“What really happened to you? I mean, why didn’t you become a professional actor? I think you must have been very good.”
“You may be surprised to hear that there was a girl involved. I’d been offered a place in the Old Vic company. Nothing earth-shattering, but a good start. I was to hold the spear carrier’s spear for him while he carried some other fellow’s spear. But before the season opened I met Gudrun.”
“Gudrun?”
“She was Swiss. Still is, probably. I met her at a party. She had this . . . luminosity. I was insane for her. Our romance was intoxicating, and we decided to marry.” Lynden had again ebbed imperceptibly back toward the somber.
“You know, Edward, you really have no need—I mean, I don’t need to know . . . everything about you.”
“No, no, of course. I’m sorry, I was just trying to explain why I came to give up acting. The short version is that I went out to visit Gudrun in Geneva. I stayed with her family: stolid Swiss mid-bourgeois. They spoke no English, and my German was all from comic books. You know, I could shout schnell and achtung and Schweinhund, but that was it. After a couple of days she took me to the skiing chalet the family kept in the mountains, in the shadow of the Matterhorn. But this was summer. It was very beautiful and isolated. We spent three days walking through the flower meadows—remember, it was the seventies!
“And then she left me there, on my own. A week passed. She didn’t telephone or write. Nothing. Silence. I thought I had done something wrong, offended against some unfathomable Swiss custom. I decided to go home. I was desolate. It took me a month. I hitched, took trains and buses, and walked, stopping at every bar I could find. When I got home I found a letter waiting for me. It just said, There was a test and you failed. You see, she’d wanted to see if my love could endure setbacks. I think it was her father’s idea to leave me there without a word.”
“Edward, this sounds very sad, but weren’t you just jilted? Doesn’t it happen to everybody? I can’t see why you couldn’t continue your stage career.”
Alice was finding the story of Lynden’s woes a little self-indulgent. However, this had the strange effect of putting her further at her ease. She even entertained fleetingly the thought that that might be the purpose of the account. But no, surely no man could be so altruistic as to make himself look ridiculous simply to make her feel more comfortable?
“I was in no fit state when I returned,” he continued wearily. “I asked for a short break in my contract. They said they’d see. I went to India. I stayed for a year living in a hovel, smoking opium. Then I spent a year trying to stop smoking opium. And then another year looking for spiritual awareness. By the time I got back I was yesterday’s man, without ever having been today’s. My father was pleased, though.”
“Well, thanks for that. I really don’t know what to say. Are you expecting some similar account of my sentimental education?”
“What? No, no. I’m sorry I’ve been boring you.”
“Quite the contrary; I enjoyed listening to you. But perhaps we should get down to discussing the reason for my visit.”
“Oh, yes, my Audubon.”
Alice had carefully prepared her speech. She had sensed he was an impatient man, so she wanted to keep it short, her arguments punchy. Even so, there were several important points to make, and she’d timed the full version at eight and a half minutes.
“Edward, I really think that you should reconsider—”
“Fine.”
“I beg your pardon?”
I said fine. I’ll reconsider. Or rather I won’t reconsider.”
“Wha—?”
“Won’t reconsider my original decision to sell. Through you.”
Alice’s mind had slowed down, as if she were thinking through treacle. Not reconsidering . . . through you. So he was . . . click.
“Oh. How pleasing. But the phone call? What’s changed your mind?”
“You mean why haven’t I changed my mind?”
“Yes, yes.”
“You really don’t know?”
Alice knew.
“I suppose it’s because you’re just a vain and silly man who doesn’t know his own mind and likes to keep others waiting on his whims.”
Lynden laughed. Alice thought the laugh might have been a little forced to begin with, but after a second its rolling momentum took over, and the eyes began to collaborate. It was a deep, bubbling laugh, and Alice found it impossible not to join in.
“I genuinely fear I may have been rumbled.”
“So you admit this whole thing was a charade to, to—”
“Persuade you to come back here.”
