Imaginative Experience (3 page)

One pleasure was getting into conversation with strangers. He would tell those who would listen that he was writing a book, although this was not strictly true, his writing having got no further than an article or two in his local paper and a paragraph promised in the RSPB magazine. Returning from an autumnal trip to the Scilly Isles and observing from his seat near the buffet the wading birds on the Exe estuary, the swans and heron further up the line, and with binoculars focused on a kestrel hovering above a field mouse on the railway embankment, he was able to get a sighting of Julia when she leapt from the train and later exchanged words with the guard.

If Sylvester had not been so withdrawn and toffee-nosed Maurice might not have bothered to do more than tease; as it was, his stuffy and protective attitude annoyed him and aroused his curiosity; he resolved to include Julia and the sheep in an article he might write on ‘Autumn Birdlife as Viewed from a Train’, or some such guff.

Banned as Sylvester had hoped he would be from contact with Julia by the guard, he had yet managed to read her name on an overnight bag a fellow traveller identified as hers by the seat she had vacated when she leapt on her errand. The traveller volunteered, too, that Julia had joined the train at Tiverton Parkway.

Irritated by Sylvester’s attitude, Maurice thought he would find out what the girl was about and what had roused the interest of a bloke like Sylvester who, smelling of expensive soap, had visibly and offensively reared away from his own well-worn and pub-scented Barbour. It would serve Sylvester right, Maurice told himself, if he located Julia; for already he linked the two in his mind, just as he would the hen when he spied a cock bird; there might be a place for Julia in his notebook marked ‘useful contacts’. It would be agreeable, too, to queer Sylvester’s pitch in some revengeful way.

On arrival at Paddington, Maurice became convinced of Sylvester’s interest in Julia when, on seeing him hunting for her through the crowd, he had barred his way and, watching him stumble and fall, had done nothing to help. Then, obviously thinking he would have lost the girl, he stalked on towards the cab rank not noticing that, rather than pursue Julia, Maurice had followed to listen for and note the address he called out to the driver.

This done, Maurice Benson wandered back along the concourse to fortify himself with a beer before chatting with old friends in the police and people he had formerly known in the station hierarchy. While drinking his beer, he decided it would be better to leave the police out of his quest and confine his enquiries to old associates among the railway staff. But he was disappointed to find most useful contacts he had known had moved on and the two who were left were less than co-operative. True, they were willing to tell him Julia Piper’s name, since he knew it already, and they agreed that she might be charged for stopping the train. And, should she be charged, she might be fined.

‘Then again, she might not,’ said a man called Bates. ‘So much gets dealt with by post these days.’

He occupied a far more senior post than Maurice remembered and was viewing him now without much friendship.

‘Why do you want to know?’ he enquired, but before Maurice could think of an answer his colleague, whose name was Smith, volunteered the suggestion that since the train had scarcely been delayed and unless somebody lodged a complaint, the whole episode would most likely be overlooked, since stopping a train to rescue a sheep was a trivial and laughable matter which did little to enhance British Rail’s image.

‘You wouldn’t be in the business of writing for the newspapers, would you?’ asked the man called Bates, beginning to scowl. ‘Because if—’

Remembering belatedly the terms he had once been on with Bates, and that Bates owed him no favours, Maurice voiced a hasty denial and said quite humbly that he ‘only wanted the lady’s address’.

To which Bates riposted, ‘We are not in the business of giving ladies’ addresses to casual enquirers.’ Enjoying himself, for he too remembered Benson, he added, ‘And now, if there is no more we can do to help, we have other, more urgent matters to attend to.’

Feeling that he now had nothing to lose, Maurice said, ‘Like what?’

‘Like IRA bombs,’ said Bates. ‘Didn’t you once have Irish connections? Have you any contacts with your boggy cousins? ‘Cos if you have, we might be interested.’

Maurice, feeling bullied, denied any Irish cousins or knowledge of that country. ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘all I wanted was—’

‘A bird’s address,’ said Bates.

‘Which you won’t give?’

‘Didn’t we say?’ Smith picked up a folder.

‘Well then,’ said Bates.

Maurice Benson said, ‘Goodbye, then,’ and muttering, ‘Thanks for nothing,’ left the office. As he left he heard Smith laugh and Bates ask, ‘What was his interest, anyway?’

Smith replied, ‘Search me. The birds he takes an interest in are of the tweet-tweet variety.’

