The German Numbers Woman Read online

  Not being at home put him into a tense state. He spilled his soup more than usual. ‘I’m getting shaky in my old age,’ he smiled.

  A Nottingham couple at the next table was giving the waiter more trouble than Howard thought necessary over selecting the wine. When the bottle came his wife said it was like vinegar, so the man ordered champagne for her and drank the wine himself. Both turned quieter in the process, which enabled Howard to tune in to what others were saying, though with everyone talking at the same time it was hard to separate words which, like broken strings of beads, clattered around the room and were difficult to pin down. Catching at the tail of one, the words of someone else butted in.

  He thought a woman said: ‘I don’t believe you, Carla,’ anything further crushed by a woman’s laugh at the joke of a man who thought being amusing was the best way to win her love. The clash of plates put his senses aslant a promising conversation. No good. ‘Any young people here? Or are they all like us?’

  She was looking. ‘A woman in her thirties is eating in the corner on her own, that’s all.’

  ‘Does she look a bit nautical?’

  ‘She’s doing The Times crossword, it seems. But why do you ask?’

  ‘Boston’s a seaport, isn’t it?’

  His soup slopped again, the hazard of such an affliction, though a man with less control might have spilt more than his soup: ‘Can’t think what’s wrong with me this evening.’

  The next course came, and she cut up his steak, which for some reason annoyed him. ‘I like this place,’ she said, eating her own.

  ‘Me too.’

  He was set apart, unusually so, had been even before they left home. He’d been determined about booking a room on the front instead of at the back which they normally liked because of the quiet. On her asking why, he merely said it would be a change. He could pick up voices from the street instead of listening to the sound of plumbing and the shouts of people who worked at the hotel. ‘We must come here again.’

  ‘Any time,’ he said.

  ‘Did you put up in Boston in the old days?’

  Couldn’t remember. He thought not. ‘Just a jumble of rooms. We stayed a few days at a boarding house in Skegness, which my father didn’t like. Said the place was too common. So we motored around. Went to Louth (which mother called Loath) and Horncastle.’

  ‘Would you like to see those places?’

  ‘If we have time. But I’d like to concentrate on Boston. A lot comes back to me here. Atmosphere, if you see what I mean. Can’t quite put it into words.’

  ‘You’re not doing too badly. I’m getting to know more about your childhood, and that’s nice’ – glad he was managing his main course better. He came out so naturally with his reminiscences, having nothing to hide. Nor had she, if caring to go so far back, but blocking her from such days of innocence was an obstacle to all speech and reason, a permanent and constant bewareness, and she thought what sort of woman would I have been if that ghastly event hadn’t happened? Perhaps I wouldn’t have married Howard – the first time such a dambusting idea had occurred to her, shocking, but brought out by the puzzling disturbance in him. She wouldn’t have worn herself into this mood of stern quietude but for that. There could have been gaiety and laxity instead of a spirit tamped by secretions of bitter ash and fear, keeping her under the lock and key of endurance.

  ‘I love you when, you smile,’ he said.

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘Right out of the blue. I saw it in my mind’s eye, you might say. As if you were looking at a Charlie Chaplin film, and waiting to laugh when he really got going.’

  It wasn’t a smile, rather a tilt of pain at the lips, and even that she had instinctively covered. He hadn’t seen it, but he would have guessed. She sometimes thought he had one-second flashes of actual vision, too quick either to notice or for him to think it meant his sight was coming back, which was not thought joyous, though it should have been. ‘I always smile when I’m happy,’ she said. ‘It’s quite involuntary. Don’t think too much of this trifle in a glass, do you?’

  ‘Bit too sweet.’

  ‘We’ll sit in the lounge afterwards so that you can smoke your smoke.’

  ‘It wasn’t a bad drop of Bordeaux. A smoke tastes good after the wine.’

  ‘I feel quite tipsy,’ she laughed.

  ‘It could be you’re tired. You’ve driven a long way. Why don’t you go to the room and rest? I’ll just pop outside the front door for a breath of air. I’ll get back all right.’

