Disordered Minds

*3*

HIGHDOWN, BOURNEMOUTH

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2003

He was in no better frame of mind by the morning. If anything, another sleepless night had made his depression worse. He should be using the day to recover instead of flogging himself to death to meet George Gardener. His interest in Howard Stamp was intellectual-a careless judicial system was indicative of a tired democracy-but he had no real desire to launch a crusade to clear one individual's name. He was a man of letters, not a man of action. He stared impassively out of the train window and wondered why he'd left it too late to cancel.

Sleet driving in on an icy east wind rattled the panes every time the train slowed. The other passengers, wary of meeting Jonathan's eyes, pointedly read their newspapers. He was an unsmiling man whose spectacles made him look older than his thirty-four years. The spectacles were cosmetic, his eyesight was perfect, but he wore them because he disliked not being taken seriously as an academic. He was dismissive of poor teaching and lazy thinking and had a reputation for departmental infighting. It won him few friends but it meant his intellectual authority was recognized. Certainly his fellow travelers found the brooding, introspective stare intimidating.

"For God's sake, Jon, everyone takes you seriously ... they wouldn't dare do anything else..."

In the gardens and parks on the outskirts of town, thick layers of ice had formed on lakes and fish ponds, but when Jonathan finally disembarked at Branksome Station, after a cold wait at Bournemouth Central for a local train, the sleet was turning to water on the pavements. Shopkeepers, already suffering the knock-on effects of war jitters and plunging stockmarkets, stared despondently out of their windows as the wind-chill factor persuaded customers to stay at home. The weather would make the headlines on the local news that evening when Age Concern made a plea for help with pensioners' heating bills. Zero temperatures were a rarity in Dorset, which was why so many elderly chose to live there.

"Blair orders in tanks" read a stand outside a newsagent halfway up Highdown Road. It was a solitary shop, a tiny trading post in a run of shabby terraced housing. Jonathan glanced at the front pages of the newspapers on the racks inside the door. It was old news about the tanks at Heathrow. The war was still phoney. He crossed a side road and sheltered in the lee of a house to consult his map, cursing himself for coming. A jet-lagged body was unequal to the task of providing warmth, and his lightweight raincoat was about as waterproof as a piece of gauze. Worse, he had stomach cramps because he hadn't eaten since eight o'clock last night.

He screwed his eyes against the wind and sleet to read the street sign and wished he'd had the sense to look at a weather forecast. Irritation bubbled briefly against George Gardener. The councillor's last letter had said the Crown and Feathers was within easy walking distance of Branksome Station, but the man probably belonged to the Ramblers' Association and hiked twenty miles for pleasure every weekend. Easy walking distance to Jonathan was a couple of blocks, not a trek through a snowstorm. His fingers were numb, his shoes were leaking and he didn't believe this wild goose chase would lead to anything. His depression rode him like a black dog.

He took out a cigarette and cupped his hand round the flame of his lighter. The wind blew it out immediately. It was symptomatic of the day. Walking in Howard Stamp's footsteps thirty years after his death in order to talk to someone who'd never met him was pointless. He flicked the lighter again with the same result and blamed himself for ever allowing Andrew Spicer to include a contact address in the book. "If you believe what you write, then do something about it," Andrew had said. "If you don't then stop lecturing the rest of us on injustice." Jonathan tossed the cigarette into the gutter and clamped down on his simmering anger.

What did Andrew know about injustice? Jonathan should have taken him to New York and introduced him to some of his black and Islamic friends who were too frightened to go out. Hate crimes were increasing as troops were dispatched to the Gulf. If the whites weren't worried about war, they were worried about their investments. It was not a good time to be an American Arab or American Muslim. Even Jews were being targeted because of Israel's perceived intransigence toward a Palestinian state. At the bottom of the heap were north Africans on educational scholarships. As Jonathan knew well. He'd flown out to attend the funeral of Jean-Baptiste Kamil, a twenty-three-year-old student of his, who'd asked directions of the wrong man.

Divorced old Etonian Andrew Spicer, whose mouth had been stuffed with shiny white silver on the day he was born, was never going to suffer that kind of discrimination. Instead, he needled Jonathan. "It's time you left your ivory tower and got your hands dirty," he told him after reading Gardener's letter. "It'll make a good follow-up if you can prove your theory, and I won't have trouble getting an advance either."