Solacing himself with another beer in the station buffet, Maurice Benson comforted himself with the thought that he had Sylvester’s address in London and the knowledge of where Julia Piper had joined the train. There was plenty of time, no hurry at all. It might some time be amusing, when in that part of the country, to hunt tail, snuffle round the region of Tiverton Parkway.

I
N LATE AFTERNOON JULIA
Piper, having walked from Paddington, shuffled through a pile of letters and circulars which had dropped through the letter-box during the preceding week; she did not pick them up, but climbed the stairs to the flat she and Giles had occupied during the years of their marriage. On the top floor she fumbled for her key, unlocked the door, stumbled in and, without taking off her coat, lurched forward to lie face down on the divan which served as sofa and occasional bed in the room that was her sitting-room. As she fell her hat slid off, and she lay inert, spent.

In the flats below people came in from work, turned on their televisions, cooked their suppers, talked loudly, slammed doors, ran baths and subsided into bed as night closed in, not to silence but the muted roar of a vast city interrupted by occasional police sirens and the distant sound of tugs hooting on the river. Some time in the night an ambulance raced fast through the street, bell ringing. Half-conscious, Julia eased her shoes off, pressing one foot against the other in a state between sleeping and waking.

In the early hours the sound of rain lashing against the window roused her. She got up stiffly, pulled off her coat and went to the window. A wild wind was blowing the rain in slanting lines into a river which was the street, as though a million fishermen cast for trout in the pools forming among the parked cars whose humped roofs resembled rocks. So she had once described them to her child, holding him in her arms warmly wrapped in a towel after his bath, nuzzling his neck where his hair was damp from soapy water. ‘Look,’ she had said, ‘a rushing river, darling. If we look hard we may see a fish.’

‘A trout?’ He had jogged in her arms. ‘A salmon? A shark?’

‘No, no, my love, a dolphin! You shall ride on its back.’

She had held him tight, kissed the nape of his neck, rolled him into his pyjamas, put him into his cot, promised to show him a real river, a real dolphin, yes, soon.

Cramp seized her tired feet, knotting her toes into twisted shapes, moving up to her calves until she gasped with pain. Stamping and trying to tread away the agony, she drew the curtains, switched on the light. There was no river, no fish, no child. In bleak desolation she padded to the kitchen, poured water from the tap and drank the chlorinated stuff in thirsty gulps until, surfeited, she gagged.

In the bathroom she filled the basin and splashed icy water over her face and ran wet hands through her hair. Doing so, she was aware of a tang of sheep dung and lanolin and briefly remembered her train journey. Moving back to the kitchen she found stale bread, made toast and tried to eat. She was ragingly hungry but could not swallow. She put the toast into the garbage-can.

In the cupboard under the sink, searching for the plastic bin-bags she used for rubbish, she remembered that she had run out. Taking her purse she let herself out of the flat and ran down to the street, hurrying through the rain to the Corner Shop, which was just opening ready for its first customer.

‘I need bin-bags, Mr Patel.’

‘A packet of three, Mrs Piper? You have been on holiday?’

‘A lot of packets, please, Mr Patel.’

‘Three packets, Mrs Piper?’

‘At least six, Mr Patel.’

‘So we are having a grand after-the-holiday spring clean, Mrs Piper, an autumn clear-out, I’m thinking.’

‘A clear-out, yes.’

‘They come cheaper, I tell you, in fives, Mrs Piper.’

‘Two fives then, please—’

‘And how is little Christy, Mrs Piper?’

‘Dead.’

‘Dead,
Mrs Piper?’

‘Dead.’

‘???’

‘In a crash, Mr Patel. Please don’t cry.’ She avoided his eyes.

‘But he was with his daddy! You told me!’ Mr Patel protested.

‘Dead, too. Please, Mr Patel, how much are the bin-bags?’ She was afraid he would not let her pay.

‘Fifty-three pee a packet. They are old stock, a discount for quantity would not help, I think.’ Mr Patel wept as he took her money. He put the bin-bags in a carrier bag and surreptitiously added a ball of string. She had often forgotten to tie up the bags and the neighbourhood cats, filthy things, scattered refuse on the doorsteps.

