The Travelling Companion Read online

  An Australian backpacker called Mike was minding the store on my return. He told me, to my relief, that Mr. Whitman would be gone the rest of the day. I resented Mike his broad-shouldered height, perfect teeth and mahogany tan. His hair was blond and curly and he had already made his mark on a couple of female students who liked to hang about the place, reading but never buying. When he ended his shift and I took over, I found that there was a letter for me next to the till. Typical of him not to have mentioned it. It was from my father and I opened it as respectfully as possible. Two small sheets of thin blue airmail. He had news of my mother, my aunt and uncle, my clever cousins—clever in that they both had good jobs in the City of London—and the neighbors on our street. His tone was clipped and precise, much like his sermons, not a word wasted. My mother had added a couple of lines towards the foot of the last page, but seemed to feel that nothing really need be added to my father’s update. The return address had been added to the back of the envelope, lest it be lost in transit somehow. As I reread it, I caught a glimpse of someone on the pavement outside, someone wearing the same floral dress as before. I sauntered to the open doorway and looked up and down the street, but she had done her vanishing act again—if it had been her in the first place. What I did see, however, was Australian Mike, stepping briskly in the direction of Notre Dame with an arm draped across the shoulders of a couple of giggling students.

  Two hours before closing, Mike and his entourage were back. He had promised the girls a lesson in retail, and informed me with a wink and a salute that I was “relieved of all duties.” That was fine by me. I slipped into my black almost-velvet jacket and headed out for a late dinner. The staff in the cous-cous restaurant knew me by now, and there were smiles and bows as I was escorted to one of the quieter tables. I had lifted a book from the shelves at Shakespeare and Company—an American paperback of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. There was too much food and I half-wished I had thought to pack an empty flask. Instead of which, I refilled my bowl for a third time. The house wine was thinner than anything I had yet tasted, but I nodded my appreciation of it when invited to do so by my waiter. And at meal’s end, this same waiter, who had told me a couple of visits back to call him Harry, signaled that he would meet me at the restaurant’s kitchen door in five minutes. Having paid the bill, my curiosity piqued, I wound my way down the alley behind the restaurant and its neighbors. The bins were overflowing and there was a strong smell of urine. I skidded once or twice, not daring to look down at whatever was beneath my feet. Eventually I reached Harry. He stood at the open door of the kitchen while vocal mayhem ensued within, accompanied by the clanging of cooking-pots. He was holding a thin cigarette, which he proceeded to light, sucking deeply on it before offering it to me.

  “Dope?” I said.

  “Very good.”

  After four years of an arts degree at the University of Edinburgh, I was no stranger to drugs. I had been to several parties where a room—usually an underlit bedroom—had been set aside for use by drug-takers. I’d even watched as joints were rolled, enjoying the ritual while refusing to partake.

  “I’m not sure,” I told Harry, whose real name was more like Ahmed. “It’s been a strange enough day already.” When he persisted, however, I lifted the cigarette from him and took a couple of puffs without inhaling. This wasn’t good enough for Harry, who used further gestures to instruct me until he was happy that I had sucked the smoke deep into my lungs. Another waiter joined us and it was soon his turn. Then Harry. Then me again. I had expected to feel queasy, but that didn’t happen. My cares seemed to melt away, or at least take on a manageable perspective. Once we had finished the joint, Harry produced a small cellophane wrap, inside which was a lump of something brown. He wanted two hundred francs for it, but I shrugged to signal that I didn’t have that kind of money about my person. So then he shoved the tiny parcel into my jacket pocket and patted it, gesturing to indicate that I could pay him later.

  We then fell silent as two new arrivals entered the alley. They either hadn’t noticed that they had an audience, or else they simply weren’t bothered. The woman squatted in front of the man and unzipped his trousers. I had seen more than a few prostitutes on my nighttime walks through the city—some of whom had tried tempting me—and here was another, hard at work while the woozy client tipped a bottle of vodka to his mouth.

  And suddenly I knew.

  The Travelling Companion…

  I lifted a hand to my forehead with the shock of it, while my companions took a step back towards their kitchen, perhaps fearing I was about to be sick.

  “No,” I whispered to myself. “That can’t be right.” Harry was looking at me, and I returned his stare. “It doesn’t exist,” I told him. “It doesn’t exist.”

  Having said which, I weaved my way back towards the mouth of the alley, almost stumbling into the woman and her client. He swore at me, and I swore back, almost pausing to take a swing at him. It wasn’t the alcohol or the dope making my head reel as I sought the relative calm of the darkened Shakespeare and Company.

  It was Benjamin Turk’s message to me …

  I was unlocking the doors next morning when Mr. Whitman called down to tell me I had a phone call.

  “And by the way, how did you get on with Ben Turk?”

  “I have a note of the books he wants to sell,” I replied, not meeting his eyes.

  “He’s an interesting character. Anyway, go talk to your woman friend … ”

  It was Charlotte. She had found work at a theater box office and was using their phone.

  “I need to pass the time somehow. It’s so boring here without you.”

