Walkers (10 page)

Henry didn’t know how he could tell
that the man was so reliable, but somehow he just knew that he was.

The man seemed to be in no hurry to
continue his walk along the promenade, but remained outside Henry’s cottage,
contentedly smoking. Henry watched him for a very long time, and then at last
felt impelled to go outside and speak to him. He found his door-keys, shuffled
into his sandals, and then walked around the side of the cottage into the
steady breeze that blew from the sea.

The man remained where he was,
smoking, hands in pockets, staring out at the foaming breakers. Henry walked up
to him, and said, in not quite the right tone of voice, ‘It’s a fine day,
wouldn’t you say?’

The man took his pipe out of his
mouth, licked his lips, and looked Henry up and down. It suddenly occurred to
Henry that the man might think he was a faggot making a proposition. The man
himself might be a faggot, and then what was Henry going to do – say, ‘Pardon
me, on second thoughts, it’s a terrible day,’ and rush off?

But the man smiled, and said, ‘Well,
then, Henry Watkins. I’ve been waiting for you to come out and say hello.’

‘Do I know you?’ asked Henry,
perplexed.

‘Well, you do and you don’t. I used
to go to your evening classes in modern philosophy, those ones you used to hold
up at Encinitas. You probably don’t remember me now -my name’s Springer. But I
remember you. In fact, there’s hardly a day goes by when I don’t think about
you.’

Henry said, ‘I’m sorry. I have a
terrible memory for faces. Springer, did you say?’

The man held out his hand. ‘Paul
Springer. You can call me Paul if you want to. I was one of your keenest
students, I have to tell you.’

They shook hands. Then Paul Springer
said, ‘Maybe we could walk a little. I always find it refreshing, walking along
here. Do you have the time? We could talk a little, too.’

‘I’m, uh – free for most of the
day,’ said Henry.

‘Well, that’s good to hear,’ smiled
Paul. ‘Everybody should take their leisure regularly and take their leisure
seriously. Do you know who taught me that?’

Henry shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, I
don’t.’

‘You should do, Professor, because
you
did. You said it in class and you
even wrote it down. Remember that essay you wrote for
Time
magazine, April 1978? The philosophy of leisure. That was a
good essay, that. I tore it out, and stuck it on the back of my galley door.’

‘You’re a yachtsman?’ asked Henry.

‘A kind of a yachtsman, you could
say that, yes.’

‘You live around here?’

Paul sucked at his pipe for a little
while, his eyes looking amused, and then said,

‘Kind of. You could say that. Yes.’

‘Was there anything in particular
you wanted to talk about?’ asked Henry. Although the day was sunny – and in the
shelter of the cottages it was hot – the wind that blew off the shining back of
the ocean was quite cool, and Henry was beginning to feel like another stiff
vodka, to give him warmth and maybe courage, too.

The man reached a break in the
railings, where steep wooden steps went down to the sand, and he stood there
for a moment, watching the coastguards and the police as they systematically
searched the distant beach with long pointed sticks, probing for the eels.
‘Somebody told me that you were the first to find the body,’ Paul remarked.

Henry said, ‘Yes,’ in a voice catchy
with phlegm. He cleared his throat, and added,

‘How did you know about that?’

‘Oh, it’s in all the papers.’

‘How can it be? None of the papers
have talked to me yet. The police said they wanted to keep it quiet, in case of
a panic.’

‘Panic?’ Paul smiled. ‘I don’t think
people are capable of panic these days. Panic is the response of untutored
masses to the sudden threat of deadly danger. These days, everybody knows what
to do about the sudden threat of deadly danger; they’ve seen it time and time
again on television.
Earthquake, The
Towering Inferno, The
Poseidon
Adventure.
The women should scream without stopping and the men should get hold
of a gun and shoot indiscriminately in all directions. So, whenever danger
threatens, that’s exactly what people do. At least, that’s what naturally
hysterical people do. The rest of them do what they’ve always done, which is to
sit and stare and wait for further instructions.’

They walked a little further along,
and then Paul said, ‘You don’t think the girl died from natural causes? She
didn’t drown, is what I’m trying to suggest.’

Henry said, ‘I don’t know. I wish I
did. The police are still waiting for the medical examiner.’

‘Was she beautiful?’

Henry stopped, and stared at Paul,
and frowned. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘As a matter of fact, she was.’

‘Do you know something,’ said Paul,
abruptly changing the subject, ‘there was something you said in class which I
could never quite understand. I mean I
understood
it, but I could never quite grasp the wider implications of it.’

‘What was that?’ asked Henry. For
some reason, in spite of the stranger’s off-handedness, there was something
about him which Henry found very friendly and comfortable. He seemed like the
kind of fellow who could easily become a close companion, sharing an evening
drink and talking about philosophy and listening to Rossini overtures. The kind
of fellow who asked for nothing except your opinion and your liquor.

Paul puffed furiously at his pipe
for a moment, to keep it alight, and then said, ‘You talked about the world
being the sum-total of our vital possibilities.’

‘That’s right. I was quoting José
Ortega y Gasset.’

‘Well,’ said Paul, ‘I have all sorts
of thoughts about that.’ He looked around, as if he had heard somebody calling
his name, and was trying to see where they were. ‘But, you know, this isn’t
really the time or the place, is it?’ He looked back at Henry. ‘To discuss
philosophy, I mean? One should have a good meal, and a bottle of wine, and a
pleasant atmosphere. That’s when philosophy really becomes fun, don’t you
think? Your mind can take flight. But not out here, in the middle of the day,
with the ocean interrupting, and all these damn joggers.’

Henry said wryly, ‘It’s a few years
since
my
mind took flight, I can tell
you.’

‘Perhaps it’s time it did, then,’
Paul suggested. ‘Look – I know this sounds impudent.

