The Road Between Us (23 page)

‘Would you like to try it on? We are about the same size, I think.’

Anselm places the painting back under the bed and with the slow movements of one who suspects he is trapped in a dream, gets to his feet, pulls his striped jacket over his head and, with his bare back to the Commandant, slips on the black breeches and tunic. He catches his reflection in the mottled glass of a convex mirror. The Commandant comes over and does up his top button. He then places the cap on his head, tugs the sleeves to straighten the shoulder pads and stands back. ‘Turn around.’

Anselm turns and the Commandant tugs the tails of the jacket to remove a crease and make the fit around the shoulders better. ‘It is tight on you. You have broad shoulders.’

‘It is more comfortable than that,’ Anselm says, pointing at the striped jacket and trousers on the bed.

‘Really? I always think they must be comfortable. May I?’

As Anselm watches the Commandant slip the striped jacket over his fencing vest, he feels the world tilt sideways, as if it is no longer pivoting on the correct axis.

‘Yes, I see what you mean. The cloth is inferior. Itchy. We could
be like the Pauper and the Prince. What do you think?’ The Commandant smiles an inscrutable smile then takes the jacket off and throws it on the bed. ‘Perhaps not. How long have you been here?’ He asks this as a crude seducer might ask a woman in a bar if she goes there often.

‘Since 1941, I think.’

‘Yet you look healthier than the others.’

‘The doctors have been feeding me. I am taking part in an experiment.’

‘Ah.’ The Commandant draws on his cigar. ‘May I see?’

Anselm blinks. He cannot remember the last time he has been asked something so politely, rather than ordered. He drops the SS jodhpurs.

The Commandant signals him closer with small circles of his wrist. ‘Come.’ Anselm takes two shuffling steps forward. The Commandant sits on his haunches, takes Anselm’s penis between his finger and thumb and, with unexpected delicacy, lifts it out of the way. He then cups Anselm’s testicles in his hand, as if weighing them. They shrivel at his cold touch. The Commandant gets to his knees and studies them at eye level. Anselm can feel the cool tickle of the cigar smoke as the Commandant exhales.

‘It is said that our Führer has only one. Do you believe that?’

Is this a trick? ‘I don’t know.’

‘I have heard it on good authority. A shell exploded near him in the last war.’ He draws on his cigar and blows the smoke out at Anselm’s groin again, a soothing plume of blue-grey. ‘Did you know that every SS officer has to have both his balls cut off, so as not to outdo the Führer?’

Anselm’s eyes bulge. He becomes aware of the dog on the bed. A sideways glance confirms that he is being stared at.

‘I am joking!’ The Commandant lets out a roar of laughter as he pats Anselm on the leg. ‘Look. I still have both of mine.’ He stands up and unbuttons his fencing breeches. ‘Come closer. Check them properly. Take them in your hand.’ Anselm’s hand rises tentatively, as if about to test an electric fence. There is no shock. As he does
this he hears the Commandant’s breathing become shallower.

This has already gone too far, Anselm hears himself thinking. Perhaps this cannot now end other than in my own destruction.

Yet he is too absorbed in the unreality of the moment to stop himself, to run away, to run for his life. He feels as he imagines a struggling fly must feel, caught on the tension wire of a web, sealing his own fate with every shuddering attempt to escape.

He knows what he is expected to do. He has done it before.

PART FOUR

I

London. Spring. Present day. One year after Edward’s release

WHILE HIS MISSING YEARS, ALL ELEVEN OF THEM, HAVE CONGEALED
in his imagination, this past calendar year has had texture, a clean arc and recognizable seasons. It represents a coherent passage of time for Edward. Three hundred and sixty-five days. Fifty-two weeks. Twelve months. The time it takes for the Earth to orbit the Sun.

He looks very different now from how he did when he first came back. The shape has returned to his face, though it is leaner and more handsomely angular than it was before he disappeared. His hair and nails seem healthier and the tone has returned to his muscles, even if the vigour has not quite yet. As for his damaged teeth, they have been repaired with veneers that he is in the habit of grinding, but they look natural enough. The colour has returned to his skin, moreover, and it seems to be fitting him once more.

