‘Of all the people I swore I’d never see again -‘
‘Turner was at the top of the list. All right. All right, you’re not the only one. Let’s get it over, shall we?’
They sat down.
‘She doesn’t know you’re here,’ said Meadowes. ‘I’m not going to tell her you’re here.’
‘All right.’
‘He met her a few times; there was nothing between them.’
‘I’ll keep away from her.’
‘Yes,’ said Meadowes. He did not speak to Turner, but past him, at the lockers. ‘Yes, you must.’
‘Try and forget it’s me,’ Turner said. ‘Take your time.’ For a moment his expression seemed to yield, as the shadows formed upon his plain complexion, until in its way his face was as old as Meadowes’, and as weary.
‘I’ll tell it you once,’ Meadowes said, ‘and that’s all. I’ll tell you all I know, and then you clear out.’
Turner nodded.
‘It began with the Exiles Motoring Club,’ Meadowes said. ‘That’s how I met him really. I like cars, always have done. I’d bought a Rover, Three Litre, for retirement-‘
‘How long have you been here?’
‘A year. Yes, a year now.’
‘Straight from Warsaw?’
‘We did a spell in London in between. Then they sent me here. I was fifty-eight. I’d two more years to run and after Warsaw I reckoned I’d take things quietly. I wanted to look after her, get her right again-‘
‘All right.’
‘I don’t go out much as a rule but I joined this club, UK and Commonwealth it is mainly, but decent. I reckoned that would do us nicely: one evening a week, the rallies in the summer, get-togethers in the winter. I could take Myra, see; get her back into things, keep an eye on her. She wanted that herself, in the beginning. She was lost; she wanted company. I’m all she’s got.’
‘All right,’ Turner said.
‘They were a good lot when we joined, though it’s like any other club, of course, it goes up and down; depends who runs it. Get a good crowd in and you have a lot of fun; get a bad crowd, there’s jiving and all the rest.’
‘And Harting was big there, was he?’
‘You let me go at my own speed, right?’ Meadowes’ manner was firm and disapproving: a father corrects his son. ‘No. He was not big there, not at that time. He was a member there, that’s all, just a member. I shouldn’t think he showed up, not once in six meetings. Well, he didn’t belong really. After all he was a diplomat, and the Exiles isn’t meant for dips. Mid-November, we have the Annual General Meeting. Haven’t you got your black notebook then?’
‘November,’ Turner said, not moving, ‘The AGM. Five months ago.’
‘It was a funny sort of do really. Funny atmosphere. Karfeld had been on the go about six weeks and we were all wondering what would happen next, I think. Freddie Luxton was in the chair and he was just off to Nairobi; Bill Aintree was Social Secretary and they’d warned him for Korea, and the rest of us were in a flutter trying to elect new officers, get through the agenda and fix up the winter outing. That’s when Leo pipes up and in a way that was his first step into Registry.’
Meadowes fell silent. ‘I don’t know what kind of fool I am,’ he said. ‘I just don’t know.’
Turner waited.
‘I tell you: we’d never heard of him, not really, not as somebody keen on the Exiles. And he had this reputation, you see-‘
‘What reputation?’
‘Well, they said he was a bit of a gypsy. Always on the fiddle. There was some story about Cologne. I didn’t fancy what I’d heard, to be frank, and I didn’t want him mixed up with Myra.’
‘What story about Cologne?’
‘Hearsay, that’s all it is. He was in a fight. A night-club brawl.’
‘No details?’
‘None.’
‘Who else was there?’
‘I’ve no idea. Where was I?’
‘The Exiles, AGM.’
‘The winter outing. Yes. “Right,” says Bill Aintree. “Any suggestions from the floor?” And Leo’s on his feet straight away. He was about three chairs down from me. I said to Myra: “Here, what’s he up to?” Well, Leo had a proposal, he said. For the winter outing. He knew an old man in Königswinter who owned a string of barges, very rich and very fond of the English, he said; quite high in the Anglo-German. And this old fellow had agreed to lend us two barges and two crews to run the whole club up to Koblenz and back. As some kind of quid pro quo for a favour the British had done him in the Occupation. Leo always knew people like that,’ said Meadowes; and a brief smile of affection illuminated the sadness of his features. ‘There’d be covered accommodation, rum and coffee on the way and a big lunch when we got to Koblenz.