An Evening of Long Goodbyes (30 page)

‘It’s as if he’s disappeared,’ Hoyland said.

‘Very peculiar,’ I said.

‘I thought he’d been doing a very good job up until then,’ Hoyland said.

And then – just as we were about to abandon our search and call it a night – we found him. He was in the cloakroom, standing almost submerged in the layers of coats that hung on the back wall. His face was frozen in a remarkable expression, somewhere between astonishment and rapture. In his hand he held a triumphal-looking brandy. We asked him just what the blazes was going on; and he informed us, in a halting, wispy voice, that he had just been fellated by Patsy Olé.

Behind me, I heard Hoyland’s pistol clatter to the floor.

‘What?’ I whispered.

‘I only came in here to get my hat,’ Pongo reflected.

‘But – but –’ spluttered Hoyland, ‘but where is she now?’

‘Gone,’ Pongo said.

‘
Gone
?’

‘She flies to Italy in half an hour,’ he said dreamily. ‘Her taxi was waiting outside.’

‘But this is incredible,’ I said, ignoring the toxic contents performing a
danse macabre
in my stomach. ‘You mean to tell me that – that you were in here simply minding your own business, when she burst in, and…’ I broke off; it was too hideous to contemplate.

‘Yes,’ Pongo said. ‘That’s the long and the short of it. Then she took her coat and she left.’ He took a thoughtful sip from his brandy. ‘That’s some lady,’ he said.

A low moan emerged from Hoyland. The pair of us were hunched up like old men.

‘What about us?’ he managed to croak. ‘Didn’t she say anything about us?’

Pongo considered this. ‘She said,’ he recalled at last, ‘
saluté
–’ and he raised his glass to both of us.

9

Taking my chance meeting with Hoyland to be nothing less than a warning from the gods, I did not attempt any other agencies that day. The rain had become a deluge and by the time I got back to Bonetown I was in a foul mood. It didn’t help that from the bus stop I had to run a gauntlet of local youths, who appeared to have gone on some sort of rampage. The sky was lit up by explosions, and the streets were filled with urchins calling to each other as they hauled timber, car tyres and any other flammable business to the pyre that had materialized before the block of flats.

‘Hallowe’en,’ Droyd explained, when I pointed this out.

‘It’s weeks to Hallowe’en,’ I said sourly, taking off my scarf as, outside, a series of metallic creaks and groans was succeeded by cheers and an expensive-sounding crash. ‘They’re not going to keep this up all night, are they? I mean presumably
some
of them have parents, who might eventually begin to wonder –’

‘Ah yeah,’ Droyd said happily, looking down at the mayhem. ‘There’s always a bit of crack round here on Hallowe’en, am I right, Frankie?’

‘Ah yeah,’ Frank concurred lugubriously.

‘Look out, neighbourhood cats,’ Droyd said.

‘I don’t mind crack,’ I said. ‘I like crack as much as the next man. But it’s not doing a thing for my nerves, and I already have a splitting headache – I say, I don’t suppose those heroin dealers carry Anadin or paracetamol or anything like that, do they?’

‘I think they just have heroin, Charlie.’

‘Here, Frankie, remember that time the fire engine came out and we all threw rocks at them and I hit this one bollocks with a plank, remember that?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You assaulted the fire brigade?’ I said incredulously.

‘We were just tryin to have a laugh,’ Droyd’s face crossing swiftly silver then pink as a brace of rockets went up. ‘Is that too much to ask? If they’d just let us enjoy ourselves one fuckin day a year then no one’d have to get hurt, would they?’

‘A laugh,’ I repeated sardonically. ‘It looks like
Bosnia
out there.’ As I said it I felt a pang of homesickness for Mrs P and the cups of cocoa she made for one on rainy days like this…

‘I wonder if they’ll come out this year,’ Droyd said, rubbing his hands.

With a heavy sigh, Frank got up, went to the refrigerator, took out a six-pack of Hobson’s and left the room.

‘What’s eating him?’ I asked.

‘That bird was here,’ Droyd said disapprovingly.

‘What bird?’

‘That bird with no tits,’ he elaborated. ‘Your sister.’

‘She was? Well, damn it, why didn’t he – I say!’ I stormed out into the living room just in time to see Frank vanish into the bathroom and slide the lock shut. I went up and hammered indignantly on the door. ‘I say!’

‘Occupied,’ came the small voice from inside.

‘You didn’t tell me that Bel was here.’

‘Oh yeah,’ the voice said, with an air of cloudy recollection. ‘That’s right, she asked if you’d give her a ring.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me before? What was she doing here?’

‘Eh… I don’t know,’ the voice said meekly. ‘Just droppin off a few things I gave her a loan of for the play. Oh yeah, and she wanted to make sure I knew we were broken up.’

‘She… oh.’ I thought he’d seemed a little quiet.

