by John Boyne
In the meantime, word came to me via Thomas that the cowardly Pius IX, terrified of a Roman invasion which could cost him either his position or his life, or possibly both, had quit Rome for Gaeta, south of Naples – where he was eventually to stay in exile for several years – thus depriving me of both my income and my employment. All plans to build an opera house in Rome were shelved due to a sudden lack of funding and I found myself, temporarily at least, unwed and unemployed. This change in my fortunes caused me to question the sanity of taking part in the proposed duel. After all, there was nothing holding me in Italy. I could have easily fled the city and never had to encounter Lanzoni again, and I will admit that a part of me wanted to follow this course of action. However, it would have been a dishonourable act and even if my character were to remain unblemished I would have always remembered that I had run away from a fight. Therefore, almost despite myself, I resolved to stay and accept Lanzoni’s challenge.
The following morning was misty and as I stood in a private courtyard with Sabella in hysterics by the wall and Thomas acting as my second I felt incredibly miserable and was convinced that my life was finally coming to an end.
‘It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?’ I said to my nephew who stood holding my coat with a look of utter distress on his face. T don’t know this man, I meant him no harm by marrying his wife, and I look set to die for my sins because of it. Why can’t a man duel with a woman, eh? Can you tell me that? It’s hardly my argument.’
‘You’re not going to die, Uncle Matthieu,’ said Thomas, and for a moment I was afraid that he was going to start crying. ‘You can win, you know. You may be a lot older than him but physically you have ten years on him. He is full of rage, you couldn’t care less. His passions are stronger.’
I shook my head, experiencing a rare moment of self doubt. ‘Maybe it’s for the best,’ I said, taking off my jacket and waistcoat and examining the blade that I held in my hand. T can’t go on living for ever, after all. Despite all signs to the contrary.’
‘You can’t die either. You have too much to live for.’
‘Such as?’ If I was going, I wasn’t going to go without a little sympathy.
‘There’s me for one thing,’ said Thomas. ‘And there’s Marita. Our unborn child too.’
I stared at him in surprise. A hundred years later I would have screamed at him for his carelessness but, for now, I could only feel joy. ‘Your child,’ I said in some surprise, not seeing him as anything more than a child himself. ‘When did all this happen?’
‘Just recently. We only found out two days ago. So you see you cannot die. We need you.’
I nodded and experienced a rush of previously unfelt strength. ‘You are right, my boy,’ I said. ‘He can’t beat me. None of this has anything to do with me. Come on then, sir,’ I called across the courtyard. ‘Let us begin.’
We crossed swords back and forth across that courtyard for no more than four minutes, but it felt like days were passing us by as we danced from side to side. I could hear Sabella’s cries but ignored them – I had decided that no matter what happened, our relationship was over. I saw Thomas urging me on from the side, wincing whenever Lanzoni’s blade stung my arm or snagged my cheek. Eventually, with a great sweeping movement of one hand, I disarmed my adversary and pinned him to the ground. The tip of my sword pressed in upon his Adam’s apple and he stared up at me with beseeching eyes, begging for mercy, pleading for his life. I was furious that things had got this far and was close to pressing it in all the way and finishing the man off.
‘This has nothing to do with me!’ I roared. ‘It’s not my fault she was married!’
I toyed with the handle of the blade some more but eventually let him up and walked away. I strolled back towards Thomas, attempting to calm myself as I walked, pleased that I had overcome the certain bloodlust that exists inside all of us and allowed myself to feel compassion instead. I stepped ahead of my nephew and he turned to put my coat on my back.
‘You see, Thomas,’ I began happily, ‘there are times in a man’s life when -’
A great rush of feet came towards me from behind and, as I turned, my nephew did too, only too late to allow him to step out of the way, and his unhappy body stood there, an upright corpse, as Lanzoni ran towards him, blade outstretched, ready to run one or both of us through. Within seconds both were dead, one by my sword, one by Lanzoni’s.
There was silence in the courtyard and I merely glanced at my sometime wife who sat crying on the kerb now before bringing my nephew’s body back to his pregnant mistress. After we buried him, I left Italy and vowed never to return. Not if I lived to be a thousand.
Chapter 9
April 1999
The phone rang in the middle of the night and I immediately feared the worst. My eyes sprang open to utter darkness with an image of Tommy emblazoned on my mind. What I saw was a picture of my nephew, dead in a gutter somewhere in Soho, with his own eyes staring blindly upwards towards the sky, terrified by his last sight before death, his mouth open, his arms draped at improper angles from his torso, a trickle of blood creeping slowly away from him and escaping his body through his left ear as he grew colder and more rigid by the minute. Another death, another nephew, another boy I had failed to save. I answered the phone and the worst was confirmed. There had indeed been a death – why else would one be disturbed in the middle of the night – but it had not been Tommy’s.
‘Matthieu?’ said a voice, shocked and nervous at the other end. Not a police officer, I knew immediately, for there was panic in the tone. A sense of frightened urgency. I recognised the voice but couldn’t place it, as if the added resonance of fear changed it so slightly as to make it seem more distant to my memory.
