“You don’t see yourself as a future commissioner, then?”
“I think that’s more Raymond van Wyk’s style.”
Al-Shadhuli was one of the people in positions of influence whose friendship van Wyk had assiduously cultivated. The two men shared an interest in chess and were sometimes to be found of an evening at a restaurant or café in the vicinity of FPP HQ, hunched over a game. More often than not van Wyk lost to the NACA Liaison, and Parry could not help but wonder whether this was due to artless chess-playing or artful politicking.
“You think so?” al-Shadhuli said. “How interesting.”
“I’m not really commissioner material,” Parry added.
Al-Shadhuli clucked his tongue. “You English. Underestimating yourselves is a national pastime. Céleste, I know, rates you very highly indeed, captain. And this shinju business. Insh’Allah, you will get to the bottom of that soon, and when you do... Well, I dare say it won’t harm your chances of promotion when the time comes.”
“And if I don’t get to the bottom of it?”
“I’m confident you will, Captain Parry.”
“Sir Jack!”
Suddenly Parry found himself enfolded in an enthusiastic hug.
“Zounds and gadzooks, thou hast made it to our revels!” Cecilia took a step back, examining him and herself. “And looketh at us! We could be twins!”
She indicated his uniform and her dress, an ivory crêpe-de-chine shift with a gold-braid trim around the neck, offset with some very expensive-looking gold jewellery.
“Verily,” replied Parry.
Cecilia turned to the NACA Liaison, who appeared nonplussed by the peculiar English she and Parry had been using. “Excuse me, Mr al-Shadhuli, would you mind if I borrowed the captain off you for something very important?”
Al-Shadhuli gave a courteous smile and bowed. “Not in the least. You’re well, Cecilia?”
“Very,” Cecilia said over her shoulder. She was already dragging Parry away, although, truth be known, Parry was not exactly resisting.
When they had put a few metres between them and al-Shadhuli, Cecilia leaned over and whispered in Parry’s ear, “Saved you, didn’t I? You looked like you were about to pass out from boredom.”
“Or Mr al-Shadhuli’s breath,” Parry replied.
Cecilia hooted. “Sir Jack! How very unknightly of you.”
“Must be the booze talking.” Parry held up and squinted at his half-empty flute.
“You’ve hardly touched that. Come on. I bet you’d rather have a beer. Let’s get you one, and then we’ll go find Ma.”
Linking her arm in his, Cecilia quick-marched Parry out of the living room and into the adjoining dining room, where catering staff were laying out stacks of crockery and rows of cutlery on a large table in readiness for a buffet supper. A bar had been set up in one corner of the room. Cecilia took Parry’s unfinished kir from him, asked for a bottled Mexican beer, thrust that into his hand, and ordered a beer for herself as well.
“Cecilia...”
“Don’t get your underpants in a knot, Jack. Ma said I could have one drink.”
“Really?”
“Would I lie to you?”
Parry looked at the bartender, who nodded. “One drink for Miss Cecilia,” the bartender said, holding up a finger. “No more.”
“There. See? The Alcohol Police already have their undercover operative in place.” Cecilia clinked the neck of her bottle against Parry’s. “Here we go, then. Chin-chin.”
“Cheers.”
Parry observed Cecilia out of the corner of his eye as she tilted back her beer-bottle and took a sip. She was the image of her mother. It never ceased to amaze him how alike they were. She had the same colouring. The same wide eyes, with irises so dark brown they were almost black. The same lustrous sable hair worn, just like her mother’s, centre-parted and shoulder-length with a wave in it that sinuously described the line of her cheekbones. Cecilia was a few kilogrammes of puppy-fat plumper than Anna, and she had her father’s nose, much more pointed and hawkish than her mother’s little retroussé button. Other than that, everything about her – the pert, swaybacked posture, her mannerisms, the way she canted her head to one side when she laughed or was listening intently – was pure Anna. It was as though Cecilia was her mother in prototype, an incompletely formed version that, with the addition of a few years and a few social graces, would become a near-exact copy, just as gracious, just as elegant.
