By the time we’d got from West Bromwich to Oldbury together, dealing with aplomb with the tangle round Savacentre, and once I’d accepted that the pre-set radio was a total and probably enduring mystery, the Fiesta and I were firm friends. I was wondering about developing a relationship with one of its top-of-the-range cousins when I was back at William Murdock. Except—
Putting the rumours firmly to the back of my mind, I concentrated on finding a parking spot. There were very few, despite the fact that, according to Kathryn, the admin. side of the campus closed down at four fifteen. Presumably academic staff and students went on past that. Well, Black Country people had always had a reputation for working hard and for long hours, men and women alike. And while I didn’t see myself quite in the light of a latter-day nail-maker, there was no doubt that any trip round the area had my roots twitching.
The buildings on the Oldbury site were no more appealing from the outside than ours, but inside was another matter. Someone with imagination had been at work: whatever limited amount of money they’d had had been well spent. The lighting was good, the plants were well tended, and there was an air of bustle and purpose that wasn’t entirely to do with going home on time.
The receptionist who greeted, rather then intercepted me, pointed me in the direction of Personnel, which was, to anyone used to William Murdock’s discreet ways, surprisingly well signposted.
Again I came up against a receptionist, but as I started to speak, a door opened.
‘Sophie! By all that’s wonderful!’
My hand was seized and my arm pumped up and down as if to produce water.
‘Luke!’ I gasped. This was luck indeed, far too great for me to worry about possible wear and tear to my various joints. ‘What are you doing here? I thought you’d moved to Wolverhampton. After that little problem I caused you with that railway trip.’ In fact, I knew he had. I’d been at the party to bid him a warm farewell from William Murdock.
‘I did.’ His smile was forgiving.
My answering smile didn’t forgive me. It was my careless talk that had resulted in him being badly beaten by hired thugs who’d got on a train with him.
‘Water under the bridge, Sophie. I told you that when I left. And Wolverhampton was a nice little promotion, remember. Teenage daughter! Such expense!’ He gave an enormous Jewish shrug, worrying his hands in anxiety. ‘If you don’t have a child, you don’t know what it’s like, oy vey!’ He dropped the self-parody and looked hard at me. ‘Sophie?’
I smiled: I was happy to trust Luke with this. ‘But I have. He turned up last summer. Grown up already.’
‘Already already!’ Then his face became as serious and kind as anyone could wish. ‘Is it OK?’
‘Not so OK I tell everyone. Not yet. It’s his family. He – he doesn’t want to upset them. So if I phone him I have to pretend I’m someone from college.’
‘He hasn’t told them yet?’ He put out his arms and hugged me.
‘So what are you doing here?’ I asked at last.
‘Another promotion. And the travelling was too much. And I need to see Mother. I had to let her go into a home, Sophie, and though I can’t flatter myself she needs me – even knows me – I need to see her.’
‘She’s bad?’ She was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s when I last saw him.
‘Mind’s—’ He made a slicing gesture. ‘All those memories …’
I touched his arm. If her memory had gone, it took with it not just her life but the life of a whole family. All their relatives had been destroyed in the Holocaust. His mother had survived Auschwitz.
He nodded, although I hadn’t spoken. ‘What Naomi’s losing …’ He produced a brave smile. ‘Now, how can I help you?’
I looked around. ‘Somewhere private?’
‘Am I going to enjoy this conversation?’ he asked, tapping numbers into a security lock and opening a door. He gestured into a carpeted corridor, shutting the door behind us. Then he opened another door, into what appeared to be his office.
‘It isn’t meant to put you in any danger this time,’ I said. ‘Not that last time’s was meant to.’
‘I won’t leave any unguarded messages this time with untrustworthy people. Come on, don’t look so serious. I got a load of compensation. All the bruises are healed. I don’t have any problems travelling by train. I’m not troubled by nightmares. Always look on the bright side of life!’ he sang.
I looked at him sideways. He hadn’t always been so lively.
