He wanted to sleep, but felt that his body would never rest again, that his brain would fragment and he’d spend the rest of his life raving like a madman at the conspiratorial emptiness of the world. He ached as if his joints were giving way. ‘It’s shameful to ramble on like this, but I can’t feel any good reason not to. I can’t help myself. I never met anybody before who I was able to talk to.’
‘Talk, then,’ she said, thinking anyone would serve. She would listen for as long as he could go on, because he was a person stricken down, and she already knew the symptoms.
‘I don’t want you to leave, train or no train. If I spend the night here with the ghosts I’ve just rumbled, and wake up to face the morning alone, I might do something I won’t even live to regret. I don’t know who I am, though I know I don’t belong here. Not even in this country. There’s nothing for me to stay for. Until I know where I want to be, I won’t know who I am. I’ve seen most places, but the vital one has eluded me. When I see the name I’ll know it. I’ll know what it is, and what I am, when it comes. It’s been a long wait so far, but no time is too long, because if you die before you get there at least you haven’t made a false choice! There’s a hand in the way things have turned out that’s not my doing, or anybody else’s either, and everything indicates that I should leave here, and the fact that I’ve no idea where to go isn’t important. Moving over the world in the last thirty years has been the same as standing still, but now the real move ought to begin. Not only my own, but some other voice tells me it must.’
‘It’s as good a way of making up your mind as any.’ She wanted him to stop talking, because his eyes, from looking firmly at some point beyond, were turned even more intently on her.
‘I’ve used all methods of making up my mind,’ he said, ‘of deciding when to alter course to avoid danger or reach clear water, but what mattered was always suggested by a force outside myself, which isn’t a way I like, but there’s little you can do except ride it as you ride the waves – when they let you.’
He opened a smaller volume from the pile of books. The same Hebrew script on one page faced English on the other. ‘Perhaps one of my long voyages would have led me to puzzle the language out. I’d have got a key and navigated my way through it line by line. The reason Aunt Clara didn’t tell me anything was because she thought I shouldn’t be deflected from my simple life. She didn’t send one of my mother’s Hebrew books because she wanted to keep her sister’s things close to herself. Who needs questions? I want answers, but they’re safe inside me and won’t come out, nicely marbled together like stones on a beach, all numbered and precisely catalogued – or they will be soon enough.’
They stood. She would find a blanket and sleep on the wide sofa. ‘You should go to bed.’
He held her gently. ‘Without you I wouldn’t be able to breathe.’
She smiled at his close face. ‘Any other person would have been just as useful.’
He shook his head. ‘Two people like us have been through enough to know that we met in the way we did because neither of us is just any other person. Everything is ordered in the universe, as far as the length of a human life is concerned. When you find your latitude and longitude by heavenly bodies at sea they’re always in the place in which you expect to find them. They never let you down. Nothing is left to chance. We’re individuals, like the billions of stars. But fate is the great leveller, and all is fixed. No other person would have done but you.’
She put her hands on his shoulders. ‘I’m even more exhausted than you look, believe it or not, and would like to get some sleep. But I must go to London tomorrow, because I have unfinished business there.’
‘I’ll go with you.’ He surprised her by a light kiss on the lips. She regretted moving away because she did not know the reason for it. He stood like an island. ‘I’ll give up my room in town, then move down here.’
He took her unwarranted shift from him as one of those blows of life that you must always be braced to expect. He poured two glasses of whisky, his normal tone making her happy to be with him again. ‘Maybe these’ll do for nightcaps!’
‘I feel frightened about going back to London.’ What was she saying? How can I confide in him like this? ‘It’s something I can’t explain.’
‘It’s when you don’t feel dread that something dreadful really happens.’
‘I wish I could believe that,’ she said.
‘So why go?’ It would be impossible not to. She felt as if pulled by the scruff of the neck. He drank his whisky, then poured another. ‘Learn to follow your heart.’
‘Have you?’ A bit too sharp, she felt. Still, he shouldn’t say words he couldn’t mean. ‘Don’t drink any more after that.’ She sat down. ‘I have things to settle. My husband wants me to go back to him.’
After a few moments he said: ‘Well?’
‘I shan’t. He’s been in London with his three brothers. They’ve found out where I live.’
He laughed. ‘Are they such dangerous monsters?’
‘Yes. No. I don’t know.’ She couldn’t, until what she dreaded happened. They were known more clearly by her than any other group of people, yet their presence threatened her with the unknown, to which she couldn’t trust herself not to respond.
‘Get rid of your room as well,’ he said.
‘Oh yes,’ she said, wryly.
‘Why not?’
She moved towards him, then stopped. ‘I like it there because it was my first refuge from a life I couldn’t stand, and from the rest of the world that made me think I was a fool for not feeling I was the luckiest person. I can’t let my husband or my own fears drive me out, so I must get a job and exist on my own.’
‘Being a sailor has taught me,’ he said, ‘that no one can live without other people. The independence you’re thinking about is only possible providing you don’t want to stay human. I’ve been in and out of that state all my life, but never for too long.’
He was accusing her. After trying to stay silent, she said: ‘I’m the only one who knows what’s good for me.’
‘Yes, I realize that. But we did meet under rather peculiar circumstances.’
She didn’t like being reminded, and wondered whether she really was lucky to be alive. Where was she? Who was she with? The room was dimly lit. She wanted to see everything with eye-aching clarity. What had been revealed during the day had pushed her life to one side, but now that it was coming back there was nothing promising about it. Only the effort she would have to make appealed to her, because there was no other way of knowing she was alive. ‘The light’s too low.’
He went to the switches, and the table lamps turned dim in the white dazzle from overhead. ‘Is that better?’
She nodded. It was different.
‘I’ve been thinking of putting an advertisement in the newspaper,’ he said. ‘It’ll go something like this …’ He reached for a pencil and spoke the words as he scribbled: ‘Woman aged thirty to fifty wanted as personal secretary and assistant to help ex-Merchant Marine officer with business affairs. Possibility of travel. Must be independent. Ability to drive an advantage. Fair salary offered. Living-in optional. Own television if desired.’
He passed her the paper. ‘I don’t want to deprive you of your previous freedom, but you have first refusal of this dazzling situation!’
The writing was impossible to read. She would be nobody’s servant. To go to an office every morning from her own room and work for a business firm would be acceptable, but to be a runabout for someone with whom she was friendly was not her notion of a proper job.