Caravan to Vaccares

The policeman put his book away. ‘I wouldn’t go in there myself. Not at this time of night. The local people believe it’s cursed and haunted and – well – I was born here. Tomorrow, when it’s daylight –’

‘He’ll have turned up long before them,’ Czerda said confidently. ‘Just a lot of fuss about nothing.’

‘Then that woman who just left – she is his mother –’

‘Yes.’

‘Then why is she so upset?’

‘He’s only a boy and you know what mothers are.’ Czerda half-shrugged in resignation. ‘I suppose I’d better go and tell her.’

He left. So did the policeman. so did Ferenc. Bowman didn’t hesitate. He could see where Czerda was going, he could guess where the policeman was heading for – the nearest estaminet – so was momentarily interested in the movements of neither. But in Ferenc he was interested, for there was something in the alacrity and purposeful-ness with which he walked quickly through the archway into the parking lot that bespoke some fixed intent. Bowman followed more leisurely and stopped in the archway.

On the right-hand side of the lot was a row of four fortune-tellers’ booths, got up in the usual garishly-coloured canvas. The first in the row was occupied, a notice said, by a certain Madame Marie-Antoinette who offered a money back if not satisfied guarantee. Bowman went inside immediately, not because of any particular predilection for royalty or parsimony or both, but because just as Ferenc was entering the most distant booth he paused and looked round directly at Bowman and Ferenc’s face was stamped with the unmistakably unpleasant characteristics of one whose suspicions could be instantly aroused. Bowman passed inside.

Marie-Antoinette was a white-haired old crone with eyes of polished mahogany and a gin-trap for a mouth. She gazed into a cloudy crystal ball that was cloudy principally because it hadn’t been cleaned for months, spoke to Bowman encouragingly about the longevity, health, fame and happiness that could not fail to be his, took four francs from him and appeared to go into a coma, a sign Bowman took to indicate that the interview was over. He left. Cecile was standing just outside, swinging her handbag in what could have been regarded as an unnecessarily provocative fashion and looking at him with a degree of speculative amusement perhaps uncalled for in the circumstances.

‘Still studying human nature?’ she asked sweetly.

‘I should never have gone in there.’ Bowman took off his glasses and peered myopically around. The character running the shooting gallery across the parking lot, a short thick-set lad with the face of a boxer who had had a highly unspectacular career brought to an abrupt end, was regarding him with a degree of interest that verged on the impolite. Bowman put his spectacles back on and looked at Cecile.

‘Your fortune?’ she enquired solicitously. ‘Bad news?’

‘The worst. Marie-Antoinette says I will be married in two months. She must be wrong.’

‘And you not the marrying kind,’ she said sympathetically. She nodded at the next booth, which bore a legend above the entrance. ‘I think you should ask Madame What’s-her-name for a second opinion.’

Bowman studied Madame Zetterling’s comeon, then looked again across the car-park. The gallery attendant appeared to be finding him as fascinating as ever. Bowman followed Cecile’s advice and went inside.

Madame Zetterling looked like Marie-Antoinette’s elder sister. Her technique was different inasmuch as the tools of her trade consisted of a pack of very greasy playing cards which she shuffled and dealt with a speed and dexterity that would have had her automatically blackballed in any casino in Europe, but the forecast for his future was exactly the same. So was the price.

Cecile was still waiting outside, still smiling. Ferenc was standing now by the archway in the hedge and had clearly taken over the eye-riveting stint from the shooting-stall attendant. Bowman polished his glasses some more.

‘God help us,’ Bowman said. ‘This is nothing but a matrimonial agency. Extraordinary. Uncanny.’ He replaced his glasses. Lot’s wife had nothing on Ferenc. ‘Quite incredible, in fact.’

‘What is?’

‘Your resemblance,’ Bowman said solemnly, ‘to the person I’m supposed to marry.’

‘My, my!’ She laughed, pleasantly and with genuine amusement. ‘You do have an original mind, Mr Bowman.’

‘Neil,’ Bowman said, and without waiting for further advice entered the next booth. In the comparative obscurity of the entrance he looked round in time to see Ferenc shrug his shoulders and move off into the forecourt.

