17

Herb Kramer is impressed—as he damn well ought to be. With so much information on my father, and even a photograph, he’s confident he’ll soon have news—“maybe only a matter of hours! And didn’t we just prophesy you came from that part of the world?” Again he escorts us to the main door.

Tom and I pause on the sidewalk. “One-twenty-five,” he says. “Time to feed the inner man.”

But no, I tell him. I’d rather be getting on with things. Getting them over with.

“Then why, if you feel like that, don’t I come with you?”

“No point.”

He hesitates. “All right. So don’t forget: Central Line to Tottenham Court Road, Northern Line from there to Hampstead.”

He directs me to the Bond Street tube. The car is parked the other way, maybe a mile from where we stand.

“Good luck, Tex. I reckon I’ll probably stay at the office till half-past-five.”

When I’ve crossed the road I glance back. Tom raises his hand. “And don’t forget,” he calls, “you haven’t eaten!”

Old fuss-budget—I don’t know, I guess I feel this huge affection for the guy—in Oxford Street I buy a large banana.

(Yet…no particular fault of the banana…after just one bite I have to stop myself from throwing it in a bin.)

I get to Hampstead half an hour later; ask at least six times for Worsley Road. One old man with an oversized Adam’s apple scratches his head and keeps on telling me, “That sounds familiar, son…now if only I could lay my finger on it…where was it you said?” There’s a post office nearby but I’d maybe have to stand in line for ten or fifteen minutes. In a bookstore I ask to look at street guides. There’s a Worsley Road listed in E11 and a Worsley Bridge Road in SE26. Worsley Road in NW3 apparently doesn’t exist.

Not in the early nineties, that is; but sure as hell it existed in the middle forties. I need to check at the town hall.

On my way I pass a police station. The desk sergeant is about fifty. He remembers that Worsley Road is now called Pilgrim’s Lane, although it used to be simply the continuation of it. It’s very near.

I walk the length of Pilgrim’s Lane, feel a spurt of satisfaction on seeing faint remnants of the ley: a superimposed street sign at the further end. House numbers have been changed. But in her first letter to Trixie, Rosalind had spoken of a bombsite being next door. There’s only one three-storey house adjacent to something that’s comparatively new. I walk slowly up the front steps; scan the names beside a row of bells; choose for starters the apartment on the lowest floor.

I realize, of course, that at two-thirty on a Monday afternoon the whole house is likely to be empty. But I wait for maybe half a minute—am about to put my finger to the next bell up—when I hear the opening of an inside door and shortly afterwards find an old lady eyeing me with interest through a chain-restricted aperture.

“If you’re a Jehovah’s Witness or a Mormon…if you’re selling double glazing or encyclopedias…then I’m sorry but the answer’s no.”

“Nothing like that, ma’am. I’m trying to trace somebody who lived in this house immediately after the war.”

“I lived in this house immediately after the war.”

“You did?”

“Immediately before it too. Which war are we speaking of?”

“Second World War, ma’am.”

She’s quick, though. She sees my disappointment. “No, I haven’t gone senile, young man. I’m almost ninety years of age but I’m sure I have a memory practically as sharp as yours. I was born in this house—I was married from this house—and God willing I shall die in it, too. I think you’d better come in.”

She conducts me to her sitting room, the first door on the left off the hallway. She looks trim in a black pants-suit, green roll-neck and red sneakers. She moves with agility.

“Put Henry on the floor,” she says. It’s a choice between that or disposing of two leaning piles of books which occupy another chair. “I trust you aren’t allergic to these things?”

“No, ma’am. On the whole I’d say I like them.”

“I approve of your reservation. To say you like cats would be as foolish as to say you like people. Or children. Some cats have characters that just aren’t likable. And I apologize for the smell. Who is it that you’re trying to trace?”

“A young woman called Rosalind Farr. Well, at the time we’re talking of she was certainly a young woman.”

“And a very lovely one.”

“What?”

She smiles at me, enjoying my surprise. “I told you. I’ve lived here, on and off, for nearly ninety years.”

“But I can’t believe that it should be so easy.” It doesn’t seem quite real.

And yet there’s nothing unreal about her, this amazing old lady whose pants-suit is covered in cat hair and whose anklets and underclothing, along with a blouse and a night robe and some dish towels, are airing in front of an unlit and antiquated gas fire. “Yes, I remember her vividly. And it wasn’t just the niceness of the creature, it was the circumstances which attended her stay here. May I ask the reason for your interest?”

