The Needle's Eye (35 page)

Rose smiled to herself, the zip completed.

‘A brilliant invention, the zip, don’t you think?’ she said to Konstantin, whose programme was ending, whose bedtime drew near.

‘I don’t know about that,’ he said. ‘They get stuck, don’t they?’

‘Only if you’re brutal with them,’ said Rose.

And she chased him off to bed, so that she could watch the news in peace. When she had watched it, she read her book for a while, and then went to bed. She had just got into bed when the telephone rang, downstairs: she was so annoyed at the thought of getting up again that she nearly left it, but of course did not. But when she lifted it to answer, there was no reply. Instead, there was the sound of breathing.

‘Who’s that?’ said Rose, but nobody answered.

‘Who
is
it?’ she said, again. The person was still there. She knew that it was Christopher; he had done it before. She would not give him the satisfaction of guessing that she knew, and quietly replaced the receiver. It promptly rang again, and this time she picked it up and put it down again without listening. It rang again, so she broke
the connection and left the receiver off. Then she sat there, for a moment: her knees were trembling. It had frightened her, it seemed like a punishment for having thought that she could be happy. As now indeed she no longer was.

She went up to bed, still shaken. There were times when she thought he would come back, and attack her, as he had done in the old days, and at such times the thought of living without his attacks seemed an unreality, an impossibility. She dreamed often that he was threatening her, attacking her with a knife, murdering her, crushing her, trampling on her. She dreamed once that he had set wild animals on her and was watching quietly while they munched her legs, and felt little comforted when she woke to find that she had merely fallen asleep under a pile of heavy books. Once, just after the divorce, she had woken to find a strange man in her bedroom, and had been so relieved to recognize that it was not Christopher that the event, alarming enough in itself, had hardly worried her: the man, who had broken in through a downstairs window, ran off as soon as she awoke, and the police proved as little interested as she was in finding out who had it been, and what he had been after. Now, she remembered these things, and her knees were still trembling under the sheets. It served her right, it served her right, but why she did not know.

Simon Camish met Christopher Vassiliou at a party. He had known it was coming, so he was not surprised to see him, at the other end of the long room. It was a local party, given by a neighbour whose profession and status had for once managed to interest both Simon and his wife: he was a Junior Minister, and his wife and Julie had become acquainted through sending their children, in years now past, to the same nursery school. One of their children had a paralysed leg, in an iron brace, the result of a spinal injury in infancy; this child had been befriended by his own second child, and so the relationship between the two families had necessarily flourished, though on a slightly uneasy basis, for the other parents tended to be embarrassingly grateful for invitations and attentions that seemed to the children concerned entirely natural. It could not be good for a handi-capped
child, he often thought, to be the object of so much deprecation, and the fact was that Julie could take the situation no more naturally than the child’s own mother: there was always constraint, and an atmosphere of excessive delicacy, which overflowed even into adult contacts, so that Simon, now, at this party, felt himself for no good reason especially responsible, especially admitted, cast in the role of protector and support. He had fulfilled this role initially by hovering around helping his host to help the waiter to administer drinks, and had then moved on to chatting to a deaf old man who shouted at him rudely, and a middle-aged lady from the Ministry who proved quite inaudible amidst the noise of other conversations.

