‘Respect? What respect do you ever show to anybody? You write about joyful families, but where are they, all of these joyful families? You write about love, when there’s nothing but deceit. You make people believe in a happy world that doesn’t exist, and what greater cruelty could there ever be than that? “Look, folks! Mom and Dad and Thanksgiving dinner! Look, folks! Good overcomes evil, and the bad people go to jail! Oh, we may have to struggle. We may have to shed a few tears. But it’s always waiting for us, in the end! The answer to all of our prayers! The Golden City!”’
The young man took off his sunglasses. Both of his eyes were totally bloodshot, like a vampire. ‘The trouble is, it’s all a mirage, isn’t it, Frank? It’s all a story, made up in your head. If Only Pigs Could Sing, Frank. If only they fucking could.’
Frank took out his cellphone, ready to call the police, but the young man replaced his sunglasses, turned around, and walked briskly away through the cemetery until he had disappeared amongst the headstones.
That night, Astrid came around to see him just after eight o’clock, and they ordered take-out Chinese: prawn balls, shredded beef, chicken with ginger and vegetarian noodles.
‘How was your day?’ asked Frank, and promptly dropped a prawn ball under the couch.
‘Good,’ said Astrid.
‘Well, that’s good,’ said Frank, chasing the prawn ball with a spoon.
‘How about you?’
‘Good.’ He sat up straight. He knew that he was going to have to say it.
‘Good?’ she repeated.
‘Well, yes and no. It depends. I found out something interesting.’
‘Yes?’
‘I found out where you went.’
Astrid stared at him. ‘You did what?’
‘I followed you, OK? You can’t blame me. I care about you. I want to know who you are and what you do. I want to know who your friends are.’
She tossed down her chopsticks. ‘You followed me? You had absolutely no right!’
‘I’m sorry, I beg to disagree. You know everything there is to know about me. You know where I was born. You know all about my family. My job. My marriage. My favorite movies. I never hide anything. Why shouldn’t I know something about you?’
‘Because I don’t want you to. Isn’t that a good enough reason? Besides, when did I ever ask you anything about yourself? You volunteered it. Now you’ve ruined everything.’
She stood up, went across to the door and took down her coat. Frank got up, too.
‘Yesterday you went to Star-TV and today I followed you to Charles Lasser’s house. For Christ’s sake, Astrid, you and I are having an affair. We’re lovers! Don’t you think I have a right to know if you’re seeing another man?’
Astrid opened the door but Frank immediately slammed it shut. ‘This is insane! I’m committed to you, Astrid! I’ve crossed the road, and I’m never going back!’
Her cheeks were flushed and it was obvious that she was trying hard to keep her temper under control. ‘That still doesn’t give you the right to pry into my private business.’
‘Particularly your private business with Charles Lasser, Esquire?’
‘What I do when I walk out of here is nothing to do with you, Frank. If you can’t accept that, then I’ll just have to walk out of here for good.’
‘What’s the matter? You don’t trust me?’
‘Of course I trust you. But you don’t need to know anything more about me than you know already. It’s just not necessary.’
Frank looked around the room, almost as if he were expecting to see a more reasonable Astrid still sitting on the couch. Then he looked back at her, and stepped away from the door. ‘Go ahead. If you want to leave, be my guest. I thought that you and I had a future together, but it looks like I was deluded.’
‘Frank . . . I’ve told you so many times before. You can’t own me. I’m not one of your characters. I’m very fond of you. I think I might even be in love with you. But you’ll just have to take that on trust.’
‘Are you having an affair with Charles Lasser?’
‘I’m not going to answer that.’
‘Is Charles Lasser the man who’s been beating you?’
‘Frank!’
He knew by the tone of her voice and the way she was looking at him that if she walked out now he would never see her again, and of course he would never know where to find her. He went back to the couch and sat down, leaving her standing by the door.
When sunlight filled his bedroom the following morning, he woke up to find that Astrid was sleeping face-down, so close beside him that she was breathing on his arm. He thought he had never felt this way about any woman before, and never would again. He stroked the fine golden-brown hairs at the back of her neck, and ran his fingertip down her spine. God, she was magic.
