cameras in the foyer, but placed where they could be seen clearly, their value being deterrence rather than detection.
They had sat side-by-suie in front row seats during the film, an intense drama set in revolutionary France. Before the dimming of the lights for the screening, Julia, a designer outfit replacing the white robe she had worn earlier in the day, had launched her film Festival with a short, assured and politically clever speech about the economic importance of the British movie industry, ending with an appeal to the financial leaders who made up a sizable chunk of the invited audience to recognise the earning potential of a successful film by providing risk capital for worthwhile projects.
When she had finished, and had taken her seat by his side, Andy had realised that his earlier assessment of the woman as naive or gauche had been well wide of the mark. So he had warmed to her even more.
After the film, they had eaten in the Filmhouse restaurant, at her suggestion. They had discussed the film itself, and others which were to be the highlights of the ensuing Festival. They had made small-talk, learning more about each other as their conversation developed, sparring gently with words, each establishing in the process that the other had no serious entanglements. And then, just as Andy had been deciding what might happen next, and how he should play it, she had beaten him toil. •I don't suppose you'd feel like giving a working girl a lift home, do you?'
In the same moment as Bob Skinner's baked red mullet was placed before him by the Waterfront's young waiter, Andy closed the passenger door of his red sports hatch and Julia settled into her seat. The moon was bright and clear as they drove through the New Town. As Andy changed gear, turning into Northumberland Street, Julia reached out and stroked the back of his hand. Her touch was featherlight, and he felt a tingle run up his arm.
'I bet all the girls say this, but you're quite different from my idea of a policeman. Although you're not just any old policeman, are you? You're one of the Special kind.'
He laughed. 'Not that Special, honest. And what all the girls say, after a while at least, is more like 'Typical bloody copper!' – followed, as a rule, by a slamming door.
'Along here, did you say?'
'Yes, just around the corner. But it gets narrow. If you park there, we can walk the rest.'
Julia's home was a two-storey mews house in the lane which linked Dublin Street and Northumberland Street. A tiny flowerpot garden, surprising in the heart of the city, was divided off from the roadway by an iron fence with a narrow gate. She put a hand on its latch, then suddenly stood on tiptoe and kissed him. Her face shone in the moonlight which flooded the lane. Andy was reminded of the taste of honey and the scent of fresh lemons.
'I'm really just a nice Jewish girl, you know. Come in and I'll prove it.'
Andy knew that if he tried to speak, it would come out as a husky croak. So he said nothing, but followed her into the cottage, closing the gate quietly behind him.
The house had no hall, and the front door opened straight into the living-room. It was in darkness, and so the woman's voice, when it sounded from the far corner, took him completely by surprise.
'Julia?' The accent was guttural, unspecified middle-European.
'Yes, auntie, it's me.' She flicked on the light. Andy saw, sitting in the corner, a small grey-haired woman. She turned her face towards them, with a smile which the policeman thought had something strange about it. 'I've brought a new friend home. His name's Andy Martin. He's a policeman. Andy, this is my Aunt Dome – Mrs Rosenberg.'
Andy smiled towards her and knew with certainty, as he did so, that Mrs Rosenberg was completely blind. Julia tugged at his sleeve, pulling him towards an open door which led into the kitchen. At the same time she spoke across the room to her aunt.
'I'm going to make coffee. Would you like some?'
'No, thank you, dear. I'm off to bed. My radio programme finished some time ago. Very pleased to meet you, Mr Martin.'
She stood up from her chair and began to tap her way expertly, with a white stick, towards a door on the far side of the room.
Andy was still recovering from the surprise. 'Very pleased to meet you too, Mrs Rosenberg,' he said belatedly. 'Goodnight.'
As the old woman left the room, he followed Julia into the kitchen.
'There. I told you I was a nice Jewish girl. And aU nice Jewish girls have to have little old Jewish mothers – and, if not, aunties.' •How long…?'
'Three years now, but her sight was failing for five years before that. It's a very rare condition. Seventeen cases currently on the record in the UK. The vision starts to go in the centre, and the blind spot just widens out until it's all gone. Quite incurable.
Uncle Percy took her everywhere, looking for a different opinion, but all the diagnoses were the same – and all the prognoses. She can't see a thing now, not even the faintest hint of light. Hardly any point in her coming to a film festival, is there? But she said she'd just like to be here in the city while it was on. She can hear, though. Can she hear! A mouse hiccup at fifty paces, she says.'
Julia drew Andy's head down towards her and kissed him. 'So we'll just have to be very quiet. Won't we?' she murmured.
Quieter than mice, and being careful not to hiccup, they tiptoed upstairs. Much of Julia's bedroom was filled by a king-size brassframed bed, positioned opposite a narrow white-curtained window. The drapes were tied back to allow in as much light as possible. Andy felt inside the doorway for a light switch, but she placed a soft hand on his arm to stop him.
She led him gently towards the bed and, without speaking, began to unfasten his shirt, kissing his chest as each button came undone. Her hunger for him was frank, honest, and somehow touching in its fragility. For his part. where he would normally have been confident and dominant, now he felt as awkward and clumsy as an inexperienced teenager. He was amazed to find that his fingers were trembling as he fumbled with the catch of her dress, but eventually the zipper came free and unfastened in one long movement.
She stepped out of the expensive garment and laid it on a chair near the bed. And when she reached out her arms to him, and moved towards him, her pale skin shining in the silver light like fine china, he embraced her with a catch in his throat, and with the knowledge that he had come to a pivotal moment in his life, after which nothing would ever be as it had been before.
Julia was generous and tender and enormously affectionate in her love-making. He responded to her touches, as she did to his, with shivers and gasps, allowing her to express herself as she chose, as she introduced herself to his body. He took pleasure in her tenderness, finding himself excited as never before by her patience and by the relaxed fashion in which she unfolded herself to him. He drank deeply from the well of her passion, matching her pace where he would once have rushed, holding back to sustain her as she climaxed, letting go only when he could control himself no longer. As he did, he scaled a peak of pleasure which he had never reached before, realising as he stretched himself on its summit, that he was experiencing for the first time all the sensations of a genuine union between two bodies and souls.
When they had reached the other side of the mountain, they lay side by side on the fluffy cover, naked, smiling at each other in the moonlight. Martin felt enriched, and it came to him with the greatest clarity that the essential ingredient, intimacy, had been missing from the string of hollow, purely physical relationships in which he had been involved over the previous few years.
'I don't do this ever, you know,' she whispered to him, very softly. 'On the first date, I mean. Not very nice Jewish behaviour at all.'
He blew gently into her ear, and smiled as her back arched and her nipples hardened in a second. Then he turned her face to his and said very softly: 'Would you believe me if I told you that was the first time I've ever made love?'
Her eyes widened and she opened her mouth to speak, but he stopped her with a kiss.
'It's true. Until now, what I've known has been no more than screwing.' He paused. 'Suddenly, I'm scared. This is new territory for me. We met what, eight hours ago? – and yet… Well, it's incredible. I'm a logical man, I'm pushing thirty-five, and here I am, gone, shot, stoned… in love, I think. Do you think I'm crazy?'
She laid two small fingers across his mouth. 'If you are, my darling, it's contagious.' She took his hand and