  I was leaning down to rub at the fresh insect-bites above my ankles. The list from Turk was folded up in the back pocket of my trousers. I knew I had to tear a strip from it before showing it to my employer.

  “Are you there?” Charlotte was asking into the silence.

  “I’m here.”

  “Is everything okay? You sound …”

  “I’m fine. A glass of wine too many last night.”

  I heard her laugh. “Paris is leading you astray.”

  “Maybe just a little.”

  “Well, that can be a good thing.” She paused. “You remember our little chat, the night before you left?”

  “Yes.”

  “I meant it, you know. I’m ready to take things a bit further. More than ready.”

  She meant sex. Until now, we had kissed, and gone from fumbling above clothes to rummaging beneath them, but nothing more.

  “It’s what you want, too, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “Doesn’t everyone?” I was able to answer, my cheeks coloring.

  “So when you come back … we’ll do something about it, yes?”

  “If you’re sure. I mean, I don’t want to push you into anything.”

  More laughter. “I seem to be the one doing the pushing. I’m thinking of you right now, you know. Thinking of us lying together, joined together—tell me you don’t think about that, too.”

  “I have to go, Charlotte. There are customers …” I looked around the empty upstairs room.

  “Soon, Ronnie, soon. Just remember.”

  “I will. I’ll call you tonight.”

  I put the phone down and stared at it, then took the note from my pocket and tore across it. Downstairs, my employer was manning the till.

  “You look like hell, by the way,” he said as I handed him the list. “Did Ben ply you with booze?”

  “Do you know much about him?”

  “He comes from money. Pitched up here for want of anywhere better—not unlike my good self. Drinks fine wines, buys books he wants to own but not necessarily read.” He was scanning the list. “He’d probably give these to us for free, you know. I think he just needs space for more of the same.” He paused, fixing me with a look. “What did you think of him?”

  “Pleasant enough. Maybe a bit eccentric …” I suppressed a shiver as I remembered waking on Turk’
s bed, shirt open, and him dabbing at my chest. “Is he …” I tried to think how to phrase the question. “A ladies’ man?”

  Mr. Whitman hooted. “Listen to you,” he said. “Remind me—which century is this?” After his laughter had subsided, he fixed his eyes on mine again. “Ladies, gents, fish and fowl and the beasts of field and wood,” he said. “Now off you go and find yourself some breakfast. I’ll manage these heaving crowds somehow.” He waved his arm in the direction of the deserted shop.

  It was warm outside, and noisy with tourists and traffic. I slung my jacket over my shoulder as I walked to my usual café, only four shop-fronts away. Benjamin Turk was seated at an outdoor table, finishing a cafe au lait and reading Le Monde. A silver-topped walking-stick rested against the rim of the table. He gestured for me to join him, so I dragged out the spare metal chair and sat down, slipping my jacket over the back of my chair.

  “It was the local prostitutes who called Stevenson ‘Velvet Jacket,’ you know,” Turk said.

  The liveried waiter stood ready. I ordered a coffee of my own.

  “And an orange juice,” Turk added.

  The waiter gave a little bow and headed back inside. Turk folded the newspaper and laid it next to his cup.

  “I was coming to check on you,” he said. “But the lure of caffeine was too strong.”

  “I’m fine,” I assured him.

  “And you’ve looked at the list, I presume?”

  I took the scrap of paper from my pocket and placed it between us. He gave an indulgent smile.

  “It’s a book Stevenson wrote,” I said. “Never quite completed. His publisher liked it well enough but considered the contents too sordid.”

  “It concerned a prostitute,” Turk agreed.

  “Set in Italy, I think.”

  “Some of it.” Turk’s eyes were gleaming.

  “Fanny made Stevenson put it on the fire,” I said quietly.

  “Ah, the formidable Fanny Osbourne. He met her in France, you know. He was visiting Grez. I suppose he became infatuated.” He paused, playing with his cup, moving it in circles around its saucer. “It wasn’t the only book of his she persuaded him to sacrifice …”

  “Jekyll and Hyde,” I said, as my own coffee arrived, and with it the glass of juice. “The first draft, written in three days.”

  “Yes.”

  “Though some commentators say three days is impossible.”

  “Despite the author’s Presbyterian work ethic. But then he was taking drugs, wasn’t he?”

  “Ergotine, and possibly cocaine.”

  “Quite the cocktail for a writer whose imagination was already inflamed. You know why he consigned it to the flames?”

  “Fanny persuaded him. She thought it would ruin his reputation.”

  “Because it was too raw, too shocking.” He watched me as I finished the orange juice in two long gulps, watched as I poured hot milk into the viscous black coffee.

  “Nobody really knows, though,” I eventually said. “Because only Stevenson and Fanny saw that first version. Same goes for The Travelling Companion.”

  “Not quite.”

  “Yes, his publisher read that,” I corrected myself.

  “Not quite,” Turk repeated, almost in a whisper.

  “You’re not seriously telling me you have that manuscript?”

  “Do you really think any author could burn the only copy of a work they considered worthwhile?”

  “Didn’t Fanny see it burn in the grate?”