Although Alice now knew this was the case, she was shocked to hear it put so bluntly. Shocked and exhilarated.
CHAPTER NINE
Drinking It Over
“AND YOU EXPECT me to believe that nothing happened? Little girl all alone in the middle of nowhere, misses the last train—how convenient—has to spend the night, and you’re telling me there wasn’t a knock on the door, and an ‘Oh, I just thought you might like a nightcap or a hot water bottle’ and then out with his tackle and on with the game?”
There was a certain amount of very uncertain laughter from the small group gathered around Alice’s desk. Oakley was there, and Clerihew, and Pam.
ALICE HERSELF WAS paying attention with, at best, half her mind. That lunchtime she had decided to go back to the crosswalk. All these months she had been walking miles on elaborate detours to avoid it, discovering new side streets and Dickensian back alleys, full of the sort of shops she’d thought long since banished from London: a saddler’s, an umbrella shop, a tiny printer’s complete with a man in an ink-stained apron, a shop selling nothing but fountain pens.
But now she faced it again, stood where she had stood.
People flowed around her; she thought she saw some of them stare at her with the casual hostility that Londoners save for those who get in their way. She half expected to see him there, frozen as she had first seen him, with the look of wonder and acceptance on his face. She tried hard to remain objective, to study herself, probe her own feelings, as if she were conducting a scientific experiment. And, of course, like all experimenters, she had some preconceptions about what she would find. Scientists always knew roughly what would or should emerge from their work. There were no blind leaps, just a nudging forward in the direction already chosen for you, dictated by myriad other minds, by structures and institutions. But within those limits, a mind could stay clear and open and innocent, could listen for the subtle music of nature, could find a kind of truth.
What she expected was a wash of raw emotion, an unmediated surge of passion and anguish through her veins. She had braced herself for the onslaught, convinced that, if she could just withstand it, she would emerge stronger, more able to face the world.
And yes, it was painful. Her eyes filled with tears. She wanted to stretch out and embrace the perfect tragic form of the boy, to protect him from the bone-crushing weight of the world. But there was something contained, restricted, in her sadness, as if the genie were raging inside its bottle. She neither trembled nor sobbed. She knew that if she waited long enough and allowed the surge to continue, perhaps it would overwhelm her; yes, she could indulge, abandon herself. But that would be her own choice.
A sense of loss, as well as of relief, came with this knowledge of control. She felt almost empty. He was still inside her, but he had lost some of his power, some of his force.
SHE TRIED HARD to tune back in to the office discussion.
Andrew was camping it up for the crowd, but Alice could sense that there was something serious and not at all nice burrowing inside his brain. It made her feel uncomfortable and annoyed in about equal proportions.
“No nightcaps, no anythings. He was the perfect gentleman.”
“Of course he’d be the perfect gentleman,” said Pam helpfully. “After all, he is a gentleman, isn’t he?”
“Oh, no, not a gentleman,�
�� said Clerihew, “a lord. In some ways the opposite of a gentleman.”
“Yes,” said Andrew, rather angrily, “it means they don’t bother about dirty lavatories, and swear, and say what instead of pardon. But we’re getting off the point. You’ve as good as told us, Alice, that he only came back on board because he fancied you.”
“Ooooh!” said Pam, at the naughtiness of it all.
“I didn’t say that and I don’t believe it.”
“Well, he sure as f— anything didn’t want me to go along and persuade him.”
“For heaven’s sake, Andy, give it a rest,” said Clerihew, his eyes working feverishly to detect the mood of the group. “I think Alice has done a jolly good job. She’s saved your bacon and you should be thanking her, not—”
“Not what, you nit?”
“N-not being horrid to her.”
“Hear, hear, Cecil,” said Oakley, who’d come along to congratulate Alice and wasn’t happy about what he took to be Andrew’s carping. “Let’s remember we’re a team, all pulling at the same—er, thing.”
“Yes, one for all and all for one,” said Cedric.
