Romeo's Tune (1990) (9 page)

13

W
hen I woke up I didn’t know where the hell I was. You ever had that? I hate it. When I was a kid I used to get down under the bedclothes and push the sheets and blankets right up over my head and turn round and round until I didn’t know which way was up. Complete disorientation until I nearly suffocated. Take away all points of reference and the mind does weird things. That was how it was that morning or night or whatever it was. I didn’t have a clue. I woke up suddenly and sweatily in the wreck of a bed and for maybe thirty seconds, maybe longer, I couldn’t remember who it belonged to. It was dark and I couldn’t see the colour of the sheets or the wallpaper. All I knew was that I was alone in a strange room.

Suddenly it all came back to me. I blew out a breath of relief and flopped back down onto the damp sheets. There was a thin strip of light under the bedroom door and someone was moving about in the kitchen. For a moment more I was still the little boy under the blanket and I hoped it was Jo. Of course it was. I shook the sleep and the little boy out of my head, got out of bed, pulled on my shirt and trousers that were draped over the back of a chair and went to find her.

She was standing in the kitchen with her back to the door dressed only in a pair of brief knickers. I stood and looked at her for a long moment. Barefoot as I was she hadn’t heard me come down the hall. She was waiting for the kettle to boil. The radio on the dresser was softly playing an old Motown tune and as her body moved with the rhythm I could see the muscles in her back moving under her smooth skin.

I walked up behind her and held her gently round the waist. She half turned and looked up at me.

‘Good morning,’ I said. ‘How are you today?’

She said nothing in reply and I could tell she’d been crying.

‘I got lonely in there on my own,’ I said.

She just kept on looking and I felt dumb and inadequate.

‘Is there something wrong?’ I asked.

‘I didn’t come here for this,’ she said at last.

‘For what?’

‘For meeting someone, and getting involved. I came here to study and to be on my own.’

‘I’d like to say I’m sorry it happened,’ I said, ‘but I’m not.’

‘Nor am I in a way,’ she replied. ‘But in a way I am.’

‘That’s a tough one. Why don’t you sit down and I’ll make some tea?’

‘I hate tea.’

‘Then I’ll make some coffee.’

‘English people make lousy coffee.’

‘American people make lousy tea, but I’ve been drinking yours all week.’

‘So make some lousy coffee,’ she said.

‘Are you warm enough?’ I asked. ‘I’ll get you a robe or something if you like.’

‘That would be nice,’ she said. ‘It is kind of chilly in here.’ I went back into the bedroom and found her dressing-gown hanging behind the door and carried it back through to the kitchen. I put it on her like I would do for my own little girl.

‘I find it hard to think of you as a father,’ she said as if reading my mind.

‘I was a good father.’

‘Was?’

‘Was, is, who knows? I don’t get much chance to practise these days, except with those cats.’

‘Oh God, Nick, I wish it hadn’t happened.’

‘What, the cats?’ I asked, although I knew fully well she didn’t mean them.

‘No, us.’

‘You keep saying that.’

‘I keep feeling it.’

‘Is there someone back in the States?’ I asked. ‘You never said.’

‘Yes, no . . . sort of.’

‘You don’t sound very sure.’

‘Can’t you tell that I’m not? I’m not sure about anything.’

‘I’m sure about one thing,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to let you go.’

‘You may have to.’

‘Never.’

‘That’s a long time, Nick, a long, long time.’ She paused. ‘I think I’d better tell you everything.’

I looked at her and she looked away. I didn’t know what was coming but I knew it was going to be difficult for her, so I turned round to make the coffee as she started.

‘First of all,’ she said to my back, ‘my real name isn’t Josephine Cass.’

I put down the spoon I was holding and turned back.

‘It almost is but not quite. I’m not on the run, don’t worry.’

‘What is it then?’ I asked as I carried the cups over to the table and sat opposite her.

‘Josephina Cassini. A real guinea name, huh?’

‘If you say so,’ I replied.

‘I changed it when I went to college.’

‘Why?’

‘You wouldn’t know of course, but the Cassini are big men in the Mob.’

‘The what?’

‘The Mob, Cosa Nostra, the Mafia, whatever you like to call it, though they’ll deny it. Businessmen they call themselves.’

‘Are you kidding me?’

‘Do I look like I am?’ And she didn’t. She sat there hunched up in her robe holding onto the cup of coffee like dear life itself.

‘No, sweetheart,’ I said, ‘you don’t.’ And I touched her shoulder across the table.

‘I can’t handle it you see. Never could since I first found out what “The Business” meant. I love my family but I left them the first chance I got. I went to New York, then California, now here.’

‘And on the way you dumped your name?’

