The Green Flash (24 page)

‘I will take a taxi here. Then we can walk over. At seven thirty.'

‘At seven thirty,' I said.

IV

One thing about the Europeans – or some of the Europeans – if their buildings are destroyed in war they bring all their craftsmen round to rebuild the places as near as possible to what they were before. In England they put up things that look like high-security prisons designed by the inmates. It's a matter of taste, I suppose. Or the architect's ego.

You wouldn't have known the Opera House had ever been gutted by bombs. It was all opulence and nineteenth-century glitter and was of course crammed to the last tier. But Mr Whatever-his-name-was had come up with front-row stalls for Miss Baumgarten.

‘I always ask for these seats,' she said, ‘for if the opera is boring you can watch the orchestra.'

I haven't a glimmer whether this was a good
Tosca
or not. The singing didn't grab me, but the drama and the staging were good. It even took my mind off a certain preoccupation lurking there: how I wanted the evening to end. Trudi was about my age, slim and sexy, and the expensively simple frock she wore had an immodest décoiletage which showed she wasn't slim in the wrong places. It was perfectly clear which way her mind was working – if her mind could be said to come into it. Looking her over, I thought it would be fun.

The problem was Shona. In the ordinary way I would probably still not have considered her. There was nothing in holy writ between us; the fact that I had not had anyone else since Erica didn't disentitle me to step off the kerb if I felt like it now. The snarl-up here was simply that Trudi was an employee of the Shona organization. If you come to Austria with your chief executive and partner in tow, it doesn't read well in the minutes if he immediately buck-jumps into bed with the lady fronting for you in Vienna. Leo Longworth, my second man, was with us, as was Alice Huntington. Unlikely Trudi would be able to disguise her satisfaction at her capture.

But it pleased me to think of kicking over a mild trace. It was what my life had been all about until I met this woman from Moscow.

I

We flew the following morning to Zurich In a glacial silence normally reserved for climbers of the Matterhorn. In proper fashion this time we were met at the airport by Mr Glauber and taken straight away to a press conference at the Baur au Lac. So we had very little further opportunity between us for the feast of reason and the flow of soul, had there been any desire for it on either side. It was almost dinner time before I found my way into room 114, the large apartment on the corner of the hotel, and discovered Shona writing a letter.

‘Have you a minute?'

She wrote on for a while and then took off her spectacles. ‘A minute, yes. No more. What is it?'

‘I have the distribution estimates here and a couple of accounts for advertising that I didn't sanction. I wondered if you had.'

She held out a long slim hand and looked at the papers I offered. ‘Yes,' she said. ‘I sanctioned them.'

‘Ah … That takes us well over budget.'

She shrugged. ‘So what?'

‘So nothing if you feel that way … Are you dining?'

‘Later.'

‘I'm dining now,' I said.

‘
Bon appetit
.'

I turned and went to the door. As I grasped the handle she said: ‘I am just writing to Miss Baumgarten. Dispensing with her services.'

‘A pity,' I said after a moment. ‘ I found her agreeable.'

‘That was obvious.'

‘Do we have to be represented, everywhere by hags, so that you suffer no competition?'

Shona turned slowly and crossed her legs. ‘You flatter yourself, David. I am ridding myself of Miss Baumgarten because her accounts are very unsatisfactory – as I rather suspected they would be. She owes us quite a lot of money, which we shall be lucky if we ever recover. It is purely on commercial grounds that I am dispensing with her services. The fact that one of my assistants happens to spend an hour or two scuffling around in her bed has not influenced my decision at all.'

‘As a matter of fact,' I said, ‘ she was terrific: slim, luscious, avid.'

‘Retain it all for your reminiscences. You will be able to sell them for some ample sum to the cess press. Now leave me.'

‘Actually,' I said, ‘I was quite
exhausted
…'

‘Oh, no doubt! No doubt!'

‘… Keeping her off.'

Shona picked up her pen and turned it round. ‘I should not think you tried too hard, did you?'

