Restless - Boyd William - Страница 22

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For a split second Eva thought that Romer was going to reach for her and kiss her and she felt a fierce giddy panic rise in her chest.

'Night,' was all he said, however. 'See you tomorrow.' He sauntered off, with one of his half-wave, half-salutes, pulling on his raincoat as the drizzle began again.

Eva stood at her door, more disturbed than she could have thought possible. It was not so much the idea of Lucas Romer kissing her that had shaken her – it was the fact that she realised, now the moment had passed and gone for ever, that she had actually rather wanted it to happen.

BOBBIE YORK POURED ME a small whisky, 'a tiny one,' he said, adding a splash of water, then he poured himself an extremely large whisky and filled water up to the glass's brim. He 'deplored' sherry, Bobbie would frequently say – filth, the worst drink in the world. He reminded me of my mother in the histrionic violence of his over-reaction – but only in this.

Robert York MA (Oxon) was, I had calculated, in his late fifties or early sixties. He was a tall portly man with a head of thin grey hair, the strands of which were swept back and kept under control by some pomade or unguent that smelt powerfully of violets. His room, winter or summer, was redolent of violets. He wore handmade tweed suits and heavy orange brogues and he furnished his large study in college like a country house: deep sofas, Persian rugs, some interesting paintings (a small Peploe, a Ben Nicholson drawing, a large, sombre Alan Reynolds apple tree) and, hidden in some glassed cabinets, were a few books and some fine Staffordshire figures. You would not think you were in the study of an Oxford don.

He approached me from the drinks table with my whisky, and his, set my drink down on a side-table and eased himself carefully into an armchair opposite. Every time I saw Bobbie I realised anew that he was really quite fat, but his height, a certain swiftness and balletic precision of movement and his excellent tailoring had the effect of delaying that judgement a good five minutes or so.

'That's a very attractive dress,' he said suavely. 'Suits you to a tee – shame about the bandage but one almost doesn't notice it, I assure you.'

The night before I had scalded my shoulder and neck badly in the bath and had been obliged today to wear one of my skimpier summer dresses, with slim spaghetti straps, so that no material rubbed on my burn – now covered with a gauze and Elastoplast dressing (applied by Veronica), the size of a large folded napkin, situated on the junction of my neck and my left shoulder. I wondered if I should be drinking whisky, given all the powerful painkillers Veronica had plied me with, but they seemed to be working well: I felt no pain – but I moved very carefully.

'Most attractive,' Bobbie repeated, trying not to look at my breasts, 'and, I dare say, in this infernal heat most comfortable. Anyway, slangevar,' he concluded, raising his glass and taking three great gulps of his whisky, like a man dying of thirst. I drank too, more circumspectly, yet felt the whisky burn my throat and stomach.

'Could I have a drop more water?' I asked. 'No, let me get it.' Bobby had surged and struggled in his chair at my request but had not managed to leave it, so I crossed a couple of densely patterned rugs, heading for the drinks table with its small Manhattan of clustered bottles. He seemed to have every drink in Europe I thought – I saw pastis, ouzo, grappa, slivovitz – as I filled my glass with cold water from the carafe.

'I'm afraid I've got nothing to show you,' I said over my scalded shoulder with its dressing. 'I'm rather stuck in 1923 – the Beer Hall Putsch. Can't quite fit everything in with the Freikorps and the BVP, all the intrigues in the Knilling government: the Schweyer-Wutzlhofer argument, Krausneck's resignation – all that.' I was busking, but I thought it would impress Bobbie.

'Yeeesss… tricky,' he said, suddenly looking a little panicked. 'It is very complicated. Mmm, I can see that… Still, the main thing is that we've finally met, you see. I have to write a short report on all my graduates – boring but obligatory. The Beer Hall Putsch, you say. I'll look out some books and send you a reading list. A short one, don't worry.'

He chuckled as I sat down again.

'Lovely to see you, Ruth,' he said. 'You're looking very nubile and summery, I must say. How's little Johannes?'

We talked about Jochen for a while. Bobbie was married to a woman he called 'the Lady Ursula' and they had two married daughters – 'Grandchildren imminent, so I'm told. That's when I commit suicide' – and he and the Lady Ursula lived in a vast Victorian brick villa on the Woodstock Road, not that far from Mr Scott, our dentist. Bobbie had published one book in 1948 called Germany: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow that I had ordered up from the Bodleian stacks once out of interest. It was 140 pages long, printed on poor paper and had no index, and as far as I could determine it was his sole contribution to historical scholarship. As a boy he had holidayed in Germany and had spent a year at university in Vienna before the Anschluss intervened and necessitated his repatriation. During the war he had been a staff officer attached to the War Office and at its end had gone back to Oxford as a young don in 1945, married the Lady Ursula, published his slim book and had been a member of the History Faculty and a Fellow of his college ever since, pursuing, as he candidly put it, the 'way of least resistance'. He had a wide and sophisticated circle of friends in London and a large and decrepit house (thanks to the Lady Ursula) in County Cork, where he spent his summers.

'Did you have any luck with this Lucas Romer person?' I asked him, casually. I had phoned him that morning, thinking if anyone could help me, Bobbie York could.

'Romer, Romer…' he had said. 'Is he one of the Darlington Romers?'

'No, I don't think so. All I can tell you is that he was some kind of spy in the war and has some kind of a title. I think.'

He had said he would see what he could dig up.

Now he heaved himself out of his armchair, tugged his waistcoat down over his gut and went to his desk and searched among the papers there.

'He's not in Who's Who or Debrett's,' said Bobbie.

'I know: I did check,' I said.

'Doesn't mean a thing, of course. I assume he's still alive and kicking,'

'I assume so.'

He took some half-moon spectacles out of a pocket and put them on. 'Here it is,' he said, and looked over the rims at me. 'I called one of my brighter undergraduates who's become a clerk at the House of Commons. He did a little digging around and came up with someone called Baron Mansfield of Hampton Cleeve – family name Romer.' He shrugged. 'Could that be your man?' He read off the sheet of paper.

'Mansfield, Baron, created 1953 (Life Peer), of Hampton Cleeve. L.M. Romer, chairman Romer, Radclyffe Ltd – ah, the publishers, that's the bell that rang – 1946 to the present day. That's all I've got, I'm afraid. He does seem to live very discreetly.'

'Could be,' I said. 'I'll check him out, anyway. Many thanks.'

He looked at me shrewdly. 'Now, why would you be so interested in Baron Mansfield of Hampton Cleeve?'

'Oh, just someone my mother was mentioning.'

My mother had said two things in the Turf Tavern: one, that she was sure Romer was alive and, two, that he had been ennobled in some way – 'A knight, a lord, or something, I'm sure I read about it,' she had said. 'Mind you, that was ages ago.' We left the pub and strolled towards Keble College, where she had parked her car.

'Why do you want to find Romer?' I asked.

'I think the time has come' was all she said and from her tone of voice I knew further questioning would be fruitless.

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