Cecilia belched and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
There was still some way to go, obviously.
“All right then,” she said. “Let’s go track down the old dear.”
Anna was, as Parry as had guessed, out on the terrace. She was wearing a silk slip-dress under a patterned chiffon blouse, both items black. Had she chosen the colour because it looked chic? Or to remind people that she was a widow? He hoped it was the former. Surely she had observed a sufficient period of mourning by now.
Surrounding her was a cluster of half a dozen people, all but one of them, he could not fail to notice, men. If not for Cecilia, he would have held back and waited for a more opportune moment, when there was less of an audience present, before approaching Anna. As it was, with Cecilia pulling him by the wrist, he had no alternative but to let himself be drawn into the centre of the assemblage. He felt all eyes on him as she was shoved in front of Anna like some kind of trophy.
“Look who I found!” daughter exclaimed to mother.
Parry directed an apologetic wince at Anna. She in turn, with a soft laugh and a long, sly blink, said, “Jack,” and reached out with both arms to embrace him.
Her cheek against his.
The feel of her back muscles through lace and silk.
The musky, floral, oh-so-familiar fragrance of her.
The warmth her touch generated.
“How the devil are you?” she asked, ending the embrace.
“I’m well.”
“You look well.”
“And you look...” What? Exquisite? Intoxicating? Ravishing? What could he safely say in front of all these people? “Well, as well.”
“I’m glad you could make it.”
She meant that, he was quite certain. She was not at all displeased to see him. She might not have invited him herself, but Cecilia would not have been able to get him onto the guest list without her say-so. He could only assume that the etiquette of Just Good Friends forbade Anna from asking him to come, but if her daughter did, then that was all right.
Anna gestured to the other guests around them. “Have you met...?” she said, and began making introductions. Parry shook hands, forgetting each person’s name almost as soon as the physical contact was broken. He could see that they knew exactly who he was. A week ago he would have been any old FPP captain. A week from now, maybe the same. But this evening, less than thirty-six hours after the Dargomyzhsky footage first aired, he was that FPP captain. Such was the peculiar nature of fame, or rather the nature of the fame peculiar to him. He was the man of the moment, and naturally the half-dozen guests wasted no time in quizzing him on the shinjus. What was going on? What were those damned Sirens up to? Was this really some sort of bizarre suicide craze they had cooked up with the Foreigners?
He fielded the questions honestly, not afraid to confess ignorance when he genuinely did not have an answer but at the same time keen to impress upon these people that their city – his city – was in no immediate danger of going the way of Koh Farang. This, it soon emerged, was the principal concern among them: that, because of the deaths, Foreigners would start to shun New Venice, and incomes and property values would suffer as a consequence. The image of the ghost-city Koh Farang had become was the secret nightmare of every resort-city resident, especially those with sizeable financial stakes in real estate and the hotel and leisure industries. The fate of Koh Farang was a chilling portent of what might be, and while Parry could sympathise with the guests’ anxiety, even to a certain extent shared it,
what he could not sympathise with was how comparatively little they were worried about the Foreigners themselves. The idea of Foreigners being upset or offended enough to desert New Venice seemed hardly to trouble them at all. The golden giants’ peace of mind was, to them, a commodity of negligible value.
First Dargomyzhsky, now this lot. Anger stirred within Parry as the partygoers’ questioning continued to develop its theme of jittery self-interest. It was all very well Captain Parry saying he didn’t think New Venice would become a second Koh Farang, but what proof did he have? How did he know that Foreigners had not already begun a quiet, imperceptible exodus from the city? On the news this evening there had been a report of a decrease in the average Foreign population density.
Patiently Parry pointed out that the situations in Koh Farang and New Venice were not at all similar and that the decrease in Foreign population density was only a small fraction of a percentile, well within acceptable parameters for the time of year. Really, though, what he wanted to tell these people was to shut up and get their priorities straight. Losing money did not matter. Losing Foreign goodwill did.