‘I already had a fair idea. But it was nice of her all the same, just so I know where I stand, like.’

‘Ah,’ I said. A few moments elapsed; I stared somewhat helplessly at the flaky white paint of the door. ‘And you’re not… that is, you’re not…’

‘Me, Charlie? Ah, no. Right as rain.’ I heard the sound of a can being opened on the other side of the door, followed by a distinctive glugging. Reluctant to press him further, I stole away.

Bel came to the phone in a state of such high doh that I was sure something had happened, and when she said she was just excited because I had finally called I was downright alarmed. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ I said. ‘You haven’t had a blow to the head or anything?’

‘Of course not, I wanted to talk to you, that’s all. Oh Charles, something wonderful has happened, I’ve been dying to tell you –’

‘Oh?’ I had learned to be on my guard whenever Bel announced something wonderful.

‘Yes, it’s about Harry. You remember Harry, don’t you?’

‘Of course. How could I forget old Harry? Hasn’t fallen off a cliff, I hope, or been snatched away by an eagle –’

‘Don’t be silly, no, he’s –’ she took a deep breath, ‘he’s giving me the lead in his new play.’

‘Is he now? Well, well. Congratulations.’

‘I only found out last night, isn’t it amazing?’

‘Definitely,’ I said, although I wasn’t sure it merited actual
paroxysms
, such as were filtering down now from the other end of the line. ‘Though didn’t you have the lead in the last one too?’

‘That was different, that was an ensemble piece. This is – I mean he’s been working on it for ages, obviously, but last night we had this amazing conversation and afterwards he told me he’d just realized that he’d written it
for
me, like it was
about
me almost and he’d only just realized –’

‘Well, bravo,’ I said, trying to get in the spirit a little. ‘And what about old Mirela, is she going to be in this thing too?’

‘Oh, Mirela,’ Bel said impatiently. ‘Let’s not talk about Mirela.’

‘She is going to be in it, though?’ I persisted hopefully.

‘Yes, but that’s not the
point
, the point is I’m trying to tell you about this amazing conversation I had with Harry last night…’ A chain of squibs spat fractiously outside and somewhere a curtain of glass tinkled to the ground. I lowered myself to a sitting position. ‘Go on, then,’ I said reluctantly.

‘You know that last night the play finished its run – well it did, anyway, and we were having the wrap party in the theatre in town, except I didn’t really feel like being there, because it was sort of sad, you know, the end of our first play and the first thing we had done together. Anyway I said it to Harry and he said it was weird because he’d just been thinking the same thing, so he said why don’t we just leave? So we left. He knew how to get up to the theatre roof from the fire escape. It was so lovely, Charles, you could see the whole city spread out, it was so peaceful, and all these stars were out, and I just
knew
that something was going to happen…’

‘What sort of thing?’ I interjected warily.

‘Well that’s when we had the amazing conversation.’

‘Oh,’ I said.

‘It was just…’ she said dreamily, ‘it was so… have you ever had one of those conversations where you’re so connected with the other person that you stop being sure which of you is talking, because when they speak it’s like they’re articulating all these thoughts you’ve had that you’ve never been able to put into words before? He was telling me these
things
, like – like for instance about
The Cherry Orchard
when I didn’t get the part that time, Harry was saying you know Stanislavsky’s thing you can’t act Chekhov you have to live him, well that in Amaurot I’ve basically been living Chekhov for three years only I didn’t realize, and I was trying to be someone else when I was already exactly what they needed – God, he’s so insightful, it was like – like hearing my own
heart
speak up and tell me exactly what it was thinking, and you know it’s so weird because he and I have known each other for years, and now suddenly we find out we’re so
alike
, little things even like we both like Doris Day and Mozart and Hart Crane, and the way the wind when it blows through the pylons it sounds like it’s singing…’ She stopped and repeated to herself, as if in disbelief, ‘
God
.’

‘At the same time, it’s not as if your heart’s been especially
quiet
up until now,’ I felt compelled to point out.

‘Yes, but Charles you know what it’s been like since college ended,’ she said, ‘stuck out here in the house, feeling like I wasn’t
alive
, even, like I was in this little closed-off area that was
contiguous
to life, and sort of along the same lines as life, but not actually life – and now suddenly in a single moment everything just opens up I mean it’s so exciting, don’t you think it’s exciting?’

‘What about Frank?’

‘What?’ she broke off mid-gush. ‘What do you mean, what about Frank?’

I hesitated. I didn’t know what I meant. It had just come out.

‘Since when do you care what happens to Frank?’ she said.

Suddenly I felt very confused. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It just seems like an offhand way to treat somebody, that’s all.’

She groaned. ‘Charles, you’re not going to
start
, are you?’

‘I’m not starting anything,’ I said. ‘But a few weeks ago I seem to recall you being all set to move in with
him
. And while we’re on the subject, you don’t even like Doris Day.’

