Dear God, what had the Dentist said to her? How much did she know?
John had listened with his eyes squeezed shut, trying to locate the slightest crackle of accusation. He couldn’t hear it. She just sounded resolved, her need for help almost tearing at his clothes. It was as though Roza were on her knees, forehead touching his shoes, her hands knotted into the hem of his trousers. It had been awful.
And — out of genuine affection, but a colossal lack of prudence, in the face of everything the Dentist had ever taught him — he’d said, ‘Roza, come round, will you? I’ll give you the taste of an English heaven.’
When he’d finished off the clove, he trussed up the meat with string.
For the first time since the bandages were taken off his eyes, John wished, with a suppressed screaming desperation, that he could see. Roza was there, four steps in front of him, seated at the end of the dining table. She smelled of 4711 cologne. Her hand had been cool and soft, the wrinkles like the striations in some living stone. Her cheek had been warm, those fine hairs touching his skin when he kissed her.
‘Do you remember the grave of Prus?’ she said, her knife clinking. She’d put it down. Which meant she was watching.
‘How could I forget?’ John kept his hand against the table to control the shake. For the moment, he’d have to leave the wine. He didn’t want any spilling. ‘I never asked, why did you pick that spot?’
‘The caretaker at Saint Justyn’s once brought us… he was a wonderful man, always dressed in patched overalls. Mr Lasky His eyebrows were huge, like woollen hats for his eyes. He played the banjo.’
He’d told them stories when she was a child. His job was fixing doors and windows and pipes but he found an excuse whenever he could to drop his tools and be with the children. He’d loved children. That’s why he’d taken the job in the first place. They’d shot him in the ruins of the Ghetto while the stones were still hot.
‘Hot?’ John’s breathing scraped out the word; his chest was tightening.
‘There was an Uprising before ours. After they’d crushed the remaining Jewish community, they blew the Ghetto to pieces. I’m told the Shoemaker was in there.’
Her knife clinked. She’d picked it up… but she wasn’t eating… she was looking away John snatched at his glass and gulped some wine.
‘The grave of Prus,’ he said, playing dangerous, going back to the place of Roza’s arrest. ‘I loved the carving of that child.’
‘Me, too.’ Her knife clinked; so did the fork. ‘Do you remember that article you did on me for that series on lives lived in secret for the truth?’
‘I do-o-o-o.’ John drew out the last word as if he’d just been brought to something fondly packed away in the attic.
‘The title embarrassed me hugely:
‘Really?’
‘Oh yes. It made me sound like a hero.’ Her gruff voice showed smiling and affection. ‘That was the beginning, wasn’t it?’
‘Of what?’
‘Our friendship.’
‘God, of course, sorry, yes.
‘Don’t worry.
‘No really I’m half out of it. Getting the old Yorkshire to rise did me in.
‘It meant a lot, what you told me, John… about your mother:
‘It was just… natural.’
‘I could tell.’ She picked up her cutlery. ‘I followed you, you know’
‘What?’ John coughed and dabbed his mouth. ‘Sorry, it’s the string on the beef, ha. Don’t know why we do that. The thing’s dead. Why tie it up?’
‘I said I followed you.
‘That’s right. Sorry again. Where to? The ends of the BBC?’
‘No.’ Her tone was smiling and warm again. ‘To her grave. If you hadn’t gone there, you know, I might never have met you. I, might have changed my mind at the last minute:
‘Really’
‘Oh yes, agreeing to see you was the breaking of a golden rule.’
‘Rule?’
‘Mmmmm. Never meet a stranger. But having seen her stone, I thought you had roots. Deep roots in my soil.’
‘I’m glad, because I have; because…’John coughed again. ‘Blasted stuff. It’s part of an Englishman’s understanding of paradise. You can’t get in without a ball of string and penknife. Dear God — ’ he banged his chest, thinking what to say — ‘roots. You never leave them behind.’
‘No, you don’t.’
They ate in silence, John composing himself, trying to classify the signals from the other end of the table. There was no doubting the use of code — the lives lived in secret, that tilt towards the Shoemaker, and the tailing to a grave and the beginning of it all — the problem was cracking it; being sure. What had the Dentist said to her? If only John knew, he could play out this meal and make it to the shore. And with that thought, he hated himself deeply and angrily Roza wanted justice. She’d waited the length of the Cold War and more. The Big Game was over, and John was still ducking and weaving over a Yorkshire pudding. It was ignoble.
‘Do you remember the film-maker?’ asked Roza.
‘Blimey I haven’t thought of her in thirty years.’
‘You would ask about the Shoemaker so I would ask about her. It was the only way to shut you up.
‘Ha, yes, that’s right. Dear oh dear, I was pushy in those days.’
‘I think you’d have given your back teeth for that interview I’m sorry it wasn’t possible:
‘No matter. I got you instead.’
‘Yes, John, you did.’
Back teeth? Was that a reference to the Dentist? Was she slowly eating him up? Was she getting ready to spit out the gristle of what she knew? John made a kind of dash for the door.
‘She came to London, too, you know?’
‘Really?’
‘Yes:
‘Brought a film with her. She’d lined up a string of clips… the forces of order at work, from fifty-six to eighty-one. Not that subtle, I have to say but hard-hitting. It was shown on BBC2. Unfortunately — ’ one finger strayed near his dark glasses — ‘I never got to see it.’
She was drinking some wine. There was no soft thud: the glass didn’t return to the table… she was watching again, cautiously She was thinking, appraising, making a decision. Oh God, what was she going to say now? Or was that last, pointed reference to his blindness going to save him? Had he silenced her with a bid for pity?
‘What happened?’ she asked, very quietly.
‘I went off the rails… well, off the road actually Hit a tree.’
‘I’m sorry.
‘Don’t be. As a kid I always tried to see in the dark. That’s why I’d eaten the carrots.’
The smell of bread and butter pudding was almost loud, the promised tang of raisins taking the top note.
‘I’d better be going.’
John didn’t argue. He’d won match point with a blow below the belt. Or had he? He just didn’t know But he wasn’t going to stay in the ring to find out. He said how pleased he’d been to hear her voice and natter about the old days. And she was silent, feeding her arms into her coat, settling her hat, working her fingers into the gloves. At the door a cold blast of air swept off Hampstead Heath, bringing back the recollection of snow in Warsaw, and tanks and soldiers. Suddenly her hands grabbed his arms and squeezed them hard. Her fingers were on him, as his had once been upon her in that dreary flat, when he’d seen the bullet beneath the mirror; when he realised how close to suicide she’d sailed. He could feel the desolation breathing mist in the darkness.
‘Goodbye, John,’ she said, ‘and thank you.
Thank you? What for? Throughout a seemingly endless night John gnawed at his thumb bone to keep his teeth from tearing off his nails. He curled up, writhing with anxiety. What for? A Yorkshire pudding that rose to the occasion? Or that punch to the kidneys? The wind moved listlessly across the common. A car crawled to a halt and then pulled away rapidly… it had to be a taxi. Feet stumbled on the pavement. Another gust of wind, stronger this time, rattled the bay window downstairs. At times, he didn’t like the wind. It carried too many sounds, too many signals. It made him feel confused.