While he tried to guess what she might be talking about, and find suitable expressions to demonstrate his attention, he was thinking of Rose, and of a story she had told him (brought to mind no doubt by his consciousness of the iron brace) about a child she had seen on a bus once, a little boy with a huge birth mark all over his face, and cheap glasses and short hair, sitting with his mother in silence – a cross, dumpy woman the mother was, a Frenchwoman, it had taken place in Paris, this episode, during Rose’s Grand Tour – and Rose had thought to herself poor boy, poor boy, and then the boy had got off at the bus stop outside the Hospital for the Enfants Malades, leaving his mother on the bus, and he had kissed her goodbye, and she had kissed him so tenderly, and he had run off, waving, smiling, radiant, illumined, his mother waving with a tender pride, the boy gawky thin and sparrow-like and marked, the mother no longer cross but smiling quietly to herself, reflectively, and Rose had remembered that sudden change of countenance, that sudden transformation of what she had understood to be a grim relation, and could never think of it without a lifting of the spirit. He had kissed his mother with such affectionate trust, she had waved and smiled with such delight in him. And oddly enough, the day after Rose had told him this story, he had himself been standing in a queue in his local greengrocers doing some weekend shopping for Julie, when he had noticed a boy – quite a large boy, about ten – who was just before him in the queue. The boy was with his father, a sober
professional-looking man like Simon himself, his mind intent on his wife’s shopping list – (avocado, melon, French beans, have you any Cos lettuce, it must be Cos, he knew the kind of list) – and the boy was talking, incessantly, in an unnatural strange, high-pitched voice, asking questions, commenting, chatting away. At first he sounded normal enough, apart from the pitch of the voice, which was too distinct and high, but after a while Simon began to notice that the content of the chat was strange: what are those bananas, is that an orange, is this the grocer or the greengrocer, what is that box for, I’ve been in a shop before, have you – and things like this, the boy was saying. The father tried to hush him, aware that others as well as Simon were gradually becoming aware of the child’s peculiarities: hush, Michael, hush, I’m busy, I can’t concentrate, he kept saying, his eyes on his list, meaning not that he could not concentrate but that he did not wish to be betrayed. Simon wanted to speak to the child, he wanted to answer these melancholy bright questions, but he too, like the child’s own father, lacked the natural touch, he did not know how to speak, and it was with a mixture of shame and gratitude that he heard the woman next to him take over the task. A homely woman, she was, and at first she started to talk to the child out of pure chatty gossipy goodwill, saying yes, those were bananas, but gradually her tone changed as she realized what was up, her voice became more tender, more kind, less mechanically jolly: she asked the boy questions, whether he often went shopping, did he like shopping, did he live nearby, questions to which he replied with what was clearly his characteristic note of inconsequence, sometimes hitting a relevant answer, sometimes, wildly off the mark. Then the woman, her purchase completed, left the shop, saying to the boy, Goodbye, perhaps I’ll see you next Saturday, I’m always here. Goodbye, goodbye, said the small fat boy, beaming with enthusiasm. Then he turned to his father, who was still struggling with the purchase of endives, and said, in piercing tones, ‘Did you hear that, Daddy? She talked to me, that lady. What a very
nice
lady, to talk to me.’ And in a flash the father, saying hush, met Simon’s eye and blushed darkly, Simon looked away in pain, and realized what it was that the child’s odd tone meant: it was the odd mimicked
cheerfulness of institutions, he had hit off perfectly, poor parrot, the horrid brightness of Matron, the optimistic parody, the impersonal forced friendliness. Perhaps he would talk like that for ever. He had no other speech.

Thinking of these things, and trying hard to look as though he was catching the muffled monologue of the lady who was talking to him, he suddenly caught sight of Christopher Vassiliou. He was interested to note that his first illogical reaction was to think that he should go and introduce himself, which, in fact, he shortly did, for he also noticed that Vassiliou was talking to a man whom he knew quite well, an extremely aggressive and frequently disagreeable academic. So, handing the lady from the Ministry back to those from whom he had received her, he made his way across the room, and greeted his acquaintance. He was congratulating himself, as he did so, on having effected the introduction thus naturally, without any evident intention on his own part, but Meyer’s first words were, ‘Why, hello, Simon, I was talking about you only the other day.’

‘Who to?’ said Simon, already nervous, recalling to himself that he had been a fool to approach Meyer so casually: Meyer looked back at him, with his offensive black beaky knowingness, glinting with some private satisfaction, and said, ‘To Emily Offenbach. Simon, do you know Christopher Vassiliou? Christopher, this is Simon Camish.’

