Lawrie laughed. ‘Odelle, I haven’t got any money.’
QUICK AND I HAD NOT had a chance to talk for the rest of the day. She had gone home shortly after the meeting with Lawrie and Reede was finished. She claimed a headache, but I knew of course it was more. I felt torn; I wanted to be with Lawrie, to revel in the rush and headiness of making up, of realizing how much a person means to you, the thrill of having nearly lost them only to be reunited. But at the same time, I was the only person who knew something was very wrong with Quick, that her pain seemed to worsening, and yet I had no idea how to help her manage it.
‘Are you all right?’ said Lawrie.
‘Just thinking about Quick,’ I said. ‘She’s – not very well.’
‘She didn’t look very well.’
Lawrie leaned in to kiss my cheek as we walked down the station path. There was an intake of breath behind us. I turned; one of the tweed women, trying to look as if she hadn’t made the noise at all.
‘Come on,’ said Lawrie quietly. ‘Let me take you out of the eighteenth century.’
Except it wasn’t the eighteenth century, was it, Lawrie? It was late October, in 1967, in Baldock’s Ridge in Surrey, and you weren’t allowed to kiss me without comment. Or perhaps, more accurately, I was not allowed to be kissed.
WHEN WE GOT TO THE house, the lights were on. ‘Oh, Jesus,’ he said. I turned; Lawrie looked genuinely frightened.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘I thought Gerry wouldn’t be here. We should go.’
‘I don’t want to go,’ I said.
‘Odelle, Gerry isn’t – I don’t think he—- I just want to warn you.’
‘Let me guess. I’m one of the natives.’
‘Oh, God, this is going to be a disaster. He’s – very old--fashioned.’
‘We should get along perfectly, then.’
‘You won’t. You shouldn’t have to—-’
‘Lawrie. I don’t want you to protect me. Let me be the judge of Gerry. Just as no doubt he’ll be the judge of me.’
?
How to describe Gerry? Gerry the Bastard, Gerry the Merry. As soon as he clapped eyes on me, his face lit up. ‘I thought Lawrence was a queer!’ The tone with which he said it made me think that Gerry was possibly inclined that way himself. I have never met a man like him since; that particular strain of upper--class English – so camp and Wodehousian, a madness at which no one bats an eye. Anything that was inappropriate to say, Gerry would say it. He was overweight, and handsome, but he looked like a man closing down on himself. I could smell the grief; six months down the line, you’d find him a puddle of skin on the floor.
‘I understand you work at an art gallery, Miss Baschin?’ he said, pouring yet another whisky.
Lawrie winced at Gerry’s mispronouncing my name, and I could see he was about to correct his step--father. ‘That’s right,’ I said quickly. ‘As a typist.’
‘Set up home here, then?’
‘Yes, sir. Nearly six years now.’
‘Odelle’s father was in the RAF,’ said Lawrie. I could hear the desperation in his voice, and it annoyed me. I knew what Lawrie was trying to do, of course – repackaging me in a context the man might understand. But I did not feel I needed my father’s military record as any introduction; I felt, in a strange way, that Gerry was accepting me regardless. By some weird alchemy – perhaps because I was inside his house – Gerry seemed to exempt me from the unconscious hierarchy of colour he also inadvertently revealed now and then. Perhaps he was whitewashing my skin? Perhaps he rather liked the thrill, his colonial days coming back to him? Or perhaps he just liked me. Whatever it was, I felt invited in.
WE ATE A JUMPY DINNER – well, Lawrie was the jumpy one; me and Gerry fumbled our way through. At least he didn’t mention calypsos again – or bongos, or the miracle of my excellent English.
‘We went to the Caribbean once,’ Gerry said, as Lawrie cleared the plates. He drained his tumbler of whisky, and stared at it.
‘Did you like it?’ I asked.
Gerry didn’t appear to hear me. ‘Worked in India after I left Oxford.’ I looked at Lawrie’s expression; thunderbolts at the tablecloth. ‘Was there for years. I think the travel bug was in my blood from then on – probably got bitten by something. Beautiful place, India. Difficult though. Incredibly hot.’
‘Which islands did you go to, in the Caribbean?’ I asked.
‘Feels like a lifetime ago now. I suppose it is.’
‘Gerry, Odelle asked you a question,’ said Lawrie.
‘It’s all right,’ I said.
‘Jamaica,’ the man replied, with a sharp look at his son--in--law. ‘I’m not senile, Lawrence. I heard her.’
‘I’ve not been to Jamaica,’ I said.
Gerry laughed. ‘How extraordinary. I thought you all just hopped between the islands?’
‘No, sir. I have been to Tobago, and Grenada, and Barbados. I do not know the other islands. I know London better than I know Jamaica.’
Gerry reached for the whisky. ‘It wasn’t my choice to go there,’ he said. ‘But Sarah said everyone went to Jamaica. She loved heat, needed it. So off we went. I’m glad we did. The sand was so soft.’
Lawrie snatched the whisky bottle. ‘Let’s go and listen to that record we bought,’ he said.
‘Who’s Sarah?’ I asked.
Gerry looked at me through bloodshot eyes. ‘Lawrence didn’t even tell you her name?’
‘Whose name?’
‘His mother,’ Gerry said, sighing when Lawrie turned away. ‘My beautiful wife.’
XV
Lawrie lunged up the stairs, three at a time.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ I said. ‘He just misses her. He wants to talk about her.’
Lawrie stopped on the landing and whirled round at me. ‘Don’t think he’s some sort of saint,’ he said.
‘I don’t, Lawrie.’
Lawrie seemed to be battling with a particular thought. He looked half fearful, half furious. ‘When my dad died,’ I went on, trying to sound soothing, ‘my mum used to hear his voice in the radio. Saw his face in every man she met. You’ve got to be patient.’