Jonathan was reluctant. "It'll be time-consuming."

"You need the money."

It was true... "Not that badly." Certainly not badly enough to have another book "spiced up" by Andrew's editing. It had turned a thoughtful study on injustice into an unashamedly commercial book. "You ruined the last one."

"It wouldn't have sold if you'd done it your way. As it is, you made a nice little profit. You'll stand to make a bigger one if you mount a campaign for Howard. Look at Ludovic Kennedy's 10 Rillington Place. It was made into a film." Andrew folded his fat little hands on his desk. "You need the money, Jon. You can't buy Paul Smith suits and go to the opera every night on an academic's salary."

Money. With it, a man could lock his resentments in a box and be the person he wanted to be. Without it, he was nobody. Jonathan checked his map, saw with relief that Friar Road was the next on the left and battled on, head down. He didn't notice the BMW that drew quietly into the curb behind him.

The Crown and Feathers was on the corner, a dark Victorian building with pebble-dashed walls and signs in the windows advertising live music on Saturdays and discounted meals for senior citizens on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Jonathan's misery deepened. He loathed cheap and cheerful. No doubt the pub was a pit stop for coachloads of old-age pensioners on day trips to the coast. Or, worse, a drop-in center for the ones who lived there. There would be piped Vera Lynn singing The White Cliffs of Dover" and "We'll Meet Again," the food would be inedible and the wine, if it was offered at all, would be vinegar. He should have stuck to his guns and insisted on a restaurant in town, but he might have had to foot the bill. With a sigh he shouldered open the door to the lounge bar and was surprised to find it almost deserted.

An elderly man sat on a bar stool, sipping beer and staring into space. A middle-aged couple were tucked away in a corner, heads together, sharing secrets. All three looked in Jonathan's direction when he entered, but the lack of response told him neither of the men was George Gardener. There was no one serving. He peered through a doorway marked "saloon," but it was empty except for a snooker table. The only food on offer appeared to be a list of sandwiches tacked to a wooden post; the only wine a couple of bottles beside the till with their corks pushed in. It was a place of cheap ale and no frills, and he wondered what sort of man would choose it for a meeting. Old Labor, Jonathan decided gloomily, and still fighting the class war.

Cold and wet, he shrugged off his raincoat and parked himself beside the bar. As an afterthought he took off his spectacles and tucked them into his breast pocket. Looking like an academic was the least of his problems. It was sporting the designer suit and shirt that was the mistake. He looked like a peacock in a chicken run, as out of place in the Crown and Feathers as the ancient beer drinker beside him would have been at Covent Garden. He felt the old man slide off his stool to move closer and studiously avoided his gaze. He was never in the mood for small talk-it was a talent he didn't possess-and especially not with a stranger who looked as if beer was his staple diet. The marbled hands were shaking so much that the decrepit Methuselah needed both of them to lift his glass.

"Don't get many of your sort in here."

Jonathan ignored him. It didn't take any deep intellect to guess what he meant by "your sort" and he wondered why it was always the elderly who came out with such statements.

A bony finger poked his arm. "I'm talking to you."

Jonathan lowered his leather briefcase to the floor and retrieved his cigarette pack from his raincoat pocket. "What sort is that?" he asked, ducking his head to the lighter. "Men who wear suits?" He shifted his glance to stare pointedly at the jabbing finger. "Or men on very short fuses?" He made a fist of his right hand and rested it on the bar.

The old man, perhaps mistaking the signet ring for a knuckle-duster, put some space between them. "Landlord's out back," he said. "Keep telling him he's losing customers, but he don't pay no heed. There's been a couple come and gone before you walked in."

"Mm."

"You should help yourself. Roy won't mind ... long as you pay, of course."

"Mm."

"Maybe you don't go for ale? Not used to it, eh?"

"Mm."

"Don't say much, do you? Cat got your tongue?"

Jonathan made an effort. It wasn't the old man's fault he was overdressed for the occasion. He should have built in time to go home and change before a night with Verdi at the Royal Opera. "I'm in no hurry. I'm meeting a man called George Gardener. Do you know him? He's a local councillor."

