‘Michael,’ she cried, ‘take me away. Let’s go off together.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘all right, love’ — and kissed her madly so that I wouldn’t have to say any more. I began to wonder how I’d come to let myself in for this, and felt my moral fibres going rotten under the force of this tough reflection. Yet in a way I did love Bridgitte, though not all of me, not the nine-tenths in the teeth of Polly. I wondered whether Polly knew how much she was haunting me, how much the black side of her was curled up in my gut, how much I loved her, in fact. And I wondered why, if this was so, she’d put herself so far beyond my reach. I wanted to unstick myself from Bridgitte and run down to the phone, to call again in case she’d come home in the meantime. But I couldn’t move, because Bridgitte was lying across me, so I rolled over her, and we went on with our kissing match, a furore growing between us, anything but talk beyond the normal words of love, when all her thoughts in that direction went on a road I did not want to go.
I grew cold again, half ashamed of those distant kisses, because she deserved more than that. Try as I could I couldn’t get closer, and make our kisses properly meet. It seemed the work of only half a man, though I ploughed her up to scratch when the fire finally took hold and I could let go. It wasn’t a prolonged marvellous shooting into her from the depthless part of myself, but it went in from the surface like a shower of steel dust. In spite of this and never thinking about anyone except Polly, I had the strongest definite desire when Bridgitte did finally get a look in, to make her pregnant. I don’t know why, but I was detached enough to be able to think of this, and I wanted her to have a baby. It was this thought that, towards the end of the evening, more or less pushed Polly away from my mind, and though at the same time it didn’t get me much closer to Bridgitte, at least I didn’t feel I was being such a bastard to her.
Instead of staying all night in the haven of my love I went back to the flat, on foot, to see if there were any messages regarding the next trip. It was three in the morning, and there weren’t, so I looked forward to my next collision with Bridgitte, and went to sleep.
In the morning William didn’t even have time to phone his mother at her hotel, for both of us were snappily told to get over to the flat in Knightsbridge with our passports. After a quick breakfast I went off, hoping to get a taxi before reaching the bridge. William was to leave ten minutes later so that we wouldn’t be seen going into the place together.
The ten-o’clock rush hour was pouring in, though no jams were forming yet. A small souped-up car charged out of a side street and ground itself obliquely into a bus. There was a rending of glass, and a dull scraping crunch of expensive tin. People came off the bus, and the driver got down. Nobody was hurt, and I hurried on, but it was a bad omen just the same. I got into a taxi, and lit a cigarette, unnerved by the reverberation of that impact. You either believe in omens or you don’t, I thought. I don’t. If you don’t, I suppose you believe that your fate is decided by heaven, or whatever it is, and not yourself. Believing in omens is the same as hoping that you have some control over your fate. You don’t. The cigarette tasted like foul soil. Omens are there to frighten you, not to warn you. I tried to cheer myself up on this, but didn’t much succeed.
I hung about in the anteroom waiting for William, looking through hunting magazines. I thought he seemed a bit flustered when he did make it, but we were taken straight in by Stanley. I had the feeling that something was not right with the world, and heard the man in the iron lung shouting into a telephone, and when I saw him through the perspex bubble he was going at that mouthpiece as if intending to eat it. When he put it down he set to rubbing and wringing his hands to get the blood back into them. It seemed to me he wouldn’t be in this job much longer.
‘There’s an emergency on,’ he said, ‘a big consignment to be shifted, and I want you two to do it, a hundredweight between you, this afternoon.’
‘My mother’s in town,’ William said, with a smile. ‘I thought I’d get these few days off.’
Jack Leningrad (or whatever his name was) grimaced, his face pale white. ‘You’ll have ten years off if I see another wrinkle of complaint around the sides of your mouth, my boy.’ He straightened his tie. ‘I want you to go to Zurich, then Beirut, Mr Hay. You’ll go to Paris, Mr Cullen. Your planes leave within five minutes of each other, so Stanley will drive you to the airport. Got the shakes already, Mr Cullen?’
He was looking straight at me, and he was right, because I had, and put my arm out to a chairback to stop myself falling. ‘I’ll be solid enough when the weight’s on,’ I said. It was too sudden, though I’d expected it from the moment we were called over.
In the car we decided that William would go through the customs first, and that I would follow almost immediately, so that we could have a drink before our different planes left. He made me promise to phone his mother and take her out in the morning, and I said I’d be glad to do this if all went well.
‘Don’t be dispirited, old lad,’ he exclaimed, with that wide false-teeth smile of his. ‘You’ll go through with flying colours, I know you will. It’s on the cards — not to mention the tea-leaves.’
‘I read my horoscope this morning, and it said my business plans would go awry.’
‘Forget it,’ he said, wanting to thump me on the back, but finding the effort to lift his arm too great. The weight didn’t bother me so much, but I felt as fat as a Michelin man, there for the world with its X-ray eyes to see. I hung around the bookstall, then walked towards the customs hall.
I stopped, ice at the heels of my feet. William was being interviewed by two customs men, and as I turned and walked away they were one on either side and heading him into a room. This is the end of him and me as well, I thought, panic in every vein and toe. This is the black finish of our trip down the Great North Road. I felt hunted, didn’t know what to do nor even where to turn. The place wasn’t busy and not many people were about, but I thought they were all police and narks ready to surround and rend me. I was so paralysed that I didn’t even feel enough shame to tell me to pull myself together.
I went to the nearest lavatory, intending to stand there and piss while I thought out what to do. But there was no method in me, only fear and sweat that I’d never known before, and if I’d suspected such a thing lurked in me I wouldn’t have taken this job on. I locked a lavatory door behind me and opened my coat, lifting out bars of gold and with shivering rapid hands dropping them into the lavatory. I piled all forty in and covered them with half a roll of toilet paper, wishing I’d never come to London but stayed and done my duty by Claudine, worked for her like an honest man should.
I left the toilet and went back into the hall. My idea had been to dump the gold and flee, hide on a remote island off Scotland for two years and hope I wouldn’t get my throat cut for cowardice, but for some crazy reason I went to the door of the departure lounge, and looked across at the customs men. There was William, talking to them, a smile across his face as if they were two old friends he’d been at school with. This sight mixed me up, but only for a moment, for I saw him wave gaily, and walk on into the departure hall, being safely through.