Upright Piano Player (17 page)

She had sometimes wondered what Mr. Cage had been doing for sex since the divorce. Whatever it was, he had not been doing it at home. For a year or two, she had come in on
a Monday morning alert for a whiff of perfume in the air, for evidence in the bed or bathroom, but there had been nothing. No contraceptives in the cabinet, no sweet messages on the answering machine, no letters of endearment in the toast rack. She was beginning to doubt that he was actually alive down there.

She took the photographs and the book to the chair by the window and sat down. This needed thinking through. Her first instinct was to put the photographs back in the book, no one any the wiser. But what if Henry had kept the photographs at a particular page in the book? She fanned the pages to check that there were no others tucked in somewhere and noticed handwriting on the title page. She knew at a glance that it was not Henry’s.

First U.S. Edition. £40
.

Of course! The book was secondhand! That was the answer. Mr. Cage had probably shoved it straight up on to the shelf, unread. He could not possibly read all the books he ordered. He had only been away a week and already there was a stack of catalogs waiting for him on the kitchen table. Content now, she took the Polaroids into the kitchen and put them in the bin. On Thursday they would be in a landfill. No need to torment him with what he could not have.

She returned to her work and dusted her way down the shelves. She was thorough and had a respect for books. If it was a gardening book or something on architecture she would occasionally pause to look at some of the pictures. It took her two hours to do the books in the front room. She decided she would tackle the library tomorrow.

At ten past one she left. She was running a little later than
usual, but there was no rush, her afternoon job did not start until 2:00. She locked the three locks on the front door, the top one so high she had to stand on tiptoes.

When she turned round a young couple were standing by the gate admiring the garden. The woman was taking photographs.

“Does look nice, doesn’t it? You should see it in the summer.” No need to mention that the garden did not belong to her.

“Not long to wait, then.”

The young man seemed affable and opened the gate for her, slightly awkwardly for one of his arms was in plaster.

“We always stop and look at this garden.”

“Yes, it’s lovely.”

The woman had lowered the camera. A pleasant voice and Mrs. Abraham smiled. It took her a moment to realize that she had seen this woman before. But this was the first time with clothes on.

“Oh, I’ll forget my head one of these days. I’ve left my purse inside.” She hurried back along the path.

In the kitchen, she retrieved the photographs from the dustbin and got the steps out again to put them back in the book. If they were in the wrong place, so what? Mr. Cage would be too embarrassed to mention it.

That evening, Jack had arranged a poker game with his tennis pals and had cried off the dancing at the Ritz-Carlton. The previous week they had gone as a threesome. On that occasion, apart from two visits to the bathroom, Henry had sat in his chair, social enough, but not dancing. There had been a period in the sixties when the easy rhythms of the twist had got him onto the floor, but when Chubby Checker had checked out, so had Henry.

Now, without Jack, he was not sure of his role.

“Don’t worry, Henry, we don’t have to dance. Though it wouldn’t harm you to walk me round, just once. Nobody will be looking at your feet. Indeed, I rather hope that everyone will be looking at
me.
”

Nessa sat on the edge of her chair. She had done something to her hair. It was pulled back so that her face, no longer framed by a dark bob, appeared less pallid. She was wearing green silk, the color of moss kept short of daylight. The gown was high on the neck, long in the sleeve, and when she walked the full skirt caressed the ground. She had bought the dress the day before on Worth Avenue and the effort had sent her
early to her bed. But the dress was a triumph. Hidden in its silken folds she felt whole again, even glamorous. She gazed at the dancers, longing for Henry to take her arm.

He watched her and misread the brightness of her eyes. She had always looked tenderly on public displays of affection and he knew that the couples on the floor would delight her. Henry saw only elderly people dancing, but she would see enduring love, the survival of romance. He knew he had the power to make her happy. He knew she wanted a public confirmation of their togetherness, partners in more than a dance. All he had to do was hold her hand and walk forty steps onto the dance floor and then take another hundred while he was there. What was so big deal about that? Why did he hesitate? He saw her knee lift and fall under the silk of her gown, her tapping foot betraying her eagerness to dance. Even now, at the fifty-fifth minute of the eleventh hour, he held back. Why? It was cruel and stupid. When this dance was over, he would ask her for the next.

“I got cleaned out, so I came over. My God, Nessa—you look wonderful, that is some frock!”

