The Boat House (4 page)

Turning the key around on the tabletop had made a faint pattern in spilled sugar. Strange, how he felt more attached to the valley as home than he did to the area where he'd been raised. But then, the old town and its suburbs were barely recognisable now. New roads, new buildings, a shopping centre that was down-at-heel less than five years after it had opened. He dusted off the key, and pocketed it. Then he glanced out at the endless river of lights that he was soon to rejoin.

A wraith stood at his shoulder.

It was a trick of reflection, of course, but still it startled him. He turned to face the woman who stood by his table, and the shell of darkness became filled out and real.

"Excuse me," she said. "Do you have a car?"

At a distance she'd hardly appeared to be more than a girl, but now he could see that she was probably closer to his own age. Her face was clear and hardly lined, but her grey eyes had a depth that could only have been earned. And she had a trace of an accent - not one that he could immediately identify, but enough to transform a simple question into something strange and unexpected.

"Yes," Pete said, guardedly; given the location, he could hardly say anything else.

"And you're alone?"

"I suppose I am." He was looking her over as he said it, half aware of what was coming. His usual response to roadside hitchhikers was the same as that of ninety-nine per cent of the population, which was to zip on by, feel bad for a while, and then forget all about it. But this kind of approach was different. For one thing, it was personal. And Pete, when it came down to it, knew that he was your basic and average Nice Guy; couldn't help it, that was the way he'd always been.

What the hell, she seemed okay. Sane, clean, and probably decent company. Maybe she could even help him to stay awake.

"Can I have a ride?" she said.

"You don't even know where I'm going."

"It doesn't matter."

And then she smiled; and Pete's momentary suspicion faded, like a drowned sailor returning to the deep.

They walked out through the big glass doors and into the night. The parking area was well lit and, like the cafeteria, almost empty; there were a couple of dozen vehicles in the bays before them, but beyond these lay an acreage of line-marked space running all the way out to the landscaped boundary hill and the trees. Motorway noise was a continuous background drone, the sodium-glow buzz of the airport just over the horizon. Pete led the way across the paved area and onto the asphalt.

The Zodiac stood alone. It was as if the cars on either side had waited until nobody was looking and then quietly rolled away.

"This is it," he said when they were close enough for it to be obvious which one he was talking about. "Want to change your mind?"

She didn't even take time to think it over. "No," she said, and she took in its battered old lines as if it was as good as anything she'd become used to. "Is it American?"

"No," he said, unlocking the door, "this is one of ours. It's the kind of car they're usually talking about when they say how they don't make 'em like that anymore. This is just before they cross themselves and say, Thank God. Any luggage?"

"Just this," she said, showing the yellow carrier bag that she'd brought out with her. "Where are we going?"

"You really don't care?"

"I'm kind of touring around. I haven't decided where I'm going to settle, yet."

Well, it was probably none of his business, but it struck him as a dangerous kind of thing to be doing. There could be some pretty weird people around, and at this time of night they came into their own. But what was it to him? She was over twenty-one, and at least with him she'd fallen on her feet and would be safe for the next couple of hours. He checked all the doors, and then he got in beside her. She was all ready to go, hands folded in her lap.

The Zodiac played for sympathy a little, but started anyway. Without looking at the woman, Pete said, "Where are you from?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," she said.

"Try me."

There was no reply for a moment, and when Pete glanced up from switching on the headlights he saw that she was looking across at him with an expression that he couldn't make out in the half shadows of the car. It might have been mischief, but it looked like something more.

"I'm a Russian," she said. "I came here tonight on a stolen passport. I think they may have caught the boy I was with, but I carried on."

She watched him for a few seconds longer, until he was the one who turned away.

"Sure," Pete said as they rolled forward and he swung the car around toward the motorway sliproad.

After all, he could take a hint as well as anyone.

THREE

About an hour later, he was saying, "You were telling me the truth, weren't you?"

They hadn't covered much in the way of mileage, mainly due to Pete's mistaken choice of motorway exit that had taken them way out on the wrong side of town before he'd been able to find a place where he could get off the road and turn around. So much for his ability to make it home without a map; even on roads that he was supposed to know, he was no better than a stranger. Motorway lighting was giving the entire night journey a sense of unreality; he wasn't even accustomed to that, any more. He and his passenger had talked about a number of things along the way, but the topic of her background wasn't one of them.

Perhaps that was it; the way that she'd said it and then said nothing more, while everything else about her seemed to indicate the kind of deep streak of honesty that resists analysis, but calls up certainty like a half awake bear from its cave.

I'm a Russian. I came here tonight on a stolen passport.

Could such things happen?

They could, and they did; sometimes in full colour on the six o'clock news, but never in a way that seemed to intersect with Pete's life in any meaningful sense. She wasn't particularly remarkable. Different, but not remarkable. She wasn't bad-looking, but you could lose her in a crowd without too much problem.

I think they caught the boy I was with, but I carried on.

Belief had been simmering in him for some time now, and it seemed that this was the moment that it had chosen to boil over.

They were off the motorway network and it was starting to get late, but Pete had a kind of instinct for seeking out the lowlife places that traded outside normal hours. The cafe was one of a row of old shops, and the parking area behind the row was a half-acre demolition site that had been bulldozed flat and which now served as rough and unlit standing for heavy lorries. The two of them had picked their way carefully over bricks and glass and half buried timbers. Some of the original street layout of the site was still visible, but only just. The extractor fans over the back yard of the cafe were working full-time, pumping out a steam that carried with it the scents of hot fat and bacon.

In the doorway, they stopped. And in response to his question she said, "You think these things don't happen?"

