All the while they spoke, he continued to record items in his notebook: sewing materials, a packet of needles, pills of different colours and descriptions. Fascinated despite himself, Gaunt drew nearer.
‘Well, not only that, see. Only I live on the top floor, there’s a flat up there: it should have been Macmullen’s but he can’t occupy, him having too many children, they couldn’t have them running wild up there now, could they? We practised in the Assembly Room first, Fridays, see, that’s on the other side of the lobby next to the pay office, and then he’d come on up after, for a cup of tea, like. Well, you know, I had a few cups here too for that matter; quite a joy to pay back it was, after all he done for us; things he bought for us and that. He loved a cup of tea,’ said Gaunt simply. ‘He loved afire too. I always had that feeling, he loved a family, him not having one.’
‘He told you that, did he? He told you he’d no family?’
‘No.’
‘Then how do you know?’
‘It was too evident to be talked about, really. He’d no education either; dragged up really, you could tell.’
Turner had found a bottle of long yellow pills and he was shaking them into the palm of his hand, sniffing cautiously at them.
‘And that’s been going on for years, has it? Cosy chats after practice?’
‘Oh no. He didn’t hardly notice me really, not till a few months ago and I didn’t like to press him at all, him being a dip, see. It’s only recently he took the interest. Same as Exiles.’
‘Exiles?’
‘Motoring Club.’
‘How recent? When did he take you up?’
‘New Year,’ Gaunt said, now very puzzled. ‘Yes. Since January I’d say. He seems to have had a change of heart January.’
‘This January?’
‘That’s right,’ Gaunt said, as if he were seeing it for the first time. ‘Late January. Since he started with Arthur, really. Arthur’s had a great influence on Leo. Made him more contemplative, you know. More the meditating kind. A great improvement, I’d say. And my wife agrees, you know.’
‘I’ll bet. How else did he change?’
‘That’s it really. More reflective.’
‘Since January when he took you up. Bang: in comes the New Year and Leo’s reflective.’
‘Well, steadier. Like he was ill. We did wonder, you know. I said to my wife’ – Gaunt lowered his voice in reverence at the notion – ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if the doctor hadn’t warned him.’
Turner was looking at the map again, first directly and then sideways, noting the pin-holes of vanished units. In an old bookcase lay a heap of census reports, press cuttings and magazines. Kneeling, he began working through them.
‘What else did you talk about?’
‘Nothing serious.’
‘Just politics?’
‘I like serious conversation myself,’ Gaunt said. ‘But I didn’t somehow fancy it with him, you didn’t quite know where it would end.’
‘Lost his temper, did he?’
The cuttings referred to the Movement. The census reports concerned the rise of public support for Karfeld.
‘He was too gentle. Like a woman in that way; you could disappoint him dreadfully;just a word would do it. Vulnerable he was. And quiet. That’s what I never did understand about Cologne, see. I said to my wife, well, I don’t know I’m sure, but if Leo started that fight, it was the devil got hold of him. But he had seen a lot, hadn’t he?’
Turner had come upon a photograph of students rioting in Berlin. Two boys were holding an old man by the arms and a third was slapping him with the back of his hand. His fingers were turned upwards, and the light divided the knuckles like a sculpture. A line had been drawn round the frame in red ball point.
‘I mean you never knew when you were being personal, like,’ Gaunt continued, ‘touching him too near. I used to think sometimes, I said to my wife as a matter of fact, she was never quite at home with him herself, I said, “Well, I wouldn’t like to have his dreams.”‘
Turner stood up. ‘What dreams?’