  Uncanny if he knew the lie of the land already. She would have to believe him, but was more than uneasy at the notion of letting him go. ‘I don’t like to think of you wandering around.’

  There was something determined in his laugh. ‘Like a lost soul?’

  ‘Well, not quite like that.’

  ‘You can’t lose me, never fear. Nor can I lose myself. Wouldn’t want to, in any case.’

  He didn’t seem altogether convinced, but to respond in the same mood would only increase her anxiety when he came back with an untruth. He had decided, so she would give in, though not before a last try. ‘Wouldn’t you rather spend half an hour at your portable wireless? You might get something different, being in another part of the country.’

  He had been looking forward to that, a length of aerial wire slung out of the window to bring in the east coast stations on medium wave, not always easy down south. ‘I’ll give it a try tomorrow night.’

  No stopping him. ‘I’ll sit in the lounge,’ she said, ‘and look at the paper. It’ll be easier for you to find than the room upstairs.’

  ‘I’ll beam in on it all right. Don’t you worry about me.’

  She would, though. A blind man had been knocked down and robbed, she had heard on the wireless. They were an easy target for thugs. ‘Oh, I shan’t.’

  ‘Just ten minutes or so.’

  He must have been measuring the distance and direction between table and door throughout the meal, remembered it exactly when coming in. On her way to the lounge she saw him, still standing by the door, uncertain which way to go.

  He felt her presence, and turned to the left, went slowly along the High Street. Navigation must be precise, and for every turn-off he transferred a coin from the left to the right pocket. There wouldn’t be many. A gang of youths jeered but made way.

  ‘Somebody’s nicked his dog.’

  ‘He’s off on the razz!’

  ‘I bet he can see as well as I can.’

  ‘That ain’t much, yer cunt.’

  Laugh with them, though with impeccable sight he would never have done so. ‘Are you lost, duck?’ a voice called when he hesitated about turning back to the hotel.

  ‘Judy?’ he cried.

  ‘I’m not Judy,’ she said. ‘I’m Tracey.’

  Judy wouldn’t have called anyone duck for a start. ‘It’s all right, Tracey. Thank you, but I know where I am. It’s just that I once knew a girl here called Judy.’

  ‘I expect there’s lots of ’em,’ she said. ‘Are you sure you’ll be OK?’

  He turned left into a narrower street, hearing the odd tangle of sounds from a pub, under the window a good place to stand, being out of breath from hurrying more than usual. Or from excitement, though traversing an ocean of blackness was no way to find anyone. If he was a sailor adrift in an open boat during a moonless blackout he would be as keen sighted as the next man, except he was in the middle of a lit up town where everyone could see. Would shouting her name loud enough make her hear?

  He pushed the door, and a couple of taps with the stick opened a way to the bar. Beer following wine wouldn’t do, but had to when he was asked. ‘Half a pint – best bitter, I suppose.’ He could stay half an hour over that.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Light pushed against his senses, though the noise made it hard to tell who was by his side. ‘It’s a nice night after the rain,’ he said, to find out.

  ‘I like a frost, myself,’ the man put in. ‘You can’t beat it in winter.
Healthy, as well. Wind straight from Siberia. Puts your back straight it does, but rain gives a man the ague. A good sharp frost sets him on his own two feet.’

  ‘If he don’t slip on his arse. But you’re right, Lionel,’ another man chimed in. ‘If yer can tek this climate yer can tek any.’

  ‘Mother’s milk to me,’ Lionel said. ‘As long as you’re brought up on it.’

  ‘Are you visitin’, then?’

  ‘Yes,’ Howard told him. ‘For a couple of days. Motoring round the country. With my wife, that is.’

  ‘A nice county, as well,’ Lionel said, ‘even in the hilly parts. I see you’re blind, though. Or can you see a bit?’

  ‘Not a thing. My wife tells me all she’s seeing, and I get a good idea from that. I got her to stop in Boston because I’m trying to locate a woman called Judy, friend of the family.’

