The Good Mayor (24 page)

“We have to find somewhere to sit,” he said. “The band is about to begin.”

“It’s a bit busy,” said Agathe. “Maybe you should just go back to where you were and sit down. I don’t think we’ll find two seats together. I’m sorry. I’m very late. I couldn’t get away and then the tram took forever and, when I got here, the place was so busy that I couldn’t see you at first.”

“Oh, don’t be silly. We’ll find something. Let’s look round the other side.”

The Mayor Krovic of the day before, the one who stiffened and bristled in Albrecht Street, might not have said that or, if he had, he might not have walked, holding her hand like that, round the gravel path around the bandstand but this was a different Mayor Krovic—one who had spent the previous evening staring into the fire and cursing himself for a fool and most of the previous night fleeing from a demon taxi or tangled in Agathe Stopak’s invitingly milky thighs. Yet, despite that, Tibo felt like a bull in a show ring.
Every seat in the park was turned to face the bandstand and, for the hundreds in the crowd, there was nothing else to look at but Mayor Tibo Krovic walking hand in hand with—who was that woman? Quite a pretty woman. You don’t think? No. Surely not. Tibo felt Agathe tighten her grip and she gave a little skip as she hurried to match his stride.

They arrived at the south side of the bandstand and there, filling most of the front row, was Yemko Guillaume. Tibo’s heels skidded in the gravel of the path as he came to a halt and he might have turned to run but, when he looked back, the first of the Fire Brigade bandsmen was already taking his place on the platform.

And then, when he glanced in panic at Yemko, he knew it was too late to flee. The lawyer was sitting on a thick polished plank which he had laid across the whole of the front row of seats—not that he was quite huge enough to require all seven seats but he was heavy enough to need all twenty-eight chair legs. Even with the plank to spread his weight, the row of seats sagged and splayed beneath him. As Yemko raised his hat in greeting, Tibo noticed, over his shoulder and beyond the crowd, a waiting taxi purring menacingly by the park gate.

“It appears the whole town has turned out,” said Yemko. “And we are about to start. Please, won’t you and your companion join me? For some reason I seem to have a number of chairs to myself.”

Tibo and Agathe looked at one another in resignation. Sitting next to Yemko would be less embarrassing than standing alone in front of the crowd for the next hour and they would, at least, be together. So, although she blamed the lawyer Guillaume for forcing Tibo from the bench and hated him for it, Agathe was gracious. She said simply, “Thank you,” and took the chair at the end of the row, leaving Tibo to squeeze in to the last empty place—the place next to Yemko Guillaume.

Before he sat down, Tibo observed the polite pleasantries. “Mr. Guillaume,” he said, “permit me to introduce my friend and colleague, Mrs. Agathe Stopak. Agathe, this is the learned Mr. Yemko Guillaume.”

In an act of gallantry that clearly cost him some pain, Yemko
leaned forward on his cane, half rising, half bowing, and extended a hand which Agathe politely shook by the fingers. “How do you do, Mrs. Stopak? The pleasure is all mine.”

“How do you do,” she said.

And Tibo sat down between them.

With a flamenco dancer’s flick of the wrist, Yemko produced a thick white printed card. “Perhaps Mrs. Stopak would care to have this, Krovic.”

Tibo passed it on and Agathe leaned forward with a brief smile of thanks. She was unfailingly polite.

“It’s a disappointing selection,” Yemko continued, “rather heavy on military music—lots of very brisk oom-pah-ing. Still.”

“Still?” Tibo sounded rather more tetchy than he would have wished.

“Still, I suppose one must give the public what they expect. You and I have had this discussion before, I think. People like to know where they stand. They don’t like it when their neighbours fail to live up to expectations. They prefer their Sunday School teachers not to be tango-dancers in their spare time. They like their mayors to be nicely hidebound. They would be disappointed to the point of actual distress if some clownishly fat lawyer turned out to be anything less than a gourmand. And they would be downright embittered if the Fire Brigade Band dared a little Mozart. There is nothing worse than a disappointed mob—nothing uglier.” Guillaume turned to look Mayor Krovic in the face and he added, “And I speak as one who is intimately acquainted with ugliness.”

