia, Bennett, Achresthic Anaemia, Wilkinson, A Clinical Study, by Schmidt and History of a Case of Anaemia, by Combe. Tucked under the books there was a bundle of loose-leaf pages, crammed with Marjorie’s tiny writing. I broke the chocolate bar lying next to the books and put a piece of it into Marjorie’s mouth.
‘The Los Angeles people came back to me. Now there’s a car and a house and a sabbatical fifth year.’
‘I wasn’t …’
‘Now don’t be tempted into lying. I know how your mind works.’
‘I’m pretty tired, Marj.’
‘Well, we’ll have to talk about things some time.’ It was the doctor speaking.
‘Yes.’
‘Lunch Thursday?’
‘Great,’ I said.
‘Sounds like it.’
‘Sensational, wonderful, I can’t wait.’
‘Sometimes I wonder how we got this far.’
I didn’t answer. I wondered too. She wanted me to admit that I couldn’t live without her. And I had the nasty feeling that as soon as I did that, she’d up and leave me. So we continued as we were: in love but determined not to admit it. Or worse: declaring our love in such a way that the other could not be sure.
‘Strangers on a train,’ said Marjorie.
‘What?’
‘We are – strangers on a train.’
I pulled a face, as if I didn’t understand what she was getting at. She pushed her hair back but it fell forward again. She pulled a clip from it and fastened it. It was a nervous movement, designed more to occupy her than to change her hair.
‘I’m sorry, love.’ I leaned forward and kissed her gently. ‘I’m really sorry. We’ll talk about it.’
‘On Thursday …’ she smiled, knowing that I’d promise anything to avoid the sort of discussion that she had in mind. ‘Your coat is wet. You’d better hang it up, it will wrinkle and need cleaning.’
‘Now, if you like. We’ll talk now, if that’s what you want.’
She shook her head. ‘We’re on our way to different destinations. That’s what I mean. When you get to where you’re going, you’ll get out. I know you. I know you too well.’
‘It’s you who gets offers … fantastic salaries from Los Angeles research institutes, reads up anaemia, and sends polite refusals that ensure an even better offer eventually comes.’
‘I know,’ she admitted, and kissed me in a distant and preoccupied way. ‘But I love you, darling. I mean really …’ She gave an attractive little laugh. ‘You make me feel someone. The way you just take it for granted that I could go to America and do that damned job …’ She shrugged. ‘Sometimes I wish you weren’t so damned encouraging. I wish you were bossy, even. There are times when I wish you’d insist I stayed at home and did the washing-up.’
Well, you can’t make women happy, that’s a kind of fundamental law of the universe. You try and make them happy and they’ll never forgive you for revealing to them that they can’t be.
‘So do the washing-up,’ I said. I put my arm round her. The wool dress was thin. I could feel that her skin was hot beneath it. Perhaps she was running a fever, or perhaps it was passion. Or perhaps I was just the icy cold bastard that she so
often accused me of being.
‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like a bacon sandwich?’
I shook my head. ‘Marjorie,’ I said, ‘do you remember the caretaker at number eighteen?’ I walked across to the TV and switched it off.
‘No. Should I?’
‘Be serious for a moment … Charlie the caretaker. Charlie Short … moustache, cockney accent – always making jokes about the landlords.’
‘No.’
‘Think for a moment.’
‘No need to shout.’
‘Can’t you remember the dinner party … he climbed in the window to let you in when you’d lost your key?’
‘That must have been one of your other girls,’ said Marjorie archly.
I smiled but said nothing.
‘You don’t look very well,’ said Marjorie. ‘Did anything happen on the trip?’
‘No.’
‘I worry about you. You look pretty done in.’
‘Is that a professional opinion, Doctor?’
She screwed her face up, like a little girl playing doctors and nurses. ‘Yes, it is, honestly, darling.’
‘The diagnosis?’
‘Well it’s not anaemia.’ She laughed. She was very beautiful. Even more beautiful when she laughed.
‘And what do you usually prescribe for men in my condition, Doc?’
‘Bed,’ she said. ‘Definitely bed.’ She laughed and undid my tie.
‘You’re shaking.’ She said it with some alarm. I was shaking. The trip, the journey home, the weather, that damned number eighteen where I was now in mass production, had all got to me suddenly, but how do you explain that? I mean, how do you explain it to a doctor?
4
The senior officer in Control Suite at commencement of game is CONTROL. Change of CONTROL must be communicated to Red Suite and Blue Suite (and any additional commanders), in advance and in writing. CONTROL’S ruling is final.
RULES. ‘TACWARGAME’. STUDIES CENTRE. LONDON
You might think you know your boss, but you don’t. Not unless you’ve seen him at home on Sunday.
There are only three trains to Little Omber on Sunday. The one I caught was almost empty except for a couple of Saturday-night revellers, three couples taking babies to show Mums, two priests going to the seminary and half a dozen soldiers connecting with the express.