A Possible Life Read online

  ‘I won’t. But thank you.’

  ‘Can I ask you one more time? In a year’s time?’

  ‘All right.’

  One year later, almost to the day, she re-proposed and Geoffrey, who had been expecting it, declined. Miss Callander flushed for a moment in frustration; then her eyes filled with tears. The next day she handed in her notice, and at the end of term left for a new job in Dorset.

  That spring, Geoffrey was filled with a strange yet irresistible desire. Giselle. He must see her again. He must find her. It seemed to him extraordinary that it had taken him so long – more than twenty years! – to understand that this was what he must do. The intervening period seemed like a dream – no, more like a slumber, from which he had finally awoken.

  His father had died the previous autumn, and by the time the lawyers had finished with the estate there was a cheque for Geoffrey of some £300. The cost of hotels would be covered by his savings, though it was comforting to know that there was a reserve; he would have wine at dinner. He thought it would be a help to know Giselle’s real name and made some enquiries in London, but was told that the records of his old organisation had been classified secret; some access might one day be given to the official historian, but the papers would be closed to the public for fifty years. In any event, the series of cut-outs used to protect the identity of foreign nationals meant they might very well have no record of the actual names of French agents.

  Undeterred, Geoffrey set off on the cross-Channel ferry in the last week of July. His spirits were high. He laughed as he stood at the taffrail, watching the bubbling white water of the wash. What a magnificent expedition this was going to be.

  In Calais, he asked a taxi to take him to a garage that would rent him a car. He had planned to take the train to Brive, but now that he was in France he fancied a motoring holiday and, with his schoolmaster’s eight-week break, there was no hurry to be back. The garagiste tried to give him an ancient Renault, but a look of respect came into the man’s eye when he heard Geoffrey tell him his grandfather had run a similar business in Clermont. By noon, he was on the road in a two-year-old Citroën DS, black with biscuit-coloured seats, and a Guide Michelin that the garagiste had thrown in for nothing. The gear change was on the steering column, but Geoffrey was familiar with the arrangement from an old Singer; the only awkwardness was waiting for the hydraulic suspension to pump the car up when it first started – that, and the fierceness of the foot brake. Before long, though, he had grown used to it, merely grazing the round button with the sole of his shoe, and was purring through the plane-flanked avenues of northern France. There was no need for maps: Paris, Orléans, Limoges would be clearly flagged, and after that he would trust his memory.

  Sometimes, he wandered off the routes nationales on to the Michelin yellow roads and allowed his instincts to direct him towards rivers, hills, and villages with dusty squares and a choice of cafés at lunchtime. He slept in auberges or small hotels where the patron would not let him sit down to dinner later than seven-thirty. One night he stayed in a converted windmill with no restaurant, so for dinner was despatched to an old woman’s house down a dirt road ten minutes’ drive away. Geoffrey had little appetite for food since the war but could appreciate there was care in the way his hostess had prepared the rustic dishes with herbs from the kitchen garden he could see through the back window. The bill, scribbled on a scrap of squared paper in old francs, was less than five shillings.

  It took him ten days to reach Limoges, as he drifted down the byways. All the time he thought about Giselle. She would now be in her late forties, but that was no reason why she would still not be beautiful. Doubtless she would have married after the war; some local businessman would have snapped her up, Geoffrey thought. That didn’t matter either. The fellow would understand old loyalties. Talking of which, it was her betrayal that he wanted to ask her about: after all this time she must be ready to explain what had happened. The Germans had caught her; they had tortured her and persuaded her to become a double agent – to lead them to people like him. Might there not have been another way? She could have left the area, moved north away from the Germans who were running her … Or perhaps there were other reasons, personal things. He saw her face very clearly when he thought about her: the wide-set, excited eyes, the thin straight nose and pale skin. The least she deserved was a chance to talk to him about it. She would be grateful for that.