The third fortune-teller made up the cast for the three witches of Macbeth. She used tarot cards and ended up by telling Bowman that he would shortly be journeying across the seas where he would meet and marry a raven-haired beauty and when he said he was getting married to a blonde the following month she just smiled sadly and took his money.

Cecile, who now clearly regarded him as the best source of light entertainment around, had a look of frankly malicious amusement on her face.

‘What shattering revelations this time?’

Bowman took his glasses off again and shook his head in perplexity: as far as he could see he was no longer the object of anyone’s attention. ‘I don’t understand. She said: “Her father was a great seaman, as was his, as was his.” Doesn’t make any kind of sense to me.’

It did to Cecile. She touched a switch somewhere and the smile went out. She stared at Bowman, green eyes full of perplexed uncertainty.

‘My father is an admiral,’ she said slowly. ‘So was my grandfather. And great-grandfather. You – you could have found this out.’

‘Sure, sure. I carry a complete dossier on every girl I’m about to meet for the first time. Come up to my room and I’ll show you my filing cabinets – I carry them about in a pantechnicon. And wait, there’s more. I quote again: “She has a rose-shaped strawberry birthmark in a place where it can’t be seen.”’

‘Good God!’

‘I couldn’t have put it better myself. Hang on. There may be worse yet to come.’ Bowman made no excuse and gave no reason for entering the fourth booth, the only one that held any interest for him, nor was it necessary: the girl was so shaken by what she’d just been told that the oddity of Bowman’s behaviour must have suddenly become of very secondary importance.

The booth was very dimly lit, the illumination coming from an Anglepoise lamp with a very low wattage bulb that cast a pool of light on a green baize table and a pair of hands that lay lightly clasped on the table. Little of the person to whom the hands belonged could be seen as she sat in shadow with her head bent but enough to realize that she would never make it as one of the three witches of Macbeth or even as Lady Macbeth herself. This one was young, with flowing titian hair reaching below her shoulders and gave the vague impression, although her features were almost indistinguishable, that she must be quite beautiful: her hands certainly were.

Bowman sat on the chair opposite her and looked at the card on the table which bore the legend: ‘Countess Marie le Hobenaut.’

‘You really a countess, ma’am?’ Bowman asked politely.

‘You wish to have your hand read?’ Her voice was low, gentle and soft. No Lady Macbeth: here was Cordelia.

‘Of course.’

She took his hand in both of hers and bent over it, her head so low that the titian hair brushed the table. Bowman kept still – it wasn’t easy but he kept still – as two warm tears fell on his hands. With his left hand he twisted the Anglepoise and she put a forearm up to protect her eyes but not before he had time to see that her face was beautiful and that the big brown eyes were sheened with tears.

‘Why is Countess Marie crying?’

‘You have a long lifeline –’

‘Why are you crying?’

‘Please.’

‘All right. Why are you crying, please?’

‘I’m sorry. I – I’m upset.’

‘You mean I’ve only got to walk into a place –’

‘My young brother is missing.’

‘Your brother? I know someone’s missing. Everyone knows. Alexandre. But your brother. They haven’t found him?’

She shook her head, the titian hair brushing across the table.

‘And that’s your mother in the big green-and-white caravan?’

A nod this time. She didn’t look up.

‘But why all the tears? He’s only been missing for a little while. He’ll turn up, you’ll see.’

Again she said nothing. She put her forearms on the table and her head on her forearms and cried silently, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably. Bowman, his face bitter, touched the young gypsy’s shoulder, rose and left the booth. But when he emerged the expression on his face was one of dazed bewilderment. Cecile glanced at him in some trepidation.

‘Four kids,’ Bowman said quietly. He took her unresisting arm and led her through the archway towards the forecourt. Le Grand Duc, the blonde girl still with him, was talking to an impressively scar-faced and heavily built gypsy dressed in dark trousers and frilled off-white shirt. Bowman ignored Cecile’s disapproving frown and halted a few convenient feet away.

‘A thousand thanks, Mr Koscis, a thousand thanks,’ Le Grand Duc was saying in his most gracious lord of the manor voice. ‘Immensely interesting, immensely. Come, Lila, my dear, enough is enough. I think we have earned ourselves a drink and a little bite to eat.’ Bowman watched them make their way towards the steps leading to the patio, then turned and looked consideringly at the green-and-white caravan.