  ‘Lives in Boston?’ the other man asked.

  ‘So I heard, when we last met.’ His hand shook as he put the empty glass down, gone quicker than he’d thought. ‘She works on boats, small yachts that take people around.’

  They didn’t know, couldn’t say, the landlord adding that he would know, if anybody did, but he couldn’t say, either. The question went around the room, till a woman said she used to know her but hadn’t seen her for over a year.

  ‘Do you remember her address, where she lived?’

  ‘Can’t say I do.’

  ‘Could it be down Skirbeck way?’ Lionel said.

  ‘Shouldn’t think so. Might have been. Could be anywhere,’ the woman said. ‘You never know, do you? She went away. That’s all I know.’

  They were talking about her, so she was real, not just a voice. He was suspended in hope, yet cursed the darkness. Turning to go, as if to get outside would give more light, he said: ‘Thank you for your help.’

  ‘Shall you be all right getting back?’

  ‘Yes, thanks, it’s just around the corner and up the street a bit.’

  ‘Bloody funny bloke,’ a man said while he was still at the door.

  ‘You’d be bloody funny if you was blind. He must have second sight, going about like that. I’d have led him back to his hotel, only I didn’t want to push myself. He might be a bit touchy. They are sometimes, if they’re blind.’

  Howard didn’t know whether he’d heard or imagined it, and he let the door go and paced back to the wider street, didn’t much care, because though he hadn’t found anything firm about Judy, there had still been the achievement of sauntering into a pub and talking with people who seemed to have known her.

  Laura threw the paper down. ‘I was worried.’

  He was tired of being worried about. He could live in the dark without any help. Being worried about all his life had stopped him learning to live properly on his own two feet. Being blind, and worried about as well, doubled the pain of being alive. And now that he had put it into words it would get worse because he didn’t know whether the real him was the loving and long-suffering husband of this wonderful woman who looked after him, or the petulant self-engrossed burden that these new revelations and his search for Judy would make for them both.

  ‘You needn’t have been.’ He sat by her. ‘It’s the sort of adventure I have to indulge in now and again.’

  Shouldn’t have said I was worried. Must control myself. She had noted before how the difficulties were at least doubled while travelling, a strain on them both. ‘Was it good?’

  He laughed. ‘I went in a pub, and had half a pint. Chatted with the locals. I felt very sociable.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘The weather. What else? One of them offered to lead me back, but I said I could manage, which I did, as you see. They were nice people. I’ll have something to tap out when I send my next morse message to Richard. Where did you go for your holidays when you were little?’

  ‘Oh, to Cornwall mostly.’

  ‘We’ll go there next.’

  Her uncle had stayed at the same hotel. ‘Cornwall’s a better Riviera than the French one.’ He held out both hands. ‘Time for a walk along the cliffs,’ glittery blue-grey eyes fixed on her, a beam of love and a command making for nothing but obedience, the relinquishing of her will that stunned her like a rabbit before a reptile. But she ran to take his hand, all innocent and loving in white socks, buttoned shoes and blue frock. And now in Boston – though why here? – she wanted to scream, but locked it in, thanking God Howard couldn’t see her twisted features.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Funny, I felt it.’

  A denial might warp his intuition, do him no good. His peace of mind depended on knowing when he was and wasn’t right. He looked as if he had eyes to see, and the longer the pause the more he would know his guess to be accurate. Then she could say less guiltily what was not the truth at all. ‘I didn’t like Cornwall, so won’t want to go there again.’

  ‘Fair enough, my love.’ There was something she couldn’t talk about, but he was neither concerned nor curious, since he was unwilling to say what was in his own mind.

  ‘There are so many places to see,’ she said, ‘especially abroad.’

  ‘Like Turkey,’ he said, not sure he wasn’t in a dream. ‘Or Greece.’

  Anywhere, except Cornwall. Or here, though she did not entirely dislike the place, which wasn’t after all to blame. The first few days on their trips were always difficult. They needed time to adjust after the too-settled life at home. ‘Yes, maybe we should go abroad again.’

