The Nameless Page 7

  Jumping down from the armchair, she made her way quickly to the porch. Litter clung to spikes of bleached grass--yellowing newspapers, torn pages from a book, a sherry bottle--or lay on the ragged greenish drive. Fragments of the porch crunched underfoot as she climbed the steps. Yes, the door was ajar, and she pushed it wider. The floor of the hall was covered with dust, but there was no sign of footprints.

  So that was that, as she had been almost sure it would be. She gazed out of the porch, more relieved than angry with herself. Perhaps she had been gullible, but it was over now. She was still gazing--the market beneath the overpass looked quaint now, even the noise was almost bearable--when something looked out at her from one of the windows beside the porch.

  She turned so violently that she almost fell from the steps. She grabbed a pillar for support and felt it crumbling beneath her fingers. But the shape at the window had only been cobwebs, lumpy with dust. She saw an edge of the gray mass slithering down the pane a moment before it sank out of sight.

  She glanced toward the crowd beneath the overpass for reassurance, and thought she saw a face she recognized. Yes, a white-haired woman dressed in black was watching her from the shadow of the concrete. As Barbara made for the gap in the fence, the woman fled into the crowd.

  That was enough. Now that she remembered the woman's vague smile it seemed knowing. If Barbara caught her she wouldn't have much to smile about, she would really have something to resent Barbara for--but Barbara had wasted enough time. When she reached the pavement she turned away toward Ladbroke Grove.

  In the quiet of the underground her head felt hollow, a rusty bell without a clapper, still echoing metallically. On the train she brushed dust from her clothes. It was rather ------------------------------------com79

  dismaying that her success could make someone she'd never met hate her so much, try to hurt her so cruelly, but at least it was over. Certainly the woman would never dare try anything else when she knew that Barbara had seen her face.

  By the time she reached Dover Street she felt surprisingly light-hearted. Taxis black as beetles crawled up from Bond Street and Piccadilly, and she could outstrip them easily. She was glad to be back at her office. Here she was in control, here the game had rules.

  Louise consulted her pad of messages. "Fiona says she's sorry but they won't hold her reservations for Italy."

  "Aren't they bastards. They love their little rules, don't they?" Perhaps she and Ted could work out an alternative. "What else?"

  "Paul Gregory doesn't think the publishers should get a percentage of the film rights. End of messages. The mail's on your desk, mainly some rejections and a manuscript. Oh--was

  Barbara was impatient to get going, after the false start to the day. "Well, go on."

  "I was wondering if I could bring Hannah in sometimes during the holidays, when I'm taking her on somewhere."

  "Of course you can. Why on earth not?" Presumably, now that she'd read about Angela, Louise hesitated to bring the child to the office, but of course there was no need. Yet for a moment Barbara wondered if she herself weren't too eager to dismiss the events of the morning, to put Angela out of her mind. She mustn't start brooding: Angela had died nine years ago, and she had come to terms with that; to allow her guilt to interfere with her work now would be a mockery of concern, and unfair to her memory of Angela.

  Arthur was watching over the mail on her desk. She pushed him closer to the phone to give herself more space. ------------------------------------com80

  American letters enthusing over A Torrent of Lives, an author complaining that a small publisher had plagiarized him just before it went bankrupt in order to recommence business under another name, an agent who was trying to sell the American rights which she had already sold of one of her books. The sooner she opened an American office the better. Here was a manuscript returned by one of the larger publishers, its disordered pages stamped with coffee rings. Here were three exercise books from a vicar in Cornwall: The Salt Has Lost Its Savour, Hip-Hip-HipHooray. His letter was in the same impeccable handwriting: "I read the article about you in the Sunday journal, and I wondered if you might have the time to place a little book which is by no means fashionable, but, I hope you will agree, the better for it. ...8 Since the publication of the article she had been besieged by letters of sympathy about Angela and by manuscripts, most of them typed with gray almost invisible ribbons: Rapunzel the Medusa, Ferry Bus to Erebus, The Old Man Covered with Oil. All were unpublishable. It unnerved her to imagine how much frustrated creativity there might be in the world.