‘What?’

‘Doris Day, as long as I can remember any time “Que Sera Sera” has come on the radio you’ve made juvenile vomiting noises, and then last year when I was watching
Pillow Talk
you said she looked like an Aryan sex doll –’

‘Well, so what? What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘Yes, but Mozart too, I distinctly remember you telling me that people who liked Mozart ought to be made to ride around in elevators for the rest of their lives. And those ghastly pylons, in fact all of those things you just said you have in common –’

‘People
change
, don’t they?’ she broke in. ‘Why are you being like this? Can’t you for once just be happy for me, instead of trying to pick holes? I mean, for months you did nothing but complain about Frank, and I
know
you’ve developed one of your stupid crushes on Mirela. So isn’t this what you wanted? I mean, what is it exactly that you want?’

Once again I found myself stuck for an answer. A Roman candle came to my rescue: it detonated right outside the window, throwing a hellish red up on the bedroom wall; the rumble took several seconds to die away. ‘What’s going
on
there anyway?’ her voice crackled from far away. ‘It sounds like the peasants are storming the battlements.’

‘They’ve stormed the battlements,’ I said glumly. ‘They’re having their wrap party.’

She laughed. ‘Poor old Charles,’ she said. ‘And here’s me shouting at you on top of everything. You know I promised myself that I wasn’t going to shout at you this time. I haven’t even asked you how you are. How are you?’

‘Well –’ I began.

‘Charles,’ her voice cut across me, ‘sorry to interrupt, but I have to go to a meeting now so before I forget the reason I wanted to see you – I wanted to tell you that I know everything’s going to work out, for both of us. I mean that’s what all this stuff I’ve been going on about has made me realize, that things do change, and… and just when it seems everything’s against you, that’s exactly when something’ll appear out of nowhere and suddenly it’ll all be different. I just wanted you to know.’

‘Thank you,’ I said stiffly.

‘And the other thing was, will you tell Frank we need a wheelchair for the play, if he comes across one?’

‘All right.’

‘I’d better go. Remember what I said.’

Deep in thought, I mooched back into the living room. Frank had emerged from the bathroom, and was silently watching television with Droyd. On the street, fireworks continued to crack like enemy artillery; huddled in the shifting light, the two of them had the look of soldiers caught in a foxhole. ‘Bel wants a wheelchair,’ I said.

‘Right,’ Frank said, without looking round.

I sat down on the sofa. I felt like I’d been walking through a hurricane. I wasn’t used to hearing Bel so
happy
. It made me nervous. It was like a car driving in a gear that it didn’t actually have. I wondered what that bounder had said to her, up on the roof.

‘ – forces allege that this is just one of dozens of similar sites scattered across the region,’ the television said, showing a soldier kicking dirt away from the ground to reveal what looked like a pile of washed-out rags.

She was right about one thing, though. For months I had prayed for the day when Frank would be given the heave-ho. There was nothing I wanted more than for her to be rid of him, his rusty white van, his mutilated gerunds. Now that the day had come, surely I was due a moment of jubilation or triumph or at least a cold sense of closure and the transience of all things. Yet as I sat on the dysmorphic sofa, waiting for the flush of victory to sweep through me, all there seemed to be was an annoying hollow feeling.

This was absurd! Hadn’t I been paying attention? Had my life really grown so complicated that its most fundamental notions of right and wrong no longer held? Good God, now that one tiny success had presented itself, was my
own soul
going to step in and turn it to defeat?

‘Good God,’ I uttered involuntarily.

‘What’s that, Charlie?’

‘Nothing, nothing, bit of a twinge is all,’ patting my bandages; he returned to the television and I to grapple with the mounting evidence of inner mutiny.

I tried to counter it. I pointed to the facts. I recalled his odious groping sessions with Bel. I remembered how he’d blown up my Folly. I took in the mournful cherubim on the shelves around me, the lonesome garden ornaments, the inconsolable tallboy, all torn from people’s houses. From the corner of my eye, I considered Frank himself, staring at the television, the can of Hobson’s propped on his exposed belly moving, with a noxious quiver, slowly up and down. None of it made any difference. The hollow feeling refused to go away.

The next days were very hard. I found myself in the grip of a crippling
ennui
. I was back at square one, but I couldn’t bring myself to resume my job hunt: it was all I could do to drag myself from the bedroom floor to the sofa. With every passing day my financial affairs grew more ruinous, and it became harder and harder even to conceive of how I might dig myself out of the hole I was in – which only compounded my
ennui
, and my disinclination to do anything about it. Instead I threw myself into my Gene Tierney project: I wrapped myself in her movies, lost myself in them, just as she had tried to lose herself years before. I watched each one avidly, meticulously cross-referencing it with her biography, charting the trajectory that emerged.