‘Can’t we please get our clothes from the Hilton?’ Sarah said, sounding depressed.
Jik and I said ‘No’ together.
‘I’ll ring them now,’ Jik said. ‘I’ll get them to pack all our things and keep them safe for us, and I’ll tell them I’ll send a cheque for the bill.’ He levered himself out of the car again and went off on the errand.
‘Buy what you need out of my winnings,’ I said to Sarah.
She shook her head. ‘I’ve got some money. It’s not that. It’s just... I wish all this was over.’
‘It will be, soon,’ I said neutrally. She sighed heavily. ‘What’s your idea of a perfect life?’ I asked.
‘Oh...’ she seemed surprised. ‘I suppose right now I just want to be with Jik on the boat and have fun, like before you came.’
‘And for ever?’
She looked at me broodingly. ‘You may think, Todd, that I don’t know Jik is a complicated character, but you’ve only got to look at his paintings... They make me shudder. They’re a side of Jik I don’t know because he hasn’t painted anything since we met. You may think that this world will be worse off if Jik is happy for a bit, but I’m no fool, I know that in the end whatever it is that drives him to paint like that will come back again... I think these first few months together are frantically precious... and it isn’t just the physical dangers you’ve dragged us into that I hate, but the feeling that I’ve lost the rest of that golden time... that you remind him of his painting, and that after you’ve gone he’ll go straight back to it... weeks and weeks before he might have done.’
‘Get him to go sailing,’ I said. ‘He’s always happy at sea.’
‘You don’t care, do you?’
I looked straight into her clouded brown eyes. ‘I care for you both, very much.’
‘Then God help the people you hate.’
And God help me, I thought, if I became any fonder of my oldest friend’s wife. I looked away from her, out of the window. Affection wouldn’t matter. Anything else would be a mess.
Jik came back with a satisfied air. ‘That’s all fixed. They said there’s a letter for you, Todd, delivered by hand a few minutes ago. They asked me for a forwarding address.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I said you’d call them yourself.’
‘Right... Well, let’s get going.’
‘Where to?’
‘New Zealand, don’t you think?’
‘That should be far enough,’ Jik said dryly.
He drove us to the airport, which was packed with people going home from the Cup.
‘If Wexford and Greene are looking for us,’ Sarah said, ‘They will surely be watching at the airport.’
If they weren’t, I thought, we’d have to lay a traiclass="underline" but Jik, who knew that, didn’t tell her.
‘They can’t do much in public,’ he said comfortingly.
We bought tickets and found we could either fly to Auckland direct at lunchtime, or via Sydney leaving within half an hour.
‘Sydney,’ said Sarah positively, clearly drawing strength from the chance of putting her feet down on her own safe doorstep.
I shook my head. ‘Auckland direct. Let’s see if the restaurant’s still open for breakfast.’
We squeezed in under the waitresses’ pointed consultation of clocks and watches and ordered bacon and eggs lavishly.
‘Why are we going to New Zealand?’ Sarah said.
‘To see a man about a painting and advise him to take out extra insurance.’
‘Are you actually making sense?’
‘Actually,’ I said, ‘yes.’
‘I don’t see why we have to go so far, when Jik said you found enough in the gallery to blow the whole thing wide open.’
‘Um...’ I said. ‘Because we don’t want to blow it wide open. Because we want to hand it to the police in full working order.’
She studied my face. ‘You are very devious.’
‘Not on canvas,’ Jik said.
After we’d eaten we wandered around the airport shops, buying yet more toothbrushes and so on for Jik and Sarah, and another airline bag. There was no sign of Wexford or Greene or the boy or Beetle-brows or Renbo, or the tough who’d been on watch at Alice Springs. If they’d seen us without us seeing them, we couldn’t tell.
‘I think I’ll ring the Hilton,’ I said.
Jik nodded. I put the call through with him and Sarah sitting near, within sound and sight.
‘I called about a forwarding address...’ I told the reception desk. ‘I can’t really give you one. I’ll be in New Zealand. I’m flying to Auckland in an hour or two.’
They asked for instructions about the hand-delivered letter.
‘Er... Would you mind opening it, and reading it to me?’
Certainly, they said. Their pleasure. The letter was from Hudson Taylor saying he was sorry to have missed me at the races, and that if while I was in Australia I would like to see round a vineyard, he would be pleased to show me his.
Thanks, I said. Our pleasure, sir, they said. If anyone asked for me, I said, would they please mention where I’d gone. They would. Certainly. Their pleasure.
During the next hour Jik called the car-hire firm about settling their account and leaving the car in the airport carpark, and I checked my suitcase through with Air New Zealand. Passports were no problem: I had mine with me in any case, but for Jik and Sarah they were unnecessary, as passage between New Zealand and Australia was as unrestricted as between England and Ireland.
Still no sign of Wexford or Greene. We sat in the departure bay thinking private thoughts.
It was again only when our flight was called that I spotted a spotter. The prickles rose again on my skin. I’d been blind, I thought. Dumb and blind.
Not Wexford, nor Greene, nor the boy, nor Renbo, nor any rough set of muscles. A neat day dress, neat hair, unremarkable handbag and shoes. A calm concentrated face. I saw her because she was staring at Sarah. She was standing outside the departure bay, looking in. The woman who had welcomed me into the Yarra River Fine Arts, and given me a catalogue, and let me out again afterwards.
As if she felt my eyes upon her she switched her gaze abruptly to my face. I looked away instantly, blankly, hoping she wouldn’t know I’d seen her, or wouldn’t know at least that I’d recognised her.
Jik, Sarah and I stood up and drifted with everyone else towards the departure doors. In their glass I could see the woman’s reflection: standing still, watching us go. I walked out towards the aircraft and didn’t look back.
Mrs. Norman Updike stood in her doorway, shook her head, and said that her husband would not be home until six.
She was thin and sharp-featured and talked with tight New Zealand vowels. If we wanted to speak to her husband, we would have to come back.
She looked us over; Jik with his rakish blond beard, Sarah in her slightly crumpled but still military cream dress, I with my arm in its sling under my shirt, and jacket loose over my shoulder. Hardly a trio one would easily forget. She watched us retreat down her front path with a sharply turned-down mouth.
‘Dear gentle soul,’ murmured Jik.
We drove away in the car we had hired at the airport.
‘Where now?’ Jik said.
‘Shops.’ Sarah was adamant. ‘I must have some clothes.’
The shops, it appeared, were in Queen Street, and still open for another half hour. Jik and I sat in the car, waiting and watching the world go by.
‘The dolly-birds fly out of their office cages about now,’ Jik said happily.
‘What of it?’
‘I sit and count the ones with no bras.’
‘And you a married man.’
‘Old habits die hard.’
We had counted eight definites and one doubtful by the time Sarah returned. She was wearing a light olive skirt with a pink shirt, and reminded me of pistachio ice cream.