Good Mayor Krovic felt suddenly moved. He clapped his hand down on the straining cloth that covered the lawyer’s thigh just as he might have reassured a worried dog. “Guillaume …” he said in a “Come along now—what’s brought this on?” kind of voice. But then he seemed to realise the meaning of what Yemko had said and, without thinking, he began a justification. “You know I am as hidebound a mayor as any town could hope for,” he said.

Yemko looked him straight in the eye for a moment and said, “Quiet.”

Tibo never learned what that meant. The music was beginning.

And it turned out that Guillaume was right. The programme was dire. No finesse, no emotion, just thumping, blasting marching tunes—a lot of warmongering Mittel-Europaische nonsense. Under the cover of the music, when she thought everybody in the rows behind would be looking straight ahead at the bandstand and not at her, about halfway through the second piece—“My Saucy Pomeranian Maid,” the programme said—Agathe slipped her hand to her side. It was an invitation and Tibo accepted. He slid his hand down to where their thighs were jammed together and folded his fingers in hers. “I brought sweets,” she said and, with her free hand, she passed him one. Tibo took it left-handed and held one end of the wrapper in his teeth to tug it open.

“I like a nice caramel,” he said. “Are there nuts in this?”

“No. You’d better see if
he
wants one.”

“Would you like a sweet?” Tibo whispered.

“Thank you, no.” Guillaume held up a pink palm in rejection.

“He’s such a sourpuss,” said Agathe.

Tibo squeezed her hand. “Shh. You’ve never met the man. He’s all right. Really, he is.”

“After what he did?” Agathe hissed.

“That was nothing. He didn’t mean it. It’s all forgotten.”

“You’re too soft for your own good,” she said. “But I like you soft.” And she squeezed his arm with her free hand and cuddled in and buried her face in his coat sleeve, the way she had done when they were walking together down Albrecht Street, before the taxi passed. “Oh, I got powder on your coat. Sorry,” she said and brushed it off.

OW, OF COURSE, IT NEVER, EVER HAPPENS
, except in stories but if, say, a seagull, passing over Dot on his way home from a hard day spent swooping around the funnel of the Dash ferry and considering a trip to the docks or a rummage in the bins of the fish market, if such a seagull, flying sufficiently high, had chanced to look down just about then, he might have seen, at one end of Dot, Agathe pressed close up against Tibo for warmth and Tibo pressed close against Yemko for lack of space and, if he turned his bright black eye towards the other end of Dot, he might have seen, just possibly, through the scullery window, in a flat on Aleksander Street, two men having lunch. But, of course, he could never have heard what they were saying, being so high up and the wind from Dash blowing so fiercely about his ears and since the best stories—including this one—are built from words the way that houses are built from bricks or beaches are built from little bits of sand, it is probably best not to waste too much time on that particular seagull.

But, if, say, Achilles the cat had been sitting by the stove in the kitchen of the flat in Aleksander Street, he would have heard every word. In fact, Achilles had just finished rubbing his paw over his ear and he was about to devote the next few minutes to licking his private parts when the clang of Agathe’s new frying pan falling into the sink sent him leaping under the sofa.

“Any more bread?” asked Stopak.

“Just this,” said Hektor and he wiped a thick slice through the bacon fat on his plate and ate it with a wolfish snap.

“Any eggs left, then?”

“You ate the whole box. No wonder you’re the size of a horse.”

“Gotta keep my strength up.”

“I’ll bet,” said Hektor. “That Agathe making demands on your body again? Eh? Eh? Is she?”

Stopak feigned outraged modesty. “She’s a beast. Can’t keep her hands off me. It’s constant. Non-stop. Not a minute’s peace.”

He tore a horseshoe-shaped chunk out of a thick slice of bread and left golden teeth marks shining from a pavement of butter.

