‘Well, X marks the spot,’ said Scully.
‘The boat for Brindisi doesn’t leave till ten tonight.’
‘Must be hard for you,’ said Scully, motioning to a waiter and forking out some drachs. The big-handed Greek took his money gruffly and bade them goodbye. Billie looked back at the woman as they left, but Scully went ahead as though she had never been there.
• • •
FOR AN HOUR AFTER THE pantomime at the pharmacy, Scully sat on the long harbour mole watching boats come and go: trawlers, caiques, ferries, the occasional liner, all peeling rust and pouring diesel smoke, their horns bleating, decks smelling of fruit, fish, flowers, wine, cigarette smoke. The wharf was scattered with mangy backpackers and the well-dressed middle class of Patras promenading with their black-eyed children, their Mercedes keys a-swing. The briney stink of the sea washed over Billie and Scully as they shared a bag of pistachios, wincing as their thumbnails became sore. They spat the shells into their laps and swung their legs.
‘Everywhere,’ he murmured, ‘all over the world people are going places. Ever think of that?’
Billie looked at him guardedly.
‘Every single day.’
She nodded.
‘To be a real traveller you’ve got to not care much, just enjoy the trip, you know. The going. That’s why I’m not much of a traveller. I just want to get there. Like “Star Trek”. Zap — that’s how I wanna get there.’
Billie nodded again, and smiled. But it felt like charity. He watched her as she got up in a tinkling shower of nutshells and walked over to the water’s edge where gulls hung like bunches of scrap paper in the updraught on the mole. There she was, all his life amounted to, apart from a couple of good buildings and some memories. Wasn’t she enough? The sea butted its head against the wall and he watched, wondering.
• • •
IN THE HOTEL STAIRWELL, Scully shoved stupid amounts of coin into the phone to get an international connection. Billie sat on the stairs with her backpack on and the tartan case at her feet. Pete’s phone rang out. He’d be down the pub, no doubt. The coins cascaded out and he went through the performance again, dialling Alan and Annie.
‘Hello?’ A crackly, subterranean line.
‘Alan?’
‘Scully!’
‘The very same.’
‘What’s happening? You put the wind up me the other day.’
‘Tell me straight — have you seen her?’
‘Jennifer? Where are you, Scully?’
‘Can I trust you?’
‘Scully, it’s me for Godsake.’
‘Swear to God.’
‘Swear what?’
‘That you haven’t seen her.’
‘I swear it. Where’s Billie. Scully, where’s Billie?’
‘With me.’
‘Where are you? Lemme come and get you. Where?’
Scully pressed the tips of his boots against the wall. It was tempting, no joke. Let Alan come, let friends come. Let someone come and fix this whole business. But he couldn’t wait that long. Just the thought of Jennifer out there somewhere. Sick. Confused. Injured somehow. Or sweating on some disaster with the mail — waiting somewhere obvious without any way to contact him. Such a jumble of prospects and counter-thoughts. For a moment here he thought he might have chucked it in for the taste of the quiet moment, like this hour on the wharf without anxiety — the sound of the sea and birds and the sight of Billie — but the cold gnawing of not knowing was like a rip dragging on him. Not London. Not Hydra. He couldn’t stay here like this.
‘Scully? Please, where are you?’
‘Mate,’ he said. ‘I’m all over the place, believe me.’
He hung up and caught his change. Billie got resignedly to her feet.
III
On Grafton Street in November
We tripped lightly along the ledge
Of a deep ravine where can be seen
The world of passions pledged
The Queen of Hearts still baking tarts
And I not making hay. .
Twenty-eight
THE JADED LIGHTS OF PATRAS silvered the water a long way behind them now, and a train of phosphorescence dragged along in the chunky night water of their wake. The decks of the Adriatica ferry were littered with rucksacks and suitcases, skis and tennis racquets, sleeping bags and drunken Finns. The breeze was fresh and the swell was long and steady before them, more comforting than unsettling. Billie lay back on the bench, her head in Scully’s lap, and they looked out at the stars that hung like lint on a black sheet. She thought about those olden days, when it was all for one and one for all. Just the three of them in it together, like Scully said.
Maybe to him it seemed good and that’s why he didn’t like now. He wanted then, but when she remembered then she saw how hard he tried to be happy, specially in Paris where no one liked them and the sun would never go down at night. She remembered the fights with him outside that rotten school. That school where words came out of people’s mouths like noise from machines, right at the beginning when she didn’t know about languages. Lady teachers with cold smiles and their hair pulled back like elastic. Their shining foreheads. Every morning they waited for her and nearly every morning there was a fight. She saw Scully cry once, he was so mad. The two of them in the cobbled museum street grabbing and pushing like wrestlers. Scully pleading. Sometimes, when she won the fight over school, she went to work with him and saw how he bent up at the top of his ladder, scraping ceilings, how bits stuck in his hair like snow. The apartments were big and full of things she wasn’t allowed to touch. She sat in a corner and played trucks or looked at picture books. Those days she could write names but she couldn’t read. It was him who taught her to read. Afternoons in the café near Notre Dame with books about Spot the Dog. Baby stuff. Reading was like swimming. You can’t do it, you just can’t do it and then one day, like magic, you can. No, in Paris he wasn’t happy. He walked her through the streets and told her about buildings, things she forgot straightaway except the way he said them. He liked buildings. He drew them on envelopes. He was an excellent drawer. But he didn’t remember so great. All for one and one for all. It wasn’t something they said for fun, it was to stop one of them crying, usually Billie. The three of us in it together. It wasn’t such a great idea, it just meant they were all lonely. In Greece it wasn’t so bad; you didn’t get so lonely with the water, and anyway the people were nice. The island people. The kids hurt animals, but they were okay really. But Paris, no, all three of them in Paris were just scared.
Billie listened to Scully’s stomach. It was like a factory in there. She thought about Paris. The apartment they borrowed all that time while Scully fixed it up. Nights at Marianne’s or Dominique’s. The ten times they saw ‘Peter Pan’ in French. The way the French called him Peter Pong. That cracked her up. Rubbish trucks in the street. Sirens. Black men sweeping dog poop off the cobbles.
‘Does this go to Paris?’ she murmured.
‘Brindisi,’ he said. ‘Italy.’
But Billie had seen him staring at Alex’s picture. He was thinking of Paris for sure. Poor Alex. His eyebrows always looked like they were slipping off his face. There was a cloud in Billie’s head — she would think along so far and there it would be, cutting her off, blocking her way. Right at the very thought of… well, Her.