“I’ve read about these things,” he said, “how they put the masts on hinges and attach strings to them so that when the boat’s been got in they can pull the strings and the masts and sails stand up, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a real one before. And yet I seem to remember one. Looking at Jason’s picture, I feel as if I can remember being where he is, standing on the deck of a ship in a bottle—but it’s all nonsense.”

He put the bottle down and we went back into the living room and told Alison and Andrew the cost of the passports. Andrew said it was impossible, he couldn’t pay that. Suppose the whole venture went wrong? He had had in mind less than half the sum Silver had mentioned.

“We’ve got it,” Alison said. “Is there anything better we could spend it on?”

“A car,” Andrew said, “a house, or paying back a loan on a house, clothes, schooling for Jason. Hundreds of things, our fares to Australia included.”

“We can’t go at all without passports.”

Silver promised to try and get the cost reduced. He’d never succeed with Jonny and I knew that, while telling Andrew, as he would, that the price had been cut, he’d pay the surplus himself. He so passionately wanted to get these people and this child safely out of the country and safely received in Sydney that, if necessary, he’d impoverish himself to do it.

Chapter 28

28

I STILL HAVE THOSE passports. They’re in front of me now. How they came into my hands and remained in my possession I’ll tell you later. They’re no use to anyone, you might say they’re not real passports, they’re false, illegal documents, but they cost so much, they represent such a sacrifice and such resolution that I have kept them as a memento of those things and of the best-laid plans going wrong.

When I look at the photograph of Alison, I wonder how we ever thought it could be accepted as of a real woman who naturally looked like that. The makeup on her face, the mouth drawn wider and fuller than her natural mouth, the eyes painted with black lines and the eyelashes caked with mascara. Andrew’s is almost as bad, for his has that rogues’ gallery wanted-man’s look as he glowers from under an eyebrow-overhanging fringe. Jason looks beautiful, he looks flawless, and when my eyes rest on his photograph with a kind of pity and longing I can understand why makers of commercials and advertisements want to use younger and younger models.