The German Numbers Woman

In any case, she wanted to use the toilet, the effect of the rain, no doubt. ‘I think it’s only right that I should buy the drinks.’

He paused at opening the car door. ‘No, that won’t do at all. I’m inviting you.’

Perhaps she had offended him, difficult to recall the procedures from so long ago. It was too late to rectify, so a smile was called for. ‘Just as you say.’

She used language precisely, diffidently, as if not sure she would be understood, or maybe as if she had never been in a similar situation before, and in any case met very few people.

The car stayed in his rearward window, and he went slowly so as not to lose sight, or cause her to go at a higher speed than usual. They parked side by side, at more or less the same time, as if one car was then to take on board packets of drugs from the other. He laughed at such an idea while with her, and led a way to the lounge.

You had to be careful even what you thought with such a person, though he knew he could manage her, easy after the long hard school with Amanda. Oh, how she’d occasionally dug her own grave! Setting the drinks down, he saw himself in a mirror, a glance, glad to be wearing a jacket and tie under his coat instead of the normal shirt and jeans. ‘You must have married young, to be with a man wounded in the war.’

‘Well!’ Undoing her coat showed a nice rounded bosom under a grey sweater. Lines by her mouth, but the skin was otherwise pale and clear. Shapely hands with long fingers reached for her drink, to sip. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘I mean, for a woman in her forties.’

He liked her laugh also. ‘A tiny bit more than that, I’m afraid.’

This silenced him, for a moment. Better get back onto the topic of morse code – as she had hoped he would. ‘So your husband still listens to the music of the spheres?’

‘It’s good for him.’

She wasn’t the sort of person you should lie to, but he had no option. ‘I haven’t heard it for years.’

That wasn’t so good. ‘According to Howard you can never forget it.’

‘True enough. But you do get a bit rusty.’

‘He says listening to the wireless keeps lack of moral fibre at bay. His words, but I suppose it does. He listens happily for hours.’

‘He must be good at it.’

‘Oh, the things he gets!’

He would like to know. ‘Really?’

‘He sends morse to himself sometimes. He has one of those tapper things, a key, and says it keeps his hand in, though what for, I can’t imagine. But you can see what a good hobby it would be for a blind man.’

The pint was almost gone and he wanted more. Why was it ideal, even heavenly, to drink while talking to a woman? Actually, it was good to drink whatever you were doing, but he would hold back in quantity because a woman like her would think little of him if he took too much. ‘Sounds like a sort of therapy.’

‘That’s exactly what it is.’ She took another sip of her fruit drink. ‘Did you like doing it when it was your work?’

‘It was a good job, as jobs go. I’m Richard, by the way.’

‘Mine’s Laura.’

He wondered whether she’d been quite ready to give it, or as if she didn’t find his unusual enough. ‘It got me about the world.’

‘But you liked your work?’

‘Sure. It was enjoyable being at sea, but better still on land, eventually.’ So she was a lonely woman, full of unshed liveliness, looking after her disabled husband, a fate as dull as death. ‘But I’ve never had any reason to complain about my existence.’

‘Neither have I.’ She was a little too definite about that. ‘And neither does my husband.’ Talking so openly surprised and pleased her. Even with the vicar at church her conversation had been distant. It was hard enough with Howard at times, to unravel words from the stone within. What would he say when he knew she’d met such a pleasant man?

‘All the same, he sounds something of a hero for not complaining. People whine too much these days. They don’t know they’re born. I only hope I’d be the same as your husband.’

‘People have to be, when it comes down to it. He has his black moments, usually when there’s an east wind like today. He tries hard to keep it to himself, but of course, I’d know, wouldn’t I?’

You poor woman, married to a wind vane and barometer rolled into one, sometimes the same with him, though nothing a few pints wouldn’t cure. He supposed they lived on a pension, and couldn’t afford to drink. She was modestly dressed, but attractive all the same. For a few bob these days you could get rigged out from an Oxfam shop. Amanda was wearing such stuff when he first met her, and she looked stunning. The handbag might have come from a charity shop, unless she loved the style because it reminded her of better days. ‘It’s certainly not the time to be at sea. Can I get you another?’