And he took, as it were, a step back, smiling, attending the results of what he clearly knew to be a deliberate offence. Simon and Christopher Vassiliou looked at each other, nodded, mumbled a greeting, Simon acutely aware of the fact that he felt as though he looked shifty, whereas the other man looked, as well he might, cool, curious, sardonic. There is a chance, said Simon to himself, that he has no idea that I have any connection with him other than a casual connection with Emily, which Meyer might well suppose sufficient to get things off on an interestingly bad footing: but on the other hand Meyer himself clearly knew more, and was not likely to conceal it. In the moment before speech became necessary, Simon found himself looking at Christopher, at his wide, heavy, elegant head, his brown slightly greasy hair, his dark glasses, his pallid skin, and thinking, Yes,
that’s it, he looks Greek, he looks like those wide-faced statues, insolent and blind and bland, an antique model after all, and a person, a person who will shortly speak. To forestall him, he spoke himself. I’d rather mix it myself than have it mixed for me, he thought, and what he said, to Christopher, was, ‘Oh yes, Emily Offenbach. I met her for the first time a week or two ago. Do you know her?’

Christopher knocked some ash off the end of his cigarette. He opened his mouth, though not very significantly: he always spoke with his mouth half shut, as though to move the lips were an indiscretion, inviting betrayal or attack.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I know Emily.’

And he waited, for the next round. Simon also waited, feeling he had done well so far. Meyer, not too pleased with this reticence, decided to give them another prod.

‘An interesting girl, Emily,’ he said, experimentally. ‘A very clever woman. Completely wastes it. Hasn’t done a thing with herself for years. Too late now, I’d say. I tried to get her a job once but she wouldn’t touch it. Though you never quite saw the point of her, did you, Christopher?’

‘Was there a point?’ said Christopher.

Meyer laughed, enigmatically or meaninglessly; it was hard to tell which. Oh Jesus, thought Simon, and with a slight coldness on his skin he said, thinking that he might as well, ‘As a matter of fact, I met her at your wife’s.’

Meyer continued to laugh, in a silent, eccentric way that really did not sound at all probable. Christopher looked at Simon, and sighed, on an exhalation of smoke, as though with relief, a relief which Simon felt himself to share.

‘Yes,’ said Christopher. ‘I thought you might have done. I thought I recognized the name. The children talk of you, sometimes.’

‘That’s kind of them,’ said Simon.

And there was a slight silence, which was certainly not of hostility: recognizing, perhaps, exactly this feature of it, Meyer, with perceptible effort, said, ‘I met you two through Emily. If you remember. It was a long time ago.’

But the other two men had lost interest in him: they had done it without him, they did not want to know, they were not listening.

‘I think I saw you once,’ said Christopher to Simon. ‘I’d got the kids in the car, and they shouted at you. They didn’t think you’d seen them. You live round here?’

‘Just round the corner,’ said Simon.

‘Yes, so do I,’ said Christopher.

‘I’m going to get myself another drink,’ said Meyer. They ignored his statement. He left. Simultaneously they turned away, together, away from the room, to look out of the window, as though excluding the rest of the room: Christopher put out his cigarette, took out a packet, offered one to Simon, lit it for him when he accepted.

‘It’s a small world,’ said Christopher, after some time, as they looked out of the window at the lawn and the daffodils.

‘It’s small because we make it so,’ said Simon.

‘Meyer, you know,’ said Christopher, ‘has been after Emily for years. God knows if he ever made it. He’s a real bastard, is Meyer.’

‘I’ve often thought so,’ said Simon.

‘Now look,’ said Christopher, quietly, heavily, confidentially, full of a lassitude that Simon had felt coming upon himself for some time, ‘now look. About those children.’

And he paused.

‘They’re nice children. Exceptionally nice children,’ said Simon hopelessly and truly.

‘That’s what I’ve always thought,’ said Christopher. ‘Now look. I don’t know what you know and what you don’t know. You know it all, don’t you?’

‘Not all. I know some of it.’

‘Well, you should know. What do you think about it?’

‘About the case?’

‘About the case.’

‘I’d have thought,’ said Simon, ‘that you were wasting your time. And that’s the truth. You must know it. You’re a reasonable person, you must know it.’

‘Who told you I was a reasonable person?’ said Christopher, smiling. Simon smiled in response, recalling the same facts.

‘You might as well tell me what you think,’ said Christopher. ‘It can’t hurt anyone, can it?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know why you’re doing it. That’s what I don’t understand at all, I don’t understand why you’re doing it –’ said Simon, even though, as he spoke, this became no longer the truth, for the answer, so obvious, so simple, struck him suddenly in the presence of this man with such force that he wondered how he could not have known it earlier.