‘Not a testimonial, Gordon – a dispassionate observation.’
‘All the more pleasing, Paul.’
He stopped, and gazed intently at Manning, pulling his ear.
‘Look, Paul,’ he said. ‘I appreciate your confidence in me. I appreciate it very deeply indeed. Let me in return be absolutely frank and categoric. Konstantin and Raya may believe I have something incriminating in my possession. They may even be right; it’s possible that I have such a thing. But if I have, what it is and how I came by it I know no more than you.’
Manning nodded.
‘I give you my word on that, Paul,’ said Proctor-Gould.
‘As an Englishman?’ asked Manning humorously.
‘As a Johnsman, if you like.’
27
‘I’ve made up my mind about Raya,’ said Proctor-Gould suddenly, as they sat in a taxi on the way back to the National. ‘I’m going to give her her marching orders. I don’t know whether that relieves your mind at all?’
‘It certainly helps,’ said Manning. ‘You’re striking her off your list of clients, too?’
‘I’m afraid so. As soon as we get back to the hotel I’m going to ask her to leave. Or perhaps I should say, ask you to ask her to leave.’
‘You could put it like that.’
‘Don’t worry, Paul, I shan’t start a scene. Or rather, we shan’t.’
‘Shan’t we?’
‘No, I think we should be quite firm, but at the same time perfectly polite and level-headed. It won’t be particularly agreeable while it lasts, I admit. But it’s just one of those unpleasant necessities that crop up from time to time. We shall just have to grin and bear it, Paul.’
‘I see.’
‘By dinner-time it will all be over and done with. We shall be laughing about it.’
But by the time the taxi pulled up outside the hotel Proctor-Gould’s resolution had ebbed. He began to climb out, then got back in and sat down again beside Manning.
‘Do you suppose Raya’s up there at the moment?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know, Gordon.’
‘I was just wondering whether she’d be waiting for us, or whether we’d have to sit down and wait for her. I’m just trying to get the situation clear in my own mind, you see.’
‘She’ll be in the bath, I expect.’
‘In the bath? I hadn’t thought of that, Paul.’
He pulled at his ear, and gazed gloomily at the visible mid-parts of the commissionaire who was standing holding the car door open, as if trying to divine the contents of the man’s stomach.
‘I suppose she will,’ he said reluctantly. ‘That possibility hadn’t occurred to me, I must admit.’
‘I was joking, Gordon….’
‘No, no. It’s getting on for six. That’s where she’ll be, all right. Look, Paul, I wonder if the best arrangement wouldn’t be this. I’ll wait down here in the taxi while you go up and tell her what we’ve decided.’
‘For God’s sake, Gordon! I can’t just stand there and shout through the bathroom door that you’re chucking her out.’
‘I appreciate the difficulty, Paul. But let’s face facts. It wouldn’t make things any easier for you if I was standing out there with you, would it?’
‘But Gordon, you could go into the bathroom.’
‘I could go in – but I couldn’t say anything. You’d still have to stand outside shouting a translation.’
He pulled at his ear in silence again.
‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I don’t know that I could go in, could I? I mean, I’m not sure that it’s quite the done thing to look at a girl in the bath while you’re telling her that it’s all over between you.’
‘Aren’t you being a shade hypersensitive, Gordon?’
‘I don’t think so. In fact, I think one might make out a better case for doing it the other way round – my staying outside while you go in. After all, you were a great pal of hers at one stage.’
‘Not as great as all that. We’ve been into this before, Gordon.’
‘All the same, she’s a perfectly unconventional sort of girl. I’m sure she wouldn’t stand on ceremony.’
They sat in silence for a moment or two, while the commissionaire bent down and examined them through the door, trying to remember whether he was seeing them in or seeing them out.
‘No?’ said Proctor-Gould. ‘Well, I wonder, Paul, if it wouldn’t be better to let things run on for the time being, and try to find a more suitable moment to break it to her in the next few days?’
‘I don’t think that would be a good idea at all, Gordon.’
‘All right, then. Supposing I just quietly took a room in another hotel, and waited for it all to blow over?’
‘No, Gordon.’
‘Well, let’s leave it like this. We’ll creep in quietly, and if she is in the bath, we’ll just creep quietly out again and wait till she emerges.’
28
But Raya was not in the bath, nor in the room. She had gone, and she had taken all her belongings with her. The pictures on the wall – the pyjamas under the pillow – the stockings and underclothes in the bathroom; they had all vanished. Apart from some wilting birch twigs in a vase, the room had returned to the gloom in which Manning had first seen it.
The two men walked vaguely about, touching things, unable to get used to the idea.
‘Well,’ said Proctor-Gould, ‘I suppose one ought to be grateful.’
‘I suppose at any rate we might have guessed.’
‘The room looks so strange. It takes a bit of getting used to.’
He looked disconsolately about. Then he remembered something, and took out of his pocket the single stocking they had found at Konstantin’s. He looked at it for a moment, then tossed it on to the chest of drawers. It landed half on and half off, and poured itself slowly over the edge on to the floor, where it remained, unnoticed by Proctor-Gould, in a sad little heap.
‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘let’s have some Nescafé.’
He fetched the little kettleful of water, opened one of the tins they had recovered, and went through the familiar, soothing ritual.
‘Ah, Paul,’ he said, taking up his old position in front of the radiator, and stirring the brown fluid with the same old apostle spoon. ‘She led me a terrible dance. Of course, it was my fault. I made a fool of myself. I appreciate that now.’
‘These things happen. Gordon.’
‘Sometimes she wouldn’t even look at me for a whole day. She’d just lie on the bed there, reading or smoking, and not pay the slightest attention to me. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I think they were the most awful days of my life.’
‘I know what you mean.’
‘Then sometimes she could be so sweet! I don’t know how to explain exactly. She’d do little things for me – iron a shirt, or suddenly bring me a cup of Nescafé. I can’t really explain.’
He had difficulty with his voice. It wavered a little, and he coughed, and fell silent, and coughed again.
‘No, I know what you mean,’ said Manning.
‘I mean, I’d feel we were really making contact. I’d talk to her, Paul.’
‘What – in English?’
‘I know it sounds silly. I used to tell her about England. Sometimes I’d describe my parents’ house, where I was brought up. It’s in Norwood. Do you know Norwood at all?’
‘Not really. But do you think Raya understood any of this?’
Proctor-Gould sighed and pulled at his ear, gazing reflectively into the corner of the room.
‘Well, I occasionally had the feeling that she more or less knew what I was driving at. She used to talk as well sometimes. We used to have quite long conversations.’
‘Did you understand what she said at all?’
‘Well, you know how it is, Paul. I had a general sense that we were getting through to each other. Does that sound absurd?’
‘No, no.’
‘I don’t want to underestimate your services as an interpreter, Paul. But sometimes I think we achieved a sort of telepathic communication that didn’t really depend on the actual spoken words at all. That’s what I felt at the time, anyway.’