He spends his days reading news reports and watching documentaries about the years he missed. He also keeps trying, and failing, to start writing a memoir about his time in captivity. Niall, with the help of a literary agent, has negotiated a substantial advance for him to write one. But he can waste hours staring at the blank screen of his laptop, his fingers hovering over the keyboard.

Niall keeps pressing him about his progress, tells him he will find
it therapeutic, insists he must be the first to read it. But the truth is he still hasn’t even been able to talk about his experience, not in any detail anyway, let alone write about it. Every time he tries to think about his missing years, a heavy curtain comes down. And the fog left by the Prozac and Xanax he takes for his anxiety hasn’t helped, flattening him out, taking the life from his eyes.

Nothing more had been said about the possibility of Edward returning to work, and he cannot blame Niall for that. He himself is beginning to doubt whether he will ever be employable again. Once a week he goes to visit his father.

He has now progressed from sleeping on the floor to sleeping on a bed. But comfort does not assuage the night terrors. Hannah, he knows, is often woken by them and sometimes rushes into his room to find him sitting up in bed, his eyes open and wild, yet still asleep. He only knows this because she tells him about it in the morning. She says the reassurance of her hand on his shoulder seems to help.

Sometimes, she returns to her own bed at dawn, before he wakes. On the one occasion when he did see her rising from his bed, he felt confused and assumed at first it was she who had come to him for comfort, she who had been afraid of the dark.

Though neither talks about it, he knows that she sleeps in his bed partly to keep an eye on him. Had she not returned home early and called an ambulance that day seven months ago he would not be here now. The doctors said that if his stomach had been pumped even half an hour later it would have been too late.

At least she is now going out at night with her friends more and, during the day, she has resumed the art foundation course she put on hold when he came back into her life. He no longer needs to feel guilty about that.

To mark the anniversary of his return, the BBC is planning to screen an hour-long documentary. The feedback from the previews of
The Forgotten Diplomat
has been positive and already it is being tipped for a Bafta.

It opens with a re-enactment of the UN convoy coming under
attack, scenes filmed in the deserts of Morocco. The cave they used to represent Edward’s is in Wales. The moments of light each day, when the hole in the roof of the cave opened so that scraps of food could be thrown down to him, make for dramatic images of the actor playing Edward shielding his eyes in a shaft of buzzing light.

The re-enactments are combined with interviews: Niall explaining the Foreign Office position on not paying ransoms; a doctor from the Cromwell Hospital charting Edward’s medical history; and a former SAS officer sharing his expertise on hostage psychology.

Edward himself has declined to be interviewed for the programme, but he did not object when the filmmakers asked Hannah if she would speak on his behalf.

Having promised that they would not be unduly disruptive, the film crew spent three hours setting up lighting and sound equipment in the house. Edward watched from the back of the room as a make-up artist dabbed Hannah’s brow with powder to prevent the heat from the lights making her skin shine. Her eyes glistened as she talked about what it was like at home waiting for news.

When father and daughter watched a preview of the documentary together, in a Soho screening room, her eyes had repeatedly flicked over to his face to gauge his reaction, but there had been none.

In giving his blessing to the documentary project, a line will be drawn under the story as far as the media is concerned – or so Niall has assured him. It has the opposite effect. Once bloggers report that a documentary is being made, it starts trending on Twitter and the BBC publicity department is inundated with requests for interviews, from radio, television and the print media. Edward passes on them all, but is eventually persuaded to do an interview with the
Guardian Weekend
magazine ‘at some future date’, partly because Niall knows the editor, partly because they have offered to make a donation to Amnesty International in return for an exclusive.

Edward doesn’t know how he would have coped without Niall, who has had more quiet words with the editors of the nationals.
They were individual calls reminding them of their agreement that there will be no doorstepping, in return for access at a later date, as well as exclusives on other Foreign Office stories.

Hannah is wearing an old-fashioned England rugby shirt, her face painted in readiness for the rugby match – white with a red cross running down from her brow to her chin, and across her cheeks to her ears. Edward looks at her. Smiles. Today’s trip to Twickenham to see England play Scotland will be the first time he has been out of the house since the documentary was aired.

