Ben, in the World. Doris Lessing
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the machines and the officials, was his, but it seemed not. This red one was his. And there was something else that he was at last just beginning to take in – he had been too confused to understand. All around him people were talking loudly, but he did not understand what they said. Rita had told him that everyone would talk French, but it was all right, Johnston’s friend was British and would talk English and look after him – but he had not known that he was going to sit at a table in this foreign country understanding nothing, but nothing, of what was going on around him. And that man, the one who had gone off with the bags, had understood Richard talking English, but to the taxi driver he had spoken in French. Exhaustion was numbing Ben again.
‘And so that’s that,’ said Richard, and he had to say it, to mark or define the accomplishment of the deed, but he knew Ben had no idea of what had happened.
‘I’m going to take you to the hotel,’ he said to Ben.
A lot of discussion had gone into the choice of hotel. Rita had said, a cheap one, where people are friendly – meaning herself. Johnston had said, ‘No, a good hotel. They’ll speak English. In a cheap hotel they’ll only speak French.’
‘He won’t know how to cope with a good hotel,’ said Rita, but she was wrong. It all went brilliantly. Ben had only to sign his name at the hotel desk, while people smiled at him, because he was a film star, and then followed by smiles he was led to a lift by Richard. He hesitated there because of his fear of lifts, but Richard pushed him into it, and it was only two floors, no more than a moment. In his room he was at once at ease, because it reminded him of his childhood, his home. So much was this so that he looked at the window to see if there were bars. Then he went to them, to look out: much lower down than the windows of Mrs Biggs’ flat in Mimosa House, Halley Street. He strolled about the room, the grin gone from his face, and Richard, slumped into a chair, watching, knew that everything was going to be easy. All he had to do was show Ben the bathroom and how the shower worked, and the air conditioning. Then he said that he must go, but he would be back soon to take Ben to supper.
He left Ben sitting in a chair looking up through open windows at a blue, hot sky.
He telephoned Johnston, but only said, ‘It’s OK – yes, it’s all right.’
Johnston heard this, and at once ran up Rita’s stairs to tell her, and went off into fantasies of doing it all again: he would fetch Ben back, and repeat the triumph. But Rita brought him down to earth. ‘Stop it, Johnston. You’ve got away with it this time.’
When Richard returned, Ben was splashing and shouting in the shower, apparently quite happy, but the first thing he said, as he came out to dry himself and get dressed, was, ‘When can I go back home?’
Richard took him to a proper restaurant, mostly because he wanted to eat well for once: he was having a thin time of it. But he might just as well have gone to a McDonald’s. Ben would only drink juice, and, saying he was hungry, ate a big steak, leaving the frites and the salad, and then wanted another. Afterwards Richard took him strolling along the front, to look at the sea, then another cafe, then to an evening show with dancing and singing. Richard could not make out what Ben thought of it all: he agreed to everything but only when he was eating seemed to show real enjoyment.
At the hotel Richard counted some money into Ben’s hand, and said, ‘You won’t need it, but in case. And I’ll be here early tomorrow.’ His orders were to see that Ben could manage ordinary day-to-day things. Then he took a big packet of money down to the hotel safe, and checked it, in Ben’s name, for he knew, from watching Ben’s unobservant ways, that if he carried that money, thieves would have had it all off him in a day.
Richard’s programme for keeping Ben amused was really arranged for himself: that was why he hired a car to take Ben on a trip to the hilltowns behind Nice. But Ben was sick, and when they reached some charming little square or restaurant, did not want to sit outside; he looked for shade, and even then kept his eyes closed most of the time. It was clear that he had to have dark glasses, and so back in Nice he tried some on but none seemed right. Richard took him to a proper oculist who, on examining Ben’s eyes, seemed uneasy, even incredulous, and asked a good many questions. He said it was difficult to prescribe for eyes he described as ‘unusual’, but at last Ben did say he liked a pair. Now, with the glasses, he drew even more stares and, fidgeting and uneasy, kept saying, ‘Somewhere else. Not here. I don’t like it here.’
Then, as they walked towards their reflections in a shop window, he stopped, bent forward, looking at himself. ‘No eyes,’ he said, in explanation. ‘No eyes. My eyes have gone.’ And he panicked, taking off his glasses. ‘But Ben, look at me, then I’ve got no eyes as well.’ And Richard whipped off his sunglasses, showing Ben his eyes, and put them back on. Ben slowly replaced his. But stood looking at himself. What he was seeing was very different from anything he could have seen in London: that smart linen jacket, his hair, and now, his blacked-out eyes.
Richard gave up his plans for trips into the countryside behind that dazzling coast and tried to find what Ben would enjoy. What did he like, though? He seemed to be pleased, strolling about, or sitting in cafes where people lazed and chatted. It was that ease with each other, the carelessness of it, that was attracting Ben, but Richard did not know that. He could think only in terms of his own past, and wondered if Ben was scared, thinking he was being followed. Ben did very much like walking along the edge of the sea, seeing the ships that appeared and were there, and then were not there, for they went again. He said to Richard, ‘Where do they go?’ ‘Who?’ ‘Those ships?’ ‘Oh, everywhere. All over the world, Ben.’
And he saw Ben’s uncomprehending face.
He liked mealtimes, and his steaks and fruit – that was all he ate, steak and fruit. He knew how to sit at a cafe table and order what he wanted, and he was managing the hotel well, sending out his clothes to be laundered, and going himself to the hotel barber, where he was shaved and his hair trimmed. Richard took him one evening to a nude show, but he got so carried away, letting out yelps and shouts of excitement, that Richard had to shush him. He wanted to go the next night, and promised to sit quietly, but when the girls came on, their nakedness bedecked with wisps of feather or shining stuff, he forgot, and had to be held down in his seat. Richard was actually afraid that Ben would run up to the stage and drag off some girl.
What was Ben? He slept in his bed, like everyone else, he used his knife and fork, he kept his clothes clean, he liked his beard neat, and his hair cut, and yet he was not like anybody.
During that week the inhabitants of this ancient port, all well used to criminals and adventurers, had taken Richard’s measure; he was probably the local mafia, this young man – but not as young as he tried to seem – good-looking in an ingratiating way, a manner that always had threat in it, no matter how much he smiled. But they could not place Ben. People made excuses to get into conversation. ‘Who is he?’ Some said, ‘ What is he?’ All they could get out of Richard, who was becoming proud of his ability to fend them off, was, ‘He’s a film star.’ And soon, as this seemed to go down well, ‘He’s famous. He’s Ben Lovatt.’
At the end of a week Richard telephoned Johnston to say that Ben could not manage by himself. He needed another week of surveillance. Johnston did not yet know how triumphantly his plans were working. A first instalment of money had come through, but he was going to have to wait for the next one, because of arousing suspicion. He did not want to pay Richard for another week, thought his accomplice had already been promised more than enough, a quarter of a million pounds, which to Johnston would quite soon seem nothing much. Richard had argued that if he was picked up by the police with Ben going through French customs then he would be in the sort of trouble that would put him in prison for years. Now Johnston said that he hadn’t been arrested, everything was fine. ‘No,’ said Richard now, ‘but I might have been.’ He wanted another quarter of a million. ‘Without me it wouldn’t have worked.’ ‘Yeah, but I’m not short of people to do my dirty work,’ said Johnston, determined not to give way to Richard, probably beginning a process of blackmail.
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