Before he ended up saying something he might have regretted, Anna cleared her throat and interrupted the conversation. With such sweetness that no one could possibly have objected, she informed the half-dozen guests that there was somebody she wanted the captain to meet. If everyone would excuse them?
Taking Parry by the arm, she led him back into the house. Cecilia tagged along with them as far as the living room, then pretended she had spotted someone she wanted to talk to and veered off, leaving the two of them alone together.
“Thanks,” Parry said to Anna.
“For what? Getting you away from those people? I had to. I had to separate you from them before you started threatening them.”
Anna’s East European roots seldom showed in her pronunciation of English, but she had a tendency to soften the diphthong “th”. It was a trait Parry found inordinately endearing, and impossible to resist mimicking.
“I would never have started surretening,” he replied, “although it’s true I did feel like sumping a couple of sem.”
Anna smacked him playfully. “Shut up, you. I did you a favour. Be properly grateful.”
“I’m sorry. Was it so obvious those people were pissing me off?”
“It was to me. But to be fair to them, they didn’t know that Jack Parry comes with this huge red button marked ‘Foreigners’. You press it at your peril.”
“Still, their attitude...”
“Is more common than you’d think, Jack. After however many years it is, the novelty has worn off for a lot of people. The golden giants have lost their lustre.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“You choose not to believe that. But people can become accustomed to anything, however strange and wonderful, given time. Even a miracle can be taken for granted if it keeps recurring. Where you, Jack, still see golden giants, others, if they see anything at all, see just gold.”
“A few do, maybe. A few fools.”
“Oh, Jack.” She brushed fingers across his cheek, smiling. “Faith like yours needs to be cherished. Protected. A rare orchid.”
Her fingers came to rest beside his mouth and lingered there, each tip a tingling imprint. There was only silence around them, a hundred people’s mouths working but seeming to produce no sound.
If her face had moved towards his just a millimetre...
If her smile had been wider by just a tiny fraction...
If he had had just a scintilla more courage...
Then she took her hand away, and the moment was gone. The roar of conversation flooded in around them once more.
“So,” she said, “do you want to come and meet this person?”
“I thought that was just a pretext.”
“Well, it was and it wasn’t. Come on. He’s an interesting character, and I think you’ll find he’s more on your wavelength than anyone else here.”
“Who is he?”
“Guthrie Reich.”
“Bless you.”
“Sorry? Oh. Oh, I see. Yes, I suppose it is a peculiar name.”
“Peculiar? It’s downright cruel. Wasn’t there a folk singer called Guthrie? Someone-or-other Guthrie?”
“I think so. And Guthrie’s father was a musician. He probably chose the name.”
“So what about him? Should I have heard of this bloke? Is he famous?”
“No. But I have a feeling you’ll like him. He runs a music revue. Traditional styles. Rock and jazz, mainly. Music from our youths. The sort of stuff Cissy can’t stand. She thinks it’s hideously boring.” She glanced around. “I don’t see him here, but I’ve a pretty good idea where he might be.”
25. Mixed Voices
THEY FOUND REICH in the library, admiring Hector Fuentes’s extensive collection of vinyl LP’s. The only other people in the room were a couple of guests confiding in low voices on a chaise longue in the far corner.
Reich was a tall, rangy, well-proportioned American in his mid-twenties, styled and dressed in a fashion that had had its heyday at least a quarter of a century before he was born: a long black silk coat worn over a white shirt unbuttoned to the chest, a pair of black leather trousers, a pair of black leather knee-boots. Additionally, a black guitar plectrum dangled from his left ear, attached to the lobe by a fine gold chain and a stud. His hair was a shaggy, blond-streaked mass and his skin had the even, burnished tone of someone who tanned himself regularly but with care.
He grinned and winked at Anna as she and Parry approached him. “Boy, I know Hector liked analogue,” he said, “but I didn’t realise how much till now.” He gestured at the long-players, individually racked, shelf upon shelf of them, each snugly protected in a transparent mylar sleeve. “Must be at least a thousand of ’em here. Some white-label stuff I didn’t even know existed. And a BorgstrÝm and Olsen analogue hi-fi! Gravity-counterweighted turntable. Gold fascia and controls. Beautiful. Parts for a system like that don’t come cheap. The styluses alone cost a fortune.”
