VISITORS TO THE CRESENT Page 2

‘And you have known him . . . how long?’

  Jessica hesitated, and then said: ‘Nearly four years,’ as though she could hardly believe it herself.

  ‘And before he came here?’

  ‘He had lodgings in Shepherd’s Bush.’

  She had been carried along by the rhythm of question and answer, but now she pulled herself up.

  ‘Really, Superintendent, I can’t quite see . . .’

  ‘What all this has to do with the burglary?’ He came in smoothly, as though he had been waiting for this cue. ‘We are investigating a number of matters that may or may not be linked together, and it helps if we can get an idea of the background of the people affected. In case there is a common factor, if you see what I mean.’

  ‘I don’t think I do see . . .’

  ‘For example, have they any mutual acquaintances? Perhaps you can tell me whether Mr. Saneck has any friends who call here regularly?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Rather a lonely person?’

  ‘You might call him that, I suppose.’

  ‘No friends at all?’

  ‘He has parties here sometimes, but quite a few of the people who come are acquaintances of Mr. Vickers’s.’

  ‘I see. I must ask Mr. Vickers about that. Now . . .’

  ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ Jessica asked.

  It was time that this dialogue was broken up, she thought; it must have gone on for at least two pages. She took a cigarette and he lit it for her, but would not smoke himself. He used the break as an excuse to wander round the room, which was not exactly what she had had in mind. The window-frame was rattling and he went across to examine the bolts.

  ‘They have a fairly efficient burglar alarm at the shop,’ he said. ‘But it was tampered with. You don’t go in for anything of the kind here?’

  ‘Good gracious, no!’

  He stayed by the window for a moment, staring out at the wind- streaked sky as though he found something friendly in the violent force beyond the thin glass pane. Jessica, who had thought the interview interesting from a writer’s point of view, wondered what he would do next. As though reading her thoughts, he came back across the room; as he passed the small table on which her typewriter was standing, he knocked a sheaf of papers to the ground. That, she thought, was not very subtle: but perhaps he was not worried about subtlety? He bent to pick the papers up and she saw his eyes scan the top sheet.

  ‘Do you read children’s books, Superintendent?’ she asked, and smiled as he looked up, disconcerted.

  She had an unexpectedly warm smile which sparked her rather austere face to life. For the first time during their interview, Harper faltered. He turned away and arranged the papers carefully on her desk.

  A particularly strong gust of wind sent the door crashing back, and Jessica saw that Inspector MacLeish had materialized again. He looked, in his angry way, like the spirit of the wind. ‘I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down!’ She bowed her head, mastering a nervous desire to giggle, and missed the almost imperceptible nod that he gave Harper.

  ‘I wonder whether you would mind taking a look round Mr. Saneck’s rooms?’ the superintendent said, a trifle brusquely. ‘That is, if you have a key.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘It is just possible that someone may have broken in here as well last night. A passer-by reported seeing two men hanging around near this house.’

  They followed her down the stairs and stood on the threshold while she went into Edward’s sitting-room. It was impressively tidy; just as though no one lived in it, she thought, and a sudden coldness came over her. There were no pictures and very few books; but on the mantelshelf there was the little clutter of junk that Edward had brought with him from Poland. She saw the superintendent looking at this sad miscellany.

  ‘Rather pathetic,’ he murmured, ‘the way these folks cling to the past.’

  He made it sound so desolate.

  ‘Of course, some of them become thoroughly Anglicized,’ he went on, ‘while others seem always to look back to the places they came from.’

  ‘When you have a wife and child there,’ Jessica said stiffly, ‘it is natural to look back.’

  His eyes went to the mantelshelf. ‘No pictures? Usually they have pictures, a snap or something.’

  In the hall, MacLeish was inspecting the front door.

  ‘Your insurance people wouldn’t like to see this lock,’ he informed Jessica.

  ‘I hope you have examined everything that interests you?’ she answered tartly, and he shut his mouth with a snap.

  She saw that there was a letter for Edward lying on the hall table: no doubt he had examined that, too.

  ‘Perhaps you would tell Mr. Saneck that I should like to see him when he returns?’ the superintendent said. He had become very crisp and formal, as though she had in some way aroused his resentment.

  ‘Can he get you at Potter Street police station?’

  ‘No. At Scotland Yard.’

  And, evidently appreciating the value of a good exit line, they departed.

  Jessica went back to Edward’s room. How odd, she thought, as she hovered in the doorway. How odd to be asked all these questions about familiar people; and how strange that it should have the effect of making them seem less familiar. George Vickers, for example. The superintendent had not liked Vickers, and she had felt a sudden sympathy with him which must mean that she did not like Vickers either. And Edward . . . She looked round the cold, impersonal room. How little she knew about Edward. She supposed she should be dismayed; but the really disquieting thing was that she had no desire to know anything about Edward. It was almost as though his value to her was that he aroused so little curiosity.

  She turned and went out of the room. Enough time had been wasted for one morning. She ran up the stairs, forgetting to close the front door. While she collected her things together in the study, trying to bring her mind to bear on the problems of her latest book, the wind surged through the hall and thrust deep into the dark arteries of the house.