‘Yes. Who is this?’
‘It’s P.W., Matthieu.’ My record producing friend and fellow investor at our satellite broadcasting station. ‘I’ve got the most shocking news. I don’t know how to tell you this.’ He paused as he struggled to find the three simple words. ‘James is dead.’
I sat up and shook my head in amazement. I’ve seen a lot of deaths in my time, some natural, some a little less so, but they never fail to surprise me when they take place. There’s a part of me that simply can’t fathom why other people’s bodies let them down so much when my own is so incredibly faithful to me. ‘Good Lord,’ I said after a moment, not quite sure how I should react or what response he was looking for. ‘How did it happen?’
‘It’s a little difficult to go into over the phone, Matthieu. Could you come over here?’
‘Over where? What hospital are you in?’
‘I’m not in a hospital, neither is James. We’re in his house. We need some ... help.’
My eyes narrowed; he wasn’t making any sense. ‘James is dead and you’re in his house?’ I asked. ‘Well, have you called a doctor, the police even? Maybe he isn’t dead at all. Maybe he’s just -’
‘Matthieu, he’s dead. Believe me. You have to come over here. Please. I don’t ask much of you, but -’ He started to ramble on about how long we had known each other, how much I meant to him, the kind of nonsense a man comes out with when he’s either about to get married, been drinking too much or finds himself in a state of bankruptcy. I held the phone away from my ear and reached over to pick up my bedside clock, which registered 03:18. I sighed and shook my head violently to shake off the sleep, running a hand through my hair and licking my dry lips as I did so. My mouth felt dry and the bed was warm and inviting. P.W. was still talking on the other end of the phone though and sounded as if he could go on for ever so eventually I was forced to interrupt.
‘I’ll be there in thirty minutes,’ I said. ‘And for God’s sake, you’d better not do anything until I do get there, all right?’
‘Oh, thank God. Thank you, Matthieu. I don’t know how I’m going to -’
I hung up.
I first met James Hocknell a couple of years before at a dinner at the Guildhall. We were there to celebrate the life of some w
orthy who had spent his entire career in the newspaper business and had recently made a small fortune from his autobiography, mostly because in it he hinted at relationships between prominent politicians of the previous forty years and some close female relations of the present Queen, some savoury, some not quite so much. Like so many men who are well versed in the libel laws of the country, however, he made sure never to mention a situation when an innuendo would do just as well, and never quoted an actual source other than to use the time honoured phrase ‘friends of ... told me ...’. I was seated at a table with the Foreign Secretary and his wife, a young actress who had just been nominated for an Academy Award and her middle-aged boyfriend – a well known figure in the racing world – a couple of young Honourables who were talking about a supermodel’s drug habit, and my own partner at the time, whose name I completely forget right now but who I recall had short dark hair, large lips and was a Lloyd’s name.
I was standing at the bar ordering drinks when I first laid eyes on James. He had just turned fifty then and was the editor of a tabloid newspaper, having left an assistant editor’s job at a reputable broadsheet a few years before. Circulation figures were down since he had taken over, mostly due to his decision to axe the bare breast from the inner pages of the rag, and he bore the look of a man who feared that the entire room was conspiring against him, when all that they were actually doing was ignoring him and allowing him to get on with his drinking in peace. Although I had never spoken to him before, I approached him and told him that I thought his work on The Times, particularly on a political scandal that had surfaced in the late eighties, had been admirable. I mentioned a Newsweek article he had once written on de Klerk, which had impressed me for its even handed ability to condemn without appearing to take a side, a rare talent in a commentator. He seemed pleased by my familiarity with his work and was keen to discuss it further.
‘What about now, then?’ he asked, frowning slightly as he accepted my offer of a small brandy. ‘Don’t think what I’m doing now is up to much, do you?’
I shrugged. ‘I’m sure it’s excellent,’ I said, perhaps in too much of a patronizing manner for my own good. ‘Only I never get as much time to read the papers as I wish. Otherwise I’d have a better grasp of the current oeuvre, I suppose.’
‘Oh, yes?’ he asked. ‘What is it you do then?’ I thought about it. It was a tough question. At the time I wasn’t doing anything much. Just relaxing. Enjoying life. Not a bad way to spend a decade or two.
‘I’m one of the idle rich,’ I said with a smile. ‘The kind of person you probably despise.’
‘Not at all. I’ve had ambitions to join that class myself for half my life.’
‘Any luck?’
‘Not a lot.’
He opened his mouth and waved his hand expansively over the mass of people who were milling around the hall, air-kissing each other with gusto, shaking each other’s hands, exuding wealth and privilege from every open orifice and puckered pore. Large breasts, small diamonds, older men, younger women. There were a lot of dinner jackets and small black dresses on display. As I squinted, the room appeared to be a collection of black and white dots, rushing to and from each other with alarming speed; for a moment I was taken back to images from some of Charlie’s old films. James appeared to be on the verge of saying something impressive about the other guests, les mots justes that would have summed up this ridiculous bunch and their general inanity, but an appropriate phrase escaped him on this occasion and eventually he just shook his head in defeat instead. ‘I’m a little drunk,’ he mentioned, which made me laugh as he said it with the slightly self-congratulatory air of a schoolboy caught in an illicit embrace with a girl from the upper sixth. I introduced myself to him then and he shook my hand firmly, attracting the barmaid’s attention with an arrogant click of his fingers.