“Luckily Hector had a fortune,” Anna said, with a laugh. “Guthrie, I’d like you to meet a good friend of mine, Jack Parry.”
Only now did Reich take any notice of Parry. Until Anna made the introduction, his interest had been in the records and her. He had not even acknowledged that Parry existed.
“How you doing, Jack? Pleasure to meet you.” He shook Parry’s hand as forthrightly as though he were working the handle of an old-fashioned town pump.
“Likewise,” said Parry.
“Love the uniform, by the way.”
“Really.”
“No, I mean it.”
The enthusiasm in Reich’s voice struck Parry as insincere, but the expression in the American’s grey eyes and healthy, angular face was generous and easygoing. Parry decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.
“That’s a West Coast accent, right?”
“Correct, doooood. Los Angeles. Wasn’t born there, of course. Who is? I’m from San Diego originally, but my folks moved north when I was about three. My pop was chasing a career in the music biz. He never quite made it. You ever been to LA?”
“Afraid not. I’m not the world’s most travelled person.”
“Well, you should go. It’s a great old town. Least, it is now they’ve drained the place and crysteched it up. It wasn’t such a great old town back when I was a kid. Third dampest city in the US, after New York and New Orleans.”
“You had some pretty bad epidemics there as well, didn’t you?”
“Jeez, you kidding? All that stagnant seawater sloshing around, those streets bred fevers. People were falling sick and dying all the time. Yeah, it was a tough old place to grow up in, especially the neighbourhoods we lived in. But I was a tough old kid. I survived.”
“And what brings you here?”
“From Venice Beach to New Venice? You mean the lovely Anna Fuentes isn’t reason enough?” Reich slipped an arm around Anna
’s shoulders and drew her to him. Parry could not decide which was worse: Reich hugging her in this way or Anna allowing herself to be hugged, giving no indication that she minded. “Actually, I’m in the music biz myself. Kind of a promoter/agent type. Got a stable of trad musicians I represent. We’re playing a few gigs here. With the help of the Fuentes Arts Foundation, God bless it.”
“Guthrie’s agency gets a grant from the Foundation,” Anna said. “Hector set up the Foundation as a tax deduction, but he honestly believed it was important to keep pre-Debut art forms, especially music, alive.”
“And you hear that garbage that’s clogging up the hit parade and people dance to now, and you know Hector was right. The man with the money was on the money.” Reich gave Anna an extra-hard squeeze, then, to Parry’s relief, let her go. “I mean, in the States there hasn’t been a song with lyrics in the Top Ten for the past year, and that just ain’t right. All that warbling over a drum-loop. No song structure, no chord progression, no tune, no words, just Sirens making stuff up as they go. We gave away our music, man! We spent all this time creating beautiful works, songs, operas, sonatas, cantatas, chorales, and then we gave it all away!”
“It’s a different way of doing things,” Parry pointed out. “A new way.”
“Well, I’m all for adopting new ways, but not at the expense of the old ways. There’s a whole long-standing tradition of music, decades of pop, centuries of classical, that most kids are growing up knowing nothing about. We can’t just let it fade out and die.” Reich laughed. “But hey. Don’t get me started. I can drone on about this subject for ever.”
“I’m afraid, Guthrie, you’re going to have a hard time convincing Jack that anything associated with Foreigners is bad,” Anna said.
“Ah, don’t get me wrong. I’ve nothing against the big golden guys.” Reich gave Parry an amicable, magnanimous biff on the biceps. “I like ’em. They’re not the problem. We are. It’s like, the day they came, we decided to rewind the tape and start again from zero. We wiped the past. And that’s partly the reason I do what I do – so’s we don’t lose the past completely. You a fan of old music at all, Jack?”
The Foreigners Page 24