The rheumy eyes gave a flicker of amusement, presumably anticipating that an Old Labor dinosaur and a peacock would make uneasy bedfellows. "Maybe."

"Is he a regular?"

"Comes in a couple of times a week. Sits over there to listen to the moaners." He nodded toward a window table. "Calls it a surgery or some such nonsense. Bloody waste of time I call it. How's a councillor going to increase benefits, eh? That's the government's job." Jonathan gave a noncommittal nod. "They should get off their arses and look for work," the old man grumbled. "No sense bellyaching to someone who can't do nothing."

"No."

"What you want with George, then? Looking for somewhere to live?"

"No."

"Good thing, too. Them as can afford it buy off the council ... them like me what ain't got two farthings to rub together get down on bended knee and pray we don't get turned out." He stared into his beer. "It isn't right."

"No."

Belligerence sparked abruptly as if the repeated monosyllables annoyed him. Or perhaps it was the chill in the air-there didn't appear to be any heating in the room. "What would you know about it?" he snapped. "Where you from?"

"London."

The old man gave a derisive snort. "Timbuktu, more like."

"It's only two hours by train," said Jonathan mildly. "I did the trip this morning. It wasn't that difficult."

He was rewarded with a suspicious glare. "You making fun of me?"

"No."

"You'd better not be. I fought in the war so the likes of you could make something of yourselves. I got medals for it."

Jonathan took a thoughtful puff of his cigarette. The sensible thing would be to move to one of the tables, but he was damned if he'd give the old brute the satisfaction. He loathed senility with a passion. It was rude, it was self-absorbed and it contributed nothing to man's advancement. Rather the opposite, in fact. It was a destructive force, both in families and in society, because of the insatiable demands it made on the next generation.

The finger started jabbing again. "You listening to me?"

Jonathan took a deep breath through his nose before whipping up his hand and grasping the frail wrist. "You don't want to do this," he said, lowering his hand to the counter. "I'm cold, I'm wet, I'm tired and I am not in the best of moods." He relaxed his grip. "I sympathize with your housing problems but they are not my responsibil-ity. I suggest you take them up with your MP, although he'll probably tell you to be grateful to taxpayers like me if you've been living on benefit all your life."

"Don't you lecture me," the old man snapped. "I got rights. More'n you'll ever have. I'm a Christian, I am, and it's a Christian country ... or would be if we didn't keep opening our doors to heathens."

"This man bothering you?" asked a burly, dark-haired man, appearing through the saloon door.

Jonathan shook his head.

"I wasn't talking to you, mate. I was talking to my regular. I don't tolerate assaults on old guys. Certainly not by jumped-up wogs in fancy dress."

It was like a punch to the midriff. Jonathan hadn't been called a wog for years.

"That's a bit strong," said the old man. "He'll have you in court if you're not careful, Roy."

"What did he have hold of your hand for? Was he hurting you?"

"No," Jim admitted fairly. "Didn't like me poking him."

"Then I apologize. No insult intended," Roy said, raising a trap in the counter and moving behind the bar. "Should have called you a black." He stood with his arms crossed, eyes narrowed aggressively, as if pulling a pint for this customer was the last thing he wanted to do. "What can I get you?"

"Nothing." Jonathan squashed his cigarette into the ashtray with a shaking hand and reached for his raincoat. "I'd rather take my chances in town." He took a card from his pocket and flicked it onto the bar. "If George Gardener comes in, tell him he can reach me on that mobile number. I'll give him the time it takes me to eat lunch, then I'll leave."

The landlord's expression changed. "Christ! Are you Jonathan Hughes? Listen, mate, I'm sorry. You should have said."

"What?"

"Who you were, for Christ's sake. I've been expecting a white bloke. Does George know you're a darkie?"

Jonathan took another calming breath. "Don't worry about it," he said, shrugging into the sodden coat and lifting his briefcase. "I'll chalk it down to experience." He retrieved his card and tucked it into his pocket. "On reflection, you can tell your friend I've changed my mind about meeting him. I don't like the company he keeps." He headed for the exit.

The landlord called after him, "Hang on, mate..." But his words were lost in the wind as Jonathan flung open the door.