‘I ought to be going. Thank you again for fixing my wheel.’

‘I enjoyed a bit of work. You made my day.’ To touch her hand was definitely not on. He drew her chair back so that she could stand.

If I were married to a man who could see, this is what it would be like, she thought. ‘There’s just one thing I would like to ask you.’

He opened the door. ‘What’s that?’

They stood in the porch, looking at the rain, and wondering about each other. ‘I really don’t know how to put it. I’m not used to asking favours, not of a person I’ve just met.’

Such punctiliousness would have been irritating in someone else. He wondered what she wanted him to do, but decided he would do it anyway, though would it be obscene or obsequious? She obviously expected him to run a mile. He detected a layer of ice over the turbulent sea inside, but if he walked on it he would fall through. Did she know how icily charming she was, how flagrantly attractive? Married or not, he wanted her telephone number, but it would be stupid to ask. ‘All you have to do is speak.’

‘I know.’ She felt seventeen again, gauche, uncertain, too proud perhaps. ‘If it’s completely outrageous, just say so, and I’ll understand.’

He took time to light a cigarette. ‘What, then?’

‘You can imagine my husband is a desperately lonely man at times, though he wouldn’t agree. He wouldn’t like to hear me say so, either. But I wondered if you would call some time, and talk to him about wireless. Even send something on his little apparatus.’

He’d sensed what was coming. ‘I see.’

‘I told you it was a mad idea.’ She trawled the car keys from her handbag, knowing that indeed it was, though she felt no shame, rather glad at not having been too stiff-necked to ask, all part of the ease of meeting him. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll be going now. It really has been nice talking to you. And you were so very good to help me with the wheel.’

He would, in the classic phrase, blow his cover. Or he might not, with so much experience in telling untruths. Amanda knew him as the epitome of slyness. ‘There’s no real you,’ she said. ‘What bit there might be you keep for other people. I don’t get a look in.’ No more you will, he had thought, but as always she was both right and wrong, which was what made her so maddening.

‘Of course I’ll come,’ he said to Laura. ‘I’ll be glad to. It’ll bring the old life on board back to me as well, though I may be a little slow on the key at first. My life in any case gets pretty dull at times.’ Except when malevolent sunspots suck away the vital parts of a message. ‘Though I do have to go to London from time to time. Or on a boat trip.’

‘It obviously would be whenever is convenient for you.’

She was as pleased as a schoolgirl. Charming. Amazing how soon you could make those happy whom you had just met – or who you hardly knew. ‘Give me your telephone number, if you like. I’ll call you when I can, to see if it’s a good time.’

‘It will be, I’m sure. Blast, I don’t have a pen.’

They stood apart, to let someone go inside. ‘Here’s one. I have to be off soon, though. I have a business appointment in half an hour. But I’ll be sure to call.’ He most certainly would, though it wasn’t easy to say when. ‘I’ll be very interested to meet your husband.’

SIX (#ulink_8f36eae1-157a-5b63-bfeb-ff6b838e3b99)

Howard had many acquaintances on shortwave, except that while he knew them they didn’t know him. They could have suspected him but probably didn’t. They were recognisable by the text, and by the idiosyncrasies of the sending. He felt the spring in the wrist or the ache at their elbow. Those with speed and rhythm were artists at the game, whereas he spotted some by the slow and awkward delivery, though they weren’t necessarily inexperienced, merely taken over by a spirit of syncopation out of boredom, or they were drawing attention to themselves by showing off, and maliciously wanting to drive people halfway potty who had to take down their message. Operators by trade were often naive regarding the big world beyond, and neither knew nor cared what effect they had on others, all of which helped Howard in his recognition.

Sometimes they sounded as if touching two pieces of electrified wire together, a feat he remembered seeing in a film as a youth, when a train going into the far West was wrecked in an Indian ambush. The telegraph operator, who happened to be on board as a passenger, climbed up a pole by the line, cut a wire, and by touching the two pieces together to make morse, sent a message to get help from the US Cavalry. Howard couldn’t recall whether the man had been struck by an arrow at the end of his effort, and fallen from a great height, or whether he had survived for a hero’s welcome.