by James Smythe
The girls slept on the double and Deanna took the single, pressed up against the wall. Now, in the middle of the night, she can hear the sobbing. It’s keeping her awake. It gets everywhere, the sound resonating; it seeps into the walls and the floors, all around them. Deanna remembers when she used to wake herself up with her own tears. She would be in a dream, with Sean, after he died, and then she would hear the sound; and it would shake her, just enough to lose Sean and be awake again. Her face would be wet; she had never known you could cry in your sleep. Whoever this is now, she can hear them all too loud in the room. She wants to tell them that it will all be okay, but that’s a lie.
She focuses on the girls’ breathing to distract her. Whenever one of them pauses – when their breath isn’t uniform and constant, like a motor turning over – she contemplates the notion that something has happened, for a second. She hasn’t stopped worrying about them ever since Sean died, and she never will.
Before she finally sleeps, as she sees the sky through the curtains begin to turn from black to orange, she thinks about Laurence; and about how maybe it’s better that they aren’t with him, until he’s fixed. She thinks about the video of him and the gun, and she reaches into her bag, kept next to her at the side of the bed, and feels the cold metal of it against her palm.
Amit cooks breakfast in the kitchen. The bread is stale, but he finds jams and spreads in the cupboards, and he works out how to use the coffee pods in this machine (which is about ten models more complicated than the basic one that he keeps in his apartment). He puts it onto a tray and carries it upstairs to the main bedroom. Laurence hasn’t tidied or tried to put the room back into any sort of order: the bed is askew and away from the wall; the wall strewn with clothes and discarded shoes and jewelry; Laurence asleep still, and dressed from yesterday, face down on the bed. He’s looking away from Amit, and there’s a second – only brief – where Amit wonders if he won’t be able to wake him up. That would be how this ends: with Laurence doing something that doesn’t make sense. There is no hole, Amit thinks, that cannot be dug out of. There can’t be.
He shakes Laurence’s leg. ‘Wake up,’ he says. ‘Big day.’
‘What?’ Laurence asks. He doesn’t move.
‘I’ve had a request for you to do some TV. They want to do an interview, let you clear this up.’ He puts the tray down. ‘This could be really good, Laurence. You do this, you can get this all behind you. That’s what you want, right?’
‘Right,’ Laurence says. He doesn’t sound as if he means it but Amit doesn’t give him a choice.
‘Eat something, drink coffee, take a shower. Shave yourself. Put on a suit. We need to get out of here in an hour.’ He steps into the bathroom and turns on the shower for Laurence. He leaves the room and stands in the hallway and takes out his phone.
We’re definitely coming, he writes to Jessie, two hours, maybe a little more. Be with you by lunchtime.
We’ll schedule you for the lunchtime slot, she replies. Amit puts the phone back in his pocket, then changes his mind. He opens his Twitter app. Laurence Walker on Channel 9 at 1. Answering questions about ClearVista video and future plans. Pls RT. He watches as the retweets soar, as people talk about this. Even the non-political gossip bloggers get involved. The story changes, suddenly, as people start talking about Laurence in a slightly new way; that he’s facing up to his demons, whatever they may be.
Laurence lets the water wash over him. He rubs himself and washes his hair, but this is all rote. When he’s done he dries himself on the first towel he finds – they have been pulled out of the cupboard, and he doesn’t know which is clean and which is not, though he supposes that it doesn’t matter now – and he looks at his clothes on the floor. They’re all filthy; they’ve been trampled and creased and there’s no time to do anything with them. He opens the wardrobe, where a few trousers still hang, a shirt, a sweater. And there, at the far end, tucked in the corner, is a dark gray suit. It takes him a second to recognize it; and when he last wore it. It meant something, that he hid it away. He takes it out and pulls the plastic wrap from it. It has been kept like an artefact; and he sees marks on the lapel, dark smears of mascara. He goes to the bathroom and wets tissue and scrubs at the make-up. He uses a wet nailbrush on it and it starts to shift.
