The Man Who Travelled on Motorways Read online

  ‘West is fine,’ Rhet Karachi said, nodding in the darkened rear. Jay felt the faint foreign smell of his breath on the back of her neck. ‘Don’t you want to know what happened next?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She told me exactly where she’d be, the exact location and time.’

  ‘And the poor sap?’ Gorsey Dene inquired.

  ‘Still eating his gingy breakfast. Would you credit such a jerk? Well anyway, I knew this photographer and he loaned me a camera. It was a neat idea to gain admission into this place where she was, some kind of big transportation shindig with lots happening. I pretended I was with the press. Me, a dancer!’

  Gorsey Dene rummaged for Jay’s hand but couldn’t find it.

  ‘I mooched around for a while taking shots (or pretending to) and then, all of a sudden, there she was: this beautiful, long-legged, incredibly sexy broad. The sap was with her – as usual – but he was talking to another guy and pretty soon they disappeared—’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Does it matter? They went who-knows-where. So I sidled up to her and started taking pictures. Long shots, medium shots, close-ups, the whole bit, getting closer and closer till we were very near. I was about to talk to her when she said:

  ‘“Don’t stop taking photographs, he’s watching.”

  ‘“So what?”

  ‘“It’s all right for you but I rely on him. Write down your name and address or something and I’ll get in touch with you.”

  ‘“But I thought we were going for a drink? You don’t expect me to follow you all over London, hanging about with a camera in the hope that he might leave you alone for a couple of minutes. Jeez!”

  ‘“Write it down, write it down,” she said. “I’ll keep smiling and you keep taking photographs, then he won’t suspect.”

  ‘Some dames!’ Rhet Karachi complained. ‘Jesus fucking Christ. They want it every which way.’

  ‘“Does it matter?” I put it to her. “Tell the sap where he gets off and have done.” But she wouldn’t.’

  ‘I suppose you never saw her again,’ Gorsey Dene said, manipulating the wheel. The car was speeding over a deserted piece of landscape.

  ‘Yeah, at a dance. She turned up with him again but he wouldn’t come past the door, the jerk. She came over to me and said, “I can’t stay,” and I blew my top. I said, “If you think you can give me the run-around you’re mistaken. The hotel, the show, and now here, the dance.”

  ‘“It isn’t my fault,” she said, going all soft-eyed. “He drove me down here, he paid for the hotel, and my mother likes him. Do you like people who aren’t grateful?”

  ‘“Sure I like people who aren’t grateful; I’m not grateful myself. And what’s gratitude got to do with you and me? We could make it in a big way together.”

  ‘She looked right into my eyes – wow! – and I could have taken her on the spot. You know, that’s the trouble with this day and age, we don’t react any more.’

  This was the first thing he’d said with which Gorsey Dene agreed. The man seemed to be obsessed with his own exploits; and what most annoyed Gorsey Dene was he knew precisely how to behave, even in circumstances that might very well have been described as raw-nerved. In other words, these were so close to the ugly core of reality – so much a matter of hair’s-breadth decisions – that to come through them with one’s faculties intact and not shattered irrevocably into a thousand pieces was truly remarkable. That pock-marked skin must have been as thick as an elephant’s hide, while he himself was transparent. Rhet Karachi knew instinctively what to say, how to say it and when to say it. Gorsey Dene on the other hand was in paroxysms of doubt over the breaths he ought to take: their frequency, duration, and volume. He had never responded humanly to anyone or anything in his life.

  ‘Did you ever get together with this girl?’ Jay asked. ‘I mean sexually?’

  ‘Sure,’ Rhet Karachi said confidentally. ‘Name me a girl I couldn’t make if I put my mind to it.’

  ‘You’d had three attempts and failed each time,’ Gorsey Dene pointed out. (The fellow couldn’t expect to have a free lift and have it all his own way. There was such a thing in this miserable, cringing world as justice.) He noticed Rhet Karachi’s hand resting on the back of Jay’s seat, and pretended not to notice it. Jay could never become fascinated by such a creature. She couldn’t.

  ‘Are you telling me, with all my experience with women, that I couldn’t have had her?’ Rhet Karachi said. He laughed, and Jay hesitantly chuckled with him. She was leaning back against his hand, that much Gorsey Dene did notice.

