Banishing Verona (28 page)

Read Banishing Verona Online

Authors: Margot Livesey

BOOK: Banishing Verona
10.07Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
“I don't know. But I thought you could help me to ask him.”
“Ask him what? Make that a soy milk latte, Nigel.”
In her imagination, George had loomed large in all possible ways. Now her first thought was how much smaller he was than she remembered, five foot eight, perhaps on tiptoe five nine. He was standing beside their table wearing black jeans, a red shirt, and a gray cardigan, the last obviously hand knitted and a size too large. In one hand he held a briefcase; in the other a leather jacket. “Do you mind if we join you?” he said.
At George's first syllable, Henry had pushed back his chair and half risen. His ears, Verona saw, were scarlet but she was oddly calm. The terror she had felt when Henry had persuaded the manager of the hotel to break into her room, when she had read his letter and known that Nigel and George were in Boston, failed to appear. Her heartbeat remained steady, her skin cool. Of course many people had been injured, even killed, in public places, especially here in the States, but now that she was once again in their presence, she had faith in Nigel and George's self-interest. They wanted money, not carnage.
“Henry,” she said warningly. And then to George, “Not at all. Can you find some chairs?”
First, like a finicky waiter, he cleared away their dirty cups and stirrers and napkins and empty sugar packets; then he moved her suitcases closer to the wall; finally he begged a couple of chairs from nearby tables. Verona pushed her chair back from the small
table to make room and then, as Henry sat there, eyes downcast, told him to do the same. By the time George had everything organized, Nigel arrived, carrying their drinks, his crooked pinky sticking out in a parody of politeness.
“Hiya,” he said brightly. “Henry, Verona. Long time no see.” He raised a mug with a mound of whipped cream on top. “Cheers.”
“Hello,” she said. She caught again the faint smell of cinnamon, but perhaps this time it came from his drink. His green shirt was the exact same velvety shade as the foliage in the pre-Raphaelite painting at the museum. Unlike George, Nigel had remained constant. He was as plump as she remembered, but no more so.
“Dreadful weather,” he went on. “I always forget that about America. It's bloody freezing in winter, at least in this part of the country.” In the bright light of the café she could see the faint creases of his lower eyelids.
“You must be wondering why we're here,” said George, his red lips moving in that exaggerated way she'd noticed before. “We're fed up playing games. You owe us money, Henry. If you can't get it from Betty or some other pal, you can borrow it on your house and put up a FOR SALE sign.”
Henry started to speak, stopped, cleared his throat.
“Yes?” said Nigel, patting his mouth with a napkin.
“What we did was illegal,” Henry said. “No court would acknowledge your debt.”
“You used the crucial pronoun,” said George. “
We
. Any court would acknowledge your part in some rather dubious transactions. You'd certainly lose your job and your reputation. Not as valuable as in Shakespeare's day but still worth something.” He turned to Verona, and she noted that his head, like her own, was unusually large. “I'm sorry,” he said, “if we alarmed you. We don't usually go in for strong-arm tactics, but your brother promised us he had the situation in hand. Then he vamoosed.”
“Still”—at the next table the heavy-metal boy got up to leave—“that didn't mean you had to break into my flat.”
George nodded. “Nigel used to be a locksmith, and we got a bit carried away. We had the idea that you could bring pressure to bear on yours truly.” He had been looking at her as he spoke; suddenly his eyes slid over her shoulder. Following his gaze, Verona discovered that he was watching the departing boy. Oh, she thought. Everything that had happened fell into a new pattern. George too, she understood, had been a victim of Henry's omnivorous charms. Some of the present mess was probably the result of his being a little too obliging, going a little further than he would otherwise have done. The boy, having wound his scarf twice round his long neck and buttoned his jacket, headed for the door. “So,” said George, returning his attention to their conversation, “would it be too much to ask what we're doing on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, not exactly my neck of the woods?”
He looked at Verona again, then at Nigel. It was as if the three of them were the adults at the table and Henry was the badly behaved child whose problems they were trying to solve. She felt him squirming beside her and was glad. “Henry has an old friend here,” she said, “a businessman, who he thinks might be able to help.”
George and Nigel exchanged raised eyebrows. “That didn't seem to work out too well in Seattle,” said Nigel. “What's the setup this time?”
There was a pause of several seconds; she nudged Henry's foot, meaning, answer, stick up for yourself. He cleared his throat again. “Adrian went to university with me, and he's always liked England. I'm hoping the bungalows will strike him as a good investment, his very own piece of the old country. Or he could be a shareholder in my company. He's made a killing in cable television.”
George took a sip of his latte. “I'm not keen on the bungalow idea,” he said. As he listed his reservations—the delays, the strong possibility of the survey report coming to light—Nigel kept saying “Right, right,” and even Henry made an involuntary gesture
of assent. They might, Verona thought, have been any four English visitors to Manhattan, talking business.
“So,” said Nigel, leaning forward with his elbows on the table, “either you're offering him a legitimate investment—in which case you need convincing documents—or you're making this sound like a mercy loan with your house as security, and if this guy has any sense he'll get you to put that in writing. Suing someone transatlantically is a nightmare.”
At the counter, the espresso machine let out a burst of steam. “The thing I don't quite get,” said George, “is why not go to the bank? If I had the choice of buttering up my bank manager or going cap in hand to an old friend, I know which I'd choose. But none of our beeswax. As long as you pay us, we don't care how.”
Two patches of color had appeared below Henry's cheekbones. “Things are a little complicated,” he said.
“That's where the personal element comes in,” interjected Verona. Her triumph in Henry's discomfort had turned back into the old desire to protect him. “If Adrian knows it's a crisis, he'll understand why Henry can't wait for the bank bureaucracy.” She felt as she did sometimes at work when an interview unexpectedly took off, both excited and calm.
“And what sort of crisis takes this much money?”
She hesitated, looking at Henry where he sat low in his chair, arms tightly folded as if even his own embrace was better than nothing. “It's a gamble,” she said, “but maybe he should tell a version of the truth.”
“Well, it's up to you”—George spread his hands—“but right now we need some security.”
“So what we were thinking,” said Nigel, “is that we'd hold on to your passport.”
“No.” She was on her feet, her chair falling backward, the table rocking. “This has nothing to do with me. What if I have an emergency, what if—”
Nigel was standing beside her. He grabbed her arm with his
crooked hand and, just as she opened her mouth to scream, let go. “Sit down,” he said quietly. “We don't mean yours. Henry's will be enough.”
George righted her chair and she sat down again. Slowly, still giddy from the shock, she resumed her seat. The baby, who had been quiet since she got off the plane, kicked fiercely, as if protesting these sudden antics.
“You can't make me hand over my passport in a public place,” said Henry.
“We can't,” agreed Nigel. “But we can phone your boss and tell him what's been going on.”
As he flipped open his mobile phone and recited a London number, Henry reached into his breast pocket. “What do I have to do to get it back?” he said.
A flurry of negotiations followed. Henry would try to talk to Adrian today. He would suggest a notarized agreement that he could show to Nigel and George. Optimistically, the money could be wired to his bank account within the week.
“One piece of advice,” said Nigel. “Don't let him go too long thinking this is a friendly visit.”
“Got you,” said Henry. “Do you think there's any way to use Verona?”
Now the allegiance had shifted. She was the outsider, and the three men turned to study her. “Wait a moment,” she said, clasping her belly.
“Maybe nothing too explicit,” said George. “Just suggest that she's worried sick about you. I hope, by the way, you've got medical insurance. You two don't need any more debts.”
“Absolutely,” said Henry. “As soon as we've spoken to Adrian, we'll be on the next plane.”
“All things being equal,” said Nigel, holding up the passport.
Perhaps it was the aftermath of the morning's exertions or the sense that a solution was in sight, but as Verona watched them put on their jackets, she remembered her exchange with Henry about
the stolen Vermeer. “Do either of you know anyone who's stolen a famous painting?” she asked.
George glanced up from buttoning his jacket. “Art theft? Not our line. I do have a pal who's been involved in a couple of switches—you know, when they nick the real painting and leave a forgery.”
“So some of the famous paintings we're looking at in museums are fakes?”
“Almost certainly.” He eyed her more closely. “Did you have something in mind?”
Any moment he would be making a note of her request: Renaissance masterpiece, plenty of scarlet and gold leaf, no St. Jeromes please. “I do this radio program,” she said, feeling foolish. “I thought it might be an interesting topic.”
George inclined his massive head. “Well, we've all got work to do. Phone us as soon as there's news.”
One behind the other, he and Nigel deposited their dirty mugs in the dishpan and threaded their way between the tables and through the glass door. Only when they disappeared into the mass of pedestrians did Verona turn back to Henry. “How did they find—” she started to say, but he was already in full voice.
“You idiot. ‘I do this program,”' he simpered. “When will you get it into your head that not everything is about you?”
He was sitting bolt upright, his cheeks still flushed, his eyes wide and furious. She stared back with a quick kindling fury that matched his own. Wasn't a resolution finally in view? Hadn't she done well with Nigel and George when Henry was at his most pathetic? But as he continued to rant, she was distracted, first by a feeling, then a thought. The feeling consisted of a stabbing pain in her throat. The thought was that there were absolutely no guarantees that Adrian would agree to the loan. Tentatively she swallowed. Her throat felt as if a fork had been dragged up and down the inside for several days. It must be the central heating, all the changes of temperature. “I'm not feeling very well,” she interrupted. “Could we go to Adrian's flat?”
 