“She was a friend of my father’s.”

“Your father?” She stares at me intently, stops stroking the large gingery creature in her lap. “And by any chance, then…can your name be Cassidy?”

For a moment I stare back at her. “But how…? How on earth…?”

“Mine, by the way, is Farnsworth. Jane Farnsworth.” She resumes her rhythmic strokes. “You know, it’s not such a mystery. It’s just that you’re American and your father was a figure of some importance in Rosalind’s life. So for as long as I retain my faculties it’s not a name I’m likely to forget. Matthew Cassidy.”

“That’s it, ma’am. Matthew—or Matt—Cassidy.”

“Alias, the sod.”

I can’t believe I’ve heard her right.

“Excuse me, ma’am?”

“Young man. Don’t say that I’ve managed to shock you! How much has your father ever told you about Rosalind?”

“Not a great deal,” I reply, carefully. “But at the same time…” The thing is, I don’t want to put him in a worse light than I have to, and speaking about the baby and possible desertion may not even prove necessary. I suppose I could tell her the truth regarding the condition I’m in, yet I feel reluctant to sidetrack her.

In any case, my answer seems to do. She gets to her feet, puts the cat back in the chair, offers me a drink.

“A cup of tea if you want it, but we could always pretend the sun has sunk below the yardarm. At this stage in my career I’m seldom without a drop of gin.”

“That would be great,” I say.

“Well, at least I see he taught you manners.” (I guess she’s referring to the fact I too have risen.) “Or perhaps it was your mother. Would you like to be the barman? You’ll find all you need in that cupboard over there—except the ice. Oh, and you Americans are always so mad-keen about the ice!”

“Not me, ma’am. Bad for the digestion. Never touch the stuff.”

“May God forgive you. And I don’t mean for the lie; I mean for being such a nauseating charmer like your father… And don’t be stingy with that gin or I won’t forgive you—far more to the point. You can be as stingy as you like with the tonic.”

While I fix the drinks (trying to ignore the smeary appearance of both tumblers) Mrs Farnsworth moves across to a glass-fronted cabinet in one corner, full of porcelain and knickknacks and flanked by two tall plants in saucers on the floor. “Here’s something which I think might interest you.”

I can’t see what it is but when I’ve put the glass into one hand she stretches out the other and uncurls her swollen and arthritic fingers.

I let out a startled exclamation.

In her palm lies a black-enamelled ring.

“Then evidently this is something which he told you about?” Yes. Evidently. My memory may be starting to come back to me. “But why so shaken?” Her eyes are the eyes of a china doll, wide and blue and scarcely even faded.

“I’m not quite sure, ma’am. Disappointment?”

“Disappointment? And at what, may one inquire?”

“That finally it must have meant so little to her.”

“Oh, stuff! Your father jilted her, of course.”

Her hand is still held out to me; she now extends it even further. She repeats: “I thought you might be interested.” I have to steel myself to take the object from her.

I say, “It’s a mourning ring, isn’t it?” Always. Emily and Robert. May 1, 1840. Somehow I’d foreseen I would discover an inscription.

She sips her drink and goes back to her chair. Even with just the one free hand she picks up the cat so deftly I barely have time to think about assisting her.

“Do you know something?” Reflectively, she holds her tumbler to the light. “On the very first occasion I saw Rosalind it could have been out of this selfsame glass—out of these two selfsame glasses—that we drank our gin-and-tonics then.”

She laughs and adds some comment about how rarely she ever breaks things, despite the clutter she unfailingly creates around her. But although I hear her voice I gradually lose track of what she’s saying. She’s left me in possession of the ring.

I return to my chair, nearly falling over Henry, the disposed and wheezing, still contented tabby. I sit and set my glass down on the floor. Then I place the ring upon my finger. I do this impulsively. The fit seems well-nigh perfect.

“It must have been too loose for her?”

Though did I actually say that or just think I did? Suddenly I feel confused. I don’t know where I am.

Not only where I am but who I am.

Okay. Don’t panic. You’ll soon make sense of this.

You’re in a room. There’s a voice. A woman’s voice.

Talking about ice.

Ice?

I make a real effort. I concentrate. I whisper.

“Rosalind…?”

Then I try it again but this time with considerably more authority.

This time it’s practically a shout.

“Rosalind…!”