  ‘All I’m saying is,’ Gorsey Dene said, ‘how do we know there’s a grain of truth in all this? I could say the same thing, that I’d had wide experience with women—’

  Rhet Karachi and Jay both laughed out loud. She could feel the ridge of his knuckles in her back. Her body began to seep fluid. Gorsey Dene, in his fury, nearly drove the car off the road. Had he been in full and proper possession of his faculties he might have done so.

  ‘You sound like somebody I once met in a pub,’ Rhet Karachi said. ‘I was with that photographer-friend of mine I mentioned earlier. He (this certain somebody) was always making rash pronouncements about what he’d done, was about to do, and was capable of doing. Talking of going abroad or some such nonsense.’

  ‘He’s the same,’ Jay said, half-turning her smiling head to the rear.

  ‘I’m not the same as anybody else.’

  ‘Yes you are.’

  ‘No I’m not.’

  ‘Yes – you – are.’

  ‘This photographer-friend of mine was sceptical. You see, he had been abroad and intended going again on a commission from UNICEF. He planned to travel through Europe as far as Greece or Turkey and get the boat across to Cyprus.’

  Jay laughed. ‘The idea.’

  ‘And he hit on what I thought was a terrific wheeze advertising for somebody to go with him. Well, he did, and got four replies.’

  Gorsey Dene was more irritated than he could say. If this was going to be another rambling anecdote then the fellow would have to get out. And for a start Jay could stop leaning on his hand.

  ‘Tell us about him, he sounds interesting,’ Jay said.

  ‘Well,’ Rhet Karachi began, ‘——’

  Gorsey Dene put the car into second gear and the suitcases fell on Rhet Karachi’s head. Jay giggled and snorted, and Gorsey Dene felt a smirk enter his soul. Dancers had always generated fury in him. They were so assured, so smug, so implacable. Physical violence was the answer.

  ‘Well,’ Rhet Karachi began, ‘this photographer-friend of mine advertised for a travelling companion – for the second trip I should add – and received, as I said, four replies. The idea behind it all was to get away from his shrewish wife. Hell, what a woman. I met her a coupla times. Anyway, this other guy – the certain somebody I told you about – and my photographer-friend and me met up in a pub one time. He was going away, so he said, but neither of us believed him. He was the kind of guy who said things like that – you know? Jeez. So anyway, we met him.

  ‘“I’m going abroad on a commission from UNICEF,” says my photographer-friend, giving me the wink.

  ‘“Oh yes?” says the other guy, a real prick. “Where to?”

  ‘“France, Switzerland, Italy, Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey, then by boat to Cyprus. I’ve advertised for a girl and got four replies.”

  ‘“Have you chosen the lucky broad?” I ask him.

  ‘“Not yet,” he tells me. “Oh by the way,” he says straight-faced to the other guy, “this is an Italian friend of mine with no visible means of support.”

  ‘“How do you do?” says the other guy, to which I just nod and give him the once-over. He was a small guy; you could almost say he was a dwarf. I’ve seen some odd guys in my time but he was the oddest. He kept staring past my head at the patterns on the window – you know the type.

  ‘“What about your wife?” the other guy asks
, obviously trying to be smart.

  ‘“Yeah, how about my wife?” says my photographer-friend. “I mean, if you want her you can have her.”

  ‘“But isn’t she going with you?”

  “‘Haven’t I just told you that I’ve advertised?”

  ‘“Yes—”

  ‘“Well that means I’ve advertised. What did you think it meant: that I was going abroad with a fucking harem?”

  ‘“You could stay with me when you go, on my farm overlooking the Adriatic,” I say in my best Italian accent. The other person looks at me as though I must be crazy. Can you beat that?’

  ‘Did he ever go?’ Jay said.

  ‘No. What do you think?’

  ‘He had the commission from UNICEF, he’d advertised for a girl,’ (she said this hungrily) ‘and he decided in the end not to go?’

  ‘My photographer-friend went all right, but not the other guy. He couldn’t get a commission from Fray Bentos. It was cheap talk, that’s all. Just trying to impress us with his worldly ambitions. The schmuck.’