  It was evening when he set off for the farmhouse through the fields with their cylinders of rolled hay in the still-fierce sunshine. After half an hour, he admitted to himself that he was lost. He had remembered a village called Saint-Aubin or Auban, then a narrow road going north-west towards the hills, but there seemed to be no such place. He parked the car outside a small roadside café and went inside. Two men in blue overalls looked up from a table where they were playing cards. Geoffrey explained that he was lost and looking for a farmhouse on a hill; the two men looked at each other as though they thought him soft in the head. Eventually, the patron came through a bamboo curtain from the back. Geoffrey ordered a pastis and asked the same question. After some grumbling and eye-rolling, the man disappeared through the curtain, returning a few minutes later with a tattered map of the area. Geoffrey offered him a cigarette as they studied it together. By looking at the contours, he could work out where the high ground was. He remembered from the setting sun that the house looked west, so it was … He pointed at a hamlet on the map and asked the patron if there was an old farm nearby. The man shrugged; but Geoffrey left the bar with new certainty and turned the Citroën round.

  Ten minutes later he was on the track up which he had bicycled all those years ago; the potholes were smoothed out by the car’s airy suspension, but it was as though he could still feel them jarring through the seat of his bicycle.

  The farmhouse had a van outside, and a motor tractor for which in wartime there would have been no petrol; there was still a dog barking. As Geoffrey slammed the car door and walked across the yard, an Alsatian came racing out of a stable, causing him to flinch and raise his arm to his face. The dog was on a chain and could not reach him, but snarled and bared its teeth.

  Geoffrey hammered on the back door and waited. He heard footsteps from inside and remembered the corridor with the sound of a horse or cow in a side room. In truth, he was expecting the door to be opened by a twenty-five-year-old Giselle and had to hide his disappointment when a stout grey-haired woman appeared in the opening.

  It was difficult to know where to begin. Many years ago … A young woman … Her real name … Did Madame have a daughter? Did she know who owned the farm during the war?

  The old woman stood with her arms folded across her chest. Geoffrey asked if she had a husband and this question seemed to vex her. It occurred to him that she must think he was from the Inland Revenue, or the French equivalent; the farm probably did all its trade in cash and kept few papers. He tried to reassure her that he was genuinely looking for an old friend, but after a further minute or so of fruitless questioning, she asked him to leave. When Geoffrey persisted, she went across the yard towards the chained dog and threatened to release it.

  Back in his car, Geoffrey decided to make for a café in the nearby village, a place in which he knew Giselle had sometimes eaten. He ordered a glass of wine and sat outside. He could picture her so clearly that he believed she must be close at hand. The few freckles on her skin, the light in her dark eyes, the dress she had worn that last night – why had she dressed so well? – the way she tossed her head so her dark collar-length hair bounced … He closed his eyes and squeezed her face into his presence. He pushed with all the force of his mind to bring her bodily into being, so that when he opened his eyes she would be sitting, young Giselle, in the seat next to his …

  Then he drove the short distance to the church and sat down on a wooden seat outside. Giselle, Giselle, you silly girl … She must be inside the building.

  He wrestled the door open and ran up the nave. ‘Gis
elle!’ he called out. Dear God, where was she hiding? Why was she playing such a game with him?

  He ran outside and back to the car. All the fields were empty – all the sun-burned fields rolling away without the shadow of a girl as far as he could stretch his empty gaze. He drove into the village, fast, braking fiercely in the square, sending a cloud of summer dust over the outside tables of the café. He climbed out and sat down on a wicker-seated chair. He held his head in his hands. Giselle …

  A waiter asked him what he wanted, but Geoffrey found he could neither move nor speak. His jaw rested on his thumbs, his temples were held by his fingers. No muscle would respond to his commands.

  ‘Monsieur? Monsieur?’

  Geoffrey said later that he had no recollection of his journey home: none. Back, somehow, at Crampton Abbey, he went to see ‘Big’ Little in the headmaster’s study and told him he did not feel well. Little drove him to a doctor in town. After a brief examination, the doctor said he perhaps should see a psychiatrist, but there was no such person in town, nor in the next, larger town; people in Nottinghamshire, it appeared, did not go mad. The only place that a doctor of this kind might be found was in the old county lunatic asylum, the one which had supplied the maids for the school, and it was here, on a hot afternoon, after he had closed his surgery, that the doctor drove Geoffrey with his overnight bag.