“Shut up, Cedric. No one’s suggesting Alice hasn’t done a fantastic job. I was just . . . I was just . . .”
“ANNOYING LITTLE SHAG, that Clerihew, by the sound of him.”
Leo was offering support in the White Lion.
“Annoying isn’t the half of it. Made it look as if I were pissed off about Alice getting the Audubon back—you know, jealous of her success.Which is completely unfair. I was pissed off about Alice getting off with that posh wanker Lynden. My jealousy was purely personal and sexual. And it’s not just me. I’m pretty sure he had something to do with Crumlish getting the bum’s rush.”
“The amusingly fey fin-de-siècle chap, straight out of the Aubrey Beardsley Yellow Book?”
“Yeah. He wasn’t quite my cup of absinthe—I always reckon that camp humor is a cheat, a way of drawing stuff out to earn you extra time to think of something funny, or just elaborate bitchiness, but that’s not a reason to can someone, not after however many bloody years. And he was about the best expert there. You should never sack the talent. Basic tenet of modern management. But the word is—and I got this from Pam, who has a finger in most pies, gossipwise—that the Americans wanted Crumlish out so Oakley and Clerihew cooked up a scheme between the two of them. Clerihew suggested that Crumlish made a grab for him.”
“Ouch!”
“Ouch indeed. Now, leaving aside the fact that Crumlish had pretty fucking impeccable taste in most things and therefore wouldn’t touch the fat little shit with his silver-tipped cane, I don’t actually think he was gay. That was his dark secret.”
“Why didn’t that come out?”
“The sexual harassment story never officially saw the light of day. It was all just described as down—I mean right-sizing. The terms dead wood and new blood were both used.”
“Can’t resist a mixed metaphor, your new management.”
“If they really wanted to hack away some dead wood, they could have started with Clerihew, who for all his fawning and his bow ties and his fob watch and his waistcoats is a fucking idiot; ask him for a valuation and he’ll um and ah and start pulling at his crotch and sweating, with his hair getting lanker and danker and his little Schubert-style specs misting up, and the next thing you know he’s in the corner on his back with his legs waving in the air like a wood louse, with a keeeek-keeeek sound coming out of him.
“Or, for that matter, they could have dumped the enchanting Ophelia. Couldn’t much bear the thought of not being able to drink her in anymore, I mean just the general loveliness of her, but the fact is she doesn’t do anything. And I mean anything. She looks stunning at a sale, but in terms of work you might as well have an inflatable doll.”
“So you want advice about how to get back into Alice’s good books?”
“God, I don’t know. I’m not sure the thing is susceptible to rational analysis and considered action. If they don’t fancy you, they don’t fancy you.”
“Defeatist! The one thing you have to remember about women is that they don’t just go by how big your pecs are.”
“Yeah, I know that.”
“And because it’s never just a physical thing with them, you’ve always a chance of winning them round with the force of your eloquence, or your sparkling wit, or, God help us, your sensitivity. The negotiations are always, like the girls themselves, open-ended.”
“Yes, yes, all fine in theory,” said Andrew, without acknowledging the smut, “but it’s easy for you to go on like that when you have hordes of wanton, nubile girl students hurling themselves at your lectern like nymphomaniacal lemmings.”
“Ah, the poor sweet innocent things. I almost pity them.”
Andrew and Leo fell quiet for a moment as they contemplated the fate of the lemmings. Andrew had long been jealous of Leo’s fabled rutting. Easy access to wave upon wave of pretty eighteen-year-olds had been one of the reasons Andrew had set his mind on an academic career. Not the main reason, or perhaps even in the top three, but certainly top five. He knew from first-hand experience the false glow of allure that attached to any lecturer not actually old, smelly, or brown-toothed. His brief brush with tutoring back during his Ph.D. days had shown him that even he, unsure and diffident as he then was, could acquire a fan club. Although Leo was a little ill knit, Andrew didn’t doubt that his darkly sinister manner and quicksilver intelligence would have the girls shivering with excitement in their dorms, knocking shyly at his door, lingering at the end of lectures, and moaning in frenzied ecstasy as he—
“What you need,” said Leo, “is another opportunity to shine outside the office. Any socials coming up?”