  ‘I don’t see that at all,’ said Gorsey Dene, puzzled and hurt. The other two laughed conspiratorially. In truth he didn’t see very much, if anything. His grasp of human situations had been weak at the best of times and was now defunct. Why (he asked himself) scoff at a man’s aspirations? The fellow was obviously deadly serious about going – even though he might never go – and in that case why berate and deride him? Rhet Karachi, no doubt, struck a fine figure, him and his ‘Italian’ accent, but only because he was safe and snug within the confines of his own inadequate personality.

  ‘But the best giggle of all,’ Rhet Karachi said, smiling, ‘was when my photographer-friend returned from his travels and we met once again, the three of us.’

  ‘What happened, what happened?’ Jay said. Gorsey Dene thought about putting the car into first gear.

  ‘Listen: this’ll slay you.’ Rhet Karachi’s strange odour wafted over their shoulders.

  At about this time Gorsey Dene went for some food. They had just passed through a set of traffic-lights and the car was parked in a lay-by. Jay and the Pakistani-looking man were left to their own devices while Gorsey Dene ran through the shiny stream of cars to the Golden Andalucia Fish Snack Bar. He returned sucking hot fish batter off his fingers. The drive resumed. What had transpired during his absence he was not yet to learn about. However, it came to his notice that both were smoking a certain brand of foreign cigarette.

  ‘As it happens he’d had a fabulous time, but fabulous. They’d driven clear across Europe, through France, Switzerland, Italy – stopping off at Venice to take a peek – Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey, then grabbing the boat to Cyprus.

  ‘“And what was the girl like?” this other guy asks, eyes bulging, lips wet with saliva.

  ‘“I’ll tell you,” says Dmitri. “We checked into this hotel overlooking the bay at Kyrenia. It had a balcony, a shower, maid service, the works. The girl herself was out of this world: long dark hair parted in the centre, big eyes, and a full generous month.”’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Gorsey Dene said.

  ‘“During the day we skipped along the beach, shuffling our feet through the fine white sand and splashing in the deep blue sea. Paradise. I had this work to do for UNICEF but that was a breeze. We had it in the surf, the sea washing over us, and she loved every minute of it.”’

  ‘She would too,’ Jay said.

  ‘Now just one second,’ Gorsey Dene said, wrestling with the wheel. ‘When I suggested going abroad it was a different kettle of fish. “I wouldn’t fancy it,” you said.’

  ‘Woman’s privilege to change her mind,’ Rhet Karachi said.

  ‘Why the hell should it be? Just because some fancy prick of a photographer—’

  ‘Easy, man, he’s my friend. Easy now.’

  Gorsey Dene subdued his anger and simmered. He had a blinding headache and a pain in his stomach. There was a prickling sensation on his left cheekbone. The sooner all this was over and done with, the better. Life was more and more becoming too much to bear. Jay had been a fixed point of reference but now this insidious dancer had changed everything. He would have to get out; no alternative.

  ‘By this time the guy’s tongue is hanging out – can you imagine? He’s uptight as hell. “Tell me what happened at night,” he says.

  ‘“Which night?”

  ‘“Any night; none in particular.”

  ‘“Well,” says my photographer-friend, pulling a face behind his hand and tipping me the wink—’

  ‘One moment,’ Gorsey Dene interrupted. ‘Are we to understand that he was telling the truth about his experiences abroad? Because were he to be telling the truth, why the need to wink and pull a face?’

  ‘“Are we to understand,”’ Rhet Karachi said, punching Jay on the shoulder. ‘What kind of expression is that? Who says “Are we to understand” outside of books?’

  ‘You understand what it means?’

  ‘Yes I do, friend. I understand lots of words I don’t use in everyday conversation. Are you some kind of artistic nut? Is he?’ – the latter to Jay.

  ‘He thinks words count a lot more than many people.’

  ‘Now that’s wrong,’ Gorsey Dene said; his head was aching quite terribly. ‘I don’t think words count more than people. I am singularly alone amongst many people in believing that words count. That’s to say we should be careful how we use them. They have meanings; no, implications rather.’

  ‘“That’s to say,”’ mimicked Rhet Karachi, his grinning mouth close to Jay’s ear. His mouth was very close to Jay’s ear: she could feel the foreign exhalations of his breath. ‘Does he always talk like this?’

