A Love Like Blood (6 page)

Through my time as an undergraduate, Hunter was a regular part of my life, and I think we both enjoyed the way that the gap in our ages didn’t seem to exist, let alone to matter.

Hunter had brought me many things in life already, by that tender age. It was he who gave me a love of music, and of reading, and now, in an indirect way, he gave me Marian.

‘So,’ she said. ‘Let’s have some answers. Who are you? And why are you following me?’

I was at first thrown by such directness, though I came to like it very soon. It made it so much easier to know what your companion was thinking and feeling, instead of footling around with English correctness.

‘My name is Charles Jackson,’ I said, ‘and I’m a haematologist.’

I hesitated for a moment because I was used to people asking ‘A what?’ whenever I told them what I did. Marian didn’t, and waited for me to go on.

‘I’m here for a conference. On leukaemia. It’s something we’re working on in Cambridge just now.’

‘You live in Cambridge?’

I nodded. I thought I might be managing to steer her away from her other question, but I was wrong.

‘And you’re following me because . . . ?’

I did something foolish. I contradicted what I’d already admitted.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m not following you. I—’

She stood immediately, making to leave.

‘You were in Saint-Germain earlier. I saw you at lunch. And on the train. I thought you weren’t going to lie to me, so I’ll wish you good evening—’

‘No!’ I said, perhaps a touch too forcefully. I softened my voice. ‘No, wait. I’m sorry! I only meant, I wasn’t really following you, not to start with at least. It’s your . . . friend.’

She stood, waiting, but did not sit down again.

‘Anton?’

I now had a name; I had to assume it was my quarry’s.

I nodded.

‘Why?’

‘I’ll explain. Won’t you sit down? Please?’

She sat. The bar was filling up steadily with locals, mostly single working men stopping for a glass of Pernod on the way home. Night had come on, and the rain was a drizzle once more, snaking softly down the window glass.

I said I would explain, and yet I never did. Not really. What could I tell her? Not the truth; that I thought he was a murderer at worst or some demented pervert at best. I saw how stupid that would look, and I didn’t want to lose the chance to use this connection I’d found to the man. I might be able to find out more about him if I didn’t give her cause to be cautious. Besides that, I realised I already didn’t want this conversation with Marian to end quickly. I found I wanted to say something that would make her stay a while longer, and her cognac glass was already empty.

I downed mine and held it up.

‘Another?’

She paused for a moment, then turned and waved at the barman, who wandered over and refilled both our glasses.

He smiled at her.

‘
Ça va, Marian?
’

She smiled back.

‘
Merci, Jean, assez bien. Et toi?
’

So I knew this was a local place of hers, but I marvelled at this strange American girl who drank in bars by herself often enough to know the barman by his first name, and call him
toi
. She intrigued me more and more. I sensed she was not someone who stuck to the rules, the rules of society, at least.

She turned back from Jean, who returned to his counter.

‘So?’

‘Oh, it’s nothing really,’ I said, as casually as I could. I’d decided that was my best strategy. ‘I just thought I might have known him, a while ago. In the war, in fact, but I couldn’t quite find his name, or where I met him, and . . . well, I didn’t want to make a fool of myself.’

She nodded.

‘So you thought you knew him?’

‘Yes. In the war, I—’

‘And you followed me instead.’

It was a statement, not a question. She stared at me, waiting for an explanation.

‘Yes, I . . . I couldn’t remember his name, or where I’d seen him. You see, I was stationed so many places, we met so many people, in different units, in the French forces, the American . . . And so then I wasn’t sure, and as I say I didn’t want to make a fool of myself. You know us Brits . . .’

‘I’m starting to,’ she said.

She had a simple way of unnerving me but I tried to ignore it.

‘Well, in fact by that point I began to think I had made a mistake. That I didn’t know him at all.’

There was some truth in that. Somehow, I could not equate any companion of Marian’s, such a personable, likeable young woman, with that creature I’d seen in the bunker in
1944
. So I was beginning to doubt myself.

‘So instead you decided to follow me?’

She didn’t let things go easily, I’d learned that much already. I tried to act sheepish. It wasn’t hard.

‘Well, you can hardly blame me for that . . .’ I ventured.

‘Oh, you liked the look of me. Why didn’t you just come right out and say it? The British thing again? It’s a wonder you guys ever get as far as having children.’

She laughed, but it wasn’t malicious. A thought crossed her face.

‘Do you have children?’

I shook my head.

‘Married?’

‘No, not even that.’

She drank her cognac, and I followed suit. It wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t bad, and a hot rush shot through my veins. Of course, I felt a little bolder.

‘You’re a long way from home,’ I said.

‘I am,’ she said simply, as if that was all I needed to know, but I wasn’t going to let it drop.

‘What are you doing here?’

She sighed, looking at the table for a while, then lifted her head and smiled at me, half hidden behind a slant of red hair.

‘Sorry,’ she said, brightly. ‘I guess you get to ask me some questions too. I’m researching. For my doctorate.’

‘At the Sorbonne? What’s your subject?’

She sighed again, but this time with a playful smile on her face.

‘French and Italian medieval literature.’

‘Really?’ I said, a spectacular reply.

‘Really,’ she mocked, her eyes wide. She laughed.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean it to sound like that.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like . . . I don’t know. Like I was surprised.’

‘But you were, weren’t you?’

‘Everything about you is surprising,’ I said. ‘A single girl, all the way from America, studying for a PhD at the Sorbonne.’