After two hundred yards his furious pace slackened as a sense of proportion returned. He told himself to follow his own advice and chalk it down to experience. It wasn't the first time it had happened and it wouldn't be the last. His passport was scrutinized by zealous immigration officers every time he entered the country. He'd learned to bite his tongue, particularly since the events of 9/11, but it still maddened him. As a child his brain had churned with hatred every time he was slighted-ignorant racists ... low-grade trash ... foul-mouthed illiterates-but he had never said the words out loud.

If Andrew was to be believed, he should have done it. Holding back anger during adolescence had led to repression.

"You never stood up to your bullies, pal. You'll argue a point to death in an article or a letter, but you won't do it face to face. Christ knows why. You're aggressive enough ... on paper, anyway."

"I confront my colleagues and students every day."

"Where it's safe. It's not as if your students are ever going to hit you. You're two different people, Jon. A Rottweiler inside your department, an obedient whippet outside."

"They're dogs."

"Don't split hairs. You'll write damning critiques of your colleagues-it's made you a hero with your students-but you shy away from confrontation on the street. You spend a fortune on flashy suits to get yourself noticed, then hunch your shoulders and wear old men's glasses in case you are. You go to the opera, but you always go alone because you think an invitation might commit you to a relationship. It's a pity you didn't deck a skinhead when you were fifteen. You've been suppressing your feelings for so long you don't have any anymore."

"What makes you think it was whites who were the only problem? The Jamaicans and the Chinese were just as bad, and they ran in bigger gangs." Jonathan's face hardened at some distant memory. "They were illiterate and stupid, and none of them could speak English well enough to be understood." He gave a cynical shrug. "You try being half Iranian, half Libyan in that kind of environment ... with a dark skin, Caucasian features and an English name that no one believes you're entitled to. Trust me, you keep your head down and work like crazy to get yourself out of it. The last thing you do is take a swing at anyone."

"For an anthropologist, you have a great dislike of people, Jon."

"It has nothing to do with anthropology. Abstract science doesn't generate hate."

"Then what does?"

War, thought Jonathan. His anger and aggression had increased by leaps and bounds since his passport had started being questioned. At the back of his mind was a constant fear that if he lost it, he would lose everything. As always, he patted his breast pocket to reassure himself it was there. The gesture was so automatic it had become a nervous tic.

A car drew up to the pavement beside him. It was an ancient Mini Cooper with its backseat piled high with books and files. "Excuse me ... excuse me!" a woman called in a shrill voice as she wound down her window. "Are you Jonathan Hughes?" The voice rose to hideous vowel-strangled stridency. "Excuse me ... excuse me!"

Jonathan ignored her.

He heard the gears crunch as she set off in pursuit on the wrong side of the road. "Please stop!" she shouted, pulling round a parked car to draw ahead of him. "Oh, help!" Her wail reached him as a van appeared out of the sleet in front of her and she slammed on her brakes.Jonathan screwed up his eyes in pained disbelief and waited for the inevitable to happen. She was lucky. The reactions of the van driver were as quick as hers and he stopped his vehicle a yard from her bumper. His views on women drivers, mouthed through his windshield with his finger pointing skywards, were inaudible but intelligible, and none of it was complimentary. In particular, he didn't like fat women drivers. With a shake of his fist, he reversed up and pulled away.

Jonathan bent down to look through the window. "You'd better pull over before anyone else comes," he said. "I'll wait."

She was red-faced and shaking, but she had the presence of mind to do as he said. "God, that was stupid," she said, opening her door and climbing out. "I am so, so sorry. What must you be thinking?" She was zipped into a padded red coat with Wellingtons on her feet and a lime green woolen hat clamped to her head like a Roman helmet, none of which did anything for her figure or her complexion. She looked like a squat garden gnome and Jonathan wondered if she ever bothered to consult a mirror. He put her age at about sixty.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"I'm George Gardener." She offered an apologetic hand which he shook reluctantly. "I can't tell you how embarrassed I am about this. I could murder Roy and Jim for being so crass. I'm not going to make excuses for Jim-he's rude to everybody-but I'm afraid Roy thought you were a crack-cocaine dealer." She pulled a wry face. "The police keep warning us about London-based gangs moving in and he thought you were one of them."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

The color deepened in her roughened cheeks. "I'm just trying to explain why he said what he did."

