Armadillo

by William Boyd

  As he dressed he thought: I will be with her but she will not commit, she would not promise how long it would last. Well, neither could he. Neither could anyone, really. How long will anything last? How many miles can a pony gallop, as his grandmother would say. This shaky formula for his future happiness was as solid as anything else in this world, after all. There was no arguing with that.

  100. Integumentary Systems. The arming of a man began at the feet and as far as possible each piece subsequently put on overlapped that beneath it. The arming of a man, therefore, was carried out in the following order: sollerets or sabatons jambs, knee-cops, cuisses, skirt of mail, gorget, breast and back plates, brassards, pauldrons, gauntlets and, finally, the helmet.

  Every living organism is separated from its environment by a covering, or integument, that delimits its body. It seems to me that the process of adding an extra integument is unique to our species and easily understandable – we all want extra protection for our soft and vulnerable bodies. But is it unique to our species? What other creature exhibits this same sense of precaution and seeks out this kind of protective armour? Molluscs, barnacles, mussels, oysters, tortoises, hedgehogs, armadillos, porcupines, rhinos all grow their own. Only the hermit crab, as far as l can recall, searches for empty shells, of whelks or periwinkles, or indeed any other hollow object and crawls inside, to serve as shelter and protection of the body. Homo sapiens and Eupagarus bernhardus – perhaps we are more closely related than we think. The hermit crab finds its suit of armour and keeps it on, but, as the crab grows, it penodically is obliged to leave its shell and travel the sandy undulations of the ocean floor, unprotected for a while, soft and vulnerable, until it finds a larger shell and crawls inside again.

  The Book of Transfiguration

  He called for a black cab and while he was waiting he took his ruined Greek helmet from his bag and placed it on the mantelpiece above the gas log-fire. From the front it looked perfect, no one could see the triangular slice dividing the back. He would put Lupus Crescent on the market, call Alan from Vienna, ask him to organize things, and pay Ivan back – and that would be the end of his helmet-collecting days.

  He sat in the back of the cab, strangely serene as it left Albion Village, making his last long trajectory across the city. From Silvertown, to Silvertown Way, left at Canning Town flyover, through the Limehouse Link, past the Tower, Tower Hill, Lower Thames Street and on to the Embankment, under the Charing Cross railway bridge, on past Northumberland Avenue, left at Horse-guards, right at Whitehall, on through Parliament Square, passing Vauxhall, Chelsea, Albert and Battersea Bridges as the cab motored along beside the restless brown river, then swinging round on to Finborough Road, cutting across Fulham and Old Brompton Road, on past Earls Court and into Talgarth Road, into the Great West Road then the A4 and climbing up on to the elevated section of the M4, the sprawling city spread below on either side, continuing west on the motorway until Junction 4 and then left into Heathrow Central Area and finally, Terminal Three. This was one of the longest sweeps ever, from furthest east to furthest west, and he thought of all the many journeys he had made throughout his working life, crisscrossing the gigantic city, north and south, all the points of the compass, miles and miles, hours and hours of time…

  Vienna was smaller, he thought, easier to handle, everything within walking distance. He and Flavia would stroll hand in hand from Stephansplatz to Schönlaterngasse, go to the opera, look at the Klimts and the Schieles, they might take a boat trip on the Danube, admire the topiary in the Augarten. They might stay on or set off on their travels together, he mused, pleasantly. Anything was possible, once they were there, anything.

  He thought of other trajectories starting that morning: his ten letters moving from post box to sorting office and then making their individual routes to their respective addressees. And what would happen then? Nothing? A little ripple of controversy? A minor scandal? Some discreet fixing, words in important ears and then all forgotten?…

  He wasn’t entirely sure. If he did nothing, nothing would happen, Lorimer knew; and if and when he went back in a year, as they so warmly encouraged him, looking for his old job back, nothing would happen then. Sad smiles of regret, hands spread, shrugs of impotence. Times have changed, Lorimer, things have moved on, so sorry, restructurings, new priorities, that was then, this is now…

  They had cut him loose and he was drifting away, just as they wished, but not so far for the moment that the finger of blame couldn’t be angrily pointed at him if an emergency arose. But then, as more time intervened and short memories grew shorter, the happier and more relaxed they would be. ‘Mud doesn’t stick in our world,’ Sir Simon had complacently but astutely observed. Lorimer could drift over the horizon as far as they were concerned: out of sight, very definitely out of mind.

  He knew also that any power he held over them was limited and very short-term. The measure of it was that he had managed to compel Hogg to phone Mrs Vernon and his own ‘punishment’ was merely a sacking. He had some leverage but it would swiftly become nugatory. So now was the time to strike: he had added up two and two and had arrived at his version of four, just as Dirk Van Meer had surmised. But they thought he was dealt with now, silenced by false promises, drifting away out of their lives, seduced by the chimerical prospect of a return to the select club one day. But he was not so guileless and not quite dealt with, not yet. Now was time to see if some mud would stick: perhaps he could still disturb all anticipations.

  As the cab swept up the elevated section of the M4 his eye was caught and held by a new advertising poster – a large white field and printed across it in black, lower case child’s handwriting, ‘sheer achimota’. David Watts was not wasting any time alerting the world to the coming of Sheer Achimota. Sheer Achimota would happen, that’s what. Suddenly Sheer Achimota seemed finally to be working for him too, in his own life.

  He bought his Air Austria ticket to Vienna and showed his passport at immigration. He looked for Flavia in the teeming shopping mall that was Terminal Three but he could see no sign of her. He waited five minutes outside the ladies’ toilet but she did not emerge and small tremors of worry began to affect him. There were many people in the place, that was true, hundreds, it was all too easy to miss one another. Then the thought came to him, unwelcome: this couldn’t be another of her crazy tricks, could it? Her unpredictable reversals? This whole Othello in Vienna number? Not another of her sly admonishments? No, surely not. Not Flavia. Not now. He thought of last night and it made him banish his doubts. He strode confidently to the information desk.

  ‘I wonder if you could page my friend, Flavia Malinverno. She’s somewhere in here and I can’t find her. Flavia Malinverno.’

  ‘Certainly, sir. And you are Mister –?’

  ‘I’m – he paused, thought fast. ‘Just tell her it’s Milo. Tell her Milo’s here.’

  He heard his new name – his old name – echo out among the bright shops and bars, the cafeterias and the burger franchises. She would hear it, he knew, and she would come; in fact he could see her in his mind’s eye, looking up from whatever she was doing and smiling, and she would walk through the parting crowd towards him with her long, leggy stride, her easy grace, the light catching the restless iridescence of her hair, her smile widening, her keen eyes shining, as she sauntered through the shifting, parting crowd towards him – Milo.