Shaking off my bewilderment I went quickly back to the lavatory. A man was standing at the urinal having a piss, and another was drying his hands. I went back to the toilet, but the door was locked, the engaged sign showing. I dashed into the next one, thinking I’d jump over the top or crawl underneath and strangle the bastard who was having a crap in there so that I could get my gold, but the one I was in turned out to be the one I’d used, and when I ripped off the coils of toilet paper, the gold was underneath, every bar of it still there. It was the good luck of my life, and at its sight I calmed down, and slotted every piece back into my coat. After two minutes silence I went to a mirror and combed my hair, straightened my hat, picked up my briefcase, not caring whether my fate was being decided, feeling that the excitement was over at last, come what may. I was no longer a fat man to the world, because to myself it seemed that I had sweated all the flesh of my bones away.
I walked through, and no one even looked at me, beyond a formal glimpse at my passport. William was already by the bar with a light ale in front of him: ‘What kept you, old smoke?’
‘I thought your number was up,’ I said, feeling a tremor of the shakes coming back, ‘when they started questioning you.’
He laughed, and ordered me a beer: ‘Just routine.’
‘The lousy poke-faced jack-snouts.’
‘They’re all right. Good lads, most of ’em. Got their job to do. No use hating them. That’s the road to bad breath!’
‘They searched you, didn’t they?’
‘Just to look in my wallet. It’s the travel allowance they’re worried about. I thought it was getting close but they didn’t get anywhere near. Still, next time I’ll use Gatwick. I’m a bit known here.’ His plane was called, and off he went.
In Paris I took a taxi to an address on the Île de la Cité. I was blind to Paris, except for its rain, being disappointed at not having seen Polly on the way there. The longer it got since a glimpse of her, the worse it felt. I delivered my goods, and then, as instructed, took a taxi back to the airport, and waited till seven o’clock for a leg-up to London. I sat in the airport lounge and drank black coffee, passing a bit of the time angling for a sweet look from the waitress but not getting anywhere near.
By nine I was back at the Knightsbridge flat, where Stanley put an envelope in my hand with the usual amount inside. I was then let out again, no word sparking between us. I met a taxi by the door, and got home to find William’s mother waiting for me. ‘He said you’d look after me,’ she said, as I took off my coat.
‘Had dinner then, Mrs Straw?’
‘No, my duck, but don’t bother about me.’
‘Well, I’m hungry. Let’s go and have a chop or two.’
‘That sounds lovely. Can I have green peas with it?’
‘You can have strawberries and cream if you like.’ I hadn’t expected her to be dumped on me so soon, and had meant to crash fifty thousand feet into sleep now that I was home. But after my promise I couldn’t just bundle her back to her hotel. She sat in an easy chair, with a good length of brandy on the arm. ‘I met some people the other day, and they want me to go to their hotel for a drink tonight, love. I wrote their address down, so I’d be glad if you’ll take me there.’ She fumbled in her big white handbag and passed me the back of an envelope.
‘We’ll do that, then,’ I said, glad there was a place to go to without having to decide. When I read the name it was the hotel I’d stayed at when I arrived in London, now written in a quick and keggy hand that depressed me, I don’t know why. Mrs Straw put on her glasses, while I stared at the paper, as if to help me decipher it. I had nothing to fear. In my new guise they wouldn’t even know me as the one who’d left without paying his bill.
‘Come on then, Mother,’ I said, jumping away from my sins of the past when they started to bite at my toecaps like hungry crabs. ‘It’ll be too late to eat at this hotel of yours, so we’ll go to a restaurant.’
‘Lovely,’ she said, standing up. ‘We can go there afterwards. Only for half an hour. They’re ever such jolly people. A man and his wife, come from Chesterfield. They’ll be ever so glad to see me.’
I hoped to stupefy her with food and wine before it came to that, so helped her into a new fur coat that William had bought for her. She talked about him through the dinner. ‘He’s always been as good as gold to me’ — that sort of thing, till I thought I’d go screwy if she said another word in this tone but then I found myself listening, and actually enjoying the way she went on. ‘He was always the same, even before his dad died, and that’s going back a bit, I can tell you. I know he’s been in prison and all that, but he’s one of the best lads any woman could want.’ She looked hard at me, as if wondering what effect her talk was having. It made me uneasy, because I hadn’t seen such an honest look for a long time. It was a hungry look, that threatened to black me out. ‘Tell me, my duck,’ she said, ‘what sort of work does he do?’
‘Ain’t he told you?’
‘Ay, he has. But you tell me.’
‘He does the same as me.’
‘What do you do, then?’
‘I’m a travelling salesman. A group of engineering firms got together and pooled their stuff, so some of us take samples of their production to various places abroad. It pays well, but it wears you out at times, so much running about.’
She wasn’t eating much of her chops, not even touching the tinned fresh peas: ‘That’s right. He told me all about it. But I wouldn’t like owt to ’appen to him. I’d die if it did.’
‘Aeroplanes don’t crash nowadays. You shouldn’t worry about that.’
She looked hard at me, not having believed a word of what I’d said: ‘No, it’s not that at all, and you know it. Don’t you?’
I laughed: ‘What, Ma?’
‘I’ve lived longer than you think I have. Admitted, most of my life it’s been under water from one sort of misery or another, but I’ve got eyes and ears and a mother’s heart, and when I look at Bill I know he’s living under a wicked strain, and there’s summat he’s keeping from me. I’ve got all my senses right enough. Knowing what I know and feeling what I feel, it pains me to come up against somebody like yo’ who won’t tell me the honest simple truth that wain’t do a bit of harm to me after all I’ve lived through.’
Her face looked pale and made of paper. Bits of powder and rouge turned her head into a lantern, with two eyes for candles. My heart was tight at the sight of her. ‘It’s secret work,’ I said. ‘I can’t tell you any more, so please don’t ask me. But he’s in no danger, not Bill. He’s doing very well with his life at the moment, so you shouldn’t worry about him at all. I’m telling you.’ For God’s sake believe me, I added under my breath. My words made her smile with relief, because I excelled in fervour. When I remembered it afterwards I wept that I hadn’t told the simple but elusive truth.
‘I’d better take you back to your hotel,’ I said when the meal was finished.
‘I must just nip to the other place first. It can’t be far and we can take a taxi. Bill gen me ten pounds last night. He’s been so generous to me.’ I knew that in her fur coat she felt more cared for than she’d ever done in her life, and I hadn’t the heart to make a fuss about not going where she wanted, so in ten minutes we were at the door of the hotel.