"I thought crack-cocaine dealers were Jamaican Yardies. Do I look like a Jamaican?"

"No, but ... well, you have a very English name and you don't look like an Englishman either," she said in a rush.

Jonathan was unimpressed. "And you have a very male name, Mrs. Gardener, but I didn't insult women because I was expecting to meet a man." His mouth twisted cynically. "Does your friend assume all white men who enter his pub are drug dealers?"

She hesitated, considering the wisdom of answering. "As long as you don't mind my quoting him, then yes, he would ... if they were flash bastards in smart suits ... and the police had told him the gangs were white. People like that don't go into his pub." She wrung her hands. "Please don't be offended. Roy wasn't being racist, he was just trying to explain why he hadn't recognized you. He works very hard to keep drugs out of that pub, which is why most of his customers are elderly and he doesn't make any money. It's not a trendy place. The young wouldn't be seen dead in it."

Jonathan could well believe that. He wouldn't frequent the Crown and Feathers if he were paid. But he wondered at her naivety and was tempted to repeat the conversation from his point of view. There was no question in his mind that Roy was as racist as they came, but there was little point arguing about it. "All right," he said with a curt nod. "I am not offended."

"Then you'll come back?" she asked eagerly.

"No. I'm freezing to death and I'm not a beer and sandwiches man, Mrs. Gardener. I'll find somewhere with a more substantial menu."

She sighed. "It's Miss actually, but I can't stand being called Ms. I'd rather you called me George."

Why wasn't he surprised? No man in his right mind would want this earnest little bumpkin with her terrible fashion sense and bulky body.

"Roy made a hotpot specially," she told him. "He's a good chef-truly-and he's given us one of the private rooms. There's a fire going. The only reason I chose the Crown and Feathers was because Roy knew Howard Stamp." She placed a small, pleading hand on his arm. "It all went wrong because my car wouldn't start. It's the cold. I should have put newspaper under the hood last night, but I wasn't expecting a freeze. You wait: statistics say that at least two of my constituents will have broken a hip by this evening and fifty percent of the rest will be shivering in blankets to avoid upping their heating bills. Those are the pensioners like Jim."

Jonathan might have said that Bournemouth was holding fewer and fewer attractions for him, but he hesitated when she mentioned Howard Stamp, and she saw the interest in his face.

"Oh, brilliant!" she said, clapping her hands like a born-again Christian. "Hop in and I'll drive."

He almost abandoned it there and then. "I'd rather walk, thank you."

"Oh, come on," she said, shepherding him round the hood. "I need Roy to charge the battery for me, so there's no point leaving the car here. You don't want to pay any attention to what that van driver said. My eyesight's fine and I've had a license for years. Also, I don't usually drive on the wrong side of the road."

She didn't seem to understand "no" and, with resignation, he folded his tall frame into the cramped passenger seat. She was sorry she couldn't adjust the seat, but the Mini doubled as a filing cabinet and there wasn't enough room. Jonathan's knees were almost touching his chin and he smiled rather sourly. The only thing he was grateful for was that none of his students could see him. Slumming it wasn't Dr. Hughes's style at all. George chattered like a little bird back to the pub, parked in a courtyard at the back, then solicitously helped him unfurl in order to march him upstairs to the private room where he was forced to accept the landlord's apologies.

It didn't go as well as she'd hoped. Roy Trent wasn't the type to eat humble pie, and Jonathan, who struggled with his own racism in a way that whites would never understand, was immediately reoffended to be called black. Despite his dark skin, he never thought of himself as black, only as an Arab. His irritation increased as George urged him forward, butting against his back with a large plastic carrier bag that she'd retrieved from the back of her car. She looked like a tramp, the landlord-the chef-looked as if he hadn't washed his hands in weeks, and Jonathan's fastidious nature recoiled at the whole idea of breaking bread with them.

"I could probably take the racism ... I don't agree with it, but I suppose I understand the history. It's the snobbery I hate. You have such an inflated opinion of your intelligence, Jon. You think it puts you above everybody else ... but clever people do not set out to patronize everyone they meet..."