He puts on a white shirt and digs the lemon-yellow tie out from the rubble around his feet, because he knows that it looks nice with this suit. It has always looked nice with the suit. Gray and yellow, the darkness and the light; and he wants to feel that he is projecting something. An air of joy. Isn’t that what Deanna said it reminded her of? That it was joyous?
Most of the journalists abandoned the front of the house as soon as the news about Laurence’s interview broke, which makes it easier to get off the driveway. Amit drives, and Laurence puts the window down and looks out of it, feeling the rush of the wind on his face. He tries to concentrate on what he’s going to have to say when he’s on the air. He’s going to talk about the nature of the prediction; about ClearVista, and the information that he gave them; and he’s going to subtly suggest that there’s more to this than meets the eye, that maybe there are other people involved. But Amit has said he is not to go so far as to actually say that – one of his rules is, Never sound like a conspiracy theorist, and he’s going to talk about how strong his family is, and how he’s taking time away from politics in order to reconnect. He needs to go back and be a husband and father again. All he can do is blame technology and focus on humanity. Nature will out.
They stop at a service station. Laurence picks up a cap from the back seat of the car and puts it on and follows Amit into the shop. He feels like a character in a movie, becoming inconspicuous because they’re wearing just this one item that hides their face slightly; and he browses the magazines and newspapers for his name. He works his way through, from the serious prints to the trash. They call him disgraced, or ex-politician, or (in the case of the Weekly World News) the Antichrist. He stands and reads them while Amit pays for the gas. The man at the counter tries to see his face, because he’s got the hat on. A hat means suspicion. You wear a hat when you’re going to rob a place.
The rest of the drive is uneventful. The roads move between gray and beige and back again, and then they build up as they enter the city. They drive past buildings that Laurence recognizes, because he’s done this drive hundreds of times before, but he doesn’t know what a single one of them is. As you come into the city and you pass the car dealerships and the vacant lots and the billboards on the sides of buildings that look derelict and the streets that seem to sprawl off with nothing on them and the people standing outside their cars in the middle of the daytime, everything becomes New York City. It’s distinct.
They fight traffic, and park in a sub-level car park underneath a gallery that has nobody in it, and doesn’t even look open. Amit pays, using the credit card again. They’ll worry about paying this off when this is all over, he reasons. There’s a way of do this, he’s sure, but he doesn’t know what this is. The fundraising money will all be done, now, not another cent coming through, but the account that had some in isn’t bled dry yet. Amit supposes some of the donors will want their money back. They might even sue, though they wouldn’t have a case; they bought into Laurence, better or worse. They paid for the man that he was. He’s still the same man. He has always been this man.
When they get onto the street, Amit helps Laurence with his tie and jacket, straightening him, making him look slightly more in control. He tells Laurence to smooth his hair down, and he adjusts the lapels. He sees the make-up stain and rubs at it with his thumb.
‘There’s a mark,’ he says. Laurence ignores him. As they walk up towards Times Square, people recognize Laurence, glancing at his face, whispering to each other. One person shouts at them, a simple, ‘Hey!’ that doesn’t mean anything.
‘Ignore them,’ Amit says. Laurence keeps his head down.
At the TV studios, Amit rings the buzzer and speaks into th
e grilled microphone. ‘We have an appointment with Jessie Ng,’ he says. There’s a pause, and then the door beeps and swings open. In the lobby, they wait. The floor is marble and polished steel, and the walls are mirrors. Laurence cannot look at them, because they go on and on, back into the whatever, reflections ricocheting off each other until they are further and further away; at least, until he is.
‘Can I use your phone?’ he asks. Amit passes it.
‘You’re calling Deanna?’
‘Yes,’ Laurence says.
‘Okay,’ Amit says. He feels like this is the first step. It’s rehab, an intervention. This is when everything starts coming back to normal. This is when Laurence begins to climb that ladder.
Laurence paces, close to one mirrored wall, and he dials the number. She answers. ‘It’s me,’ he says.
‘Are you okay?’ she asks. She sounds relieved.
