'I love you, son.'
'Love you, Pop,' David answered in a bemused tone.
'Take care.'
'Sure.'
Manny cradled the phone. On his desk were a number of letters he'd written by hand. He picked out the one addressed to his son and wrote on the envelope
He removed his reading glasses and replaced them in the case on the desk. Then he took out his wallet containing credit cards and some paper money and positioned it beside me eyeglass case.
On the other side of the office was an oval mahogany table with four matching chairs. Manny collected one of the chairs, carried it to the window and used it to climb onto his teak filing cabinet. His movements were ordered, automatic, and, for a man with a malignant illness, remarkably spry. He could easily step up to one of the open windows from there, and that was what he did. He got both feet on the metal frame and balanced there momentarily supported by his hands. The space was tall, so there was no need to stoop.
Manny didn't look down. His gaze was on the glittering section of river way ahead. The Hudson. And beyond, New Jersey. To Manny, in his fatalistic state of mind, the river might as well have been the Jordan, and beyond mat was the promised land-a comforting thought He was still looking ahead when he jumped. He kept watching the far shore while he started to drop, kept watching for as long as he was able.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Before everyone except Mrs. Straw arrived at the school next morning, Diamond was in the staffroom making an island of the desks and other furniture. He'd called early at a do-it-yourself shop in Hammersmith and purchased two three-liter cans of vinyl matte emulsion in a shade described as apricot. On the chart it had looked the sort of color that would blend with the furnishings-or so he'd easily convinced himself on seeing that it was offered at a special never-to-be-repeated discount. With the money he'd saved he'd gone straight into a toy shop across the street and bought a toy car with a friction motor. Later, he would give it to Clive; he had a place in his heart for the school vandal in spite of the extra work he had created.
So he was in his overalls applying the roller to the wall behind the door by 8:50, when the first of the teaching staff put in an appearance.
'What's all this?' Sally Truman, who took the youngest children, asked.
'A cover-up.'
'Oh, it's you.'
He dipped the roller into the paint tray and applied another band of apricot. Now that people had started arriving he wasn't going to down tools, just when he was entitled to some credit for this public-spirited effort. 'And how are you this morning?' he asked Sally.
'Tired, until I looked in here. The color's woken me up '
'Do you like it?'
She evaded the question. 'I expect it fades as it dries. They generally do. What is it?'
'Apricot'
'Looks more like tomato to me. Now would you mind if I lift the dust sheet and find my desk?'
He was gratified by a spate of congratulations in the next half hour, even though the consensus of the teaching staff seemed to be that he should have paid a pound or two more and got magnolia or some other insipid shade. He listened with good humor and carried on obliterating Clive's eye-swiveling murals. By ten he was ready for a coffee break, and that required a rearrangement of the desks to get at the kettle. He'd covered two walls. Now that he stood back, the effect did appear more red than apricot
He was earning plenty of good will for trying, however, and no one had complained about the disruption. They rummaged under the dust sheets for chairs and sat as usual with their coffee cups, catching up on developments since they had last shared a break. The news from yesterday of Naomi's drawing was the main topic this morning. In this small school every child was known to the teachers.
'It's got to be good news, Peter,' the deputy head, John Taffler, said. 'And by God, you deserve some encouragement after aU me time you've put in wim mat kid.''
Diamond was less sanguine. He'd had a night to think it over. 'I'd be more encouraged if it was something I'd taught her.'
Taffler wagged a finger at him. 'Don't be so ungrateful, man. It's recognition. It's your name. She's registered that you exist'
'I wouldn't bet on it'
'Oh, come on-why else would she draw a diamond? She knows your name.'
He looked around him at the faces of the staff. How would she know the symbol for it? I didn't tell her, and nor did anyone else, so far as I can make out'
'Maybe she plays poker,' someone said, and got a few laughs.
Sally Truman said, 'It proves that she speaks English. Surely hat's apparent now?'
Diamond pointed out gloomily that she didn't speak anything.
'Understands it, then,' Sally insisted. 'She heard your name and related it to the shape. She's trying to communicate.'
Someone else, one of the part-time teachers, then voiced the uncertainty that Peter Diamond himself was feeling. 'Let's not read too much into this. The kid could have drawn the shape in a random way. She may never repeat it.'
'She may not have the opportunity,' Taffler commented in the arch tone of someone with inside information. 'Not in this place, at any rate. Did you hear that Oily Dickinson, the shrink who was here yesterday, confirmed her as autistic? She's off to America as soon
Diamond had feared he would hear something like this before much longer, but it still raised his blood pressure by many points. He slammed down his mug, slopping coffee over the table. 'So it's the tidiest outcome for everyone,' he said bitterly. 'This school unloads a kid it can't do anything for, and so do the social services. The police stop making inquiries. Dickinson pockets a fat fee. The embassy stumps up and salves its collective conscience. Out in America they cash the check and add a new name to the roll. Bully for everyone-except one small girl who can't speak a word to prevent it.' He got up and marched out, straight to Julia Musgrave's office.
He swung the door open. 'When is she due to leave?' he demanded without preamble.
Julia looked up from some paperwork she had on her desk. Her eyes widened, no doubt at the sight of his overalls. She hadn't been near the staffroom yet. 'Peter, why don't you sit down a moment?'
'I'm too bloody angry, that's why. Just tell me how long I've got. That's all I want to know.'
'What do you mean-how long you've got?'
'Isn't it obvious? To find her people.'
The color had drained from her face. She said,' Peter, I'm not ungrateful for all the efforts you made with Naomi, only I have to remind you that you volunteered. It gave you no stake in her future.'
He didn't exactly shake his fist at her, but he clenched it and pounded the space in front of him as he declared, 'You talk about her future. I'm still trying to reconstruct her past. You and your cronies are about to blow it away.'
She looked as if he'd struck her. Pitching her voice lower in the effort to control it, she said, 'I resent that remark. I resent it deeply. If you want to know, I argued, I pleaded, for Naomi to remain here until we'd exhausted every possibility. I was in a minority of one.'
There was a moment of strained silence.
'I'm sorry.' Completely deflated, he took a couple of steps towards her, raising his hands in a futile gesture of disavowal. 'Christ, that's me mouthing off again without getting a grip of the facts. Julia, I'm more sorry than I can say.'
She shook her head in a way that seemed to mean words of any sort could only distress her more. She simply