‘Just hard enough.'

‘Oh, come, David, you can do better than that.'

‘Better than what?'

‘Do you suppose me to be altogether mindless?'

‘Not altogether. In some degree, yes. Appearances no doubt led you astray.'

‘Astray! My God, me astray!' She turned back to the desk. ‘Oh, what does it matter? I am not interested in your squalid little
affaires
. Go to hell!'

‘Thanks. That was what Trudi said in the end.'

She jammed on her glasses and began to write. Then she crumpled the sheet of paper in her hand and threw it angrily towards the wastepaper basket.

Still by the door I said: ‘Trudi had her eye on me. Who am I to beef about that? Can one help being maddeningly attractive? And the temptation was there for me, like hell it was; but for some goddamned bloody witless reason I backed off. In the end, I backed off! She didn't like it. Nor in a way did I. Can I explain my reasons? Not at all. It can only have been pure nobility of character.'

‘Go away,' she said.

‘My character, I know, has always fascinated you, hasn't it? You have been puzzled by my pure natural goodness … So there you are, Lady Muck, you now have the answer to it all.'

‘If you do not go,' she said, ‘I will ring for some member of the staff to turn you out.'

Instead of going I came back from the door and stood over her. ‘And if you don't believe any of this, you stupid cow, I suggest you ask Leo Longworth! After Trudi and I had supper at the Sacher I parted from her, and Leo and I spent an hour afterwards getting sloshed in the bar! I was not very pleased with myself at the time and I am not very pleased with myself
now
! Why shouldn't I have enjoyed myself with Trudi while you were out exchanging tearful reminiscences over the samovar with her corncrake of a mother? What the hell are you turning me into, a bloody Presbyterian monk?'

She did not speak for a few moments. Then she said:

‘There are no such things.'

‘What as?'

‘As Presbyterian monks.'

I used a couple of four-letter words that I knew she particularly disliked. She gave a laugh, harsh and unamused.

‘Miss Baumgarten had rings under her eyes this morning.'

‘More than I had anyway. Unless they were rings of frustration.'

‘I am very sorry if you blame me for this situation – always supposing you are speaking the truth.'

‘D'you think I care enough to lie to you?'

She stared at me between half-closed lids. ‘I don't know, David. I think perhaps you do. Perhaps we both do. Perhaps it is better if I believe your lie.'

II

Business took over for the rest of the next day. Then at dinner the following night she said: ‘Let us go away.'

‘Away? Where to? What d'you mean?'

‘Away from business. Away from public relations. Away from other people. Will you take me, David?'

She was looking at me with eyes softer than I'd ever seen them before. She hadn't referred to Trudi during the day.

‘Where d'you want to go?'

‘Anywhere warm. Where is this place you go in the West Indies?'

‘Barbados?'

‘Yes. Will you take me? Just for a week or ten days.'

‘If you want to. What is it exactly you
want
?'

‘Just to drop everything. Ever since John and I started this business it has taken priority in my life over all other things. But it has been so long. Even our –
affaire
– even that has always been tied up, mixed up with the business of Shona and Co. – perfumery, lipsticks, night creams, the rest. Of course, it is my
life
. In a way I think it has become your life – or an important part of your life. It will always be so for me. But it has gone on too long without a break. I would like to forget it – never even mention it – for a week or two. Would your friends be in Barbados?'

‘No. It's not our time of year.'

‘Good.'

‘Of course I know one or two who live there. It'll be the end of the high season now. D'you seriously think you'll enjoy it?'

‘If you would be seriously willing to take me.'

‘It's up to you.'

‘No, it's up to you.'

‘Well … Why not? I'm always ready for a break.'

‘How could we go?'

‘From here? You'd have to fly to New York. There are sure to be connecting planes.'

‘And from London?'

‘Oh, from there you can fly direct.'

She put her hand on mine. ‘That is the way,' she said. ‘If we stop in New York we shall get involved again in our business affairs.'

