‘The turtles …’ he mumbled at the same time. We both laughed.
‘It’s almost lunch-time,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we could talk about it then. Can you wait a few minutes?’
I nodded and went to the Poetry section, opened A. E. Housman at random and read:
The world is round, so travellers tell,
And straight though reach the track,
Trudge on, trudge on, ‘twill all be well,
The way will guide one back.
But ere the circle homeward hies
Far, far must it remove:
White in the moon the long road lies
That leads me from my love.
It was James Haylett of Caister who first said that Caister men never turn back. He was a lifeboatman for fifty-nine years, and at the age of seventy-eight he went into the surf and pulled out his son-in-law and one of his grandsons from under the lifeboat Beauchamp the night it capsized in November, 1901. At the inquiry it was suggested that the Beauchamp, which had gone to the rescue of a Lowestoft fishing-smack on the Barber Sands, might have turned back because of the force of the gale and the heavy seas. That was when James Haylett said, ‘Caister men never turn back.’ Nine of the lifeboat crew were lost including two sons and a grandson of James Haylett. The fishing-smack had got herself off the sands, anchored safely in deep water, and knew nothing of the disaster until later. Rescuers and those to be rescued don’t always come back together.
Lunch-time came. We went to a little place near by where the take-away queue waited partly in the street and partly at the counter. There were no empty booths so we shared one with two fresh-faced young executives eating eggs and sausages and grease.
‘The brief is really quite clear,’ said the one next to me.
‘We’ve put in the think time,’ said the one next to the bookshop man. ‘We’re ready to move on it.’
‘And we’d jolly well better do it soon,’ said mine. ‘Those chaps in the City can’t be kept dangling indefinitely. Once we’ve separated the sheep from the goats we’ve got to make our bid.’
‘Precisely what I said in my report,’ said the other as he wiped up some grease with a bit of Mother’s Pride sliced bread. ‘When they get back from Stuttgart I want to see some action.’
Their faces were pink, their eyes were clear and bright, their shirts and ties what the adverts call coordinated I believe. Mine had dirty fingernails and his handkerchief was tucked into his jacket sleeve. The other had clean fingernails. Their voices were loud, they were eager to impart the dash and colour of their lives to the drabness about them.
I had a salad. If I were to say that today’s tomatoes are an index of the decline of Western man I should be thought a crank but nations do not, I think, ascend on such tomatoes. The bookshop man had fried eggs with sausages, chips, grease and Mother’s Pride sliced bread and butter. He put ketchup on the chips. No wonder he looks hopeless I thought.
‘I always bring a sandwich for lunch,’ he said. ‘But I can have it for tea.’
‘If the bananas aren’t unloaded soon they’ll spoil,’ I said. I felt like talking like a spy.
‘I’m waiting to hear from our friend at the docks,’ said the bookshop man, rising in my estimation. ‘I can’t arrange the haulage until he gives me a date.’
The two young executives raised their eyebrows at each other.
‘Have you booked them right the way through?’ I said. The waitress reached across us with sweets for the executives. Mine had trifle, the other fruit salad with cream.
‘Only tentatively,’ said the bookshop man. ‘Brighton’s close.’
‘I was thinking of Polperro,’ I said.
The bookshop man went very red in the face. ‘Polperro!’ he said. ‘Why in God’s name Polperro?’
I indicated the two executives with my eyes and busied myself with my salad. They were both having white coffee with a lot of sugar. Life mayn’t always be that sweet for you I thought.
There was a long silence during which the executives smoked a kingsize filter-tip cigarette and a little thin cheap cigar without asking me if I minded. The bookshop man took something from his pocket and began to play with it. It was a round beach pebble, a grey one.
‘Where’s it from?’ I said.
‘Antibes,’ he said. ‘I haven’t smoked all morning.’
The executives excused themselves. We had coffee, no sweets. On the wall two booths away from us was a circular blue fluorescent tube in a rectangular wire cage. It was probably some kind of air purifier but it looked like a Tantric moon or some other contemplation object. I contemplated it. The bookshop man looked into his coffee as if viewing the abyss.
‘Did I say anything wrong?’ I said. ‘About Polperro?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘It just took me by surprise. Why Polperro?’
‘If I said that Polperro and the turtles together add up to something, would that mean anything to you?’ I said.
He looked at me strangely. ‘Yes,’ he said.
On the way out I went over to the Tantric moon and read the nameplate on it. INSECT-O-CUTOR, it said.
‘I’ll ring you up when I hear from George Fairbairn,’ said the bookshop man.
I gave him my name and telephone number.
‘Neaera,’ he read. ‘Eldest daughter?’
I nodded.
‘My name’s William G.,’ he said.
We shook hands and parted. Going home on the tube I was astonished at the number of paint- and ink-stains on the shirt I was wearing.
17 William G
Neaera H. The penny didn’t drop until a few minutes after we’d parted, then I remembered the Gillian Vole books, Delia Swallow, Geoffrey Mouse and all the others I used to read to the girls. Delia Swallow’s Housewarming was Cyndie’s favourite for a long time, she never tired of it. This must be the same Neaera H., she looked too much like a writer-illustrator not to be one.
Back at the shop I went to Picture Books in the Juvenile section and looked at a copy of Delia Swallow’s Housewarming. No photograph or biographical details on the back flap. All it said was that Delia Swallow, though the stories were written for children, had long been a favourite with readers of all ages, as had Gillian Vole etc. I looked at the first page:
‘Just any eaves won’t do,’ said Delia Swallow to her husband John when they were looking for a nest.
‘I’d like eaves on the sunny side and with a view.’
‘Field or forest?’ said John.
‘Field with forest at the edge I think,’ said Delia.
‘Riverside or hill?’ said John.
‘Riverside with a hill behind,’ said Delia.
‘Right,’ said John, and went to sleep.
He always kipped after lunch.
Ariadne and Cyndie always liked it that John Swallow kipped after lunch. In the evenings he usually dropped in for a pint or two and a game of darts at the Birds of a Feather, after which:
He sometimes flew a little wobbly going home.
Strange. While I was married to Dora and living in Hampstead and working at the agency Neaera H. was writing those books. Now here we are, both of us alone and thinking turtle thoughts. At least I assume she’s alone. She looks as if she’s always been alone. Of course I’m seeing her out of alone eyes, I could well be wrong.
The turtles share a tank at the Zoo. I share a bath at Mrs Inchcliff’s. Hairy Mr Sandor. I taped a little sign to the bathroom walclass="underline"