Part 4 (1/2)
”Slip him an overdose, my advice. Bottle of soluble aspirin, he can't miss. Make sure her fingerprints aren't on it, stash it under his pillow. Got your mobile, Anton?”
”Right here, Skipper.”
”He makes his call, then hand it to the boys. No mobiles on the op. And no b.l.o.o.d.y smoking,” he yelled to the whole room. ”That's your last f.a.g, everybody. f.a.gs out now!”
”I'd like to be private,” I told Anton, as soon as we were once more alone.
Wouldn't we all, guy?” he replied, not budging from where he stood.
I pulled off my Harris Tweed jacket and rolled back my left s.h.i.+rtsleeve, exposing the telephone and extension number of Hannah's ward written in her own hand with the felt-tipped pen from behind her ear. I dialled, and a woman's voice sang, ”Tropical,” with a Jamaican lilt.
”Yes, h.e.l.lo, Grace,” I said brightly. ”I'm ringing regarding the patient Jean-Pierre. I believe Hannah is at his bedside. May I speak to her, please?”
”Salvo?” My heart leaped, but it was still Grace. ”Is that you, Salvo? The interpreter man?”
”Yes, it is, and I'd like to speak to Hannah, please' keeping the phone pressed hard against my ear on account of Anton. ”It's personal and it's a tiny bit urgent. Could you kindly bring her to the phone? Just tell her it's' - I was about to say Salvo, but caught myself in the nick of time. ”Me,” I said, with a smile at Anton.
Grace, unlike Hannah, moved at African tempo. If something was worth doing, it was worth doing slowly. ”Hannah she's busy, Salvo,” she complained at last.
Busy? Busy with whom? Busy how? I adopted a military, Maxie-like tone.
”All the same, perhaps I could just speak to her for one minute, okay? It's important, Grace. She'll know exactly what it's about. If you don't mind, please.”
Another monumental delay, patiently shared by Anton.
”You farin' well, Salvo?”
”Fine, thank you. Is she there?”
”Hannah she's got some real heavy meetin' with Matron goin' on. They wouldn't appreciate at all to be disturbed. Better call another time, Salvo. Maybe tomorrow when she's off.”
With Matron? Like Matron who runs the world? Real heavy? About what? Sleeping with married interpreters? I must leave her a message, but what message?
”Salvo?” Grace again.
”What is it?”
”I got some real sad news for you.”
”What's that?”
”Jean-Pierre. The old b.u.m who was sleepin' rough. We lost him, Salvo. Hannah was real cut up. Me too.”
I must have closed my eyes here. When I opened them Anton had removed the phone from my hand and given it to the tracksuit.
”That's our wife's name, is it?” he asked. ”Hannah?”
”Why shouldn't it be?”
”I wouldn't know, governor, would I? Depends who else you've got written on that arm of yours, doesn't it?”
Maxie's men were shouldering kit bags and stepping into the darkness. A no-name aeroplane loomed stubby and sinister in the twilight. Anton walked at my side while big Benny took care of the Frenchman in the beret.
5.
It is a known fact that the thoughts of the most loyal raw recruit on the eve of battle stray in unforeseen directions, some of them downright mutinous. And I will not pretend that my own were in this regard exempt, given that the decor, ventilation and lighting system of our windowless flying machine would have been better suited to the transport of champion dogs, and that the howl of our twin engines, once you got hooked on it, was a composite of all the voices I didn't wish to hear, with Penelope's in pole position. In place of cus.h.i.+oned seats we had iron cages opening onto a central aisle, each equipped with a grimy prison mattress. Hammocks of orange webbing were slung from the ceiling, grab handles being provided for the convenience of those wis.h.i.+ng to jump into the unknown. The one mitigating factor was the presence of Anton and Benny in the cells to either side of me, but Benny appeared to be doing his household accounts and Anton was ostentatiously absorbed in a p.o.r.nographic magazine of great age.