It seemed as likely to me that going back to London would involve us just as quickly in business affairs, and I thought this trip was a sudden romantic whim of hers that would tick away for a few days when we went home and then quietly die off. However, the day we returned she asked me to telephone the hotel and to book plane seats. There was a rush then, much responsibility to be delegated, sports things shoved into bags and a taxi to Heathrow, and we were off.

So there was a nine-hour flight; and a half-hour taxi ride brought us to the Pear Tree Club; adjoining cottages had been reserved for us and after a bibulous dinner we retired to them and only joined forces for breakfast on the terrace. It was warm. The sun shone fitfully among lambswool clouds, there was a glisten of night's rain on the grass, and the sea thumped its occasional wave on the adjacent shore. We ate breakfast surrounded by insolent birds who tried to snatch the toast out of our hands and dug deep into the sugar bowl.

Shona seemed to be appreciative of everything, but I kept a weather eye on her, not sure how far she was really going to enjoy it, how far it was going to be a sort of self-imposed ‘ I am Shona on holiday, this is me registering pleasure'. After all, nothing could have been much further from her scene. All her life she'd been around in cities, following a profession that was all glitter and high-society commercialism and superficial noise and hard-nosed balance sheets. Here there was little to appeal to her, at least for more than a day or two, and I wondered.

We swam and walked along the sand and lay in the half-shade of the casuarina and the mahogany trees; and swam again and dozed, and drank daiquiris and lunched in the big open dining-room and took an extra sleep in the afternoon, and went out for another swim to the rafts and took tea on the terrace and watched the sun sink into the sea.

I said: ‘Have you ever seen the green flash?'

‘What is that?'

‘Just as the sun does his disappearing trick, at the very moment of sinking, you can sometimes see a sudden brief green flash, or green point of light where the sun has been a moment before.'

She took off her sunglasses and closely watched the sun until it was snuffed out.

‘I did not see it. Did you?'

‘No, not this time.'

‘Have you ever seen it?'

‘I know people who have.'

She smiled at me. ‘ Then we will watch again tomorrow.'

The clouds were congregating for the arrival of night. Still we sat there. In the afterglow the waves were an inky cobalt as they turned, against the polished bronze of the sea. The moored boats in the curved bay silhouetted themselves blackly, like cut-outs in a collage.

‘David,' she said. ‘I like it here. Thank you for bringing me.'

‘Well,' I said, ‘I don't know if that's the way it was, but I'm glad to take the credit.'

There was no one I knew in the hotel except the proprietors; we had drinks with them the next evening, and they were deferential to Shona, as most people seemed to be since the products of her firm became known worldwide. There was a chap I wanted to ring in Bridgetown called Ronnie Baird, who was Deputy High Commissioner, but I waited until Shona was out of the way in case he couldn't do what I asked.

That evening at dinner Shona said: ‘Why is this called a club and not a hotel?'

‘Probably something to do with the local by-laws. In a hotel you more or less have to admit anybody. If you run a club you can pick and choose.'

‘So that you can keep out black people?'

Hullo, I thought, here it comes.

‘Possibly.'

‘I don't think I wish to stay in a hotel that does not admit black people.'

‘Simmer down. It's not just a colour thing. A number of whites are probably kept out too.' ‘But what is the proportion of white to black in this island?'

‘Oh … one to twenty. One to twenty-five.'

‘So.' She breathed through her nose.

‘Anyway, it's all very easy-going. Don't work up a head of steam about something you don't understand.'

‘Do you understand?'

‘Well, if a respectable black man with money came here I don't for a moment suppose he wouldn't be admitted. Remember, this country is now run by the West Indians for themselves. If
they
objected they could soon stop it.'

We were silent for a few moments while our waiter, a handsome, lightly bearded young man with the lissom walk of a fast bowler, served us our next course.

‘It must be sad,' said Shona.

‘What?'

‘For someone like him. What is his name?'