As he lifted the sheet, he saw that she had an angry scarlet circle on her left shoulder. Lifting it further, he saw two more circles, above her hips, and one on each of her buttocks. They all looked sore, and they were still weeping. Jesus. Cigarette burns.
His immediate reaction was to shake her awake and demand to know who had burned her. But then he thought about her standing at the door last night, prepared to walk out on him and never come back. It was obvious that her life was a whole lot more dark and complicated than he could even guess at, and he didn’t want to lose her by blundering around like a lovesick Dusty from Pigs. How could he save her if she left him? He let the sheet fall softly back, turned over, and pretended that he was asleep.
He knew what he was going to do, however, and nobody in the world was going to stop him.
Later that morning, when Astrid had left, Frank called his old friend John Berenger at Star-TV.
‘Sloop, it’s Frank. How’s it going?’
‘Are you kidding me? It’s the California Gold Rush all over again, as far as we’re concerned. Our daytime ratings have gone into orbit. I don’t know how long it’s going to be before these Arabs blow Star-TV to kingdom come, but we’re making a shitload of money while we’re waiting to die.’ He hesitated, and then he said, ‘Sorry, Frank. Sorry. Me and my big mouth. How have you been? That was so sad about Danny. Tragic. Tragic. You got our flowers, yes? How’s Margot?’
‘Actually, Sloop, Margot and I have been taking a break from each other. Losing Danny . . . well, that was a hell of a jolt. We both decided that we needed some individual space.’
‘I’m real sorry to hear that, Frank. Kim and me, you know . . . our hearts go out to you.’
‘Thanks, Sloop. Listen, you probably know that Pigs has been put on ice.’
‘I heard, yes. Pigs and every other show that’s worth a damn.’ Three years ago, John Berenger had been head of creative development at Fox, and his boisterous enthusiasm for Pigs had helped to make it a hit from the very first episode. He was big and loud and opinionated, although he wasn’t anywhere near as big and loud and opinionated as his boss, Charles Lasser.
Frank said, ‘Thing is, Sloop, I could use some work right now. I don’t need the money, but I’m hopeless at golf and I can’t sit here all day with my thumb up my ass.’
‘Go write the Great American Novel. Everybody else is.’
‘I wish I could, but comedy is all I know.’
‘I’m sorry, Frank. I have all the writers I need right now. And there’s no telling when those Dar Tariki Tariqat lunatics are going to bomb us off the air, too. I mean, Charlie Lasser may be talking tough, but it’s only going to take a couple of hundred pounds of TNT and everybody at Star-TV is going to be heading for the hills, leaving a long trail of diarrhoea.’
‘Well, I realize that. But I have this great idea for a new comedy series. It’s controversial, it’s funny, but Islamically speaking, it’s politically correct, so it won’t upset any would-be terrorists.’
‘What’s the concept?’
‘I’d rather not discuss it over the phone, if that’s OK. Maybe we can meet.’
‘OK. What’s today? How ab
out tomorrow morning, around eleven thirty? If we carry on talking long enough, we may even be able to drag it on through lunch. How do you like salmon with chermoula?’
‘Mmm-mmmh, I love it! What the hell is chermoula?’
Nineteen
Frank was just about to leave his room when the phone rang.
‘Mr Bell? It’s reception. There’s a Mr Strange here to see you.’
He went downstairs and found Nevile waiting for him in the lobby, dressed in a loose black linen suit and very dark glasses. ‘Frank! I’m glad I caught you. Something really important has come up.’
‘Oh, yes? Concerning what?’
‘Listen, this is a hard thing to ask you, but I think we should try to talk to Danny again.’
‘I thought we were leaving the Danny thing alone. Don’t you remember? Madness and death.’
‘Yes, I know, but I received more automatic writing last night, and I’m sure that it’s Richard Abbott trying to get through. The things he says . . . well, to my mind it’s further evidence that this terror campaign could somehow be connected with child abuse.’
‘Have you told the police?’