  ‘All the same, I’m enjoying this more than I can tell you, especially that visit to the pub on my own. I love you to be with me, you know that, but it’s such a treat for me when I go somewhere alone. I know you don’t mind. Probably gives you a rest, too. It satisfies a deep instinct in me to wander, to get out on my own two feet. In normal life we’d have gone on exploring holidays, to Africa or the Himalayas, but since that’s not feasible the closest I can get to it is to be on my own now and again.’

  ‘That’s all right. You know I understand.’

  ‘And I understand you, sweetheart.’

  ‘We have a bond between us.’

  ‘So I’ll want to go out on my own tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘A stroll, no more. I get an authentic feeling for the place when I’m alone. It brings things back.’

  She stood up. ‘I have a headache. I must go to bed.’

  ‘It’s probably from driving.’ Some of the exquisite pain of searching for Judy had passed onto her, yet he felt remorse at not keeping the evidence of his obsession more to himself. ‘Yes, that must be it.’

  He was like a man who had met another woman and made up his mind to run away. Or he was in the coils of wondering whether to do so, as my uncle had pleaded with me after he had raped me. ‘Come with me to the ends of the earth,’ he said. ‘I’m game. I’ll cut myself off from everything. We’ll go away together. We’ll even be happy. It’s our destiny.’

  What harsh, stupid, unruly words they sounded. She had wanted to say: ‘Yes, take me then. I’m yours till either or both of us dies. We must be made for each other after this. I’ll stay with you till I’ve poisoned you, or driven you mad, which I’ll have the strength to do in the years to come.’

  He didn’t mean it, wasn’t serious, was testing her, taunting her, tricking her into silence, and into going on with him so that he could do with her what he still craved to do. He played with her out of weakness, and the injustice cut her off from the world so that she wailed half mad in her dark corner, hearing her never ending rhythmical cries that she didn’t know were hers till the flesh plank of his hand struck her to make her quiet in case the neighbours heard. Her screams frightened her back to sanity and remorse, and from that time her true mind had hardly spoken. Nun-like, she had taken on the healing burden of guarding Howard for life.

  They had booked a room with single beds, but got a double, and between the sheets held each other as if some cosmic force might try
to wrench them apart. When she took off her night dress he turned to face her. ‘What colour?’

  ‘White,’ she said, though it was blue.

  ‘Thought so,’ her tears an unmistakable signal that she wanted him in the old and most effective way. ‘If only you could see.’ Cruel to say, but he would imagine even better what was there, and feel her soon enough.

  ‘Love you,’ he murmured. ‘Love you.’

  ‘Love you, too.’ Her anguish dissolved. ‘It’s the only thing.’

  He lit a cigarette, put on his cap, and set off to find the public library. Laura had read a street plan to him in the lounge, and indicated which way to turn from the door to reach the middle of town. ‘Ask,’ she said, ‘if you lose track.’

  ‘I’ll show you,’ a woman said when he did. ‘It’s not far. I go past it to get home. Take my arm, if you like.’ She was young, no doubt personable, her accent like Judy’s. But she wasn’t Judy, nothing so miraculous. ‘I was in Turkey last year for my holidays,’ he said. ‘Have you ever been?’

  ‘No, but I went to Majorca once.’

  ‘I met a woman from Boston called Judy.’

  ‘Lucky devil! Here we are. Mind the steps. I’ll get you to the door.’

  A youngish woman inside helped all she could, but Judy came nowhere on the electoral rolls. Another girl said she knew her, but she wasn’t in town at the moment. A pressure at the heart caused him to sit down. ‘She’s supposed to be.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t seen her lately.’

  ‘What does she look like?’

  ‘Tall, and well built. Blonde hair coming halfway down her back in a ponytail. She always wears trousers, and a blouse. Sometimes a sweater folded around her neck, if it’s going to be chilly. She wears small gold earrings, and walks quickly.’