Page 116 of Babel

Chapter Twenty

To the assistance and information which you and Mr Jardine so handsomely afforded to us it was mainly owing that we were able to give our affairs naval, military and diplomatic, in China those detailed instructions which have led to these satisfactory results.

FOREIGN SECRETARY PALMERSTON, letter to John Abel Smith

It was raining hard when they climbed out of the cab in Hampstead. They found Professor Lovell’s house more by sheer luck than anything else. Robin had thought he’d easily remember the route, but three years away had done more to his memory than he’d realized, and the hammering sheets of rain made every residence look the same: wet, blockish, surrounded by slick, dripping foliage. By the time they finally found the brick-and-white-stucco house, they were sopping wet and trembling.

‘Hold on.’ Victoire pulled Ramy back just as he started for the door. ‘Shouldn’t we go round the back? In case someone sees us?’

‘If they see us then they see us, it’s not a crime to be in Hampstead—’

‘It is if it’s obvious you don’t live here—’

‘Hello there!’

They all turned their heads at once like startled kittens. A woman waved to them from the doorstep of the house across the street. ‘Hello,’ she called again. ‘Are you looking for the professor?’

They glanced at each other, panicked; they had not discussed an answer for this occasion. They had wanted to avoid all association with a man whose absence would soon garner considerable interest. But how else could they justify their presence in Hampstead?

‘We are,’ Robin said quickly, before their silence became suspicious. ‘We’re his students. We’re just back from overseas – he told us to meet him here when we returned, only it’s getting late and no one’s at the door.’

‘He’s probably at the university.’ The woman’s expression was actually quite friendly; she’d only seemed hostile because she’d been shouting over the rain. ‘He’s only here a few weeks of the year. Stay right there.’

She turned and hurried back inside her house. The door slammed shut behind her.

‘Damn it,’ Ramy muttered. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I thought it’d be better to stick close to the truth—’

‘A bit too close to the truth, don’t you think? What happens if someone questions her?’

‘What do you want to do, then, run?’

But the woman had already popped back outside. She rushed across the street towards them, shielding off the rain with an elbow. She extended her palm to Robin.

‘Here you are.’ She opened her fingers, revealing a key. ‘That’s his spare. He’s so scatterbrained – they asked me to keep one on hand for when he loses his. You poor things.’

‘Thank you,’ Robin said, stunned by their good fortune. Then a memory struck him, and he took a wild guess. ‘You’re Mrs Clemens, aren’t you?’

She beamed. ‘I certainly am!’

‘Right, that’s right – he said to ask you if we couldn’t find the key. Only we couldn’t figure out what house you were in.’

‘A good thing I was watching the rain, then.’ She had a broad, friendly smile; any suspicion, if it ever was there, had disappeared from her face. ‘I like to face the outside when I play my pianoforte. The world informs my music.’

‘Right,’ he said again, too giddy with relief to process this statement. ‘Well, thanks very much.’

‘Oh, it’s nothing. Call if you need anything.’ She nodded first to Robin, and then to Letty – she seemed not to even see Ramy or Victoire, for which Robin supposed they could only be grateful – and headed back across the street.

‘How on earth did you know?’ Victoire muttered.

‘Mrs Piper wrote about her,’ said Robin as he dragged his trunk up through the front garden. ‘Said a new family’s moved in, and that the wife is a lonely and eccentric type. I think she comes here most afternoons for tea when the professor is here.’

‘Well, thank God you write to your housekeeper,’ said Letty.

‘Truly,’ said Robin, and unlocked the door.

Robin had not been back to the house in Hampstead since he’d left for Oxford, and it seemed greatly changed in his absence. It was a good deal smaller than he’d remembered, or perhaps he’d just grown taller. The staircase was not such an endless spiral, and the high ceilings did not induce such a heavy sense of solitude. It was very dim inside; all the curtains were drawn, and sheets pulled over the furniture to protect it from dust. They groped around in the dark for a bit – Mrs Piper had always lit the lamps and candles, and Robin hadn’t a clue where she kept the matches. At last Victoire found some flint and candlesticks in the parlour, and from there they managed to light the fireplace.