‘Not yet, no. To be quite honest, I think that Lieutenant Chessman is losing faith in me. His superiors want to find Arabs, and if I can’t confirm that it’s Arabs, they’re not really interested. They don’t want to believe that this could be a home-grown protest, like the Murrah Building, only a hundred times worse. But there’s a crisis coming, Frank. They’re going to set off a whole lot more bombs, and if there’s any way that we can stop them, we have to try it.’
‘Let’s have a drink.’
They sat on the shady veranda of the New World Bar on Sunset, opposite a huge billboard with a grinning 30-foot cutout of George Clooney on it. Frank ordered a beer but Nevile stuck to mineral water.
Frank raised his glass to George Clooney. ‘That’s some piece of sign-painting,’ he said. ‘You can even see the hairs up his nose.’
Nevile reached into his inside pocket and handed Frank a print-out. ‘I was trying to write a letter to my publishers yesterday afternoon but this is what came up. I just couldn’t stop it, couldn’t control it.’
DaY is cumin soon yore goin to Be sorre weer goin 2 give you baCk what you give out to Us. Alwiz hurtin us & mistretin us but now its yore turn. Dar Tariki TariQuat is goin to bring you tHe dark lik you alwiz made our livs so dark. You made us feel lik 0 so thTs what weer goin 2 do to you Make you feel like 0. WE WAS goin thru HELl an all you ever dID was say that lif was happe but lif was NEVER happe lif was hell.’
‘You see?’ said Nevile. ‘I’m ninety-nine percent certain this is coming through from the spirit of Richard Abbott. He says that Dar Tariki Tariqat is going to bring us darkness and a life of hell. But the interesting thing is, he doesn’t say a word about blasphemy. He says the reason that Dar Tariki Tariqat want to punish the entertainment industry is because it mocked them with images of happy families while they were being hurt and mistreated. “We was going through hell and all you ever did was say that life was happy.” Richard Abbott doesn’t sound to me like a Palestinian suicide bomber, or anybody with any connections with Al Qaeda, or Hezbollah.’
Frank reread the print-out and handed it back. ‘OK, I agree, he doesn’t. What does he sound like?’
‘He sounds to me like a victim of long-term child abuse.’
‘What?’
‘He sounds bitter, and crushed, and utterly hopeless – all of his humanity beaten out of him. He was happy to die so long as he could get his revenge on the society that destroyed his life. And he wasn’t just looking to punish the people who actually beat him and abused him, but all of us, especially Hollywood. Everybody who tries to pretend that the world is sunny and bright while so many children are living in darkness.’
‘Danny – or whoever it is that’s pretending to be Danny – said he was abused, too.’
‘That’s right. The trouble is, this isn’t really enough evidence to take to the police. I don’t want to send them off on the wrong track. All I have so far is the uncorroborated ravings of Richard Abbott and Danny’s complaints that “Daddy hurt me.” I need badly to talk to Danny again, or whoever it is that’s pretending to be Danny.’
Frank hesitated for a moment and then he said, ‘Danny paid me a visit, the night before last.’
‘Really? Just like that? You weren’t trying to make contact?’
‘It was just after three in the morning. He touched my cheek and woke me up. He looked exactly like Danny, just like he looked before, except that he was wearing some pajamas that I didn’t recognize. He told me that his daddy had beaten him and done things to him. Sexual things, I guess. He said that his daddy cried and said he was sorry but still kept on doing it.’
Nevile sipped his water. ‘This spirit is trying very, very hard to elicit your sympathy, isn’t he?’
‘You say “he,” but that’s the strange part about it. I took hold of his hand and it felt like a woman’s hand.’
‘You actually felt it?’
Frank nodded. ‘It was definitely a woman’s hand, with rings on.’
Nevile took off his dark glasses and his expression was very grave. ‘He didn’t ask you to do anything? For instance, he didn’t ask you to find his daddy and punish him for what he’d done?’
‘No. He wouldn’t even tell me who he was. I asked him, but he said that he wasn’t allowed to tell me.’
‘Well . . . that’s not as silly as it sounds. Even when people die, they often go on doing what they were told to do, when they were still alive. Most of the time they don’t realize that they’re beyond being punished.’
