'Sixteen.' She smirked very faintly then looked sad again.
'Not so young. I once had an Italian girl of eleven. I was once offered a Tamil girl of nine.'
'You're pretty horrid really, aren't you?' But she gave him a full gaze of neutral appraisal. Initiator: he could see the word being marshalled into position behind her eyes. And on this cruise there was a man who was really what you might call an initiator. A what? Tell us more.
'I don't know what I am,' said Hillier. 'I failed to be a corpse. I dreamed of a regeneration. Perhaps one can't have that without dying first. It was foolish of me to think I could be both a father and a husband. And yet in what capacity do I dread your being thrown to the wolves?'
'I can look after myself. We can both look after ourselves.'
There was a knock at the door. 'Tea at last,' Hillier said. 'You'd better get off that bunk. You'd better look as though you just came in to tell me your sad news.' She got up and went demurely to a chair. Sad news; that was what the Old Mortality tasted like. Have another nip of Sad News. Hillier unlocked and opened up. It was not the strange steward, Wriste's replacement. It was Alan. In his dressing-gown, hair sleek, Black Russian in holder, he looked rested and mature.
'Did she spend the night here?' he asked. Hillier made a mouth and shrugged; no point in denying it. The brother had done murder; the sister had been initiated. 'Well,' said Alan, 'you've certainly shown both of us how the other half lives.' He tasted, like Sad News, the ineptness of that last word 'She came,' he said. 'She woke me up to tell me. It seemed rather small stuff really. I hope that doesn't sound callous.'
Very ill at ease, Hillier said: 'He reached Byzantium first.' He could then have bitten out his tongue. Alan looked at him gravely, saying: 'You're what I'd call a romantic. Poetry and games and visions.' To Clara he said: 'She's behaving as I knew she would. Terribly ill after telling everybody the news. Blinding headache. Prostrate with grief. She said it was up to the Captain to see to everything. Get him off the ship. Bundle him out of sight. It upsets the passengers, having a dead body on board. They paid for a good time and by God they're going to have it.'
'You must leave everything to me,' said Hillier. 'You'll want to travel back with him. You can fly BEA from Istanbul. I'll sort it all out for you, the least I can do. I'll get dressed now and go and see the purser. I ought to radio your solicitors, his I mean. They can meet you at London Airport.'
'I know what has to be done,' said Alan. 'You're too much of a romantic to be any good at real things. I notice you don't say anything about flying to London with us. That's because you daren't, isn't it? Some of your pals will be waiting for you, other romantic games-players in raincoats with guns in their pockets. You talked about looking after us, but you daren't even set foot in England.'
'Things to do in Istanbul,' mumbled Hillier. 'One thing, anyway. Very important. Then I was going to suggest that you both meet me in Dublin. At the Dolphin Hotel, Essex Street. Then we could decide about the future.'
'Our future,' said Alan, 'will be decided by Chancery. Wards in Chancery, Clara and Alan Walters. A stepmother has no legal obligation. I suppose you'll start talking about yourself having a moral obligation. And all that means is our skulking in Ireland with you. Neutral territory. Opting out of history-that was your expression. That means the IRA and gun-men and blowing up post-offices. No, thank you. Back to school for us. We want to learn slowly.'
Hillier looked guiltily and bitterly at the two children. 'You didn't always think like that,' he said. 'Sex-books and dinner-jackets and ear-rings and cognac after dinner. You talk about me playing games-'
'We,' said Alan with something like sweetness, 'are only children. It was up to you to recognise that. Games are all right for children.' Then his larynx throbbed with anger like an adult's. 'Look where your bloody games have landed us.'
'You're not being fair-'
'Bloody neutrals. That bitch with the grief-stricken headache and filthy Theodorescu and grinning Wriste and you. But I suppose you feel very self-righteous and very badly done to.'
'There are no real martyrs,' said Hillier carefully. 'One should always read the small print on the contract.'
'Oh, you even have to make a game out of that,' sneered Alan. He took out of his dressing-gown pocket a much-mauled piece of paper. 'Look at it,' he said. 'This is that message you gave me to de-code.' Hillier took it. The paper was quite blank. 'No come-back there,' said Alan. 'They play the game well.'
'Seven-day vanishing ink,' said Hillier. 'I might have known.'
'It would be lovely if everything could vanish as easily. Conjuring tricks. Games. Oh, let's get back to the real world.' He made as to leave. 'You coming, Clara?'
'In a minute. I just want to say goodbye.'
'I'll see you at breakfast.' And, with no farewell to Hillier, he left. His mature smoker's cough travelled down the corridor, perhaps to a boy's tears in his own cabin, the natural self-pity of a newly-made orphan. Hillier and Clara looked at each other. He said: 'A kiss wouldn't be in order, would it? Too much like love.'
Her eyes were bright as from dexedrine. She lowered them bashfully. 'It doesn't look as if you're going to get any morning tea,' she said. 'Why don't you lock the door again?' He stared at her incredulously. 'There's plenty of time,' she said, raising her eyes to him. How often had he seen those eyes before.
'Get out,' he said. 'Go on. Out.'
'But you seemed to like it-'
'Out.'
'You're horrible.' She began to cry. 'You said you loved-'
'Go on.' Blindly he pushed her out on to the corridor.
'Beast. Filthy filthy beast.' And then, as she too made for her cabin, it was just tears. But tears, however public, were in order. Hillier settled in his wretchedness to the bottle of Old Mortality.
9
Hillier had three days to wait in Istanbul. His hotel was pretentiously named – the Babi Humayun or Sublime Porte – also misleadingly, since it was nearer the Golden Horn in the north than the Old Seraglio in the south-east of the city. But it suited Hillier well enough. The final act to be performed accorded better with fleas, foul lavatories, stained and carious wallpaper, than with the grand asepsis of the Hilton. His room was shady and smelt shady: the bed had surely known gross and barbaric gesta, the paint scratched from its iron by strong and cruel fingers from the hills, fingers unwashed from dipping in rank stews of goat-mutton. Bearded phantoms shuffled the floor in the night in greasy slippers, muttering last words before the striking down for a little bag of coins ill-concealed under the bursting mattress: shadows of murderous thieves danced on the walls in the dim light from the three-in-the-morning street. The room had a balcony long uncleared of Turkish cigarette-ends, old cobwebs thick with white dust; the one chair was rickety. But Hillier liked to sit there and take his early breakfast of yoghurt, figs, unleavened bread and goat-butter, thick syrupy coffee and foul Brazilian cigars, looking into the clear glimmer of the morning Bosporus. He reflected, naked under his dressing-gown, on how wrong he had been about things, believing too much in choice and free will and the logic of men's acts; also the nature of love.
On Cumhuriyet Caddesi he had watched, half-hiding like some native of the city up to no good, the loading of the flour-king's coffin on to the closed BEA van, later the boarding of the flour-king's orphans, two pale and elegant children, with the rest of the passengers on Flight BE 291, and he had waved feebly as the coach ground off to Yesilköy Airport. He had gone to the address given to him by Theodorescu and found it a decent bundle of business offices. At the enquiry-desk he had asked if there were anything for Mr Hillier; a Mongol-looking woman with hair streaked white had given him an envelope. A note inside merely said: FAIL WHOLLY TO UNDERSTAND BUT WILL BE THERE. It was signed T.