Free-Range Wife by Michael Kenyon

Author:Michael Kenyon [Kenyon, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780380703821
Amazon: 0380703823
Publisher: Avon Books
Published: 1988-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

“Oui, thanks—ah, merci beaucoup,” Peckover told the man in the Bath chair, taking and glancing at the leaflet. He dug in his pocket.

Would five francs be too little, an insult, if he had five francs? If the pilgrim were not seeking money, any money at all might be a worse insult. Impossible to know; and at my time of life, thought Peckover, hard to care. Purveyors of unsolicited anything put the public in a false position. The leaflet was something about La Vierge Immaculée and an Association Catholique.

“British?” the man in the wheelchair said.

“Yes.”

“Pleased to meet you.” The man beamed as if in gratitude for unmerited blessings, placed the wad of leaflets in his lap, transferred the cigar to his left hand, and extended his right. “My name’s Balderstone. This is my fourth pilgrimage. I’m from Birmingham. Hockley Hill, if you know it?”

The only bit of Birmingham Peckover knew was Winson Green Prison, whither he had travelled at one time on a series of escort duties. He shook the man’s hand a trifle perfunctorily, not for want of sympathy but in case he was frail. He did not look especially frail, and his grip was firm, but from the waist down he was swathed in a rug, so perhaps the trouble was his legs. His complexion was pinkish and the delicate features might have been more suitable for a girl. His hair and beard were clipped so uniformly short that the colour remained in doubt, but might also have been a sort of pink. Fair anyway. The cigar was not excessive, it was more a cigarillo or cheroot, but in the policeman’s view the man should not have been smoking at all, not if he were in a wheelchair. Perhaps he came to Lourdes for a miracle to stop him smoking. Peckover brought from his pocket not money but a tissue and dabbed his nose.

“Lovely day,” said the Brummagem in the Bath chair.

“Certainly is,” said Peckover, looking around at the day.

There she was.

“’Scuse me,” Peckover said, pushing back his chair.

She was inexpert at everything. She had not wanted him to notice her or she would not have been in such a rush, colliding with fellow pedestrians as she crossed the crossing. Another half dozen paces and she would have been on the southbound boulevard and out of sight, unless he went into his neck-craning act. But she looked directly at him as she strode. She as well might have carried a banner proclaiming I Am Mercy McCluskey. Had she looked ahead and walked normally he quite possibly would not have noticed her in spite of her height. She wore red trousers and a billowing grey jacket and over her head a knotted silk square, as if on her way to horse-trials. They stared at each other. When he pushed his chair back she started to run.

He had not paid. Leaving his beret, brochures, and Andorra guide as a sign of good faith, he ran after her. He could not cross the road because the lights had changed and the traffic was gathering speed, bumper-to-bumper.

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