‘I know it sounds strange Nick, but I just can’t bear to be part of all that. I have some money of my own that my mother left me, money her mother left her. It’s clean money.’

‘What does your father think of all this?’

‘He’s unhappy, of course,’ she said. ‘But he has my brother and he thinks I’ll come to heel and return to the fortress.’

‘What fortress?’

‘That’s what I call where we live, the family home. It’s like a fortress full of armed men, but discreetly armed if you know what I mean.’

‘I think I can guess. And the someone you left behind?’

‘One of Daddy’s men. No, more than that. Daddy wouldn’t want me involved with a mere soldier. Frederick is the son of a good friend, a business associate of my father’s. He’ll do well in the business, go far, and he wanted to marry me.’

‘You weren’t so keen?’

‘I’d never marry Freddy.’

I got up from the table and took two cigarettes from a packet on the dresser. I lit them both and gave one to Jo. She pulled on it gratefully. I found an ashtray in one of the cupboards and placed it on the centre of the table, between us.

‘Did your family put pressure on you?’ I asked when we were settled again.

‘They’d like to see me barefoot and pregnant, married to one of the up-and-comers, so I split.’

‘Just like that?’

She laughed a mirthless laugh. ‘The family is strong, but we don’t live in the middle ages. Daddy is fairly modern in his thinking. Too modern for some of the old men. His idea is to let me out on a long leash.’

‘And then wind you back in when he’s ready,’ I finished for her.

‘Exactly.’

We sat in silence and finished our cigarettes and the dregs of our coffee.

‘Jo,’ I said, ‘I want you to sit still and listen without interrupting for just a minute.’ She looked at me wearily but remained silent. ‘What you’ve just told me obviously hurts you like hell. For you to have travelled half-way round the world to get away from your own family proves it.’ She started to say something but I shushed her. ‘Sweetheart,’ I said, ‘so what? Don’t get me wrong, it looms large in your life but who else cares? Why beat yourself up? You can’t be held responsible for what your family are or do. You’re out of it and your life’s your own. As you said, we don’t live in the middle ages.’

I sat back and lit another cigarette. I was smoking again, but I felt all shiny and new, puffed up and proud. Let the poor little people come to the amateur psychiatrist and in exchange for a cup of coffee and a Marlboro Light he’d solve their problems. Big man, big deal, big frightened phoney.

‘I know you’re right Nick,’ she said at last, ‘but I just feel so guilty. I don’t want anything to do with them, right? But the family paid my fare here, got me the flat and Daddy keeps putting money into my account, and I do love him so, whatever he is, and he calls me up and writes such lovely letters asking me to go home. I’m so confused.’

‘Life’s not so easy that we can just kick over the traces, walk away from places and people and forget them as if they never existed. Some involvement goes so deep that there are things and people you can never get out of your system. You’re tied together for as long as you live. However hard you try and deny it, you can’t. It’s one of those facts you just have to accept. As long as you have memory, that person or place lives with you. So don’t be confused – it’s the human condition. And that is the full extent of my philosophy and psychology lecture for this morning.’

She smiled at me. ‘Is it that simple?’

‘I don’t think it’s simple at all. It’s just that some truths are self-evident. Life is not simple is one, you are beautiful is another, I loved you the moment I first saw you is yet another. I refuse to let you go: now, that one is simple.’

‘Don’t talk like that.’

‘You can’t stop me.’

‘Oh, Nick,’ she said and held my hand. ‘I’m so glad I found you. It’s just that I thought I wasn’t good enough for you.’ If I hadn’t realised before, I realised then that under her brains and beauty there was a frightened little girl looking for reassurance. I held her hand tighter.

‘Good enough for me, are you kidding? Listen Jo, if this is going to be true confessions time, I think there’s a few things you should know about me.’

So I told her. I told her what a lousy copper I’d been. The bribes and the drugs and the scandals that had forced me to leave. I told her about Laura taking my daughter and leaving me because of the state I was in. I told her about the time I’d spent in mental hospital getting my life back together. She didn’t say a word as I explained about setting up as a private detective and the Bright case and how it finished in bloody murder and mayhem.

She waited until I stopped for breath until she spoke.

‘Why aren’t you in prison?’

I took the breath and went on.

‘I got hold of a policeman named Fox,’ I said. ‘Danny Fox, he was my old DI. Detective Inspector,’ I translated when she gave me a quizzical look. ‘He’s gone up in the world now, thanks to me. I was sitting on a mountain of cocaine and enough dirty pictures to bring down the government. I gave him the coke and George Bright in exchange for the photos which are now hidden somewhere safe and sound. Fox put up a hell of a fight but he gave in, in the end. It’s ironic – he was one of the prime movers to get me out of the force and now we’re on the same side. If anything happens to me the pictures will make an appearance, as public an appearance as possible. I don’t like the way it’s turned out, but without those photos I’m in a lot of trouble.’