Jack did not sit down but hovered, waiting for the music to stop. When it did, he offered Nessa his hand.

As she stood, she looked at Henry.

“I’ll get some more wine,” he said as they walked off.

Jack drives a 1962 Impala station wagon, sprung like a bed and as wide as a dinghy. At a pinch the two bench seats can take eight people and there’s still an acre of space for stuff in the back. He had bought the car when he first came down to Florida. He had chosen it not for its utility, but as a symbol. Confirmation that he no longer wanted a slot in the fast lane. The BMWs he had once owned he now derided. “I’m out of the race,” he said. As the years went by, it became clear to his friends that he had not left the race; he had simply redefined it.

Now he drove doggedly in the center lane, no more a speedster, but a self-appointed arbiter of vehicular character. Anything post-1970 had little chance of earning his approval. He reserved his most withering scorn for minivans.

“You get a lot of seats and no luggage space, or a lot of space and no seats. Some deal! This beauty gave you both—still does.”

They were driving to Miami airport to pick up Tom, Jane, and Hal and one hour into the trip Henry had realized there was no need to reply.

On cue, a Chrysler minivan drew up alongside in the
outside lane, its headlights flashing at a slow-moving Ford in front.

“See what I mean? It’s just a van in Sunday clothes. Slap a sign on the side and it could be full of dry cleaning or copper tubing. Whatever happened to style?”

As the slab-sided Chrysler cut into the middle lane, Jack was glad of the opportunity to press the chrome bar on the steering wheel and send out a reproachful bleat.

“I love that sound,” he said. He pushed the bar again, unconcerned that the mellow note fell on deaf ears. The Chrysler had already lurched back into the fast lane and was moving on.

“You want to hear that Orson Welles tape?”

“Fine.”

“You know the setup? Orson is in the sound booth and the film is on a loop coming over on a monitor so he can sync the words. He can see the sound engineer through the window and they can talk to each other over the intercom. There are a couple of agency guys in there with the engineer and they kind of direct the thing.”

Jack pushes the button and Henry feels a rush of pleasure as the rich tones of Citizen Kane and Harry Lime reach out to the furthest corners of the Impala.

Henry was saddened by the anguish in Orson Welles’s voice. The agency people were obviously English and maybe Welles had been careful to huckster only outside America, but it appeared the distance had not been great enough to spare him embarrassment. Why did he do it? Was there a roof to repair on a weekend house or a divorce settlement to fund? Maybe he told himself that he was in good company. Sir Laurence Olivier had touted Kodak film on American television and even Mrs. Roosevelt had made commercials for margarine. Probably, Welles just wanted the money. Politicians and actors are precarious earners so the urge to cash in while the going is good is often irresistible. In Henry’s time, a former British Chancellor of the Exchequer had genially promoted smoked salmon for a supermarket. He hated to see them do it. Even when he had been commissioned by a client to find a spokesperson he had been secretly pleased when he had been met with a refusal.

Jack forwarded the tape, chuckling in anticipation. “Just listen to how the session ends.”

The dark brown voice once again filled the car:

His voice tails off. There is a heightened rustle of paper as he picks up his scripts from near the microphone, and then
all is silence. It is the kind of silence you get in a cinema at the end of a powerful movie when the audience is reluctant to re-enter the world outside and sits motionless through the credits, right through to the Dolby logo.

Jack turns off the tape.

“What do you think?”

“It’s very sad.”

Jack was unrepentant.

“He took the dough; no one said it was an easy job. Anyhow, it still makes me laugh—and he did walk out—I never had the guts.”

They drove in silence for a while.

“What time do they get in?”

“Same time as the last time you asked me. The plane gets in at 3:30. And the flight’s on time.”

Henry looked out of his window. The interstate was frantic with Sunday traffic. Drivers less concerned than Jack with the aesthetics of motoring were passing the Impala on both sides. Henry was thinking of the previous evening.

After her dance with Jack, Nessa had seemed radiant on returning to the table.

“Did you see me, Henry?”

“Oh, yes.”

She had reached for her glass, but put it down without drinking. Then, sitting back in her chair, she had closed her eyes. They thought she was listening to the music, but it soon became clear she had fallen asleep. Ten minutes later she awoke and asked Jack to take her home. She had said goodnight to Henry without looking at him.

“I called Nessa this morning. She’s got her machine on.”

“I know,” Jack said.

“Do you think she’s okay?”