  There were some awkward days before he saw a doctor. He was in a dormitory with men who moaned and thrashed. Some sat against the wall holding their heads in their hands, scratching themselves raw; the most agitated, he believed, were tied up in straitjackets in a remote room.

  Eventually, he was moved to a calmer place with a hot, stuffy day room, like a greenhouse, and a garden outside with wallflowers and Michaelmas daisies. He was given a white pill each morning and a blue one at night; the medicines gave him a thirst that tied his tongue. He wrote to Little and asked for more of his clothes to be brought, as the doctors told him he would be with them for some time.

  The hospital library had a few romances and adventure stories and some old copies of the Illustrated London News, but Geoffrey had soon read all he wanted. After three months, he received a letter from Mr Little saying his contract had been terminated and that his place in the spring term would be taken by Mr D. G. Farmer, MA (Strathallan, and Magdalen College, Oxford).

  For many weeks, Geoffrey sat quite still, staring through the picture windows at the flower beds and the wall beyond. One of the other patients called him ‘Statue’ because he never seemed to move.

  He had been in the asylum a year when a female nurse came up to him one morning and said, ‘You have a visitor, Geoffrey.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  He could not think of anyone he knew. His parents, Trembath … Gone. Baxter, he had heard, was also dead. Miss Callander would never want to see him. He could think of no one else alive. Unless, perhaps … Giselle.

  ‘Yes, it’s definitely for you,’ said the nurse. ‘I’ll go and ask his name.’

  When she returned a few minutes later she said it was a Mr Cheeseman.

  ‘Cheddar?’ said Geoffrey after a moment. ‘Good God. What’s he doing here?’

  There was a small room where Geoffrey had sometimes seen other patients receive visitors; when he opened the door he saw a man of about thirty in a suit with his back to him.

  He turned round. ‘Mr Talbot?’ he said.

  Cheeseman was a handsome young man, with thick brown hair, a maroon tie neatly knotted and smooth-shaved skin with the taut lustre of youth. He smiled and held out his hand.

  ‘Hello, sir.’

  ‘Hello, Ched.’

  ‘How are you, sir? I heard you’d had it a bit rough so I thought I’d drop in. I brought these. I don’t know if you still like detective stories.’

  ‘Thank you. Do you live near here?’

  ‘No, I live in London. But I was going to see my grandmother in Nottingham, and it was on the way, so I just thought …’

  A nurse came in with two cups of tea.

  ‘Still keeping wicket?’ said Geoffrey.

  Cheeseman laughed. ‘No! Believe it or not, at my next school I became a bowler.’

  ‘But you could never—’

  ‘I know! But one long summer I had nothing else to do and there was this old leg-spinner, the coach at the local grammar school, and I … Well, I just got the hang of it.’

  ‘And your batting? Still playing across the line?’

  ‘Ah.’ Cheeseman smiled uneasily. ‘I kept the left elbow up and all that. For a bit – just as you taught me. I got into the school eleven as an all-rounder. But I just play village stuff nowadays and … Well, I rather go after it, I’m afraid. From the word go.’

  ‘Never mind. If you enjoy it.’

  ‘Oh yes. I do. I hit quite a few sixes.’

  ‘Whereabouts?’

  ‘Long on, mostly.’

  ‘I thought as much. Not very nice tea, I’m afraid.’

  All the food and drink in the asylum tasted bad, Geoffrey found.

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Cheeseman.

  ‘Are you married?’ said Geoffrey.

  ‘No.’ Cheeseman laughed. ‘Too young. But I do have a girlfriend. Maybe one day.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘And you, sir. You didn’t …’

  ‘Marry? No.’

  ‘Of course, I suppose the war and all that. That must have been exciting.’ Cheeseman licked his lips.

  ‘You could say that.’

  Cheeseman frowned. ‘My father was in a tank regiment. He was wounded in Sicily.’

  ‘Wasn’t he rather old?’ said Geoffrey, who could not remember Cheeseman’s father in particular.