“Any more beer?”

“It’s in the corner cupboard.”

Hektor got up to look. “You’re down to your last couple of bottles,” he said. “But the Crowns will be open soon. Since you’re a mate, I’ll let you buy me a real drink.”

They sat in silence for a while, Stopak shovelling at piles of refried potatoes, Hektor leaning back in his chair to blow smoke rings at the ceiling.

“So, that Agathe, eh?”

“Yeah, that Agathe—she’s some woman, I can tell you.”

“I’ll bet. You’re a lucky man, cousin.”

Stopak couldn’t speak for a bit. He was struggling with an unfeasibly huge lump of bacon but, eventually, he managed to say, “Listen, Hektor, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, you know. I’m telling you, good looks like mine—it’s a curse, mate. It’s a curse. She’s like a wild animal.”

“It must be hellish.”

“Hellish.”

“Bet you could tell some stories.”

“You wouldn’t believe the half of it, pal.”

“If that mattress could talk, eh?”

Stopak grunted through a mouthful of food but he said nothing. Even when Hektor sat silent, willing him to say something, filling the air with a great conversational gap that cried out for a story of Agathe naked and voracious, even then Stopak said nothing.

He took another swig from his bottle. “Whatcha doin’?”

“I’m drawing you.”

“Can’t blame you.”

“You’re a good subject. I’ve got sketchbooks full of you.”

“I’m paying you to be a paperhanger now, not a portrait painter. Anyway, I thought you’d given all that up—that artist stuff.”

“Can’t,” said Hektor, “it gets in the blood. Sit still.”

Stopak turned back slightly towards the window. “Better? You sold any of these pictures of yours yet?”

“Any day now.”

“You should stick to painting gutters and window frames. That’s what puts bread on the table.”

“There’s more to life than that,” said Hektor. “Time is it?”

Stopak checked his watch. “They’re open. C’mon, you can buy me a drink.”

“I’ll just wash up first.”

“Leave it,” said Stopak. “We’re wasting good drinking time. Agathe can do it when she gets in.”

“Where is she anyway?”

“Church. Church again. She’s always at church.”

“Asking St. Walpurnia for the gift of chastity, I’ll bet.”

“Too late for that, pal. That wife of mine, I tell you, she’s like a bitch in heat. Never a moment’s rest. She just can’t stay off me. I’ll tell you what you should do—you should paint her! Paint Agathe. Nice big nude for over the fireplace.”

Hektor closed his sketchbook and put it in his jacket pocket, jammed in down there next to a little brown copy of Omar Khayyám. “I couldn’t do that,” he said. “Paint Agathe? Naked? Wouldn’t be right. Couldn’t think of it …”

They closed the door and Achilles went back to the stove to lick his balls.

And, just about the time he settled down to work, the men of the Fire Brigade Band were getting ready for a break. With cheeks puffed out like apples and sweat lashing from beneath their polished brass helmets, they galloped together over the last few bars
of something stirring towards the crate of beer that was lying in a zinc bath, next to the lawn roller at the back of the park-keeper’s lodge. Eyes on the conductor, everybody. Keep up, that means you Mr. Glockenspiel, all together now, big finish aaand … Applause!

“I’m afraid we’re only halfway through,” said Yemko in a voice of doom.

“I can’t think why you come if you hate it so much, Mr. Guillaume,” Agathe replied.

“Perhaps less for the music and rather more for the company. Do you think perhaps that’s why we come, Mrs. Stopak?”

In a quieter setting, had she not been surrounded by happy, noisy people, Agathe’s little “Hmmph” might have been noticeable but nobody noticed it and, since she was sitting in the front row and everybody was, more or less, facing forward, nobody but Tibo noticed that she took her hand away and crossed her arms with an angry little pout. But even that was spoiled when Yemko upstaged her by taking off his hat and raising it, like a flag, on the top of his cane.

“What on earth are you doing now?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Tibo, “what
are
you doing?”