You may not like the look of me at
all. You may think that I’m a bore, or some kind of tedious eccentric. But I
would very much like to talk about Y Gasset a little more. You were so
clear
when you brought up his
philosophies in class!’

Flattered, Henry said, ‘Well then,
what do you suggest?’

‘Perhaps I could buy you dinner this
evening. Do you know Bully’s North? The prime ribs are excellent, and the bar’s
well up to standard.’

‘Sure, I know Bully’s North.’

‘Could you meet me there this
evening, at seven, say?’

Henry thought about it, and then
nodded. ‘Okay.’ The idea of spending an evening eating and drinking and talking
about philosophy seemed irresistibly warm and attractive; Paul Springer had
just the kind of voice that he liked to listen to, and just the kind of face
that appealed to him. Oddly, Paul Springer reminded him of his father. It was a
look about the eyes, keen and kindly. ‘Okay,’ he repeated. ‘I’ll see you at
seven.’

Paul Springer walked away. When he
reached the first footpath that led from the promenade up towards the Camino
del Mar, he turned and waved. Henry waved back.

Henry turned and walked slowly
northwards again. The wind blew sand across the pathway with a soft sizzling
sound, and up above his head the gulls kept turning and turning. Someone had
once said that gulls are the lost souls of people drowned at sea, and that they
have to search and search forever for the loved ones they left behind. That’s
why their cries sound so sad.

He had almost reached the short
flight of concrete steps that ran up alongside his cottage when he saw a girl
walking towards him. She was wearing a colourless cotton shawl draped over her
head so that it was impossible to see her face. She passed Henry by so closely
that he could have touched her without reaching out. It struck him as peculiar
that she was wet. Even her shawl was wet, and clung to her shoulders. He looked
down and saw that she had left wet footprints on the sidewalk.

He slowly raised his head and
focused his eyes on the beach. The sun was glaring off the sea now, and he had
to shield his forehead with his hand. The beach was still closed; there were
police trestles at every access point, and lifeguards driving backwards and
forwards in jeeps to keep people away. He could see a knot of policemen, and a
group of men in tee-shirts and jeans, who were probably the marine biologists
from Scripps. He saw a cinnamon-coloured suit, and recognised Salvador Ortega.

But if the beach was closed, and
there was no swimming, how had that girl got herself wet?

Henry turned, and a sensation like
220 volts of electricity prickled down him from his scalp to the soles of his
feet. The girl was gone, but her wet footprints led all the way down to the
pathway where Paul Springer had left him.

There had been something familiar
about that girl. Something about the whiteness of her skin, something about the
fine gritty sand that had stuck to her calves and her ankles. And something
more. A fine silver chain around her ankle.

Henry began to jog back along the
promenade. The wind was gradually drying the girl’s footsteps away, so that they
looked like nothing more than question-marks, printed on the tarmac. Henry
jogged faster, and reached the corner of the footpath out of breath.

He looked up towards Camino del Mar.
In the distance, at the head of the footpath, he could see Paul Springer. He
recognised him by his sailor’s cap and his white hair.

But there was no sign of the girl at
all, even though her footprints turned around here, and made their way uphill.
There were two dilapidated cars parked by the side of the footpath, a ‘76
Caprice and a bronze Firebird with oxidised paint. On the other side, there
were fences made out of corrugated iron and concrete slabs painted white; spiky
grass and trailing vines; and a stunted row of shabby-looking yuccas. A white
bull-terrier that had been gnawing at an old beef bone pricked up its ears and
stared at Henry balefully.

Paul Springer had disappeared from
sight now. Henry stayed where he was for a moment, and then began walking
slowly back to the cottage. There was no sign of the girl’s footprints, and he
was beginning to think that he must have hallucinated.

He reached the cottage, unlocked the
front door, and went straight to the bottle of vodka. He poured himself half a
glassful, draining the bottle, and dropping it noisily into the metal waste
paper basket with the picture of galleons on it. He walked over to the window
and stared up and down the promenade. When he drank, he found that he was
shivering.

He left his drink on the table and
went through to the kitchen. Perhaps he needed something to eat. All this
drinking without eating, it was bound to give rise to hallucinations. He
rummaged through the icebox, through half-finished packs of longhorn cheddar;
left-over chicken-legs; pre-packed salads turning brown at the edges;
strawberry yoghurts that had been ‘best before’ the last time he had gone to
the theatre. He found a reasonably fresh pack of Oscar Mayer’s bologna, and
made himself a sandwich, with too much French mustard and a large pickle to eat
on the side.

He came out of the kitchen arguing
silently with himself whether hallucinations were fractionally less troubling
than indigestion. Then he looked up and said,
‘Aah!’

The girl was standing by the window.
This time, she had let her shawl fall down to her shoulders, and he could see
her face quite clearly. He stayed where he was, with his sandwich and his
pickle, staring at her. Her wet hair clung to her head. One side of her face
was marked with sand.

‘Are you afraid?’
she asked him, in a light, transparent voice.

He cleared his throat. ‘I think so,’
he said. He was. His heart was running up and down inside his ribcage, and he
could hear himself panting.

The girl took a step forward. Behind
her, the sun came out, and diffused her outline, so that Henry found it more difficult
to see her face. ‘Are you real?’ he asked her.

‘Real?’
she
whispered.
‘l am as real as you want me
to be. Or as imaginary.’

‘Was it you, on the beach this
morning?’

‘In a way,’
she
said.

Henry put down his sandwich and his
pickle on to a side-table. ‘You know what I’m thinking?’ he told her. ‘I’m
thinking that I’m drunk, and that I’m hallucinating.’

‘I know what you’re thinking,’
the girl said, softly.

She came nearer. She seemed to be
able to approach him without moving her legs.