  ‘Just scraped in, I think,’ said Cheddar. ‘He was very keen. And quite short. They just dropped him in the gun turret. So he used to say.’

  There was another pause and Geoffrey struggled to find anything to say. He didn’t want to embarrass Cheeseman by talking about his own health, or about his war experiences.

  Eventually, he had a thought. ‘What work do you do? Do you have a good job?’

  Cheeseman grimaced. ‘Not really. I work for a law firm in the City. It’s pretty dull, to be honest. Quite well paid, though.’

  They heard a trolley clanking down the corridor towards the ward. It was Cheeseman’s turn to be struck by an idea.

  ‘Do you have a television here, sir? I mean, can you watch the Test match?’

  ‘No,’ said Geoffrey. ‘There’s a wireless in the day room, but the others don’t like cricket. They like pop music.’

  ‘Bad luck, sir. We’re doing quite well. I was listening in the car. What do you think of Colin Cowdrey?’

  ‘Plays very straight, they say. Very well coached. Wonderful slip fielder, I believe. I’m afraid I’ve never seen him play.’

  ‘I’ll take you to Lord’s one day when you’re better. There’s a chap in my firm can usually get tickets. It’s about the only consolation for working there! Who was the best bat you ever saw?’

  ‘Frank Woolley,’ said Geoffrey without hesitation. ‘He was imperious. He once scored a double hundred in each innings. No one else has ever done that.’

  ‘Left-hander, wasn’t he?’

  A nurse came in to take away the empty teacups. The air seemed heavy when she had gone and Geoffrey felt his inspiration had run dry. Cheeseman licked his lips again and cast his eyes round frantically, through the window and out to the garden where two or three patients were walking slowly over the grass.

  The silence hung thickly in the corners of the room until at last the lunch bell rang and Cheeseman said, ‘I suppose I’d better be going now, sir. It was very nice to see you. I do hope they’ll let you out of here soon.’

  Geoffrey took Cheeseman to the main door of the building and shook his proffered hand.

  ‘Thank you for coming, Ched. Very decent of you.’

  Then he watched him drive off in a blue Ford Zephyr, sounding the horn once as he le
ft the car park but keeping his eyes fixed on the road ahead.

  Geoffrey did not go into lunch that day. He sat in the day room and cried. All afternoon, his tears fell on to the linoleum floor, making such a pool that the nurse eventually had to clean it up. ‘Come on, Geoffrey,’ she said, banging the head of a mop against the leg of his chair, ‘pull yourself together.’

  A week later there was a parcel for Geoffrey from London. Buried deep in layers of protective packaging was a small portable television with a built-in aerial and a pair of earphones.

  Three months later, Geoffrey was out, discharged; and three months after that, he found himself a job in Hampshire. He had persuaded ‘Big’ Little to write a reference for a post he had seen advertised, and Little did so, adding the postscript: ‘If there is anything further at all you would like to know about this candidate, please do not hesitate to ask me.’ He had underlined the words ‘anything further at all’, which was a code headmasters used as a warning signal – usually that the man in question was too fond of boys. It also meant that the new employer could offer a reduced salary.

  Geoffrey still had £200 of his inheritance left, and used some of it to buy an old car. His new school was near the area where he had been brought up, though not so close as to provoke mawkish thoughts. It was a notch or two below Crampton Abbey and sent most of its pupils on to schools with strong discipline but poor academic records.

  He was put into an old cottage on the edge of the estate, overlooking the main road. It was meant to be for a married couple, but there were none that year and it was really too dilapidated for a woman to tolerate, Geoffrey thought. He didn’t mind it, though. There was a kitchen garden behind, away from the road, and more than enough room inside for him and his belongings. He even took some pieces of his parents’ furniture out of storage.

  It was that summer, at the end of his first year, that his life shifted and changed for good. It was after a country wedding where he knew almost no one; and in return few people noticed a tall, grey-haired man with a slightly startled expression and flecks of dandruff on the shoulders of his suit. He was fifty-five years old, though looked older, in his late sixties perhaps, and nothing in his manner – mild enough, but dry – would have made other guests linger or introduce themselves.