  ‘But you don’t believe that,’ Jay said in reply to Gorsey Dene’s assertion. ‘If anything you believe quite the reverse.’

  ‘“Quite the reverse,”’ Rhet Karachi said. ‘Well, well.’

  ‘Be quiet. You believe, if anything, that words have no meanings at all.’

  ‘I amended that to implications.’

  ‘Or implications either. When people say things to you you’re deeply, sensitively hurt by them; yet words to you are empty vessels, puffs of air, and consequently you use them inadvertently.’

  (The truth of the matter was that he lacked sensibility.)

  ‘I believe that a sufficient number of words can evoke an atmosphere,’ Gorsey Dene said.

  ‘“Evoke” – Jesus,’ said Rhet Karachi.

  ‘Equally, too many words can kill it,’ said Jay. ‘You never know when enough’s enough. You keep hammering away, driving the meaning home until it’s meaningless. All this leads back to the premise that words are worthless. They aren’t, but you believe so.’

  ‘Don’t you want to hear what my photographer-friend said to this other guy after tipping me the wink?’ asked Rhet Karachi.

  ‘If that’s so, how is it I understand perfectly all you’re saying?’

  ‘Because we’re talking about concepts – things of the mind – which are real to you, while emotions aren’t. You don’t understand your own emotional processes and even less other people’s, which leads you to say thoughtless things to them. But when they say things to you, that’s different.’

  ‘Now it’s you who’s repeating the same argument,’ Gorsey Dene said. He could feel something growing on his face. ‘I’m not the only one at fault.’

  Rhet Karachi pushed his head between them. The dashboard light made the craters in his skin deep and black. His dark eyes sparkled romantically, the quizzical brows knit together in amiable perplexity. ‘Do you or don’t you want to hear about my photographer-friend?’

  ‘Since words are apparently worthless to me, no,’ Gorsey Dene said rudely.

  ‘Yes,’ Jay said defiantly. ‘I’d rather hear something worth hearing than your empty chatter.’

  ‘Okay,’ Rhet Karachi said confidently. (Gorsey Dene hated him; hated him.) ‘“ She was great, man, just great,” says my photographer-friend, really laying it on
– you know? “These great big tits, pap-white, being shaken in my face. Still a virgin, or so she made out, till I plonked it,” and this other guy is green around the gills, picturing it all, living it all.

  ‘“Course,” says my photographer-friend, “now and then she hit out at me – had to – to relieve her feelings, but that made it all the better, a real rambling, scrambling fight with a big hunk o’ hot red sex at the end of it. Boy, what a banana!”

  ‘“Do you think if I advertised—” this punk was about to say, but the idea was so ludicrous that we just laughed. He was so pathetic it wasn’t true.’

  ‘Why did she hit out at him?’ Gorsey Dene asked curiously.

  ‘I guess some broads like to relieve their feelings that way.’

  ‘Yes don’t they.’

  ‘What makes you ask, friend?’

  ‘Oh nothing. A hunch.’ But he was thinking very hard. It was exactly the kind of trick she would get up to. He could see her lolling in the surf with some prick of a photographer, all the time writing simple, sincere letters swearing undying love, unceasing devotion and eternal fidelity. Was there no end to human deceit? (His head appeared to be approaching the point of implosion.) Jay, he noticed, had gone rather quiet. She too had been a virgin. Also she had been abroad – ostensibly to Sweden, but once on foreign soil could have gone anywhere. One question demanded an answer: was her body brown? Had the Cyprus sun etched her skin golden, leaving pale strips of bikinied flesh that to an astute intelligence would constitute incontravertible proof? A burning question, Gorsey Dene thought humorously.

  ‘Go on with the story,’ Jay said, feeling knuckles in her back.

  ‘Shall I?’ Rhet Karachi said.

  ‘Why not?’ said Gorsey Dene, slamming into a new gear.

  ‘There isn’t much more to tell. They spent several months on the island, leading a perfect existence, swimming, sunbathing, skindiving, drinking cheap vino during the short hot evenings until, eventually, it was time to leave.’

  ‘Did this other guy ever go abroad?’ Gorsey Dene asked.

  ‘Not to my knowledge.’

  ‘But you don’t know for certain?’