  Well, it was an average working day. First she wanted to sort things out with Paul. Eventually his phone stopped ringing. "Who's that?" a child's voice said.

  "Could I speak to Paul Gregory, please? This is Barbara Waugh."

  "It's Barbara somebody," the child shouted. After some time a woman's voice arrived. "Actually, I wanted to speak to Paul," Barbara said. "This is his agent, Barbara Waugh."

  "He isn't here at the moment." Paul's wife sounded guarded. "Do you want him to ring you?"

  "Yes, please. Tell him the Americans are panting for his trilogy. They'll be lining up when I go to New York." ------------------------------------com81

  "You'll love to talk to him about that," Mrs. Gregory said, and rang off at once. Was she the one who had changed Paul's mind about the film rights? Now that her husband was making real money, did she feel that Barbara was giving too much of it away? Barbara was impatient to clear up the misunderstanding, but here was Louise with the afternoon mail--a new manuscript from Cherry NewtonBrown.

  Barbara read the opening pages and felt heartened at once; if the whole book was as engrossing then they had a winner. She could take a few chapters over to the park to read. She was still reading as she reached for the phone, to ask Louise to get her a sandwich--the novel was better than engrossing, it was compulsive--and for a few moments she didn't realize why her hand was hovering aimlessly above the phone. Then she heard someone in the outer office with Louise. They were arguing.

  Barbara picked up the phone as soon as it rang. "I have a Ms. Margery Turner in reception," Louise said. "She hasn't an appointment, but she insists on seeing you."

  "What does she want?"

  "She says she has to tell you that herself."

  "Oh, one of those." One unpublishable author had tried that trick in an attempt to browbeat her into handling his work. "Do you think she has anything to offer?"

  "Decidedly not, I'd say."

  "Tell her to write us a letter. Oh, and when you've got rid of her, could you go down and get me a sandwich? Anything with salad."

  She tried to read on, but she couldn't concentrate, for Ms. Margery Turner was still arguing, a slow blurred petulant sound. She found herself reading the same words over and over: he couldn't help himself, he couldn't help himself. The argument stopped abruptly, and Louise came in. "She won't go away," she hissed. ------------------------------------com82

  "Oh yes she will. I've taken enough bullshit for one day." Barbara strode into the outer office; she could already feel how cold and brisk her voice would be--but she halted between the rooms, staring at the woman's dyed white hair, her round teenager's face and vague smile. ------------------------------------com83

  83

  Ten

  One thing was clear at once to Barbara: if this woman had had anything to do with the two phone calls, she would never have come here, especially not when Louise as well as Barbara could see her. But that reopened far too many questions which Barbara had thought safely closed. She didn't know what to say, she could only stare at Margery Turner and feel herself growing nervously fragile until the woman said, "Can I speak to you in private?"

  Barbara regained some control; after all, this was her office. "That depends on what you want."

  "The same thing you do. The same thing you're looking for."

  "Which is?"

  "You know. Why you went to that house."

  "Perhaps I
don't know." The conversation was growing maddeningly insubstantial. "Perhaps you can tell me." ------------------------------------com84

  The woman peered suspiciously at her. "I will if you want me to, but can't I tell you by yourself?"

  The main thing was to find out what she wanted, what she knew; Barbara felt as though she herself knew nothing at all. "I have to go out," she said abruptly. "You can walk down with me if you like."

  As she fetched her handbag Arthur's eyes glared like a warning, but that must be a stray reflection of sunlight on the glass. "I'll be about an hour," she told Louise and hurried out, to give herself no chance to wonder what she was inviting.

  On the stairs Margery Turner said, "I didn't want to say much in front of her. I don't like people who treat you as though you're a criminal. When I said I was looking for the same thing as you, I meant the people at that house stole my daughter as well as yours."

