‘It was an accident,’ I said angrily. I could see so clearly what he was driving at, and there was a part of me that was prepared to accept that he was right, that this was the way to handle it if it was to capture the imagination of the public. But it wasn’t the truth, it wasn’t the way it had happened. ‘She didn’t mean to kill herself.’
‘How do you know? You can’t be sure what was in her mind.’ And he added, ‘A little author’s licence… what difference does it make? Or can’t you do it? Is that the trouble, that you don’t feel you’re a good enough writer—‘
‘I could do it,’ I said angrily. ‘But I won’t.’ I reached across his desk and picked up the typescript. If I stayed in that untidy office any longer I knew I’d be tempted. Everything seen through her eyes, using my imagination — I’d always wanted to be a writer and I needed the money. Of course I could do it, the scenes already flashing through my mind. But in the end my memory of Karen would be blurred, the reality of her and what she had tried to do lost in a ghost creature of my own imagination.
‘You won’t do it then?’
‘No.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He pushed his chair back and stood facing me. ‘If you change your mind—‘
‘I shan’t.’
‘But if you do, don’t leave it too long. A few months and there’ll be another tanker on the rocks spilling oil somewhere else.’ He held out his hand, limp and cold, and I left him, hurrying down the stairs and out into the street, clutching the typescript. The pavements were tight-packed ice and the ornate Victorian edifice of the Museum facing the Cromwell Road was picked out in thick white snowlines.
I was so angry I felt like flinging the typescript into the snow-clogged gutter. I had been sure they would take it, ever since I had received Jordan’s letter. I had been so certain I would come out of that meeting with a contract and a cheque for the advance that I hadn’t even checked the tramp rates or looked at the Shipping Index; I hadn’t the slightest idea what the chances of a berth were for anyone who had been ashore as long as I had.
My breath smoked in the cold air and I became conscious of the traffic building up, moving sluggishly through the snow as London headed for home early. It seemed to be getting colder by the minute, the wind north-westerly now, the snowflakes like glass flying in horizontal lines past my face. How disappointed Karen would have been, all those evenings spent listening to me as I had read passages aloud in the lamplight, all the typing! She had felt at times almost as involved with it as I was. And now… How long would it be before the Corsaire reached Karachi? Or had the ship already arrived? Perhaps she would be anchored outside with all the other freighters waiting for a berth… But then I remembered the new harbour. It would be finished now and once the Corsaire docked, Choffel could disappear into the labyrinth of the bazaars. Or maybe he’d find a berth on some vessel headed for Japan, Australia, some distant part of the world beyond my reach.
The man’s escape and the book’s rejection became fused in my mind, the anger of despair gripping me as I tramped through the snow, the cold eating into me. And then suddenly there was a new thought in my head. Dramatize it, the man had said, so that’s what I’d do. I’d re-write it, the whole story, her death, everything. And the end of it would be my search for Aristides Speridion or Henri Choffel, or whatever he might be calling himself when I caught up with him. I’d find him somehow. I’d find the bastard, and when I’d done with him, then I’d write it all down, just as it happened — for Karen’s sake, for the sake of all those birds, for my own peace of mind. And reaching that decision, the emptiness, the hopeless feeling of depression was gone, determination taking hold.
I don’t know why, but I was suddenly remembering my mother, conscious of the same obstinate streak that had made her go it alone, bring up a child on a nurse’s pay in post-Mau Mau Nairobi, and later in the Gulf, in Dubai, where she had died of pulmonary pneumonia from overwork. I could hardly remember what she looked like, only that she was small and neat, and that she’d a lot of guts, a lot of nervous energy that had burned her up before she was forty. That and the climate, and the men she couldn’t resist.
Back at South Kensington station, I went straight to a call box and rang Forthright. Saltley was back from his luncheon at the Savoy, but he was on the phone. I hadn’t enough change to hang on, so I rang off and stood there, feeling very alone as I watched the milling crowd of office workers hurrying to get home before railway lines froze and roads became impassable. They were all so busy, so engrossed in their own worlds. I tried again a few minutes later and the girl said he was still talking. I had to ring twice more before she was finally able to put me through and a quiet, rather abrupt voice said, ‘Saltley here.’
Ferrers had clearly briefed him about me, and of course he had read the papers. He said he’d like to see me as soon as possible, but he had a rather urgent case on and would be tied up for a couple of hours at least. I suggested that perhaps I could see him at his office the following morning, but he said he would be preparing a brief and in court most of the day. He hesitated, then told me that, because of the weather, he had arranged to stay the night at his club. ‘You a sailing man, by any chance?’
‘I had the loan of a boat once in Karachi,’ I told him. ‘A dinghy really.’
He seemed relieved. ‘Then at least you won’t be entirely out of your depth.’ And he suggested I had supper with him at the Royal Ocean Racing Club in St James’s Place. ‘Seven-thirty suit you? And if the bar’s crowded, then we’ll go into the Fastnet Room and talk there.’
I had two and a half hours to kill. I went into the Science Museum, which being a government building was pleasantly warm, and stayed there until it closed, idling the time away activating all the working models, the steam engines and looms and laser beams. There was hardly anybody left when they pushed us out into the night. The wind had dropped, the air still and deathly cold. I took the Underground to St James’s Park, bought an evening paper and read it over a cup of coffee in a cafeteria off Victoria Street. The City page carried the year’s results of the Norwegian subsidiary of a large British shipping company. They had half their ships laid up and had been operating at a loss throughout the second half of the year.
I wished to God I hadn’t seen it, for it did nothing to lift my morale as I went out into the frozen streets of London again. They had a dead look now, hardly any traffic. I walked up to St James’s Park. There wasn’t a soul there. It was as though I were the ghost of somebody who had returned after some terrible science fiction disaster. The water was a black pit under the bridge. The ducks and wild geese stood motionless on the ice, the flat white covering of snow scuffed with the imprint of their feet. The scene matched my mood. I could no longer conjure the soft Welsh lilt of Karen’s voice, or see her standing there beside me. I was alone now, intensely, intolerably alone, with only anger and hatred for company.
I stayed there, keeping a frozen vigil with the birds, until Big Ben boomed out the quarter after seven. Then I walked slowly across the Mall and up past the Palace to St James’s Street. I seemed to be the only human being left alive. A taxi crept past me as I turned into St James’s Place. The Royal Ocean Racing Club was right at the end, past the Stafford Hotel where the taxi was now trying to turn. Somebody entered the Club ahead of me, the portholes of the inner doors momentarily revealed, two brass-rimmed eyes staring out at a dirty heap of snow piled against the railings.