‘I don’t really know,’ he tells her. ‘I am trying.’ He paces, and he tries to not look up, at the mirrors.
Everything about this has been ripped away from Jessie. As soon as she told them that she had the interview locked, it wasn’t hers any more. In-studio interviews rely on experience, she was told. You cannot make notes or prepare questions for this. So, instead, Jessie is to take him upstairs, make sure that he’s comfortable, keep him out of the studio until it’s time for him to be on the air, make sure that he heads straight to the couch. The studio is out of bounds for anybody not working there – the print journalists from upstairs banned from the floor because this is a real, old school exclusive. Jessie’s boss says to her that this is the culmination of their coverage; of having the reputation that they have as a station. It’s all about the long game, she says.
Now, Jessie stays at her desk and watches the hosts and crews getting themselves ready, because this is suddenly a big deal. There are emails beeping on consoles all around her, last-minute things being scrawled onto pieces of paper and physically rushed over to the prompt guys – paper and feet are faster than technology in circumstances like this – and there are tech guys in the studio setting up something that she cannot see, establishing something in the studio for this. This hardly seems the time to break what they already know. They have emails come in from ClearVista – the standard email that avoids disclosing any information, that defers any responsibility, that gives a blanket statement about the company – though some of the team are trying to find somebody who worked on the algorithm to come in and talk to them; but nobody’s answering their phones. It’s chaos. It’s always chaos before something like this.
Her computer alerts her that her guests have arrived and she takes the lift down, pulling her cardigan on as it descends. The lobby is so cold. They keep it this temperature because it gets the guests jittery. She sees them standing by the doorway, faces down, avoiding looking into the mirrors; Amit, dressed well, smiling his best aide’s smile and rushing to shake her hand.
‘Good to meet,’ he says.
‘You, too. And you must be Senator Walker,’ she says. She moves towards Laurence as he ends his telephone call and he holds out his hand to hers.
‘Laurence,’ he says.
‘Laurence.’ His hand, Jessie notices, is all bone. She can feel his knuckles against hers, between her fingers, and his skin seems to slip a little, as if it’s loose. As if it has give. ‘Come with me, I’ll get you all settled in.’ She steps into the lift and scans her card, and the doors shut them inside. She smells aftershave, sharp and citrusy. Laurence doesn’t look at her. He looks past her, she thinks. She smiles at him, and he notices and returns it, but there’s nothing inside it. She wishes, in that instant, that she could take this all back and cancel the deal, send him downstairs. This isn’t going to go as planned, she knows, but the doors open silently on her floor, and her boss sees the three of them and paces over.
‘Mr Walker,’ she says. ‘We won’t keep you waiting long. Have a coffee, get settled. We’ll send somebody to do your make-up, get you ready.’ She smiles. ‘This is going to be great,’ she says.
The room that they are sent to wait in has an old-style coffee percolator on the sideboard. Jessie offers them cups. Laurence shakes his head, but then takes it anyway, and he sips at it. It’s so bitter; he hasn’t a cup of coffee like this in years, he thinks. He can’t remember the last time. It doesn’t taste like what he’s used to now, milky and fully roasted and fair trade and from pods that seem lovingly prepared, and just better. This is the coffee that he once fell in love with. He sits on a sofa that barely qualifies being called that, being undulating tubes of foam, red and firm, seemingly made to perch on rather than relax; and he watches the rest of the studio through the glass wall of the room. They’re working and trying not to look back at him. He’s that much of a sideshow, now; they all try to not look at him, but they can’t help it. There’s hostility in the air, and he knows it. What has to happen now is that he clears his name. There is no other choice.
‘Okay,’ Jessie says, ‘so I’m going to take you onto the couch during the headline breakdown and weather, just before one. You know Bury?’ Laurence nods. Bury is their lead; has been in the game for decades now, unswerving. He wasn’t the biggest fan of Laurence before all of this, favoring Homme as the candidate, and it’s clear that he’ll go for the jugular. In some ways, Amit thinks, that’s what Laurence needs. ‘He’s doing the interview. Patricia’ll be sitting in as well. You know Patricia?’