‘Love!’ he announced in a dramatic whisper, tiptoeing back – his walk was suddenly Pink Panther’s – to check the door. It was firmly closed. ‘I’ve got a lovely new woman in my life. At my age! That’s why,’ he added in his normal voice, ‘I don’t want to take any risks, even for you, Sophie.’
And did I want to take any risks, with Mike out there?
‘No risks,’ I said firmly. ‘For either of us. Anything that we find wrong will be dealt with through official channels.’
‘And what,’ he asked, ‘are you expecting to find wrong?’
‘Just a detail in someone’s CV.’
‘A detail? What kind of detail?’
‘A detail like their Ph.D.’
‘Yes? For God’s sake, woman, get on with it!’
Despite myself I looked around. He spread his hands, eyes skyward.
‘Someone saying they’ve got one when they haven’t.’
Round-eyed, he gave a low whistle. ‘Who’d do a thing like that?’
‘Carla Pentowski.’
‘But she’s a lovely woman. Look at what the students say about her in their reviews.’
‘We get to criticise our lecturers? Jesus!’
‘Oh yes, you shove your oar in your lecturers’ appraisals. Why not?’
‘And my students’ in mine?’
‘You shouldn’t have a problem there, Sophie: you always had such a good reputation back at William Murdock. By the way, have you heard the latest? Several million adrift, I heard.’
I nodded. ‘Be that as it may – and don’t forget my job’s at risk if it is – William Murdock isn’t this afternoon’s mouton.’
‘You realise I can’t let you see her file?’
‘You can tell me what it says her Ph.D.’s about. And where she got it. If not in Melbourne.’
His eyebrows disappeared into what would have been his hairline. Saying nothing, he fished a bunch of keys from the top drawer of his desk. ‘OK. Make us some tea while you wait.’
In his absence, I had a chance to look round the office. It had been painted recently enough for a distant smell of emulsion to linger. The furniture wasn’t flash new management stuff, but oldish wood, with years of good service left in it. An array of geranium cuttings basked on the windowsill, and some healthy-looking spider plants dominated the tops of his filing cabinets. On the wall opposite his desk, apart from the regulation wall chart, hung one of those photo frames holding a set of family portraits: his mother, his late wife, several of his daughter and one of a blonde woman in her forties or fifties – good eyes, good nose, shame about the chins. The new love, no doubt.
On the wall to the right of the door was a clock big enough to have graced a station. OK, a small station. It was clearly a lot older than the room. Perhaps it had been someone’s idea of an appropriate gift when Luke had left Wolverhampton. The minute hand moved with a curious two steps forward and one back click – very loud. It would have driven me crazy in ten minutes flat. In fact, it was likely to do so. Luke had been gone nine minutes. And it was already four twenty-five. What on earth could be keeping him?
I made tea. He seemed to be hooked on the sort of herbal brews Harvinder favoured. One day I’d have to point out to them the list of additives gracing this particular so-called pure brew. The sad thing was, whatever the teas smelt of – wild strawberries or whatever – they never quite seemed to taste of it. Like instant coffee, I suppose.
The clock had clunked past four thirty when he reappeared, running fingers through his remaining hair. I didn’t need to ask, did I?
‘Gone, gone, and never called me mother,’ he announced, taking the mug. Was the wretched man never serious for two minutes in a row? But he was jiggling the tea-bag string sharply enough to slosh some of the brew on to the carpet. ‘The whole file.’ He slung the bag into the bin. ‘Shit, shit and thrice shit!’
‘Any others missing?’
‘There may be. They seem to have got out of true alphabetical order. But there’s no real problem. The computer ones will be OK.’
I could have screamed. Why hadn’t he looked at those first? Before I could ask, however, he said, ‘We hope the system will be back up on Monday. Alas and lackaday, the programme went bananas yesterday. Not the whole system. Just the bit we need. Splat.’ He smashed his fist into the other palm, with what I took to be mock ferocity.