 
She slept for the remainder of the day and much of the next, and for once the baby, normally at its most energetic when she lay down, moved gently. She woke to drink and go to the bathroom and read a few pages of the book she found by the bed, a thriller set in New Orleans, before slipping back into antic dreams. People came and went—Henry, Adrian, his wife, Suzie, who looked a little like the therapist on the ferry—asking if she wanted anything but she didn't, except more hours of darkness, more sleep. Toward the end of the second day a man appeared at her bedside, a doctor friend of Suzie's, who took her temperature and listened to her chest. “She doesn't have a fever,” he said. “All she needs is rest and plenty of fluids.”
And somewhere in the midst of this, Henry bent over her to whisper that Adrian had agreed.
 
 
On the fourth day she woke at dawn and knew herself recovered. Her elbows and knees, ankles and neck still ached, but her mind was fresh and lucid, like the countryside after a storm. In this landscape one feature stood out, obdurate as Everest. She must talk to Zeke. When she had bathed, dressed, and tried to stay out of Suzie and Adrian's way as they hurried to work, she was at last able to commandeer a phone.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, she noticed for the first time the presence of a large television. The screen gave back her ghostly reflection. All morning she had been longing to hear Zeke's voice; now that she was poised to do so, her palms were slippery and her heart drummed in her ears. She spoke to the hotel switchboard, listened to Pachelbel's canon, spoke to another operator, and at last heard the phone ringing. “The guest you are calling is not available. Please wait for the tone and leave a message.” The tone came, insistent and uninviting, and then, even more uninviting,
that buzzing silence into which her words were meant to fall. She hung up.

Other books

The Heike Story by Eiji Yoshikawa
Lilac Spring by Ruth Axtell Morren
The Mystery of the Blue Ring by Patricia Reilly Giff
Stepbrother Jerk by Natasha Knight
New Year in Manhattan by Louise Bay
Lycan Redemption by Yule, S. K.