He has been expecting Niall to cancel, caught up as he is in the latest stage of the Arab Spring, the violent suppression of another rebellion in a Middle Eastern country. The FCO is considering imposing a no-fly zone on humanitarian grounds, without full UN backing.

International relations may be reaching critical mass, and Niall may be at their centre, but when he comes to collect Edward and Hannah from their house, in his chauffeur-driven government Jaguar, the PUS is a model of insouciance. He is wearing a Scotland scarf and when he sees the St George cross on Hannah’s face he takes it off and waves it above his head.

‘Hello, Uncle Niall,’ she says, kissing him on each cheek.

‘Careful!’ he says. ‘Don’t get any of your filthy English paint on me!’

‘They’ll know you’ve been fraternizing with the enemy.’

‘Know why Scotland’s going to win today?’

‘Why?’

‘Because for you it’s just a game of rugby, for us it’s about …’

‘Mel Gibson?’

‘Exactly!’

Hannah makes a fist salute. ‘
Freee-dom!
’

Niall copies the salute and echoes her. ‘
Freee-dom!
’

Edward, who is trying to manage without his sunglasses and walking stick today, sits in the front and twists himself round so that he can talk to Hannah and Niall in the back.

As they cross Putney Bridge, Niall answers his mobile. He looks grave and ends the conversation: ‘Call me if the situation gets worse.’

‘Trouble?’ Hannah asks.

‘Oh, you know,’ Niall says. ‘Elections in the Middle East have a nasty habit of producing results that are not congenial to Western interests.’

‘Thanks for this,’ Edward says. ‘The rugby, I mean. We appreciate it.’

‘Don’t thank me. They’re Foreign Office debentures.’

‘I’ll write to the Foreign Secretary to thank him.’

‘Best not. You are supposed to be the Italian ambassador today.’

‘Then who am I?’ Hannah asks.

‘You’re the Italian ambassador’s wife.’

‘I always wanted to be an Italian ambassador’s wife.’

‘You will be sitting with the French ambassador.’

Hannah cocks her head. ‘Who’s got his ticket, then?’

‘No, it is the actual French ambassador. Pascal. You’ll like him.’ Niall holds up an apologetic finger as his mobile rings. ‘Sorry, I’m going to have to take this.’

Edward turns to face the front.

While Niall talks, Hannah taps her father’s shoulder. ‘I’ve forgotten to bring the Ferrero Rochers,’ she whispers. She then chews her lip in a mime of anxiety.

When Niall ends his phone call without saying goodbye, Edward turns in his seat again. ‘I’m looking forward to this,’ he says. ‘Such a treat. Do you pay for anything?’

‘God, no.’

Edward eyes his old friend, wondering if he is joking. Niall has changed, taken on the mantle of the powerful, uncaring man. The constant swearing. This business of not ending his phone calls with ‘goodbye’. He has even noticed this at their regular chess games. He can appreciate that Niall felt the need to protect him when he was first released, but he has become more controlling over the past year, not less. He always seems to be checking up on him, acting as
gatekeeper to old friends who simply want to meet for a drink and a catch-up. Edward isn’t even sure whether he likes Niall any more. Perhaps it is that he seems to have lost the capacity for friendship, for conversation. He can’t even remember how to cry – although, if he is being honest, since he stopped taking Prozac and Xanax a few days ago he has felt unfamiliar things rise to his surface, like a first thaw of spring, that film of water on the ice.

Once he is in the stadium, thousands of milling fans seem to be blocking his path, a crush of buffeting, apologizing, laughing, inebriated rugby supporters. And when they make their way to their stand, they find themselves walking against this tide.

Though his olfactory sense has yet to return fully, Edward thinks he can detect old familiar smells – urine emanating from lavatories; the waft of warm beery breath coming from the open bars as they walk past them; hot burger grease; salt and vinegar – but they are too fleeting to identify properly, mere pastel shades and soft hues rather than bold primaries.

The fans look different from how they were when he was last among them here at Twickenham. When would that have been? Probably 1999, the year of the Kosovan intervention. Back then the fans had all been wearing waxed jackets and flat caps; now it seems more fashionable to wear Puffa jackets, funnel necks, baseball caps. They queue up for three pints of Guinness. At least that hasn’t changed.