‘What a coincidence,’ I said drily.
‘Oh, these things happen. It’s not a system I’d have gone for myself but there you are.’ His face changed. ‘You think there’s something sinister, don’t you?’
I shrugged. ‘Whatever I think, this must stay between the two of us. Don’t ask anyone about that missing file. If you even think about it, think—’
‘Think yobs with knuckle-dusters,’ he concluded. ‘I suppose a general enquiry about who might have been rooting through the files …?’
‘If you’re happy, it’s up to you. But keep my name out of it. My – my young man likes my face the way it is.’
‘“Young man”, eh? Oh, I wish there was a proper term for all this. At our age – OK, I know I can give you ten years, but you know what I mean – boyfriend or girlfriend’s entirely the wrong word. “Partner” is a bit committed, “lady-friend” makes Elsa and me both sound about eighty and coy with it! But you’ve got a young man. Tell me all about him.’
‘Now?’ I pointed at the clock.
‘Oh, my ears and whiskers, I must be off, you’re quite right. Friday night is here again!’ He sang the phrase to the tune of ‘Happy days are here again’. ‘And are you spending it with the love of your bosom?’
I wish! ‘I would that I were.’ I felt it behoved me to respond in kind. ‘But he’s in Australia—’ To my horror, I felt the tears spring to my eyes. Perhaps because I heard Jago’s voice: pulling Australian Sheilas. What if he was?
‘And you’re missing him. Look, why don’t you come round and share our Shabbat? I know you’re a lapsed Baptist but that doesn’t put you beyond our pale. I’d like you to meet Elsa. And Naomi will be there.’
‘I’d love to. But I’m supposed to be having supper with someone else.’
‘Anyone I know?’
‘Carla. The woman whose file’s gone missing.’ I’d meant it as an exit line – Luke was putting on his coat, after all, and gathering his case. But he stopped, one arm still free, and put down his case.
‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’
‘No reason why not,’ I said, his tension making my airy assertion sound hollow.
‘Maybe. Once bitten, twice shy, Sophie. Like I said, I don’t take risks these days. Do an old man a favour: phone her first.’
‘I will. I don’t even know if she’s still expecting me.’
‘Well, I’ll be expecting you on Monday. Hang on. There’s a meeting on the West Brom campus in the afternoon, I think. Why don’t I up-date you then? How about over lunch? One fifteen?’
‘At the pub? The Chalk and Talk?’ I didn’t need to spell out why I’d prefer it to the refectory. Hang looking for that sandwich-eating student. I couldn’t talk to Luke and counsel her anyway, not both at the same time.
‘Fine. And next week you share our Shabbat? Come on, you know I’m not orthodox, but I just like to keep the traditions alive.’
‘Lovely.’ I checked in my diary. ‘How about the following week? Next week I cook for another UWM missing person – oh, he’s just taking time off to mark! Tom Bowen. You know I do this cooking scam?’ I explained as we walked together to the car park.
‘Just make sure it isn’t your goose you cook. Ah! These clichés!’ After another enormous self-parodying shrug he let himself into his car and drove off.
I waved him out of sight. And found myself walking backwards into the huge bumper of a Saab. No lights, so I didn’t catch the number. In any case, there was no harm done to either of us. And so to my Fiesta. If only I could remember its number.
There were no messages at all in any medium when I got home. So what should I do about Carla’s invitation? I’d better try phoning her myself.
I got through to her answerphone. Should I bother leaving a message? Perhaps, just on the off chance. I waited and waited for the little bleeps to give way to the big one. A lot of messages today. Or perhaps it had been some time since she’d checked them. I added to them.
I find Fridays the most dispiriting night to be on my own. I always have, ever since university days, when everyone else would be in the bar hoping to meet someone to go with to the Saturday disco and I was in my bedsit with my bulge. So, even if it were the longest of shots, I’d head for Smethwick, clutching a bottle of Perrier. If I had to come home, tail between my legs, no one could say I hadn’t done my best.