  Barbara managed not to react. She mustn't give anything away until she knew what the woman's game was. Perhaps there was a way to make the woman talk more freely. "Why don't we discuss it over lunch?" she said.

  She hurried Margery Turner into Mayfair, down Hay Hill and through Lansdowne Row, where the gutter that split the pavement looked like a crack which the heat had opened. Walking down Curzon Street, between the two-tone buildings of red brick and cream, felt like entering a kiln; she could smell the walls baking. Beside the great stone pillared half-shell of the Christian Scientist church, a men's hairdresser's breathed out after-shave. A mound in the window was planted with dozens of shaving brushes, stranded desiccated anemones.

  Barbara couldn't chat all the way to the wine bar, and it seemed bad strategy to stay forbiddingly quiet. "What do you know about the people at that house?" she said, which ------------------------------------com85

  seemed vague enough not to betray her ignorance. "Where are they now?"

  "I'll show you the letter when we're sitting down." Her voice was as slow as her large body. "I expect you're wondering how I knew to get in touch with you."

  "Well, yes," Barbara said, though her other unspoken questions had given her no chance to wonder.

  "I'm afraid I followed you to your office. I don't like people who do that sort of thing, but I felt I had to. You see, I recognized you from your photograph when you came into my street--I'd read about you in the library. So when I saw you going to that house I knew what you were after."

  That didn't make sense. "What did you think I was looking for?"

  "Your little girl, of course." Though the vague smile hadn't faltered for a moment, her eyes looked wary, suspicious. "I forget her name," she said.

  "Her name is Angela, but why should you think I was looking for her when she was killed nine years ago?"

  "What do you mean?" The woman sounded outraged. "Who says she was?"

  "One person who says so," Barbara said with a kind of bitter triumph, "is the writer of the article you read."

  For a moment she was sure again that Margery Turner had made the phone calls, until she saw how bewildered the woman was. "I didn't read that part, I only read about Angela. I hadn't any reason to be interested in you then, had I?" she said petulantly. "Some of the library staff treat you as if you're there to steal the books. I don't wonder I missed that part."

  It was too clumsy to be a lie. "Anyway," she said, "you can't believe she's dead, or you wouldn't have gone to that house." ------------------------------------com86

  "I don't want to talk about that just now," Barbara said for lack of a better response, and led her through the arch, hardly larger than a front doorway, that gave into Shepherd Market. At the center of the small paved court a prostitute wearing an abbreviated fur coat stood beside a clump of telephone booths, their red no brighter than her lipstick.

  "I thought we might help each other," Margery Turner said.

  That sounded ominous. "Surely the police can do more than I can."

  "Police?" Her smile turned sour. "They won't do anything, because Susan's over seventeen. They say they don't think she's in danger, but they just want to keep her away from me. You know how a mother by herself gets treated. Now I don't know who to turn to."

  "Well, at least you can tell me about it," Barbara said carefully, and led the way down to the wine bar.

  Boxing photographs yellow as old skin patched the wall above the steep stairs. After the sunshine the dim orange light could hardly be perceived as light at all. As Barbara made her way to a tiny table she felt as though she were groping through marmalade.

  A waiter came to the table at once. Margery glared at him, daring him to throw her out. "Whatever you're having," she said when Barbara asked what she would like.

  Soon the wine arrived. Margery had seemed reluctant to speak; she'd kept glancing at the nearby diners, their sloughed jackets on the backs of their chairs. Now she half-emptied her glass and sat forward. "I want to be straight with you," she said. "They didn't steal Susan in the way they stole your little girl. Susan ran away from home." ------------------------------------com87

  Barbara could only nod, but that seemed to be enough. "She couldn't stand the people where we lived," Margery said. "They were no older than you or me, but you'd have thought they were Victorians. If you made a mistake and then couldn't get married they treated you like a leper. Susan used to say they didn't dare to think there was anything worthwhile outside themselves."