"Not to people I know."

And then she smiled faintly, as if it really didn't matter whether he believed her or not, because his belief or the lack of it could do nothing to alter the facts.

And she said, "Well, here's your first," and then they went on inside.

She was the only woman in the place, but no one seemed to worry. Few of the tables matched each other, and none of the chairs did; the floor was bare and the tablecloths were checkered plastic, and some driver with a deep reverence for Willie Nelson had spent all of his spare change at the jukebox. There were three pinball machines, and as Pete went over to place an order at the service counter she went over to take a look at them. The most garishly lit of the three was a game called
Sun Runner
, and when Pete joined her she was studying it. He put down some change, and showed her how to play. The pinball table was old, its glass split and some of its bulbs dead, probably edged out of some arcade by newer and flashier video games. He tried to see this ordinary, common place and this brokendown machine through her eyes. But he didn't know how.

He said, "What are you going to do?"

She shrugged, her eyes on the silver ball as it made its rounds of the table and ran up almost a thousand points in a frenzied dalliance with the bonus section. The lights flashed and the bells rang, and the silver ball made a quick exit down the left hand side of the layout where the flippers couldn't reach.

"Do you know anyone?" he persisted. "Have you got anywhere to go?"

Again, she didn't answer. She didn't have to.

"Any money?"

"More than seventy pounds."

"It won't last."

"I know. But I'm feeling lucky."

Her last ball shot around the table and dropped out of sight with a zero score.

Their order came up, and they moved across to a table in the window. A red neon sign hung against the glass, and its backglow was like the rays of a sunset. He hadn't had much of a chance to study her, not in the comparatively short time that they'd been on the road, but he'd started to catch up during the game and he carried on with it now. Even in the soft red light she seemed tired, a mechanism of some elegance and delicacy that was being pushed too far.

For a moment, he wondered what they'd make of her in the valley.

But then he let it go.

"You should go to the police," he told her.

Her reply was quick and emphatic. "No."

"They're the people to handle something like this."

"No police," she said.

She seemed genuinely scared of the very idea, and so he didn't press it. It was the first time that she'd shown even a hint of strong feeling, and it was like a powerful heat that made him back away. Whatever her experiences in that direction might have been, they clearly hadn't been good.

There was an awkward silence for a while, and Pete wondered if there was any way to repair the mood that he'd managed almost to destroy. He'd grown to like her company and, although he knew that he'd be losing it before the night was over, he didn't want to see it go with bad feeling. She rubbed at her eyes, and Pete could see how close to the edge she'd been driven. Something was holding her together, but he couldn't have said what.

Then he had an idea.

"A suggestion," he said.

FOUR

After hearing him out, she'd reached across the table as if to take his hand. But she'd touched his sleeve instead, a stand-in gesture for two people who didn't know each other well enough for the real thing; and then, five minutes later, they'd been walking back to the car. It had come home to Pete how awesomely alone she must be; and after the day that he'd had, he could feel himself sliding into perfect harmony with her outlook.

An outsider, and an outcast. They made a neat kind of set.

This time, he dug out his old road atlas from under one of the seats and took no chances with his navigation. It should take no more than a half hour to get to where they needed to go. After leaving her, and by driving through most of what was left of the night, he could still get back to the valley by dawn.

They did a slow drive past before they pulled in. Pete flicked on the Zodiac's interior light to check the address on the paper that Mike had given to him, and it was right. The Russian woman was looking out of the window. Just back from the road, standing in their own grounds, were a series of linked low rise apartment blocks. Probably a mid-seventies development; service flats with the most perfunctory of services.

She said, "Why would you do this?"

There was only one answer he could think of.

He said, "Why did you ask me for a ride?"

There was a big suburban hospital just across the way and, judging by some of the nameplates against the entranceway buzzers, the flats were occupied mostly by single medical staff. The key loaned by Mike opened the main door. The apartment was three floors up. There was no lift.

They climbed to the topmost landing, and found the number they wanted. The hallway lights cut out on a timer just as Pete was getting the door open, but by then they were as good as inside.

With a glance back at him to be sure that she was doing right, she went in ahead.

So, this was the accommodation that his brother had lined up for him. Actually, it wasn't too bad. A short passageway led to a pint sized sitting room with some plain contract furniture. It had the look of a reasonably sized room in a cheap hotel with the back wall cut into an arch and the sleeping area divided off by a folding screen partition. There was no phone.

He went around switching on all the lights, and checking the kitchen taps for water; she moved to the window where the curtains stood half open, and looked out.

Pete said, "You should be okay for a few days, but after that I don't know what will happen. It ought to be better than just being on the road. You can work out what you want to do from here."

"You don't know what this means to me," she said quietly, without turning around.

"I know," Pete said, moving up to take a look out from beside her. "I'm a saint."

They were at the back of the building. Three floors below were sloping gardens of borders and bushes, and a lit zigzag path that led down to a parking lot with a few cinderblock garages. Some of these appeared to have been rented by residents, but most seemed to leave their cars in the open. The Zodiac was down there amongst them.

All seemed as calm and unthreatening as it was possible for a night to be.

"I don't even know your name," she said.

"Pete. Peter McCarthy."

"Alina Petrovna."

He didn't know exactly how it happened. It was as sudden and unexpected as a rockfall. One moment they were standing side by side, the next she was hugging him so hard that he could barely draw breath. He didn't know what to do. He held her awkwardly, like a teenager with his first ever dance partner. And he patted her shoulder, as if to say,
There, there, everything's going to be fine
.

Trying to make light of it, he said, "We shouldn't be doing this. I hardly know you."