Frank finished his beer. ‘I’ll tell you something, Nevile. The more I hear what it’s like to be dead, the less I feel like dying.’
They drove to the Travel Town railroad museum in Griffith Park. This had always been one of Danny’s favorite places, because he could climb on the old locomotives and pretend that he was an engineer, whooping to make the whistle noises. Frank had liked it, too, because he could sit in one of the passenger cars and work on his scripts, while ostensibly spending quality time with his son. This afternoon there were only four or five other visitors, only half visible in the dusty sunlight, but somehow the air seemed to be crowded with memories.
Nevile looked around and said, ‘This is good. I can feel some very strong spiritual resonance here.’
Frank said, ‘I don’t get it. Why did we have to come here? I know Danny loved this place, but this spirit isn’t really Danny, is he? Or she?’
Nevile smiled. ‘No, she isn’t. But it’s easier for you to picture him here, and she relies on your remembered images of him to make him appear.’ They sat down on a bench. ‘Take your time, Frank. Think about Danny, when you used to bring him here to play. Try to see him, as he was, standing on the footplate, waving to you.’
‘Where are you headed, Danny?’ Frank asked, under his breath.
‘Salt Lake City, Chicago, and beyond. Whooo! Whooo!’
He heard a small boy laughing. He saw a child’s legs, running between the railroad cars.
‘I’ll tell you something, Frank – this place is teeming with memories. I can feel them. I can hear them. All the people who rode on those trains, all the people who came to meet them when they arrived. And boys, Frank. All of the boys like Danny who climb up on to those locomotives and dream about being a grown-up.’
Which is something that Danny will never be, Frank thought.
They must have sat on that bench for nearly twenty minutes. The sun moved around so that it was shining through the windows of the nearest passenger car and Frank had to cup his hand over his eyes. He glanced at Nevile, but he was still sitting up straight, his hands clasped together, staring at nothing in particular.
‘Anything?’ Frank asked him.
‘Oh, he’s here, all right,’ said Nevile matter-of-factly. ‘He’s here, but he’s hiding.’
‘Isn’t he going to talk to
us?’
‘Give him time.’
They waited another five minutes, and then Nevile said, ‘All right,’ and stood up.
‘What is it?’ Frank asked him.
‘He wants to talk to us. He’s in that old locomotive over there, beside the tree.’
Frank felt his heart beat quicken. Nevile began to walk across the tracks and Frank followed him. Halfway toward the locomotive he stumbled on the ballast and nearly fell, and he felt almost as if somebody had deliberately tripped him up. Ever since he had met Nevile, he had become increasingly aware that the world around him was jostling with spirits, some of them mean, some of them kindly, but most of them bewildered and lost.
They reached the locomotive and stopped beside the footplate. A plaque said that it was a Central Pacific 4-4-0, dating from the 1860s. It had a huge bell-shaped smokestack and the steps up to its footplate were shiny and worn with age.
‘Are you going to go up?’ asked Nevile.
‘Do you think he’s really there?’
‘He said he was. I don’t have any reason to doubt him.’
Frank took hold of the first rung, but then he hesitated. ‘Crazy, isn’t it? I think I’m scared.’
‘Whatever’s up there, Frank – whether it’s Danny or not – it’s only a spirit. It can’t hurt you, you know that.’
‘Yes,’ said Frank, although he didn’t feel much more confident. He climbed up on to the first step, and then the next, and then he was level with the footplate. He was still half dazzled by the sun, so he couldn’t see Danny at first. But as his eyes became accustomed to the shadow he saw that Danny was standing in the far corner, his hair sticking up, his face pasty white. He was wearing a man’s shirt with faded brown stripes, its sleeves so long that his hands were hidden. He was barefoot.
‘Danny?’ said Frank, a catch in his throat.
‘Is he there?’ asked Nevile.
Frank looked down at him and nodded.
‘Go on up, Frank, I’ll follow you.’
Cautiously, Frank swung himself into the cabin. Danny stared at him but didn’t smile, almost as if he didn’t know who Frank was. It could have been the fact that it was so shadowy, but it felt distinctly chilly up here.
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