Cecile said: ‘Don’t.’

Bowman looked at her in surprise.

‘And what’s wrong with wanting to help a sorrowing mother? Maybe I can comfort her, help in some way, perhaps even go looking for her missing boy. If more people would be more forthcoming in times of trouble, be more willing to risk a snub –’

‘You really are a fearful hypocrite,’ she said admiringly.

‘Besides, there’s a technique to this sort of thing. If Le Grand Duc can do it, I can. Still your apprehensions.’

Bowman left her there nibbling the tip of a thumb in what did appear to be a very apprehensive manner indeed and mounted the caravan steps.

At first sight the interior appeared to be deserted, then his eyes became accustomed to the gloom and he realized he was standing in an unlighted vestibule leading to the main living quarters beyond, identifiable by a crack of light from an imperfectly constructed doorway and the sound of voices, women’s voices.

Bowman took a step through the outer doorway. A shadow detached itself from a wall, a shadow possessed of the most astonishing powers of acceleration and the most painful solidity. It struck Bowman on the breastbone with the top of a head that had the unforgiving consistency of a cement bollard: Bowman made it all the way to the ground without the benefit of even one of the caravan steps. Out of the corner of an eye he was dimly aware of Cecile stepping hurriedly and advisedly to one side then he landed on his back with a momentarily numbing impact that took care of any little air that bullet-head had left in his lungs in the first place. His glasses went flying off into the middle distance and as he lay there whooping and gasping for the oxygen that wouldn’t come the shadow came marching purposefully down the steps. He was short, thick-set, unfriendly, had a speech to make and was clearly determined on making it. He stooped, grabbed Bowman by the lapels and hauled him to his feet with an ease that boded ill for things to come.

‘You will remember me, my friend.’ His voice had the pleasant timbre of gravel being decanted from a metal hopper. ‘You will remember that Hoval does not like trespassers. You will remember that next time Hoval will not use his fists.’

From this Bowman gathered that on this occasion Hoval did intend to use his fists and he did. Only one, but it was more than enough. Hoval hit him in the same place and, as far as Bowman could judge from the symptoms transmitted by a now nearly paralysed midriff, with approximately the same amount of force. He took half-a-dozen involuntary backward steps and then came heavily to earth again, this time in a seated position with his hands splayed out behind him. Hoval dusted off his hands in an unpleasant fashion and marched back up into the caravan again. Cecile looked around till she located Bowman’s glasses, then came and offered him a helping hand which he wasn’t too proud to accept.

‘I think Le Grand Duc must use a dfferent technique,’ she said gravely.

‘There’s a lot of ingratitude in this world,’ Bowman wheezed.

‘Isn’t there just? Through with studying human nature for the night?’ Bowman nodded, it was easier than speaking. ‘Then for goodness’ sake let’s get out of here. After that, I need a drink.’

‘What do you think I require?’ Bowman croaked.

She looked at him consideringly. ‘Frankly, I think a nanny would be in order.’ She took his arm and led him up the steps to the patio. Le Grand Duc, with a large bowl of fruit before him and Lila by his side, stopped munching a banana and regarded Bowman with a smile so studiously impersonal as to be positively insulting.

‘That was a rousing set-to you had down there,’ he observed.

‘He hit me when I wasn’t looking,’ Bowman explained.

‘Ah!’ Le Grand Duc said non-committally, then added in a penetrating whisper when they’d moved on less than half-a-dozen feet: ‘As I said, long past his prime.’ Cecile squeezed Bowman’s arm warningly but unnecessarily: he gave her the wan smile of one whose cup is overful and led her to the table. A waiter brought drinks.

Bowman fortified himself and said: ‘Well, now. Where shall we live? England or France?’

‘What?’

‘You heard what the fortune-teller said.’

‘Oh, my God!’

Bowman lifted his glass. ‘To David.’

‘David?’

‘Our eldest. I’ve just chosen his name.’

The green eyes regarding Bowman so steadily over the rim of a glass were neither amused nor exasperated, just very thoughtful. Bowman became very thoughtful himself. It could be that Cecile Dubois was, in that well-turned phrase, rather more than just a pretty face.

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