from? How does the brain work, the hidden circuitry of memory and reason and association? I’m rude and able, that’s what the original anagram had been. He writes it out and it works exactly:
Damien Braudel
–
I’m rude and able
.
Thomas laughs. He can almost see them, in the wood-panelled main dining room of the
Empire Bude
, at the captain’s table perhaps, passing their menus round for signing – the last dinner of the voyage? – the women in cotton frocks with wide skirts and starched petticoats, the officers resplendent in mess kit, like peacocks. The band would be playing, and the major would be turning to Deirdre to say: ‘You may be a hidden dreamer, but I’m afraid I’m rude and able,’ and everyone would be laughing.
Or.
Or maybe it was just a secret between the two of them, the hidden dreamer and her rude and able swain.
He rings Paula. ‘I’m at the house. I saw the solicitor and everything seems to be more or less in order. Now I’m going through her papers.’
‘What for?’
‘Looking for bills, that kind of thing. Hey, what do you remember of the journey out to Cyprus?’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’
‘Something I found. A ship’s menu, actually. The
Empire Bude
.’
‘I was little more than a baby. Five? Six? I just have impressions of the ship – wood and plastic and rather dark in the cabin. Like a railway sleeping compartment, I think. And being woken up when we went through the Straits of Gibraltar. And women crying.’
‘In the Straits of Gibraltar?’
‘No, you idiot, that must have been before. When we wereleaving. I remember a crowd and the sound of the ship’s siren, and women crying. I’d never seen adults cry before.’
‘You don’t often see it now.’
‘In my line of work you do.’
‘And what about Damien Braudel? Do you remember him?’
She is silent for a moment. ‘What’s this all about, Tommo?’
‘I just asked if you remember him. He was there on board, you see. You remember Mum and Dad talking about him?’
‘Vaguely. Didn’t something happen to him?’
‘Right. You see, you
do
know. He was murdered by EOKA. But he was one of your fellow passengers on the
Empire Bude
. I’ve got his signature on a menu. And I’m rude and able—’
‘I wouldn’t put it as strongly as that, although you do tend to go after young women—’
‘—is an anagram. They played anagrams. Don’t you remember? Hidden dreamer? Don’t you remember her saying that? She was the hidden dreamer. Don’t you remember?’
‘No.’
‘Well, she used to. And this is where it came from, I guess. They were playing anagrams at dinner one evening.’
‘Sounds innocent enough.’
‘Who said anything about guilt?’
‘You did.’
A hot, dark room, ransacked by shadows. In the room there is a bed, strewn with sheets. Among the sheets, on the bed, two figures, naked, glazed with sweat, limbs locked together. Their movement is violent and staccato, with no beauty to it. There is sound, a rough grunting, neither male nor female, barely even human. And then abruptly all is over and the two figures part, and lie for a moment side by side among the ruin of the sheets. She sits up, running her fingers through her hair so that she is lifting it up in a cloud – an uncharacteristic gesture he has never seen before. Her breasts hang
loose, each tipped with a dark disc. One of her legs hangs off the bed; the other is up, the knee bent. Her lap is a deep shadow that crawls part way up her belly.
She turns and speaks to the man, but the words are not distinct. Just the tone.
Then she looks towards the door.
Four
‘It’s all psychological,’ said Major Braudel.
They stood at the railings of the stern promenade deck, watching the wake and the gulls swooping down for garbage. They were somewhere in the Bay of Biscay and the weather was warmer although the sea was the same, long Atlantic rollers meeting the ship on the starboard quarter, rolling and pitching
Damien Braudel
–
I’m rude and able
.
Thomas laughs. He can almost see them, in the wood-panelled main dining room of the
Empire Bude
, at the captain’s table perhaps, passing their menus round for signing – the last dinner of the voyage? – the women in cotton frocks with wide skirts and starched petticoats, the officers resplendent in mess kit, like peacocks. The band would be playing, and the major would be turning to Deirdre to say: ‘You may be a hidden dreamer, but I’m afraid I’m rude and able,’ and everyone would be laughing.
Or.
Or maybe it was just a secret between the two of them, the hidden dreamer and her rude and able swain.
He rings Paula. ‘I’m at the house. I saw the solicitor and everything seems to be more or less in order. Now I’m going through her papers.’
‘What for?’
‘Looking for bills, that kind of thing. Hey, what do you remember of the journey out to Cyprus?’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’
‘Something I found. A ship’s menu, actually. The
Empire Bude
.’
‘I was little more than a baby. Five? Six? I just have impressions of the ship – wood and plastic and rather dark in the cabin. Like a railway sleeping compartment, I think. And being woken up when we went through the Straits of Gibraltar. And women crying.’
‘In the Straits of Gibraltar?’
‘No, you idiot, that must have been before. When we wereleaving. I remember a crowd and the sound of the ship’s siren, and women crying. I’d never seen adults cry before.’
‘You don’t often see it now.’
‘In my line of work you do.’
‘And what about Damien Braudel? Do you remember him?’
She is silent for a moment. ‘What’s this all about, Tommo?’
‘I just asked if you remember him. He was there on board, you see. You remember Mum and Dad talking about him?’
‘Vaguely. Didn’t something happen to him?’
‘Right. You see, you
do
know. He was murdered by EOKA. But he was one of your fellow passengers on the
Empire Bude
. I’ve got his signature on a menu. And I’m rude and able—’
‘I wouldn’t put it as strongly as that, although you do tend to go after young women—’
‘—is an anagram. They played anagrams. Don’t you remember? Hidden dreamer? Don’t you remember her saying that? She was the hidden dreamer. Don’t you remember?’
‘No.’
‘Well, she used to. And this is where it came from, I guess. They were playing anagrams at dinner one evening.’
‘Sounds innocent enough.’
‘Who said anything about guilt?’
‘You did.’
A hot, dark room, ransacked by shadows. In the room there is a bed, strewn with sheets. Among the sheets, on the bed, two figures, naked, glazed with sweat, limbs locked together. Their movement is violent and staccato, with no beauty to it. There is sound, a rough grunting, neither male nor female, barely even human. And then abruptly all is over and the two figures part, and lie for a moment side by side among the ruin of the sheets. She sits up, running her fingers through her hair so that she is lifting it up in a cloud – an uncharacteristic gesture he has never seen before. Her breasts hang
loose, each tipped with a dark disc. One of her legs hangs off the bed; the other is up, the knee bent. Her lap is a deep shadow that crawls part way up her belly.
She turns and speaks to the man, but the words are not distinct. Just the tone.
Then she looks towards the door.
Four
‘It’s all psychological,’ said Major Braudel.
They stood at the railings of the stern promenade deck, watching the wake and the gulls swooping down for garbage. They were somewhere in the Bay of Biscay and the weather was warmer although the sea was the same, long Atlantic rollers meeting the ship on the starboard quarter, rolling and pitching
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