Our flight deck, regarded by many as an aircraft's sanctum, was cordoned off with frayed ribbon. Our two pilots, middle-aged, overweight and unshaven, were so busy ignoring their pa.s.sengers that you might well have asked whether they knew they had any. Add to that a chain of blue corridor lights evocative of a certain North London hospital and it was little wonder if my sense of high purpose should give way to the internal journeys I was making on the newly opened shuttle between Penelope and Hannah.
Within minutes of take-off our team, almost to a man, had fallen victim to African sleeping sickness, using their kit bags for pillows. Two exceptions were Maxie and his French friend who, huddled together at the aft end of the plane, were swapping sheets of paper like an anxious couple who have received a threatening communication from the mortgage company. The Frenchman had removed his beret, exposing an aquiline face, penetrating eyes and a tonsured pate fringed with straw-coloured hair. His name, which I extracted from the laconic Benny, was Monsieur Jasper. What Frenchman was ever called Jasper? I asked myself incredulously. But perhaps like me he was travelling under an alias.
”Do you think I should go over and offer them my services?” I asked Anton, suspecting that the two were having difficulty communicating.
”Governor, if the skipper wants your services, the skipper will take them,” he replied, without lifting his head from his magazine.
Of the remaining members of our team, save one, I can give no account. I remember them as a grim-jawed group in bulked-out anoraks and baseball caps who stopped talking whenever I drew close.
”Wife problems sorted, old boy? Chaps round here call me Skipper by the by.”
I must have been dozing, for when I looked up I found myself staring into the magnified blue eyes of Maxie as he squatted Arab-style at my elbow. My spirits instantly revived. How many times had I not listened to Brother Michael regaling me with the feats of arms performed by Colonel T. E. Lawrence and other great Englishmen at war? With the touch of a magician's wand the interior of our plane transformed itself into an Arab nomad's tent. The overhead webbing became our goatskin roof. In my imagination, desert stars were peeping through the gaps.
”Wife well and truly sorted, thank you, Skipper,” I replied, suiting my energetic manner to his. ”No further problems in that department, I'm pleased to say.”
”How about that ailing chum of yours?”
”Oh, well, he died actually,” I replied with equal casualness.
”Poor b.u.g.g.e.r. Still, no point in hanging around the back of the herd once your time's up. You a Napoleon buff?”
”Well, not exactly,” I replied, reluctant to admit that Cromwell, Our Chief of Men was as far as my historical researches had advanced.
”By the time he got to Borodino, he'd lost the plot. Sleepwalking at Smolensk, gaga by the time he got to Borodino, f.u.c.ked at forty. Couldn't p.i.s.s, couldn't think straight. Gives me three more years. How about you?”
”Well, twelve actually,” I replied, privately marvelling that a man with no French should appoint Napoleon his role model.
”It's a quickie. Anderson tell you that?” He ran on, not waiting for my answer. ”We tiptoe in, talk to a few Congolese chaps, cut a deal with 'em, get their signatures on a contract, tiptoe out. We've got 'em for six hours tops. Each of 'em has said yes separately, now we've got to get 'em to say yes to each other. Officially they're somewhere else, and that's where they've got to be by the time the clock chimes midnight. With me?”
”With you, Skipper.”
”This is your first gig, right?”
”I'm afraid it is. My baptism of fire, you might say,” I conceded, with a rueful smile to indicate that I was alive to my drawbacks. And, unable to restrain my curiosity: ”I don't suppose you'd like to tell me where we're going, would you, sir?”
”Little island up north where no one will disturb us. Less you know now, better you'll sleep later.” He allowed himself a slight softening of his features. ”Every time the same with these jobs. ”Hurry up and wait”, then ”Where the f.u.c.k are you?” Next thing you know, there are ten other a.r.s.e holes in the race, your chaps are scattered across the globe and your back tyre's got a puncture.”
His restless gaze lighted on a column of suitcase-style boxes, black-painted and of uniform size, tethered to a grid beside the cabin door. At their base, curled up on his mattress like a newborn calf, lay a gnomic man in a flat cloth cap and quilted waistcoat, to all appearances as sound asleep as his comrades.