‘Do you know what I hate about the rich?’ he asked me and I shook my head. ‘It’s the fact that you only meet them when they’re out like this, parading their glamour around for all to see, and they’re always so damn happy too. Have you ever seen any section of society who smiles as much as the rich? Of course they are rich, hence the name, so that would probably explain it ...’ He trailed off there, lost in the obvious nature of his remarks.
‘Even the rich have their worries,’ I said quietly. ‘It’s not a bed of roses for anyone, I expect.’
‘Are you rich?’ he asked me.
‘Very.’
‘And are you happy?’
‘Well, I’m satisfied.’
‘Listen, let me tell you something about money,’ he said, leaning forward and tapping me on the shoulder. ‘I’ve been in this game for thirty years and I don’t have a penny to call my own. Not a single fucking penny. I’m living from hand to mouth, from paycheque to paycheque. I’ve got a nice house, sure!’ he shouted. ‘But I’ve got three ex-wives to support and every fucking one of them has at least one kid that I have to shell out for as well. My money’s not my own, Mattie -’
‘It’s Matthieu.’
‘It goes into my account on payday and it’s taken out a few hours later, siphoned off to those blood-sucking leeches whom I had the misfortune to marry. Never again, I tell you. There’s not another woman on this planet who will ever get me to marry them now. Not one. Are you married?’
‘I have been,’ I said.
‘Widowed? Divorced? Separated?’
‘Let’s just say I’ve run the gamut.’
‘Then you know what I’m talking about. Every fucking one of them. Blood-sucking leeches. I can barely afford to feed myself three square meals some days and they’re all out there living the life of fucking Riley. I ask you. Is that right?’ I made to answer but he cut me off. ‘Listen,’ he continued, as if I had a choice now that he was on to what I would later realise to be his favourite topic. ‘When I was a boy starting out in this game, back when I was in my early twenties, thats how I lived but it seemed all right then because my future was ahead of me. I never had a penny back then either and come the end of the month I was eating cheese and crackers night after night with a cup of weak tea and calling it dinner. But I never minded then because I knew I was going to go far in this business and that, when I did, I’d make a fortune. I saw it coming, and it came too, I just never expected that I’d have to give the whole fucking lot of it away, that’s all.’
Around the time of meeting James, I was growing weary of my idle lifestyle and looking for a new investment. I hadn’t worked since leaving California with Stina in the fifties after the whole Buddy Rickles business and, while my bank balance was more than healthy and my annual income could have comfortably supported the annual expenses of, say, Manchester, I was growing a little restless with my own company and needed some excitement to be injected back into my life. I had attended that dinner at the Guildhall on the advice of a banker friend who was advising me on some of the avenues that I might take in order to re-enter the commercial world. He had already introduced me to P.W. and Alan, who had expressed an interest in setting up a satellite broadcasting station and the idea had appealed to me. My previous experience in television had been on the production side and, although it had ended in blacklisted disaster, I had enjoyed my time there and was attracted to the idea of a more hands-off managerial role, such as Rusty Wilson had enjoyed during my days at the Peacock. The concept of satellite broadcasting was one entirely of the age and that has always been a strong factor in influencing my decisions to become involved in a venture. However, neither of them had ever taken charge of a large business before and I was sure that I didn’t actually want to run the thing myself, just take an interest in it. After consulting with my fellow investors, I decided to approach James over a terrible dinner at San Paolo’s.
‘Here’s the thing, James,’ I said afterwards as the four of us sat with brandy and cigars in leather chairs by the log fire in the bar outside. ‘We have a little proposition for you.’
‘I thought you might, gents,’ he responded with
a wide smile, settling back in his chair and stuffing the cigar between his mouth, like a movie star about to make a multi-million dollar deal. ‘Didn’t think you were bringing me here just to watch me stuff me face and scratch me arse.’
Alan shuddered and I coughed away a laugh. ‘The three of us’, I began, indicating P.W., Alan and myself, ‘are planning a little business venture which we think you might be interested in joining us on.’
‘I’ve no money,’ he said quickly, interjecting with his favourite topic before I could cut him off. ‘There’s no point looking at me for money because those blood-sucking -’
‘Hold on, James,’ I said, raising a hand in the air to silence him. ‘Just listen to the offer first, that’s all I ask. We’re not looking for money.’
‘I’ve put my life savings into this business,’ said P.W. nervously and I glared at him as I don’t like to lose my momentum in a conversation, particularly when I am trying to get something out of it. ‘So we have to make it work,’ he continued before seeing my expression and shutting up.