  “She saw something burn. She saw paper. I’m guessing there would have been plenty of paper in the vicinity.”

  Lifting the coffee towards my mouth, I realized my hand was shaking. He waited until I’d taken a first sip.

  “I have both manuscripts,” he then announced, causing me to splutter. I rubbed the back of my hand across my lips.

  “I’m not sure I believe you,” I eventually said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because they’d be worth a small fortune. Besides, the world would know. It’s been almost a century—impossible to have kept them a secret.”

  “Nothing is impossible.”

  “Then you’ll show me them?”

  “It can be arranged. But tell me—what would it mean for your doctoral thesis?”

  I thought for a moment. “They’d probably move me from student to full professor.” I laughed at the absurdity of it. Yet I almost believed … almost.

  “My understanding,” Turk went on airily, “is that he entrusted both to his good friend Henley. They found their way into my family because my grandfather bought many of Henley’s possessions on his death—they were friends of a sort. There are notations in what seems to be Henley’s handwriting. They add … well, you’d need to read them to find out.”

  That smile again. I wanted to grab him and shake him.

  “I’m not very good at keeping secrets,” I told him.

  “Maybe it’s time for the truth to be told,” he retorted. “Wouldn’t you say you’re as good a vessel as any?” He had taken some coins from his pocket and was counting them on to the table-top as payment for the drinks. “I should imagine most Stevenson scholars would be on their knees right now, begging to be shown even a few pages.” He paused, reaching into his jacket. “Pages like these.”

  He held them out towards me. Half a dozen sheets.

  “Copies rather than the originals, you understand.”

  Handwritten on unlined paper.

  “The openings to both books,” Turk was saying as my head swam and my eyes strained to retain their focus. “You’ll notice something from the off …”

  “Edinburgh,” I mouthed, near-silently.

  “The setting for both,” he agreed. “Well, there are some French scenes in The Travelling Companion, but our harlot heroine hails from your own fair city, Ronald. And since Jekyll is reputed to be a conflation between Deacon Brodie and the Scottish physician John Hunter, I suppose Edinburgh makes sense—too much sense for Fanny to bear, as it transpired.”

  I glanced up at him, seeking his meaning.

  “There’s too much of Stevenson himself in both works,” he obliged, rising to his feet.

  “You could be the victim of a hoax,” I blurted out. “I mean to say, forgeries maybe.” I held the pages up in front of me, my heart racing.

  “Handwriting analysis comes later on in the story,” Turk said, adjusting the cuffs of his pale linen jacket and seeming to sniff the mid-morning air. “I expect you’ll be paying me a visit later—if only to collect those boxes of books.”

  “This is insane,” I managed to say, holding the pages by both trembling hands.

  “Nevertheless, you’ll want to read them. I’m out most of the day, but should be home later this evening.”

  He turned and walked away, leaning lightly on his walking-stick. I watched him. He seemed to belong to a different age or culture. It was something about his gait as well as his clothes. I could imagine him with a top hat propped on his head, horse-drawn carriages passing him as he tip-tapped his way down the boulevard. The waiter said “mercí” as he scooped up the coins and cleared the table, but I was in no rush to leave. I read and reread the excerpts. They revealed little by way of plot, but it was true that Edinburgh was the setting for both, Stevenson’s descriptions of his “precipitous city” as trenchant as ever. It was a place he seemed to have loved and hated in equal measure. I recalled something I’d read about his student years—how he spent his time yoyoing between the strict rationalism of the family home in Heriot Row and the drunken stews of the chaotic Old Town—moving, in other words, between the worlds of Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde.

  When the waiter cleared his throat, alerting me to the fact my premium table was needed by a wealthy American couple, I rolled the sheets of paper into a tube and carried them back to the shop. My employer had ceded his place behind the till to a new arrival, an English woman called Tessa with long brown hair, round glasses, and a prominent nose.


  “I’ll be upstairs if you need me,” I told her. The curtain had been drawn closed across my alcove. Pulling it back revealed Mike and one of his female friends, both naked from the waist up and sharing slugs from a cheap bottle of wine. The young woman apologized in French-accented English and slipped a t-shirt over her head.

  “Ronnie doesn’t mind a bit of tit,” Mike told her with a grin. She punched his arm and snatched the bottle from him, offering it to me. I settled on the corner of the bed and took a mouthful.

  “What’s that you’ve got?” Mike asked.

  “Nothing important,” I lied, stuffing the sheets of paper into my jacket pocket. There was something else in there, and I fished it out. It was the lump of dope.

  “That what I think it is?” Mike said, his grin widening. “Well, now we’ve got us a proper party!” He leapt up, returning a minute or two later with everything he needed. Crosslegged, he began to assemble the joint. “You’re a dark horse, mate,” he told me. “Never would have thought you indulged.”

  “Then you don’t know me very well.” His friend had moved closer, her leg touching mine. I could make out the soft down on her face. When she passed me the lit joint, it was as intimate as any kiss.

  “It’s not the best I’ve had,” Mike said, when his turn came. “But it’ll do, n’est ce pas, cherie?”