The Count of Eleven (35 page)

The next morning Julia had a headache. Once she had made Laura’s breakfast she went back upstairs and lay on the bed. When Jack had showered and dressed he sat by her and stroked her forehead. “We should be thinking of going to the bank soon.”

She pressed his hand to her forehead and relinquished it. “Would you mind very much if I weren’t to go after all?”

“Of course not. I can handle him. Will you be all right, though?”

‘I’ll give myself and the computer journals a rest. It’s them and too many late nights in front of the screen.”

It was also, Jack suspected, the strain of waiting to hear about the college job. “Shall I ring when I get to work and tell you what happened?”

‘I’ll ring you when I’m up and about.”

Jack wondered if one source of her headache might be the thought of yet another confrontation with the bank manager. ‘I’ll have good news.”

She frowned and immediately winced. “Don’t say anything you might regret.”

‘I’ll go as easy on him as I can,” Jack said, kissing her forehead smooth. He refilled her tumbler from the bathroom tap, water slipping between his fingers, and took a sip from the tumbler before setting it down by the bed. When he touched her forehead with his fingers chilled by water she responded with a subdued smile. “Dream of Crete,” he said, and left the house.

Sunlight was pivoting into the street, pushing shadows back under the houses. Jack rolled his window down to ease the heat and the faint sharp smell as he drove to the bank. He was ten minutes early, and his nerves were urging him to deal with the manager on Julia’s behalf. He swung the van into the side road whose corner was occupied by the bank, and stopped behind a Capri which was being parked. The black car’s reversing lights shone white, then its brake lights reddened, and the driver hauled himself onto the road. It was Mr. Hardy. “Caught you,” Jack said.

The manager glowered at the van and marched to Jack’s door. “Excuse me, perhaps you could he exhorted, and recognised Jack.

“Good morning. I won’t be any longer than you keep me, and I don’t suppose you’ll be going anywhere until you’re done.”

Seen from above, Mr. Hardy appeared more than ever to consist of his most prominent features: balding dome, thick lips, pinstriped paunch. He expressed a breath that made his lips quiver and tramped to his car for his briefcase. When he made for the entrance to the bank Jack was already there, and took a step as the manager unlocked the door. “If you’d like to wait outside,” Mr. Hardy said.

“I’ve told my boss I may be a few minutes late for work, since you made this sound so urgent. You won’t be long, will you? You wouldn’t want me to lose my job.”

“I shall be as quick as practicable,” the manager said heavily, stepping aside to admit someone else. Jack thought they were jumping the queue which consisted of himself and the Count of Eleven and the Mersey Burner, until he saw that they were the staff of the bank. He moved back, but not far, and had the satisfaction of seeing Mr. Hardy bump his own paunch with the door as he shut Jack out. Jack stared at the door as if his gaze could burn a hole in it, and considered fetching his briefcase in order to appear more businesslike. He hadn’t done so when Mr. Hardy unlocked the door.

“Please,” he said, inviting Jack in with a curt nod which seemed designed to show that Jack should do as he was told. “One of us might well be frightened of the other,” Jack murmured as he followed Mr. Hardy into the interview room.

The manager sat down, gazing at Jack and pulling in his paunch so as not to bump the desk with it. ‘1 understand you have been in contact with my head office.”

“I said I would be.”

“I don’t know what you imagined you would gain by it, but I have to tell you that they fully support my decision.”

“Don’t they have to? Tell me, I mean.”

“No doubt a communication will be in the post.” The manager sat forwards gingerly, resting his folded arms on the blotter. That wasn’t why I wrote to you. I believe there has been a change in your circumstances.”

They’re on the mend.”

“I should like to remind you that you still have an overdraft with us.”

Then I should think you’d be pleased we don’t need to borrow any cash to spend in Crete.”

“I should have thought you would be well advised to consider delaying any holiday.”

“You win the battle of the tenses. I can’t get any more remote than that,” Jack said, and didn’t wait for a response. Tell me why.”

“I shouldn’t think your employers would look too favourably on your taking time off so soon after starting work for them.”

They’ve been more than reasonable,” Jack said, and was mentally adding to his score when he saw from Mr. Hardy’s face that he was saving the worst. “What else?” Jack challenged him.