‘Who said I was single?’

That threw me but I tried not to let it show.

‘Is Anton your . . . ?’

She smiled.

‘No, he’s not my boyfriend. He’s my
patron
.’

She used the French pronunciation.

Now I did look surprised.

‘Your patron?’

‘Yes, how do you think I look after myself here?’

‘I didn’t think about it,’ I said, truthfully. ‘Rich parents, perhaps?’

‘Yes, I have rich parents. Rich parents who wanted me to marry the first officer they could set me up with, and who did not permit me to come to Europe to study what I wanted to study.’

‘So you came anyway?’ I asked. ‘I’m impressed.’

‘The folks weren’t. I’m the first Fisher not to behave herself. They cut me off.’

She looked me right in the eye, daring me to pity her. I didn’t know how to respond, so changed the subject slightly.

‘And Anton? How did you meet him? You don’t just look up patrons in the phone book.’

Her wide mouth spread even wider with her smile and I decided I liked it. The noise and bustle of the café couldn’t compete with Marian’s presence, which had captivated me.

‘No,’ she said, nodding. ‘I had some money of my own. Rich parents . . . And so I had about a year. I worked as well, in the evenings. In bars, like this one. My French was OK. It got better quickly. And then about six months ago, just when things were looking bad and I was thinking I might have to go back home cap in hand, I met Anton.’

I tried to sound as relaxed as I could.

‘Who is he?’

Could she hear my heart thumping hard in my chest? I thought the whole bar should be able to hear. She didn’t notice.

‘Anton? He’s a very rich man, who likes to support the arts, so he says. We met in a bar I was working in, not far from here, in the fall. He’s a count, sort of . . .’

‘A count,’ I said. ‘Sort of?’

‘A margrave, actually. That’s a kind of count, isn’t it? I’m not sure.’

I shook my head.

‘I don’t know. I think so.’

‘The Margrave Verovkin!’ she declared, like a little girl, suddenly. ‘My Estonian count!’

I wanted to ignore the possessive pronoun and picked up on something else.

‘Estonian?’

‘Yes. I had to look that up. It’s part of the Soviet Union, or it is now, anyway, on the Baltic Sea. He said he lived in exile as a boy with his family, in Austria, I think, and then in Switzerland when the war broke out. After the war he moved to Saint-Germain and took over a ruined palace. A small one, on the edge of the park.’

‘So . . . he didn’t fight?’

The man I had seen had been in uniform, some kind of uniform anyway. Maybe he’d been an officer. For a moment I was distracted, but Marian was still answering me.

‘He’s a count!’ she said. ‘Counts don’t fight. Do they?’

She looked puzzled and very comical, and I laughed.

‘No, I suppose not. And he’s paying for you to finish your studies?’

‘Yes, he is, and don’t think I’m some charity case. I’m teaching him English in return. He’s not bad but he gets simple things wrong still. That’s where I’ve been today.’

‘And what does he do? In that office?’

‘My, you really were spying on him, weren’t you?’

She looked at me fiercely and I was about to defend myself when she smiled, and I knew she was playing with me again.

‘He’s a doctor. Of an amazing kind. He’s studied oriental philosophy and medicine for many years, and is a great thinker. He’s adapting some of his findings and applying them to a new medical science he’s creating.’

I said nothing. I had put this together with the words I’d seen on the brass plaque.
Verovkin, Sciences de l’Orient ancien
.

‘You’re a doctor, too?’

‘Of sorts. A haematologist.’

‘Yes, you said. So you won’t buy any of this I’m telling you. But don’t worry. It’s your mind that’s closed. That’s all.’

I started to feel a little nettled by these remarks, especially because she was right. It sounded like a load of hokum to me.

Yet I didn’t want her to go. I tried to think of something that might keep her interested in me.

But she was already standing.

‘Listen,’ she said. ‘I’m tired. I better go. And you have to go back to your conference. And then home to Cambridge, I guess?’

‘Cambridge awaits me,’ I confirmed, solemnly. ‘After the weekend. And you, you have to go back to your studies. To Saint Eulalia, I suppose?’

She stopped putting her coat on when I said that.

It was a lucky guess, something I’d plucked out of the air that I’d once heard Hunter talk about. I knew no more about it than the name and that it was the story of an early Christian martyr.

‘Isn’t that the sort of thing you’re studying, the Sequence of Saint Eulalia? That kind of thing?’

‘Oh, so you’re not as uneducated as you make yourself out to be?’

‘I’ve read a book or two,’ I said, feigning modesty, apparently quite well. I decided to confess. ‘Something my friend Hunter spoke to me about.’

She suddenly looked more interested.

‘In Cambridge . . . ?’

‘Yes, why?’

‘What’s your friend’s surname?’

‘Wilson. Why?’

‘You know Hunter Wilson?’ she said, in genuine surprise. ‘
The
Hunter Wilson?’

‘I don’t know about “
the
”, but he’s one of my best friends. Why?’

‘Because he’s the greatest living Dante scholar, that’s why.’

That surprised me in turn, but I knew I had an advantage to play and I didn’t want to let it show. I knew Hunter had a passing interest in Dante, had written a book or two on him, outside of his work in the Faculty of English. Almost as a hobby.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He writes on Dante. Why do you ask?’

‘Yes, well, I ask because my PhD is on a particular motif in Dante.’

She looked thoughtful for a while.

‘Anyway, I have to do some reading before bed. I’d better go . . .’

She hesitated, and I stood, smiling.