  She pushed her plate of Swiss sausage out of the way and drained her glass, which Barbara refilled. "Susan was artistic, you see. She was brilliant, and yet she never did anything with herself. I kept on and on at her to go to art school--oh, I must have kept at her solidly for a year or more. You see, I was never much good at school, I didn't want her to end up like me. When she ran away I thought perhaps she'd gone to art school, until I got her letter. Then I knew she'd gone because of the neighbors, even though she didn't say so. Artistic types can't stand people who are false."

  "You were going to show me the letter," Barbara said.

  "Oh, not that one. That was just to let me know she was all right--at least, she said she was, but if there was nothing she wanted to hide she wouldn't have left out her address, would she? I showed it to the police, but they wouldn't do anything. We're supposed to be equal now, but they treat us like half-wits unless we're the Queen or the Prime Minister," she said, a feeble joke that dared Barbara not to laugh.

  She was peering in her frayed black handbag. "This is the letter I meant. She addressed it to the wrong house, she'd forgotten where I lived. It was delivered just at the other end of the street and yet they didn't bring it to me, they crossed out their address and posted it again. That's the kind of thing I had to suffer. If they'd brought it to me I might have found Susan while she was still at that house." ------------------------------------com88

  It was only the last page of the letter, with something drawn on the back. At least the large rather childish handwriting was easy to read in the marmalade light. Margery loomed close, ready to retrieve the letter as soon as Barbara finished. but now i can take drugs or leave them alone just like men or women or life for that matter--so i was ready to move on when i met the people im with now--you wouldnt like or understand what were doing but we dont fully understand it ourselves--we wont know what it is until weve done it but i dont care--at least well see what noones ever seen before--im not supposed to tell anyone about it but i thought id see if i could tell you so youd know i wasnt dead--im not supposed to use my name either but i will in case youve forgotten it--thats all from susan the bastard

  Barbara felt acutely uncomfortable. The letter was embarrassing, but what did it prove? She turned it over to glance at the drawing, and recognized everything at once: the market beneath the overpass, the house with the bricked-up gate, a few lines of adjacent houses that faded into nothingness. A face was staring out of an upper window of the house. Its eyes were minute empty circles, absolutely blank.

  Margery hid the letter quickly in her bag and
glared suspiciously at a waiter who happened to be passing. "Don't let the way she talks fool you. It sounds as if she's just trying to shock, doesn't it? But just think about what she says. That letter is a cry for help. She's not supposed to write to anyone or even to use her own name, she can't get away from those people even if she wants to--you realized that, didn't you? She mustn't be supposed to say where she is, and I think she drew the house because drawing wasn't really saying. Their minds aren't like ours once they start taking drugs." ------------------------------------com89

  Barbara could imagine her poring over the letter, finding more with every reading. "Aren't you assuming rather a lot? I mean--was

  "You don't have to take my word for it. Someone agrees with me. Perhaps you should meet her."

  "Perhaps I should. Who is she?"

  "Her name is Gerry Martin. You know who she is, don't you? You ought to know her. She's a writer." For a moment she looked suspicious again. "Well, perhaps she isn't your kind of writer--she writes for newspapers. She wrote a lot about these cults who steal young people from their families, and I got in touch with her. She thinks the people who've got Susan moved because she told me where they were. Now Miss Martin is trying to find them."

  "Well then, someone is helping you."

  "But I couldn't just leave it all to her and do nothing myself. Could you?" she said, and Barbara remembered the empty nerve-racking weeks she had waited in the house at Otford. "When I found that house from the postmark and it was empty I just wandered about like a madwoman, like one of those old women you see walking the streets with nowhere to go. Then I saw a vacancy in that street where you saw me and do you know, I really felt as if God had put it there. I go to the house by the overpass each day and stay there as long as I can, just in case. Susan knows that's the only place I know to look for her."