“I see. And you’ll be coming back this way?”
“I might.”
“I’ll be waiting for you, if you do. Lanthorn’s the name.” He waved me on. “That’ll be all, for the moment.”
Son of the man who put me in jail, he might now be hoping to do the same. Or possibly not, because if he was in Moggerhanger’s pocket, and it couldn’t only be my imagination that he was, he would let me through no matter what I had on board, if he needed a bit of extra pocket money to spend with little boys and girls in the brothels of Bangkok. The uncertainty as to whether he would nab me when I got back was enough to keep the tenterhooks hooking more than Moggerhanger’s threat to cut a finger off should I damage his car, and for a moment or two I wondered whether I’d done right taking the job on. I could have been safer mangling wurzels in the fields around Upper Mayhem but, be that as it may, such thoughts left me no sooner had they floated in.
I joined the queue on the large open quayside, and half an hour later trundled into the hold. A couple of matelots swung ropes over the car and tied up the wheels. The weather might have been good from London, but the sea was rough outside, they said. “And we don’t want your nice Rolls Royce falling against that tractor and getting a lot of nasty bumps and scratches, do we — mate?”
There was nothing better they would like to see, as they swayed away laughing, hating anybody who drove a Rolls, especially the chauffeur, who might feel a notch above himself at the wheel.
Every school from southeast England was on a day’s outing to France, and because there were no seats, and hardly anywhere to move, I pushed around the Duty Free to buy two bottles of whisky, a hundred cigars, and some cartons of cigarettes. On the top deck for a bit of air, a few kids who had shoplifted in the Duty Free already were heaving their guts out over the side, empty beer cans and fag packets rolling around the scuppers, though they weren’t too sloshed not to know which way the wind was blowing.
From steerage to first class, the stink of frying chips and screeching television was everywhere, till I found a calm spot outside the radio officer’s cabin, to eat Mrs Blemish’s sandwiches and drink her coffee.
In better weather on the mainland I waited an hour before driving onto the railway flatcar, then made a way to my seat in the carriage. In the dining car for tea and cakes, a soignée woman across the aisle flipped through a glossy magazine, every turned page showing gorgeous half-naked dollies in bras and knickers, though what she saw in their vacuous faces I couldn’t imagine, unless she admired the underwear, or the women themselves, which thought set me aflame for getting to know her.
In ancient times she would have been one of those nubile women put into King Solomon’s bed, to kickstart him with an ejaculation and stop him dying. The scene set me examining her own figure, though I tried not to stare. When I was compelled to, for half a second, I knew I had seen her before, standing before me in the queue at the Albemarle Street post office about a week ago.
Now I had a closer look, at her pale face, and black well lacquered hair. She wore a white blouse with a scrap of lace at the collar, and the finest grey cashmere sweater. Seeing rings on both hands I glanced to see if she had bells on her toes, but shapely legs went into the finest Italian leather shoes, a neat complement to her handbag.
Having turned the pages from front to back she went through the magazine the other way. Maybe it was a catalogue. What she was looking for was hard to say, and if nothing in particular she must have been bored out of her otherwise interesting mind.
The train was cutting through France like a bandsaw, to make up for lost time, and it was somewhere east of Paris by the time I had finished my tea. She put the magazine down, took one up called Playwoman, though didn’t open it, and gazed out of the window. Then she picked up the first magazine as if still not having found what she wanted, which action scuffed a spoon onto the floor. Unlike when she had dropped the tissue at the post office, I had it on the saucer before she could look at me over the paper. Gratified by her smile of thanks, I decided that talk costs nothing, and often brought its just reward: “Are you going much beyond Milan?”
She put the magazine down, a good sign. “To Ancona, or nearby. In the hills.”
“Family?”
“My husband and I have a house there.”
I told her where I was going, on the principle that the more fantastical my story the more reward I might get, if it was believed. It was risky, but I was used to that. When I put out my hand we were parted by a waiter barging by. “I’m Lord Dropshort, of Cannister House, Berks.” I didn’t use any other name in case there was a real lord of that ilk who, on reading this, might sue me.
“Were you the man in that marvellous Rolls Royce I saw coming up the ramp?”
“It’s a bore, having to drive the blasted thing.” I put on as much hee-haw as could be mustered. “My chauffeur was taken short with appendicitis yesterday, and let me down. But I’m getting the hang of it little by little.”
Whether she believed me or not I couldn’t say, but she seemed interested. “In fact,” I said, “I’m getting quite to like driving, which I suppose is how ordinary people feel when at the wheel of their own cars. Are you motoring?”
She laughed. “Yes, but nothing so grand. A Rover, though I expect it’ll get me there some time tomorrow. It’s all motorway, except the last bit. Looks like we’d better go. The waiters are getting edgy.”
We stood, her face a little above my chest. “Look here, since we’re travelling without our opposite numbers, if you’ll forgive the expression — even I’m constrained to look at television now and again — would you do me a kindness and be my guest at dinner in this swaying plankwagon? Better than eating alone, don’t you think?” I sensed her hesitation, but could have been wrong. “Unless you’re too stolidly married to those magazines,” I brayed.
The waiter pushed us aside again. “I say!” I cried after him, but he ignored me. “Damned impertinence. The lower orders don’t know their place anymore.”
But I thanked the waiter, because she was close enough to kiss. “That would be lovely,” she said, her hand warm and pliant.
“Settled. Think I’ll get some shut-eye.” I walked off before she moved, as befitted my status, pleased at my success, till I remembered she hadn’t told me her name.
Whatever the shaking and noise, I can sleep anywhere, and went off into the never-never land of seeing her white face close enough for me to move in, but her lips faded before mine could touch them. I woke with a hard thing pushing at my trousers, only diminished on swilling myself at the cold tap of my Wagon-Lit compartment, which dear Alice Whipplegate had booked by phone on the assumption that any courier of Moggerhanger’s deserved to travel in style. I put on a clean shirt and different tie, sprayed the deodorant, and went to meet my dinner guest along the corridor. Carriages in a siding across on the upline were, I heard someone say, filled with Spaniards going to look for work in Belgium. She had changed into a white leathery looking dress. “I say, what a splendid outfit!”