“I should have thought it ill-advised to plan a holiday that might have to be cancelled at short notice.”

He sat back smugly, and Jack resisted the temptation to shove the desk at his paunch. “Why on earth should we have to do that?”

“In the circumstances that your wife is needed by the court or the police.”

“I don’t think even the law is that unreasonable,” Jack said, feeling as if the manager was wishing Julia bad luck. “Excuse me while I fetch my briefcase. I’ve got something to show you that may change your attitude.” He didn’t say that, but he imagined Mr. Hardy’s eyes bulging as he was trapped behind the desk, and knowing he could make that happen gave him strength. “Are you going away, Mr. Hardy?”

“My wife and I always go to Devon,” the manager said with a hint of chauvinism.

“I shouldn’t like to think your holiday might be spoiled by thoughts of how ours was.”

Was there the faintest trace of unease in Mr. Hardy’s eyes? The impression was sufficient to encourage Jack. “Imagine how much better you should feel lying on the beach and knowing you’d authorised our mortgage.”

“I can’t imagine what would make me do so, Mr. Orchard.”

“Knowing my wife had a good new job.”

“Has she?”

The question wasn’t quite dispassionate enough; to Jack it sounded like another hex on Julia. “All the signs point to it,” he said.

“Ah, signs. I’m afraid in business we need something more definite.”

“So if she definitely gets the job you’ll authorise the mortgage.”

Mr. Hardy almost pouted. “I should be prepared to look at it again.”

“And I’m sure your head office would.”

The manager’s eyes flickered before he could conceal his uncertainty. “May I ask how you can be so dogmatic that your wife will be selected?”

“I think it’s best if I keep that to myself,” Jack said, and rising to his feet, looked down on the manager. “Was there anything else you wanted me to deal with?”

Mr. Hardy tilted his face up, and Jack thought he was finally going to bowl over backwards. “I should like you to pass on my advice to your wife. I would have expected her to be here.”

The pressure’s given her a headache. May I give her your best wishes for her future?”

“Please do, and if you would like to keep my other comments in mind

…”

“Rest assured I’ll do everything in my power to make things come out as we all want them to,” Jack said, and reached across the desk to shake Mr. Hardy’s hand and help him up. He was pleased to find that the manager’s palm was sweating. “Until we meet again,” Jack said.

He’d done all he could at the bank, but it wasn’t enough. Mr. Hardy had planted a doubt in his mind, and any delay might put Julia at risk. The cab of the van had grown hot and oppressive, and remained so even with the windows open. As the van sped along the motorway he felt he was racing to discharge the breathless heat somewhere. “Successful start to the day?” the librarian greeted him.

There were books to be shelved, readers to be guided to the books they wanted, information to be located, a panting mongrel to be chased out, a woman of about Jack’s age to be read a letter from the Department of Social Security not because she was blind, Jack realised belatedly, but because she was illiterate. He was wondering if any of the recipients of his lucky letters might have been unable to read, and if so how he should deal with that, when Stella called him to the phone. “I think it’s your wife.”

Was he already too late? In his haste to speak he almost lost his grip on the receiver. “Jack?” Julia said.

She sounded as though she might well have bad news. “I’m here,” he said.

“How did the interview go?”

“At the bank? We came to something like an understanding. What’s wrong?”

“Just the headache. I was going to ask if you’d get me some paracetamol on the way home.”

“Sooner if you want. I can bring them at lunchtime.”

“I’ll be fine so long as I have some in case I need them in the night. And maybe you could bring a pizza home for you and Laura.”

“Not for you?”

“I may have a nibble.”

“You deserve more than that,” he said, experiencing a blaze of yearning for her that was inextricably bound up with his sense of relief. The future had renewed some of its promise, and he meant to assure it before the day was over.

His appointment at the bank had made him a few minutes late for work, but he still had most of his lunch hour to play with. As soon as he was free he hurried to the nearest chemist’s for a jar of paracetamol. “I can’t sell you those at the moment,” the girl behind the counter told him.

“You’re joking.”

“I’m not allowed to sell any drugs unless the pharmacist is here. It’s the law.”