‘Were you badly hurt?’ she asked.

‘You saw the scars,’ I said.

‘And I thought I was the only one who was fucked up,’ she said. ‘There’s a lot of it about.’

‘Why did you get so involved? Why didn’t you just walk away? You had every chance.’

‘To make up for all the times I did walk away,’ I said, ‘when it was my job not to. All the times I just let things go because it was easy to turn a blind eye. I knew if I didn’t do something I was finished.’

She came and sat on my knee and kissed me.

‘Do you want me to go?’ I asked.

‘Go? Why?’

‘Because I’m involved in dirty business sometimes.’

‘No, Nick, I don’t want you to go. I love you.’

‘Say that again,’ I said.

‘I love you.’

We held each other like drowning people being swept through white water. We held each other until we were dizzy. Eventually we came up for air.

‘What shall we do?’ she asked naughtily.

‘It’s still early,’ I said. ‘I think we should go back to bed for an hour or so.’

‘What a good idea,’ she said, ‘I
am
feeling quite tired.’

‘You can sleep,’ I said, ‘I’ve got other ideas.’

‘You’re disgusting.’

‘Just how disgusting I hope you’ll find out over the next few days.’

14

W
e spent Sunday and Monday together. I was falling for Jo faster than a kid going down a fairground slide, and I have to tell you I was enjoying it twice as much. I had that kind of self-confidence that only pure stupidity breeds. I could see her relaxing too and she looked good.

On Sunday evening we wrapped up warmly and went to town. We wandered around the West End looking at the sights before we ate. By the time she’d got tired of looking at lumps of old masonry we were both cold and hungry and we found a little Italian place north of Soho with red checked tablecloths and waiters with eyes full of lechery and mouths full of wet, white teeth.

We both had spaghetti with clams and too much thin white wine that tasted of sunshine and grape skins.

As we sat over cappuccino I stole another of her cigarettes.

‘Skip school tomorrow,’ I said.

‘You’re a bad influence.’

‘Not so bad – you seem to be quite happy.’

‘I am,’ she replied.

‘So skip school.’

‘It isn’t school, it’s university, brother, and it’s important.’

She did take the day off and even though it was still cold the sun shone, and after I’d checked on Cat and her offspring Jo and I took the Jaguar down to Brighton for the day. She loved the town and we strolled along the front watching the sea smash over the pebbles.

‘One day all that will be sand,’ she said.

‘It’ll take a while,’ I remarked.

‘Only a million or so years.’

‘And when it is I’ll still love you,’ I said.

‘You big jerk,’ she said.

I grinned against the cold breeze and held her tightly. Somewhere under all the layers of clothing she wore her body was soft and warm.

‘OK, I don’t love you at all,’ I said.

‘Don’t say that. I can’t bear it.’

‘Now who’s a jerk?’ I asked.

She was crying and I caught the tears on her cheeks with the pad of my thumb.

‘Blowy, isn’t it?’ she asked.

I just smiled and she buried her head into my shoulder like a child.

We lunched in The Lanes and she bought expensive junk in every shop we passed. Which was plenty.

‘This is the most expensive place in England to buy stuff like that,’ I explained, ‘apart from Bond Street. You’re crazy.’

‘These are gifts for the folks back home. Italian businessmen and their wives are very big in antiques. Those women will have everything priced before I’m through the door.’

‘So you are going back?’

‘Eventually.’

‘For good?’

‘What’s good?’ she asked.

‘Being here with you,’ I replied. She held my hand tightly and slipped her arm through mine.

‘Let’s not talk about leaving,’ she said, ‘not when we’ve just found each other. I’ll be here for a long time.’

Even then I wasn’t convinced.

We took fish and chips back to my flat that night and washed it down with cold bottled Bud from the fridge. Jo had scored a fingernail-sized piece of dope from a classmate and rolled up a joint. We smoked it and drank more beer and made love. She fell asleep straight away, but I couldn’t drop off and lay on my back listening to her breathe and thinking about a story my father used to tell my brother and me when we were little. It was more of a proverb than a story really. It was about how any one of us who thinks he’s finally cracked it should beware. Because just as we’re feeling safe and warm, that’s when, unseen in the wings, is waiting a little faceless man with a long crooked stick who can reach out and pull our legs out from under us.

The thought of that dwarfish figure always used to terrify me. I hadn’t thought of the story for years, but suddenly that night the scary little man pranced around the room before me as if I was five years old again.