“Well, funny you should mention it, but there is, sort of. I was about to bring it up myself. You know we have these semiregular, totally crap, Friday-night drinks?”
“Oh, yeah, the ones nobody goes to except you and the rubber-band lady, what’s her name?”
“That would be the ever-trusty Pam again.”
“Pam. Nothing going on there, I hope?”
“Oh, no no no.” Andrew shivered ungallantly. “And it’s not just me and Pam. No, there’s usually a few more of the sadder, less socially adept who turn up. Not Alice, though, even if you’d have to lump her in with the misfits these days. At least not since the first couple of times, before . . . well, her incident. Clerihew has been known to show his shiny face, just long enough to sponge a couple of sweet sherries or a crème de menthe, or whatever it is he drinks. And, yes, I know I’m not covering myself in glory here by admitting that I go, but it just seems to me that if there’s a drink on, you really should be there, whatever the circumstances. Sort of a duty thing.
“Where was I? Oh, yes, there’s a newfound enthusiasm for the idea of team-building social events. All driven by the Yanks, of course, with their chief eunuch, Oakley, in the van. He was jabbering about a weekend in some country-house conference-center place, but the mean sods decided that that was too expensive. Now they’ve hijacked the Friday evening two weeks away and made it compulsory. They’ve suggested we bring partners or friends along. Alice has got to be there. She looked a bit less than thrilled but said she’d invite along some friend of hers, called Crêpe Suzette or Odin or something stupid, not having a live partner.”
“She didn’t say that?”
“No, but you could tell it’s what she was thinking. At least she isn’t bringing Baron Arseface.”
“Ah,” said Leo, doing a wily-Oriental face, “a picture is beginning to form. You want me to come with you to some boring office piss-up? What for, exactly? I mean, what am I supposed to do, stand around and laugh at your jokes to make you look funny and popular?”
“Well, yes, actually.”
“Circulate and tell everyone I speak to what a fine fellow you are?”
“that’d be nice.”
“Generally sparkle so people will think you have lots of interes
ting friends and must therefore be interesting yourself, while not sparkling so much that I throw you into the shadows?”
“Check.”
“Okay. But it’ll cost you.”
“Pint?”
“And a crème de menthe chaser.”
“Beer nuts?”
“Beer nuts good. I was joking about the crème de menthe.”
“Figured. But that doesn’t count as sparkling, you know. Barely even pétillant.”
“Hang on a minute. What were we talking about before Clerihew raised his cherubic head? Your Alice. Yes, what exactly did happen?”
“SO,” SAID ODETTE, leaning over the table in what had become their usual wine bar, “what exactly did happen?”
Alice had finally managed to get hold of Odette, and it was Odette who was full of apologies for straying out of reach.
“Things have been happening,” she said over the phone. “All kinds of things. Let’s meet and exchange stories.”
Alice was a little drunk but also quite happy. She’d felt instantly comfortable with Odette, who, beyond a tentative initial inquiry, hadn’t pried at all about the Dead Boy, as if she knew that nothing productive could come of it. But she had refused to say what “all kinds of things” were until Alice had told the full story of the latest Quantock adventure.
“Nothing, I swear. I can’t pretend I wasn’t flattered by the thought that he . . . you know, liked me. Liked me in that way—”
“And you’re sure he did? Oh, I don’t mean to suggest that he wouldn’t, but . . .”
“No, I understand. But I’m pretty sure—as sure as I could be. It was obvious that the mind-changing business over the Audubon was just an excuse to get me down there.”
“How roguish.”
“But I honestly don’t think that seduction was on his mind.”
“Oh, Alice!”
“No, really. Well, maybe somewhere on his mind, but not the front bit. You see, I think he was lonely more than anything. He’s a bit of a thespian at heart—did I say he used to be a talented actor?”
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