‘Yes,’ Laurence says. He knows them all. They’re acting as if he’s not been here before, as if he’s a stranger to this world. Do you understand politics? Do you even know why you’re here? He looks at Jessie – again, maybe, not at her but through her – and he says, ‘I’ve probably even met you before. I’ve been here.’
‘I don’t think so,’ she says. ‘Look, I’ll be back. Anything you need, just ask.’ Amit and Laurence watch her take her seat at her desk. She has windows open on her computer screen of them: pictures of Laurence, of Amit, and the ClearVista video of Laurence. She turns the screen slightly, but Amit can still see as Jessie watches the video. When it’s finished she glances back at Laurence as if she’s trying to work out where these two representations of the man who would have been President fit into each other: one, a twisted amalgam, a collection of falsehoods that he gave at photo calls and headshots; and the other a thin vulture of what he used to be, broken and gnarled and peeling away from himself.
A woman comes into the room. She’s wearing a clichéd power suit, electric blue and shoulder pads. She’s got a small box with her, as if she’s an electrician, but she opens it and inside there are brushes and powders.
‘I’m going to prep you,’ she says. Laurence leans back and she goes to work, dusting his face – it makes Amit think of an archeologist, trying to find what is hidden below all of this, something of value and worth – and then putting something on his lips, a thick, rich raspberry color. She combs his hair and she puts a wax on it; and she makes him look, Amit thinks, like a doll. He looks almost like the man from the video again; or, a version of him. They’re even in the same clothes, Amit realizes.
‘You need to take the tie off,’ he says to Laurence. He reaches for it.
‘No,’ Laurence snaps. ‘Deanna gave me this. It’s special.’
And then Jessie comes back. ‘It’s time,’ she says. Laurence stands up and sighs, and he checks what he looks like in the reflection of the glass wall, and then he follows her through to the studio proper. The people stop what they’re doing for a second – a pause in frantic typing, in note taking, in mouse clicking – and they watch him head onto the studio floor proper. Amit goes as well, and Bury is waiting. The anchor stands up and adjusts his shirt and jacket over his belly.
‘Laurence, good to see you,’ he says. They shake hands. ‘It’s been a while. Sorry that it had to be under these circumstances. We’re going to get to the bottom of this today, okay?’
‘Okay,’ Laurence says. Amit looks at his face; he’s buying into this
. This is his redemption. ‘Thank you.’
‘What we’re going to do is this: a little bit of an intro, and then we’re going to talk about your career, and we’re going to talk about what’s happened, okay? We’ll do that bit, myself and Patricia – you know Patricia?’ He shuffles aside to reveal her, sitting on the sofa. She offers her hand and a smile that is dragged across her teeth rather than drawn. ‘Myself and Patricia do that, then we bring you on. Now, listen: we’re going to have to watch the video, okay? Because that’s a part of this. And then the floor’s yours. You tell us what’s gone on here. We haven’t had time for the researchers, that sort of thing, so the onus is on you, here. You can carry it?’ He keeps smoothing his clothes with his hand, Amit notices, as if he is pushing them down. It’s not that there’s a problem with his belly; it’s a tell, like a liar at a poker table.
‘No, I’ll be fine. I’ve done this a million times,’ Laurence says. He stands taller. He adjusts himself. He cricks his neck. Under the lights, it’s clearer that he’s wearing make-up to hide something – his skin looks whiter, and he looks less ill. Amit still doesn’t want to think of the S word.
‘Maybe not a million, but enough, am I right?’ Bury asks. He holds out his hand to shake Laurence’s again. ‘Can’t thank you enough for being here,’ Laurence. ‘This is going to be good for you, I think. Give you a chance to get everything out in the open.’
It’s a trap, Amit thinks. This is all a trap. But then the cameras begin to count down and the floor manager tells everybody to take their seats, and Laurence is already on the sofa, and it’s too late.