  III

  It was late when Edward Saneck returned. His car had broken down and he had had to leave it at a garage in a village the name of which he could scarcely remember much less pronounce. He felt very tired. In the hall he found a letter from his wife; he picked it up and went into his sitting-room. Jessica was waiting for him. She did not speak, and words being unnecessary between them he saw nothing strange in this silence, but was grateful for it.

  He flung himself down on the couch and closed his eyes.

  ‘My head aches,’ he complained.

  She remained standing by the table in the centre of the room, watching him. The silence seemed to contain the essence of everything they had shared together; their affection was not deep- rooted, but it had given them some quietness of mind and at this moment it seemed to her very precious. It frightened her to find herself looking back in this way.

  He had these headaches often. Unfailingly, at such times, she would come to him and run her long, sensitive fingers gently across his forehead, easing away the pain. But this time, she did not come. He opened his eyes and looked across at her. She was moving her hand along the edge of the table, fidgeting like a child a little out of place in a strange room. He was reminded of how she had been that first time, awkward and uncertain. He had comforted her then. But now! Any adjustment in their relationship now would be incredibly difficult, and he had no strength for difficult relationships. Instinctively his body stiffened. He sat up a little, regarding her uneasily.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

  He spoke casually, not really inviting confidence. She came across and sat down beside him, absently taking his hand in hers. He found this small gesture alarming; it was the kind of thing people did when they meant to say something unpleasant and hoped to soften the impact. His mind scrambled back over the last few days, searching guiltily for error on his part. Thus occupied, he was quite unprepared for her words.

  �
��The police have been looking for you.’

  He became so still that she realized what these words had meant to him at one time in his life.

  ‘It’s all right, my dear,’ she said softly. ‘There has been a burglary at the shop. Nothing for you to worry about.’

  ‘Oh?’ He was very wary now. ‘What do the police want?’

  She laughed, and, anxious to reassure him, she moved closer.

  ‘They want to catch the burglar and restore your property to you, of course.’

  His shoulders seemed to sag.

  ‘I see.’ He sounded uninterested now, but he made no response to the gentle pressure of her body against his. ‘Vickers dealt with them, I suppose?’

  ‘Apparently he couldn’t tell them much about the stuff in the shop.’

  ‘I’ll get in touch with them tomorrow. Who was it? That sergeant I had to see when I parked my car . . .’

  ‘No. It was a superintendent, and he came from Scotland Yard.’

  ‘Scotland Yard!’ He looked at her angrily, as though she were concealing something from him. ‘But that is where the big policemen are.’

  ‘And this one is particularly big.’ He looked annoyed, and she gave his hand a little shake. ‘He is a reasonable sort of man, Edward; he only wants to help you, and in return I expect he hopes that you will help him with his other enquiries.’

  ‘What other enquiries?’

  ‘It seems that your burglary may be linked with other burglaries that they are investigating.’

  ‘And you believe that?’

  He was staring at her as though nothing that she had said made any sense to him; she might have been speaking an unknown language. She moved away from him, feeling rebuffed.

  ‘Edward, this isn’t Poland. You are safe here – provided you behave sensibly.’

  His mouth twisted. ‘I should have been safe there – provided I had behaved sensibly.’

  She bit her lip, angered by his bleak cynicism, and hurt that he seemed to include her in whatever it was that had aroused his antagonism.

  Suddenly he put his hand up to her face and touched her between the eyes.

  ‘Don’t frown!’

  The little gesture, which he had made so often in the past, irritated her and she flicked his hand away.

  ‘All right,’ he said sulkily. ‘If that’s how you feel.’

  They stared at one another, and then laughed.

  ‘Well!’ she said. ‘What was that all about?’

  She made some coffee, and he told her about the trouble with the car. He tried to make it sound amusing. She listened to him too eagerly and he felt bound to expand the story, inventing absurd details for her entertainment. When at last their laughter petered out, there was a pause that was too long. He could not make love to her; there would have been no spontaneity in his caresses and he could see that she was taut, holding back from him. It was a relief when she excused herself, a little clumsily, saying that she was very tired. It was a relief to be alone.

  When he heard her close the door of her room and was sure that she would not return, he switched off the light. No one knew how much time he spent sitting in the dark in this room. He went across to the window and drew back the blinds. He saw the street, the houses gaunt and featureless washed by moonlight; away to the left there was the orange glow that he had once thought was a fire until Jessica had told him that it was the lights of London reflected in the sky. Beneath those lights, in countless dusty streets and dark alleyways, life throbbed, harsh, raw, exuberant, or dragged its way on weary feet. But to Edward it was all as unreal as a theatre backcloth. He walked alone in a vast wilderness, incomprehensible and without signposts; a place in which he had no identity, would establish no contact, knew no law. It was as though when he first landed in this strange country, he had crossed into the night and the darkness had folded around him; he had lost his way and he had never tried to find it again. But in this darkness, he had created his own world of memory and fantasy, a world that could not be invaded by any other person, that could not be questioned or challenged because it existed for him alone. Here, he was safe.