“Then the law is Jack began, and saw that he was being offered an excuse. “Makes sense to me.”

He sprinted to the van and drove to the all-night chemist’s in Birkenhead. He was back at the library with a few seconds to spare, feeling efficient and nervously eager. The Birkenhead address on the wrapping would explain his lateness to Julia, so long as he wasn’t home too late.

More books, readers, enquiries. The afternoon seemed to be passing at a distance from him even as he lived it. When he left the library he found himself tingling as though the sunlight had reached his nerves. He drove along the motorway, breathing heat and fumes, and came off onto the New Chester Road. The houses grew thinner and more closely packed as he approached Rock Ferry, and by the time he swung the van off the dual carriage way into the dock land suburb they were squashed into garden less terraces. He stopped at a telephone box in sight of an urban freeway, across which he saw cranes rearing up from the Mersey. Counting out change, he let himself into the booth, which smelled of petrol from the freeway and of the previous user’s cigarette.

Jack didn’t abandon the call after five and a half pairs of trills. The bell had repeated itself thirteen times when it was interrupted by a clatter. “What?” a voice demanded.

“Could I speak to Danny Colloran?”

“Who do you think this is, pal?”

Jack could hear no background noise, but wanted to be sure. “Sorry if I stopped you working. Is there someone else there I could speak to?”

“D’yer think I’d be answering the phone if there was?”

“Sorry to have troubled you. Maybe I’ll call again tomorrow. And maybe I won’t,” Jack added to the reflection of his face entangled in the numbers displayed in a frame on the wall. A louder clatter cut off Colloran as he muttered “Silly fu… By the time the door of the booth wobbled shut, dragged by its crippled metal arm, Jack was already driving away.

In a few hundred yards the road bent sharp left to avoid the urban freeway, and Colloran’s Car Repairs was just around the corner. It was a windowless brick shed two storeys high and as broad as a pair of houses, and it was alone on this stretch of the road, which doubled back almost immediately. Jack parked the van outside and climbed down, holding the briefcase.

On the freeway each vehicle sped by with a whoosh whose pitch barely had time to fall before the next whoosh came. Twin doors, each bearing half of the name of the business, occupied almost the whole of the front of the garage. The I of the last word was painted on a wicket. Jack glanced around, noting that the registration number of the van would be visible only to someone on this stretch of the road, and let himself through the wicket.

The garage was full of cars and parts of cars. A fluorescent tube, one end of which was at least a foot lower than the other, dangled from the ceiling. The entire contents of the garage looked oily, even the telephone and its directory, even a kettle and a huddle of tin mugs. At the back, beyond a Volvo on a hoist, a man was using a blowtorch on the far side of a Range Rover. He hadn’t yet noticed that he had company, and when Jack kicked a Datsun wing that was lying on the floor, the roar of the torch drowned the clatter. Jack had almost reached the Range Rover when the man raised his head and saw him through the windows of the car.

His face was a blank metal barrel with glassed-in eyes. Of course he had to wear the mask while using the torch. He switched off the roaring and lifted the mask, revealing an oily grimy squeezed-together face. “I’m closed, pal.”

“Alas, I think you are.”

The mechanic’s eyes seemed even smaller than they had under glass, and shrank as his expression grew yet more suspicious. “Got something in your ears? I said I’m shut.”

“I wouldn’t be too happy about that if I were you.”

Colloran glanced with distaste at Jack’s briefcase. “If you’re from the tax, the ould woman deals with all the paperwork.”

“That’s not my game, Mr. Colloran.”

“Don’t tell me the bitch was wrong about me not having to pay VAT.”

“That isn’t my line either.”

Colloran smeared his forehead with the back of one grimy hand. “Are you going to stand there until I fucking guess?”

“As long as you’ve cast me as your guilty conscience, you might want to satisfy me.”

Colloran reached into the breast pocket of his overalls for a grubby plastic lighter. “I don’t know what you’re fucking on about, pal. Take your big words out of here before I lose my rag.”

“You’re risking losing more than that.”

Colloran flicked the lighter, which emitted a puff of smoke. “Says who?”

“Says the letter I sent you. I wrote to you, I phoned you, and now I’m here in person to offer you a last chance.”