Back in the flat, aware of the stale air, Julia flung open the windows, then, bin-bag in hand, she worked her way through the rooms. Into the bags went remnants of Giles: clothes he had not bothered to take, confident that she would send them on and she had not. Socks hardened by wear and sweat, several old T-shirts, a sweater, a pair of jeans, the trainers he had bought a size too small, an anorak, a tweed jacket, a drawer full of grotty underwear, snapshots of happier days and a few books. She tied the necks of the bags and heaved them onto the landing.

In the kitchen she drank more water and again tried to eat, but could not.

Christy’s possessions were harder. Bundling his clothes into the bags she averted her eyes, held her breath to avoid his scent. When the bags were full she tied the tops as though some vicious animal might escape from them. His toys were scattered about the flat. Plastic duck, comic sponge and flannel in the bathroom, soft toy in his cot. What had he taken with him? What favourite toy? Why could she not remember? She sat back on her heels, her mind a blank.

At last, every toy, every garment safely bagged, she dismantled the cot. It was large and heavy. She had put off buying him a bed; she manhandled it out and down the stairs. When all the bags were grouped on the doorstep, she found a taxi and, helped by the driver, loaded it and drove to the Oxfam shop. Walking back through the rain she felt strangely light-headed and had difficulty climbing the stairs.

Some time in the late afternoon she woke shivering from an exhausted sleep, got up, made strong tea and drank it scalding hot, so that it left a metallic taste on her palate. Then, using soap and ammonia, she set to work scrubbing shelves and drawers, the insides of cupboards, pulling the furniture out and washing the spaces behind; she moved the divan, surprising eddies of dust which soaked into balls of felt. When all was clean she got out the Hoover and siphoned unreachable detritus from behind the radiators and gas fire. She had nearly finished when the Hoover stalled with a metallic clang and regurgitated a whistle. A whistle, a police whistle, a loud and dreadful whistle.

Mr and Mrs Patel stood on the doorstep. Mrs Patel held a bundle against her chest. Tim Fellowes, tenant of the ground-floor flat, answered the bell, listened to Mr Patel’s query.

‘Yes, she’s up there, she must be.’ He looked up. ‘All her windows are open—What? Oh no, we haven’t actually spoken, we don’t know her that well. We’ve passed on the stairs, that sort of thing. We are new here as you—you’d think she’d be cold,’ he said, looking up. ‘Wouldn’t you?’

Mrs Patel murmured indistinguishably in her native tongue. Her husband translated, ‘Has some friend perhaps? Anybody else?’

‘Not to my knowledge,’ said Tim Fellowes, ‘I’ve been working late. Only just got back, as a matter of fact.’ He looked doubtfully at the Asian pair. What could they want? What were they on about? How could one tell with these people? He caught the woman’s eye, looked hastily away. ‘Tell you what,’ he said, ‘I’ll ask my girlfriend, she may know. Wait here.’ He went back into the ground-floor flat, not quite closing the door. The Patels took note of his scrubbed appearance, pink face, fair hair receding from high forehead, Marks & Spencer suit. Through the half-open door they heard colloquy punctuated by a laugh, then a burst of giggles. They waited patiently.

Tim Fellowes came back, grinning. He had caught Janet half-undressed; she was ticklish.

‘She says she supposes she’s up there because earlier on she put out her rubbish in a lot of bin-bags, but she hasn’t spoken. As I said, we are new but Janet, who’s not just a pretty face, suggests your Piper lady wouldn’t go out leaving all her windows open, would she? And apparently she’s on her own since—oh, here she is,’ he said as Janet, tying the belt of a towelling robe round her waist, joined him in the doorway.

Pink from a bath and smelling of shampoo, she smiled and said, ‘Hi. As I told Tim, she put the trash out but she’s up there now.’

Mrs Patel murmured again. Her husband translated, ‘The other flat people?’

‘The Eddisons? Oh, they are away, they’re on holiday.’

Still the Patels stood in the hall.

‘Well,’ said Tim, ‘I need my sleep, have to be at the office by eight. Why don’t you try again tomorrow? Oh, by the way, we are away this weekend. Could you cancel our papers?’

Yet again Mrs Patel murmured. Her husband said, ‘May we go up, please?’

‘Oh? Go up? I suppose you may. I suppose it’s all right. But shut the street door when you leave, there’s a good—I say,’ he said to his girlfriend as the Patels vanished up the stairs, ‘what a peculiar hour to call, what an odd sort of visit. I suppose it’s all right? D’you suppose I shouldn’t have told them the Eddisons are away?’