  He turned back to the room and sat down on the couch. The letter from his wife was lying there, but he did not open it. He knew what it would say. The boy Dasha, whom Edward had never seen, was doing well at school and was particularly interested in science for which he showed a considerable aptitude; they had visited some places of interest, a museum or an art gallery, she would describe what they had seen, the words carefully chosen as though she were composing a catalogue note; perhaps there would have been a visit to some friends who lived on the outskirts of the town. She would ask him how he was. She would say that she had read that a particular exhibition had opened in London, had he seen it? and if so, perhaps he would let her have his impressions. Then, finally, she would say that she and the boy were safe and well. He always had a strange reluctance to open these letters; sometimes it was days before he forced himself to slit the envelope and then he skimmed quickly through the neat, close-written pages and never read them again.

  But although he did not read the letter, its presence there beside him stirred memories and he had a glimpse of Sonya as she had been in the early years of their marriage, wearing her old silk dressing-gown, her body so thin and brittle, torn by the hard, dry cough. He remembered the incredible zest with which she had attacked life. She had once said that it was a good thing that she had such an appetite for life, since she had to sustain them both. It was true; he had been a dull, dreamy boy until she whipped him to a raw awareness.

  Memory flickered and grew dim: Sonya’s image never stayed for long in his mind now. He leant his head back and looked at the window; from here he could see only the roof-tops and the moon climbing slowly into the windy sky. He was fond of moonlight. And it was kind to him, washing his face of irritation and stress, giving it a patient, tentative charm. A bus rumbled down Park Road East, but the sound had no meaning. There was only one thing that he wanted now. He got up and took the old, battered toy down from the mantelshelf. It had a thick, round base and on top there was an old man playing a violin and a sleigh with a team of ponies. He touched the spring; very slowly, the old man began to revolve and the sleigh team moved forward; the old man went round and round and the sleigh team went round and round the old man. Once, it had played a tune, but it was broken now. He could still remember the melody, and the sound of the sleigh bells. He sat back on the couch holding the toy. As he looked out of the window, he could see a sickle moon, thin, like a slice of peel; there was snow, and trees stretching away into a forest. . . . Time passed. The street lamps in Cedar Crescent went out. Edward sat with his eyes closed, fingering the sleigh.

  Chapter Two

  I

  Jessica lay in bed and listened to the wind. It must be quite strong, but it was certainly not gale force; she had slept through far more violent nights than this. The fact remained, however, that she could not sleep through this particular night, so she had better try to occupy her mind. She began to compose a children’s story. The wind was a giant that had taken possession of the house; that was not original, but at least, lying here listening to the dour struggle going on around her, it had a new authenticity. The giant agitated the unlatched doors, the ill-fitting window-frames, he breathed down the long passages, surged into the quiet, well-ordered rooms . . . But there was something wrong with the story. The giant, if he was to be suitable for the children she had in mind, must have an element of playfulness to temper his malevolence; but the house persisted in protesting with the adult anguish of a prisoner dislocated on the rack, Jessica found herself trying to appease her giant. In the morning, she would borrow the long ladder from the West Indian who lived in the house next door and inspect the roof, she would find out what needed to be done to secure the back and front doors, she would take a look at the loose window-frames. . . . Her mind wandered and lost its way in the darkness of sleep. The small domestic images submerged in a deep
tide of fear. She was running along the road in the acid gleam of a searchlight, she could see the tall terraced houses cracked and broken on either side; then, suddenly, there was a dark gap where a few smoking stones reared up like the stumps of a tooth in a broken jaw.

  It was only a second or two before terror woke her. At first, she lay quite still, scarcely daring to breathe; the acrid smell of smoke was in her nostrils, dust choked her throat. Then gradually, her eyes picked out the familiar objects in the room; the dressing-table with the vase of flowers, serene and tall, the bookcase with the collection of wood carvings formally grouped at one end, the standard lamp, its fringed shade a little agitated by the breeze from the window. She sat up in bed and experienced again the quiet, cool thankfulness that had come as the sound of the all clear stole softly into the sky, arching over her like a benediction; no matter what had happened to others, her small, personal civilization had not been shattered.

  The curtains billowed into the room. They should have been reassuring, so flimsy in contrast to the heavy black-out cloth; yet, for some reason, they brought a return of uneasiness. The feeling was not very strong, just a faint flutter in her breast as though her heart had momentarily slowed its rhythm. Why had she had this dream again? It had recurred several times immediately after the war and again during the period of her father’s illness. But why now, when nothing that was of importance to her was threatened? It was true that she had had an unexpected visit from the police; but she had nothing to fear from the police; they were there to afford her protection, if and when she asked for it. Yet there seemed to be no other explanation, life had been uneventful enough lately. She pursued the thought of the police, going over the ground warily as though it might conceal snares. Why should she be so disturbed by a talk about a burglary? Or was it the superintendent who had disturbed her? There had been something a little formidable about him, a hint of depth and complexity behind the bland mask of the official. She reassured herself with the thought that she was unlikely to see him again; he would have more important things to occupy his mind than the rifling of an insignificant antique shop. On reaching this comforting conclusion, she fell asleep and this time she did not dream.